Chapter Text
It’s a fair morning over London. The clouds have eased and broken apart from the gentle spring breeze, and the opportunity presents the sun to peek its shy face over the district of Chiswick. Below, a quaint coffee shop that sits on a nondescript street corner has suddenly found itself busier than usual now that the denizens have magically discovered the patience to meander the streets– no doubt to enjoy the pleasantries of the rare weather. The traffic that began at 8:00am (on the dot, every morning, every day) has yet to show signs of slowing down, and by 9:40am it still has yet to clear out entirely.
The time is 9:41am when a light breeze picks up along the busy street corner. Most passersby’s ignore it, it has been a windy day after all, and some even pause to bat away the stray leaves that are swept up by the mystery whirlwind. A distant wheeze accompanies the new wind, followed by a grind and groan that makes a sound not entirely unlike vwoop, vwoop.
At exactly 9:42am, a blue Police Public Call Box has made itself at home beneath the yellow awning of the coffee shop, settling itself with one gentle thud that echoes within the fabric of reality. Not one pedestrian casts a glance in its direction, and not one person thinks, “huh, could’ve sworn that hadn’t been there before.” The day continues on as it had before, and when Donna Noble cracks open the Tardis door at 9:43am– taking her time to cautiously determine that they are exactly where she hopes they are– no one casts a glance in her direction either.
Donna takes in the hustle and bustle of the crowded street, the sun beaming through the broken clouds, and the occasional honk from the steadily cruising traffic, and sighs. She ducks her head back into the Tardis. “Made it!” She calls back, and then fully steps outside, letting the door swing shut behind her.
“About time,” she says to herself, and takes a moment to breathe in the air. The sting of running cars intermingles with the promising earthy undertones of nearby coffee, and Donna smiles. It’s just as she loves it.
Taking a few steps out of the cozy alley and into proper sunlight, Donna stretches one arm over her head, and then the other. She doesn’t care what the Doctor says, holding on to those railings through every bump and toss in the Tardis like her life depends on it will always leave her arms feeling strained and sore.
She eyes the coffee shop as she flaps her arms one last time, getting the blood to flow again after their latest rough landing. She hasn’t had a good cuppa from Earth in a long time, she muses. A hot and ready homebrew to shave off any remaining nerves after their latest time-space adventure. Well, Donna concedes to herself, it isn’t nerves so much on her part as it is for…
She casts a glance in the Tardis’ direction and frowns at the still closed doors.
Right, Donna decides. A relaxing cup of coffee and a chat ought to do some good for the both of them. The Doctor has been suspiciously tight-lipped about what had happened on that space-shuttle thing he’d gone on, and Donna thinks that with the right form of persuasion (i.e. human food), she can pry some of it out of him. Although, now that she’s looking at the shop a little more closely… and the street…
“Doctor?” she asks when she eventually hears the Tardis doors open and shut behind her.
“Oh would you look at that! We did make it,” the Doctor says, voice peppered with almost a little too much excitement for Donna’s taste. “Told you we didn’t miss it this time.”
“Doctor,” she says again, with patience, and he makes a questioning hum. She gestures at the coffee shop. “That wasn’t there before.”
“What’d you mean?”
Donna rolls her eyes hard enough she almost hears her skull creak. “The coffee shop, dumbo, what else am I pointing at? There wasn’t one on this street the last time I checked.”
“Oh.” The Doctor frowns, licks a finger, and holds it up in the air. He sniffs it a second later, and Donna crinkles her nose at him.
“2019,” he says. “Oops.”
“Oops.” Donna mocks, pitching her voice lower, and the Doctor makes a sour face at her– frankly incredibly accurate– impression. “How the hell’d you get 2008 mixed up with 2019? That’s like, twelve years!”
“Eleven,” the Doctor corrects with a haughty sniff, as if that makes it any better, and Donna resists the urge to smack him.
“You told me we could visit Grandad for his birthday.”
“Well, it’s the same place, same day, we could just pop in for this one.”
“Oi!” This time Donna does actually smack him. Her hand connects with his arm in a satisfying thwap, and the Doctor has the audacity to look injured, cradling his arm as if she’d shot it. “I am not visiting Grandad like this. And Mum! She’ll have a bloody heart attack! Do I look like I’ve suddenly aged eleven years to you?”
