Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Donna Noble’s what?”  

“Married.” 

Nerys openly gaped at Veena. Veena’s anticipatory grin only widened.  

“You’re kidding!” 

“Nope!” Veena smugly flicked her fringe out of her face. “Ran into her mum at the shops yesterday. She didn’t seem terribly pleased...”

“When did this happen?” Nerys demanded. 

Veena shrugged. “Dunno.” She glanced suspiciously around at their fellow shoppers and leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Must’ve been quick, if you know what I mean—Mrs. Noble didn’t mention anything about it just last week...” 

Nerys knew exactly what she meant. That eyebrow waggle was just unnecessary. 

“It won’t last,” she pronounced, tossing her hair back. It might be wishful thinking, but perhaps if Nerys said it with enough confidence...

But Veena looked doubtful. “I don’t know about that,” she said slowly. 

“Why?” 

“They did get a house already, too...”

“What?!” Nerys screeched. Her cry echoed through the entire chemist’s. Veena winced. 

“Hush up, will you?” She shot Nerys an irritated look. “But a house too...!”

Veena’s trailing off said it all. 

Nerys forced a brittle smile. Her grip on the shopping basket tightened. 

“Well, good for them, I s’pose,” she said, aiming for magnanimity. “Best to settle down properly, with a baby on the way...” 

“Mmm, yeah.” Veena nodded along. 

“...You wouldn’t happen to know where they’re settling, would you?” 

Her car threw up a massive splash, but Nerys didn’t dare slow down. 

This was an emergency. 

Donna Noble—she cursed the day she first heard that name! Nerys knew in her bones that something was coming from the moment Sylvia first complained that her daughter had wandered off with ‘some man’...

This time, being proved right was cold comfort.

She was used to being at the end of her rope—the end of her rope was almost in her comfort zone by now. But this?  

Nerys was falling. She’d been falling ever since Veena let that first tidbit slip. 

With a screech of tyres, Nerys reached the final turning.

The hulking mass of Morley Manse loomed ahead. 

Her foot landed squarely in a puddle when she stepped out. “Shite,” Nerys muttered. She slammed the car door with unnecessary force. 

Nerys resentfully squelched her way to the house and knocked sharply. 

The speed with which the door opened left her briefly disoriented. 

Donna Noble’s face fell. 

“Nerys?” she asked incredulously. “What’re you doing here?” 

Nerys pasted on a thin smile. “Oh, I just had to come by when I heard you found a man,” she purred. 

Watching the blood drain from Donna’s face was almost a joy. 

“Donna, are you alright? Who—” 

The lanky man abruptly stopped speaking when he glimpsed her over Donna’s shoulder. 

Nerys’ jaw dropped. 

“That ‘doctor’ man?” she demanded. “Seriously?” 

“...Ah.” That ‘doctor’ man shuffled awkwardly on the spot. “...Er. Nerys, wasn’t it?” 

“Yes,” Donna gritted through her teeth, “That’s definitely Nerys.” 

“And...you are?” Nerys managed to ask. 

“Er—Dr. John Smith.” John held out a hesitant hand, even as he kept a cautious eye on Donna. 

Nerys numbly shook it. Wedding rings—they both wore them. The stone in Donna’s engagement band was offensively large. 

“...You’ve clearly met the wife,” John added.  

...And that confirmed it. 

“Yes,” Nerys said slowly. “I suppose congratulations are in order.” 

“Right! Thanks, yeah—cheers.” John darted an anxious glance at his wife. “It’s been, well...”

“A bit quick?” Nerys suggested. She ignored Donna’s glare.

“Oh, well...” John put an arm around Donna...a bit awkwardly, actually. 

Nerys’ eyes narrowed when Donna reached up to take his hand proprietarily. 

“...It just sort of, er, felt right at the time. Didn’t it—er—angel?” His last word came up like an actual question, not a rhetorical one. 

“Yes,” Donna bit out, “It was—magical. Best day of my life.” John winced as Donna’s knuckles whitened.

If that was true, Nerys would eat her handbag. What could possibly have ruined Donna’s wedding day? Or, well, her second one...

It could just be Nerys’ presence making her so tense, of course, but tension that strong had to come from something bigger than her. Could there be a crack in the marriage already? 

Nerys almost felt optimistic...at least, until the person hefting a television camera on their shoulder wandered into view behind them. 

When Donna caught sight of them, she paled. “Right! So nice of you to drop by, but I’m afraid we’re rather busy.” She hurried to shut the door.

But Nerys’ hand snapped out to stop it. “Why do you have a bloody cameraperson following you?” she demanded. 

“No reason!” Donna snapped. John looked even more uncomfortable. 

Nerys’ heart sank. 

“I’m part of the crew for ‘Haunted Makeovers’!” the cameraperson chirped. Donna looked ready to bash her head into the wall. 

Nerys, for her part, was tempted to join her. “You’re filming a reality programme?” she screeched. Her nails dug into the door as her grip tightened involuntarily. 

Donna’s mouth opened to say god-knows-what, but thankfully she was interrupted by an “Is that Nerys?” 

Oh, thank god. 

“Hello, Sylvia!” Nerys chirped. “Lovely to see you!” She politely ignored Donna’s apoplectic expression. 

“Oh, do come in, dear!” Sylvia beckoned her in. She broke her smile to shoo her son-in-law.

John duly scuttled out of the way. Nerys edged around Donna, who still stood in the doorway with her arms akimbo. 

“Mum, don’t you think we’re a bit—?” 

“Oh, hush, it’s Nerys. It’s fine.” Sylvia waved off Donna’s hissed objection without a moment’s thought. Nerys suppressed a victorious smirk. 

“Congratulations, by the way,” Nerys added slyly, “You must be overjoyed to finally have Donna married—and settled so close...”

Sylvia’s expression brightened and soured at once. 

“Yes, well,” she grumbled, “Both of those are true, I s’pose...” Her eyes caught on Nerys’ shoes. “Lord, your feet are soaking wet! Didn’t you think to invite her in to dry off?” 

She addressed the question to Donna, but she was already stalking away. 

John gave them an uneasy grimace. He shut the door and hurried after her. “Donna...?” 

Nerys bared her teeth at the cameraperson. “Don’t I need to sign something before you can film me?” she asked, sweet as cyanide. 

“Donna?” 

Of course he wouldn’t let her brood in peace. 

Donna set down the sofa cushion with a resigned huff. 

“In here,” she called. The Doctor hurried into the mouldering drawing room. 

“Are you alright?” His eyes anxiously darted over her. Donna self-consciously tucked her feet under her.

“No,” she groaned. The temptation to scream into the cushion again was strong, but on second thought the nauseating shade of mustard put her off entirely. “Bloody Nerys is here—of course I’m not alright!” 

He frowned at her. “...Why not, though?” he asked. 

Donna stared at him. “It’s Nerys!” she bit out. 

“Ye–e–es,” he drew out, “But I thought she was your friend.” 

She snorted. “Yeah, well, maybe so. But she’s also just—” Donna cut herself off. 

How could she possibly explain Nerys?  

The Doctor watched her expectantly. 

Nerys was just so...Nerys.  

“It’s...complicated,” Donna finally told him, as if that explained anything at all. No words could adequately describe the situation, anyway, she knew that from experience—he’d have to figure it out on the job for himself like all her other boyfriends...

Not that he was her boyfriend. 

Or her husband.  

“Right...” The Doctor still frowned, but he slowly settled next to her on the hideous sofa. “...And you don’t want your...Nerys here?” he checked. 

“No. But it’s way too late,” Donna muttered. She slumped, resting her head on the back of the sofa. “She’s got her talons into Mum now. She’ll be staying the night at least.”  