The Doctor opens his mouth, and Donna raises her hand again. The Doctor, as if suddenly inspired by the realization that anything he could respond with will automatically win him another smack, closes his mouth with a click and he quickly side steps out of Donna’s immediate smacking range.
“Okay, okay,” he says. “Fine, fair point. Let’s go back and try it again.” The Doctor turns back to the Tardis to do just that with a mutter. “But I could’ve sworn that I did…”
“Coulda woulda,” Donna mocks, and he casts a withering look at her from over his shoulder. She crosses her arms and watches as he pats down his jacket, presumably looking for whatever pocket he dropped the Tardis key in last. She shifts her weight impatiently as he searches one pocket, and then starts tapping a foot when he starts digging through another.
The Doctor is starting to rummage through a third pocket– seriously, does he need that many?– when Donna’s very peneratable wall of patience finally crumbles. “Right,” She says loud enough to get his attention, “while you’re at it, I’m going to grab a cuppa.” Donna gestures to the shop with her thumb. “I’ve been dying to get my hands on one all day. You want anything, Spaceman?”
“Hm?” The Doctor looks up from where he’s now over elbow deep in one of his outer pockets– which definitely don’t appear to be that big from where Donna is standing, but frankly at this point nothing can really shock her when it comes to super-gizmo-dimensional pockets or whatever these days. The Doctor blinks at her for a moment, taking a second to register her question, before shaking his head distractedly. “No, no, go ahead. I’m fine.”
Huh. Usually, he’s at her heels whenever they’re in a new time or place. Donna raises a brow and jabs at the store with her thumb again. “You sure?” The Doctor makes a vague ‘meh’ sound. Donna studies him for a moment, then, “they might have banana muffins,” she says, lilting her voice in an attempt to entice.
This catches the Doctor’s attention. He perks up at the mention of the fruit, and Donna watches his internal hemming and hawing which swings his head from side-to-side. A second later he makes eye contact, and Donna catches the first genuine smile she’s seen on him since that Midnight planet flicker across his face. “Well why didn’t you start with that!” He spins on his heel and begins walking around to the front of the shop, and Donna hurries to catch up with him.
“Breakfast in 2019 eh?” He says around a sly grin once Donna matches his pace. “You know, can’t say too much about this year, not just because it’s relatively hum-drum, well, for the most part, but also–” he knocks his shoulder into Donna– “Spoilers.”
“Oh come on, there’s gotta be something interesting that happens right at the end of the decade,” Donna says as they reach the doors. The line is beginning to dwindle as the morning rush finally starts to break. “Not even a little tip?”
“Nah,” the Doctor sniffs. “Shouldn’t. It’s too close to your time anyway and, well, you’ll get here soon enough.” But just as the Doctor reaches for the door he hesitates, then grimaces. “...Maybe wash your hands,” he says, and then steps inside. Donna rolls her eyes after him.
The coffee shop itself is quaint. Donna already feels herself falling in love with the modern-rustic theme. The walls are painted white, and cute brown tables line the far wall. Across the room, a cushy red couch sits under the television that relays some news that Donna tries her best to ignore, even as her nosey nature gets the best of her.
“–Tensions are continuing to rise overseas as more names are reported to missing persons, piling on the ever-growing list of mysterious disappearances over the last forty-eight hours–”
“Ooh, Donna, look!” The Doctor grabs her arm and points at the display case with much the same vigour of an excited child. “Banana muffins!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Donna pats his hand until he releases her, and she’s drawn back to the telly as the Doctor continues to practically vibrate in place next to her.
“–have advised anyone who may have information regarding any of the missing persons to please contact them as soon as possible–”
Donna’s attention is suddenly dragged back to the shop when she’s called up next to order. She gets the Doctor’s banana muffin first, because otherwise he won’t stop bouncing on his feet until she does, and she takes her time perusing over the menu before she decides on a classic Latte. The Doctor receives his muffin while she waits for her Latte to brew, and immediately the Doctor begins to explore the nooks and crannies around the shop while pulling off bits and pieces of his muffin to scarf down his throat.
“–American authorities have stressed that these missing persons are not to be made contact with. If you or anyone you know has found yourselves coming across any of the names listed below, please contact your local a-authorities at this num-number–” The television flickers.
“That’s weird,” a barista comments from behind the counter, and Donna watches as they struggle with a machine that has begun to sputter. “Shelly? It’s never done that before.”