“Ah.” Donna watched him match her posture from the corner of her eye. 

She sighed, sitting up properly. Might as well at least try to explain. 

“Look, it’s...it’s this.” Donna gestured between the two of them. “Us, our ‘marriage’.” She did the air quotes and everything. 

The Doctor frowned again, cocking his head. “What about it?” 

“Nerys knows!” Donna exclaimed. How was he not getting this? “And Nerys had to hear it from someone else! The word’s out—other people know!” 

“...And that’s a problem?” 

She stared in disbelief. He blinked bemusedly. 

“Of course it is!” Her voice rose a bit too loud. Donna hushed herself—with their luck, Justin and his entire crew were lurking right outside the door. “It’s a fake marriage, remember?” she hissed. “As in, not real?”  

The Doctor’s mouth snapped shut. He went a bit pink. “Right,” he squeaked, “Right. And now your friends know...oh, dear.” 

“‘Oh, dear’ indeed,” Donna huffed. “What’ll people think when you flit off and leave me alone, in the end?”

“What?” he squawked, shooting upright. “I wouldn’t do that!” 

“Yeah, well, not now, obviously.” She rolled her eyes. “But someday—” 

His hand shot out to crush hers. “Don’t,” the Doctor ground out, “Don’t say that.” 

Donna stared at him. Her heart clenched, seeing him like this. “Okay,” she said softly. “Sorry, Spaceman.” 

The Doctor’s grip loosened. “No, I—I’m sorry,” he sighed, his free hand going straight to his ridiculous hair. “That—you can go home whenever you like. You know that, right?” 

“Why would I want to do that?” She raised expectant eyebrows. “Especially when I have Nerys lying in wait to wring every drop of gossip from me...”

He managed a smile. Donna squeezed his hand. 

“Sorry for being so dramatic,” she sighed. “Course we can get through this—I know we can. We’ve dealt with worse.” 

Her grimace was wholly involuntary. 

“Well...we’ve dealt with equally bad,” Donna corrected herself.  

The Doctor shot her a droll look as he lounged more comfortably. “I’ll be sure to inform the Sontarans that they’re in danger of being overshadowed,” he drawled. She couldn’t hold back a laugh. 

Then the reality of Nerys staying here sank in. 

“Oh, god, we need to get our story straight!” Donna shot upright—no time to loll about. 

The Doctor didn’t, instead shifting to take up most of the garish floral sofa. 

“Seriously!” She jostled his knee impatiently. “Sit up already, we need a plan.” 

He reluctantly hoisted himself back up. “Don–na...”

“Nerys can smell secrets,” Donna warned. 

The Doctor gave her one of his most patronising looks. “Come on, Donna. I’ve been interrogated by the best!” he scoffed. “I’m sure I can handle your human friend—”

“No!” Donna interrupted. She’d address that bloody Time Lord superiority complex later. “You don’t know her like I do.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re an easy target—you’re a chatterbox.”

The Doctor mimed locking his mouth and threw away the key.

“Like that means anything,” Donna sniffed. “We both know you’re a talker—both of us are—but only one of us has an Olympic medal in filibustering.”

“It was only the bronze...but I do take your point,” he sighed. 

“We can tell her anything we like, but we have to stick to it. If we shift any part of our story, she’ll pounce on it immediately,” Donna cautioned him. 

She glared when he pulled a face. 

“I’m not kidding, Spaceman!” Wait, no, not Spaceman— “Er—I mean, spa...niel? Sparky?” she tried. 

The Doctor stared at her disbelievingly. 

“...Alright, maybe not spaniel,” she allowed. Donna pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Sparky sort of works, though.” 

“Ri–i–ight...” He shook that off with difficulty. “Well...it’s not like we don’t have a cover story. When she asks, I’ll just tell her that it was love at first sight. Just like in the other interview—“

“Ha!” The laugh burst from her without her leave. “As if she’ll believe that,” Donna snorted. 

That seemed to rub him the wrong way, for some reason. “Why’d you tell Jas that, then, if it’s so unbelievable?” the Doctor demanded. 

She stared incredulously, but his offended expression didn’t shift a bit. “Because...just because!” Donna spluttered. 

He really was hitting her with the tough questions today—all the ones she couldn’t even begin to answer.

“Then...should we say we were friends first?” he suggested. “Is that more believable?”

Donna swallowed hard—he’d better not notice. “Well, it definitely sounds more believable...especially with her actually knowing me and all.” 

He squinted with confusion. “Why?”

“Just—it just does, alright?” Donna forced her shoulders down from around her ears. “I’m—I’m just not the sort of girl someone goes gaga over.”

“No?” He eyed her consideringly. 

Donna flushed the colour of her hair. “No!” It had to sound less like a squawk to him than it did to her—it must.

“Right, well—okay, well—” The Doctor fumbled for words. “...Good. We’re decided, then,” he ended lamely. 

Donna was mid-nod when she remembered. “Oh, god,” she groaned, “I completely forgot—you already met her at my wedding!” 

The Doctor’s eyes widened. “Er—” 

“Not ours!” Some genius... “The one with Lance! Eugh, god, she’ll have a few things to say about that for sure...” she moaned. 

“Surely she talked to you about the wedding already,” he reasoned. “It’s been over a year.”

“No!” Donna’s eyes rolled themselves. “About marrying you, the wedding-crasher!” God, this was shaming—what would people think?!

“Oi! I didn’t crash anything!” the Doctor protested hotly. “I saved you!” 

“Saved me?” Donna scoffed. 

He petulantly crossed his arms. “Alright, well, I at least helped,” the Doctor grumbled. 

“Sure you did, S–starfish.” 

He squinted dubiously. “Are you even trying?” 

“Least it’s got the word star in,” she pointed out, giving him a consoling pat on the knee. “Star for the starman, eh?”

“S’pose that’s fine...” The Doctor suddenly grinned. “...Earthworm.” 

“I really can help with the tea,” Nerys said again, but Sylvia just tutted once more. 

“You’re a guest! Just make yourself comfortable.” 

“Alright, then.” Nerys settled at the kitchen table to watch her bustle from cupboard to kettle and back again. 

“How are the slippers?” Sylvia asked. 

Nerys’ eyes dropped to her newly-toasty toes. “Cozy warm,” she said. “Thanks for the loan.” 

“Oh, they’re Donna’s.” Sylvia impatiently waved off her thanks. “Let me know if you want a hot water bottle too—we don’t want you taking a chill, do we?” 

“I’ll be alright, don’t worry about it.” 

Nerys’ eye roll was mostly fond. Sylvia always was like this—strict and strident, with the care just beneath the surface. 

“I’m sure you have all sorts of questions about the man himself,” Sylvia eventually remarked. 

“No, not really.” This wretched programme was far higher on Nerys’ agenda.

A teaspoon clattered to the counter. Sylvia turned to regard Nerys with a quizzical eye. “Really? No questions about Donna’s new mystery husband?” 

Right....that would seem a bit odd. 

Nerys shrugged uncomfortably. “I dunno, really...Veena gave me the general picture already. And...I want to ask Donna the rest.” Hopefully that was plausible enough...

Besides, Donna confiding her innermost feelings to her mum? A remote possibility at best. Donna’s grandfather, though...that was much more likely. She’d ask him about this John character later.

Subtly, of course—or, well, as subtly as she could. Mr. Mott was one of the most astute people she’d ever met. 

Anyway, as much of a problem as Donna’s secret marriage was, Nerys could only tackle one issue at a time. This bloody television programme was a much bigger one—there was no way Donna Noble could be broadcast across the nation. She just couldn’t! 

Sylvia scoffed to herself as she turned back to the kettle. 