The girl working at the register, whom Donna assumes to be Shelly, turns to help her struggling coworker as they try to revive the dying machine.
“Donna?” the Doctor says, suddenly very close to Donna’s ear, and she nearly jumps out of her skin.
“Bloody hell! What?” Donna snaps, but the Doctor’s face looks serious. His brows are drawn tight and his banana muffin is nowhere to be seen as he leans closer over Donna’s shoulder.
“Do you smell that?” he asks.
Donna leans back so he isn’t so close to her ear. “Smell what?”
The Doctor opens his mouth, and then the power goes out.
Shared groans of displeasure and shocked exclamations make their way around the small shop. The Doctor, however, stands ramrod straight, his head on a swivel as he takes in the suddenly darkened shop.
“Doctor?” Donna asks, but he holds up a hand and her heart skips a beat. Something is wrong.
“Something’s wrong,” the Doctor says, though his voice sounds unsure. “What’s wrong? Ooh Donna, Donna there’s something very, very wrong.”
The Doctor begins to spin in place, head darting this way and that as if he was trying to catch sight of a fly buzzing ‘round his head. Now more than a little freaked out and feeling that familiar sensation of adrenaline starting to rush through her body, Donna grabs his arm, forcefully stopping his literal spiral. He looks down at her, eyes blown wide and nostrils flared. “Then tell me what’s wrong,” Donna says. The Doctor flounders, his mouth opening and closing like a drowning fish, and Donna snaps. “Doctor! What’s wrong?”
“I- I don’t–”
There’s a distant whistle, a deafening crash, the sound of glass shattering and tires screeching, and then horns are blaring. The Doctor is out of Donna’s grasp in less than a blink, shoving through the cafe doors and running towards the street. Donna is after him before the doors can slam on her face, and she stops next to him just at the edge of the road.
“What?” The Doctor says, just as a very angry looking person gets out of his car.
“What the hell was that?” the driver shouts, just as a second man clambers out of another car, and Donna stares at it. Is that a bloody coat hanger sticking out of his windshield?
“What the hell was that?” The second man repeats incredulously. He waves his arms at said coat hanger, which looks like it missed the driver’s seat by only millimeters. Smoke is rising from the car, and its alarm is blaring stubbornly. “I almost died!”
“What?” The Doctor states again, glancing between the clear, unobstructed blue sky and the fallen coat hanger, which looks as if it initially came right off a store floor.
The man from the first car starts yelling again. “You hit my car! You hit my damn car!”
“I hit your car?” The second man shouts back, and then he’s marching right up to the first man. A crowd is beginning to form around the accident, and a few brave people attempt to step between the two. “A fucking coat hanger nearly just impaled me, mate! What the hell is this, some kind of elaborate insurance scam?”
The Doctor has his screwdriver out and buzzing, and Donna follows him onto the street as he begins to approach the accident and the increasingly heated argument. He ignores the angry words and insults that are being hurled overhead and starts scanning the coat hanger, and then the car. “What?” He says again when he reads the screwdriver, though it's nearly indecipherable over all the yelling and honking.
“Hey!” A woman’s voice shouts over all the chaos. “My car won’t start!”
A chorus of similar exclamations begin to make their way along the road as every car fails to suddenly start back up again. Donna nudges the Doctor, and he looks up from his screwdriver. “Doctor,” she says, “look, it’s everywhere.”
The Doctor straightens himself and begins to walk down the middle of the street, scanning each car as he passes. His walk begins to pick up pace with each passing vehicle before he breaks into a brisk jog. He’s already placed a good few yards or so ahead of Donna when suddenly he stumbles, and Donna has to lunge forward to catch him before he can smack his head against the pavement, or something otherwise unpleasant.
“Oww,” the Doctor is gripping his head with one hand, the sonic still out and scanning in the other. “That– what the–”
“Doctor?” Donna’s grip turns white and she shakes him. “Oi! What’s going on?” She manages to pull him to his feet, and he sways in place for a moment before he takes off further down the street, still waving his screwdriver, but now at everything, at anything he’s close to. “Doctor!”
Donna is about to take right off after him when she hears a shout, “Hey! Wait a sec!” And then someone is grabbing her arm with a strength that scares the wits out of her, and will likely leave a bruise later.
Donna shrieks. “Ow! What the– get the hell off me!” She raises a hand, ready to slap the hell out of her attacker when the grip suddenly lessens.
“Woah, woah, woah, Donna wait!” A distinctly American voice shouts, and Donna stares at the strange man who’s clinging to her with one hand like a lifeline, and holding up the other one in a pathetic attempt at self-defense. He’s trembling like a leaf caught in a squall, and his eyes are wide and bloodshot. She sucks in a breath of shock.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he says again, his voice is pitched high and it sounds panicked. “Look, I- I think I’m supposed to tell you something, alright? I just- I don’t have much time.”
Donna glares at him, then tries pulling her arm out of his grip again. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, wacko, but you better let go of me!”
“Wait, wait please you have to listen to me!” The man shouts, he sounds desperate enough that it stops Donna for a moment. “Okay, look, I know this is crazy, but it’s just getting started. Everything is just getting started. I think. Listen, just… okay. You and the Doctor have to get to Islington. I don’t exactly remember the address but, look, it’s been a rough few days–”
The man startles, and he glances behind him. Donna hadn’t thought it could’ve been possible before, but the man suddenly pales until his complexion is ghastly. Donna tries to see what he’s looking at, but she only sees the long line of cars, and the Doctor zipping about, scanning up and down and whatever he can get at. He hasn’t spotted Donna and the strange man yet. “How do you know the Doctor?” Donna asks sharply. “How do you know me?”
“I–” The man heaves a shaky breath, and then his eyes narrow as he spots something over Donna’s shoulder. “Wait a sec…” His grip on her arm slackens enough so that Donna can pull free. His hands shoot out again as Donna stumbles back, but now it’s as if he’s trying to stop her from running away.
“Ah! Wait, I’m sorry,” he says as Donna protectively holds her arm to her chest. “I’m so sorry, but please you have to listen to me. Go to Islington, there’s an apartment on the second floor. There’s someone there who can help. And- and the assassin. Tell the Doctor he has to trust the assassin, because Everything hinges on that. Everything.” He takes a breath, and drops his arms. He glances behind himself one more time. “I think that’s it.”
“Assassin?” Donna splutters, and then she gapes. “That’s it? That better bloody well not be it! Who the hell do you think you are anyway, grabbing me on the street like that? You’d better explain yourself right now or I’ll show you what’s it!”
The strange man’s bloodshot eyes dart between hers, and he licks his lips. The skin breaks beneath his tongue, and Donna can see blood beginning to well up. He looks so… dry. In fact, his whole person looks dry and dusty, like he’d just crawled through an entire desert to get here.
“Watch the shadows,” the man says, and Donna thinks her heart stops.
“What?” She manages, her voice hoarse, but before she can say anything else the man vanishes, and Donna stumbles back in shock. She glances up and down the road for him, but he’s gone, and she’s left trembling by herself in the middle of the street.
The shadows. Watch the shadows. Count the shadows. Donna’s eyes shoot to the pavement, and she only spots one. Just her own. She breathes out slowly. The Vashta Nerada can’t be here on Earth, not like they were at the Library. That’s impossible. The Doctor had said so himself. Donna lifts her head, looking to find that strange man again, but she’s startled out of her thoughts by multiple engines beginning to rev all at once. Donna squashes down the yelp that makes it halfway out her, a strangled thing that leaves her heart pounding and her hand clasped over her mouth.
“Donna!” She hears the Doctor calling for her, and then she’s being pulled off the road as the cars begin to move again. The yelling has stopped. For the most part.
“Donna? You alright?” She hears the Doctor ask. He’s looking at her with those eyes that she hates to see on him. The ones that look too big and too ancient to be on a face that for all intents and purposes, should be at least 3 years her junior.
Donna has to open her mouth a few times before she can find her voice again. She looks back at where the strange man had been standing. A car drives through the empty space, kicking up a gust of dusty wind. Donna swallows. “I’m okay. Um, Doctor?”
“Hey!” A man shouts, and Donna shifts her gaze to look at him. It’s the man from before, the one from the second car. He’s waving his arms in the air at the guy he’d hit as traffic begins to navigate itself around them. “What the fuck did you do with it?”
“Do what with what?” The first man shouts back.
“The coat rack!” Second man screams. He tugs at his hair in frustration. “It’s gone! What the hell did you do with it? That’s tampering with evidence you know!”
Donna looks, and sure enough. There’s a big, smoking crater still left in the car with glass shattered every which way, but the coat rack is gone.
The Doctor shakes her shoulder. “What’s wrong, Donna?” He leans into her line of vision, and she can tell just by his tone alone that he’s about to raise his screwdriver to scan her or something equally ridiculous, and she quickly lowers his hand before he can start buzzing around her head.
“Um, yeah, you didn’t see,” Donna pauses for a moment to take a breath. “There was a man on the road. American. Did you see him?”
The Doctor glances at the street, tilts his head. He looks back at Donna. “No. Why? He say something to you?”
“Y-Yeah. Doctor, about that.” Donna swallows. “I think we’re in trouble.”
The Doctor doesn’t say anything. He just looks her in the eyes, lips drawn tight and his forehead creased in a frown. He rests one hand on her shoulder, and it feels grounding. It’s moments like this, Donna thinks, still a bit distant, that she really believes he’s as old as he says he is. “What kind of trouble?”
She takes a deep breath in. “I think he’s a time traveller, Doctor,” Donna says. “He knew us, but I’ve never seen him before in my life. I think– I think he might’ve been trying to warn us.”
“What did he say, Donna,” the Doctor says. He enunciates his words slowly, and Donna can see the beginnings of storm clouds brewing behind his eyes.
“He called me by my name, and he said– he said we have to get to Inslington. Something about an assassin and, Doctor, he told me to watch the shadows.” Donna shudders, the man’s haunted expression flashing through her mind. “He looked… scared.”
The Doctor’s frown deepens, and his eyes drift past Donna’s shoulder, cloudy and lost in thought.
Donna takes his brief moment of rumination to collect herself. “You said the Vashta Nerada can’t be on Earth,” she says, and the Doctor’s eyes snap back to her, suddenly clear and jarring. “Not like they were at the Library, right? That’s what you said.”
“Mmph,” says the Doctor. He squeezes her shoulder once, and then abruptly stands.
Donna, feeling a bit nonplussed, scrambles up after him. “Oi, where do you think you’re going? That wasn’t an answer.”
“Tardis,” the Doctor says, and doesn’t elaborate further.
“Hey!” Donna tries to grab at him again, but his pace is too fast for her this time and she ends up lightly brushing the sleeve of his coat instead. “Doctor! Why the Tardis? What happened back there? Why won’t you just– explain to me what the hell is going on?!”
At Donna’s outburst, the Doctor abruptly spins on his heel, nearly causing Donna to run right into him. He looms over her, expression stormy, and, well, if he wants to play this game then she can play it right back. Donna wastes no time matching the intensity; she stares right back into his eyes, bristling with white-hot frustration.
“What happened out there–” the Doctor gestures at the road with one sharp wave of his arm “ –was a temporal-manifold collapse. Someone just ripped a big hole right through space-time and I felt it right here,” the Doctor stabs a vicious finger at his temple with a snarl, “and I have no idea who’s behind this, or why they are or how they are.”
“Okay, so,” Donna begins to say before she’s interrupted by the Doctor grabbing her arm and dragging her along towards the Tardis. “Agh, Doctor!”
“No time,” the Doctor says, and Donna detects a hint of sympathy in his voice and his grip lessens on her arm marginally; not enough for her to pull free, but just so it no longer hurts. Donna takes it with a sharp huff. What is it with people and grabbing her today? Seriously, she ought to give the Doctor a good–
“We need to get back to the Tardis and do a full scan around Chiswick. London, even.” The Doctor runs his free hand through his wild hair and he hisses through his teeth. “Knew something felt off here. We shouldn’t have stayed. Bad idea. This whole thing is just a bad idea.”
They reach the Tardis in record time, and the Doctor releases her to frantically resume fishing through his pockets for his key. It only takes a few seconds of rummaging and a string of alien-sounding curses that don’t translate to Donna’s ears before the Doctor finally produces the silver key with a triumphant “ah-hah!” and he shoves it into the Tardis lock.
“Right, Donna, first things first–” the Doctor’s voice dies on the next word, and Donna’s world tunnels as the Tardis door creaks open.
“What,” Donna manages to rasp after her heart plummets beneath the Earth’s crust. Next to her, the Doctor is frigid.
Four blank, regular-sized blue walls stare back at them. The Tardis interior is gone.