Might as well just ask. “So...‘Haunted Makeovers’, eh?” 

Sylvia ferried over the tea things, rather pink. Nerys peered up at her curiously.

“Yes, well,” she blustered, “It wasn’t my idea, mind...but I have to admit I’ve always liked the show.” 

The corners of Nerys’ mouth twitched up. “I remember.” 

“Mm, yes.” Sylvia pursed her lips. “Well, buying the house wasn’t my plan, we can blame John for that bright idea—but the two of them were over while the programme was on, and I suddenly remembered where I’d seen that Justin Valentine before. Not on the show, I mean—he was the caretaker here!”

She watched her expectantly. Nerys waited for her to continue.

“...Don’t you remember?” Sylvia eventually asked.

“...Sure, yeah!” Nerys nodded slowly. She furrowed her brows—she hoped convincingly—and smiled encouragingly. “Absolutely!”

Sylvia frowned. “Funny, that—Donna didn’t remember him either...” 

Nerys cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Yeah, can’t’ve been that memorable. But he worked here at the manse? That’s so interesting!”

She brightened up again. “Oh, yes, back when it was a community centre. All sorts of activities were run out of here—it wasn’t half so decrepit back then, much better maintained,” Sylvia sniffed. “Anyway, I had Donna in piano lessons here the moment she was old enough to sit still...or, well, when I could drag her out of her room, anyway.” 

“Drag her?” Nerys raised her eyebrows inquiringly. 

“Yes...she didn’t like this place.” 

“Really?” Nerys glanced about. Her gaze caught on the gorgeous marble countertops, the antique brass light fixtures, the old-fashioned rafters high above...all rather nice, truth be told. “Whyever not?” 

“I’m not quite sure...” Sylvia frowned absentmindedly, almost to herself. “None of the kids liked it here—it frightened them. I didn’t believe a word, but that’s children for you—sensitive.”

“Yeah,” Nerys agreed. “Sometimes they just know.”   

“Yes...” 

Sylvia broke out of her brown study before long, reaching for the teapot. 

“Should be ready by now! Don’t worry, I made sure the cups were washed...” 

Nerys gave her a strange look. “I certainly hope so.” 

Sylvia wrinkled her nose. “Right, you weren’t here yet. This thing happened earlier—got sludge all over everything in the cupboards...”

Yep, that was her cue to take some notes. 

Every tidbit she scribbled down made Nerys’ stomach drop even further. 

God, if this was a real problem...

Much as she wanted to dismiss this ‘haunting’ as mere fantasy, Nerys just couldn’t quite manage it. There was enough evidence for at least a quick look round. 

As if the marriage, the hypothetical pregnancy, and the television crew weren’t enough for her to fend off already.

She grimly rearranged her list of priorities. 

“—Absolutely not.”  

“It’s only fair!” came Dr. Smith’s muffled protest. Mrs. Smith’s responding snort echoed down the corridor.

Justin perked up at the distant sound. 

Were they arguing? Perhaps he could finally get a better idea of their relationship...or at least a less carefully-curated one. That earlier footage with the two of them was a touch too saccharine to be real.

He sharply beckoned the closest cameraperson.

“You know that was insulting!” Mrs. Smith snapped. Her voice was crystal clear even with the door shut—Justin could only imagine what volume her husband was enduring. 

“Yeah, well...maybe the other one was too!” Dr. Smith retorted. “So there!” 

“Can’t even remember what it was, can you?”

The pair of them were well past the library by the time Justin opened the door. 

“Dr. Smith? Mrs. Smith?” he called, and they froze on the spot. “Everything alright?” 

Mrs. Smith spun to face them. “Oh, just peachy, thanks!” she chirped, her smile baring every tooth. 

“Is that so?” Justin grinned just as widely, with all the added plastic of a life spent on camera. 

Her husband’s smile was more of a painful grimace. 

“Quite!” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you waiting on us to film some more? Sorry, things got a tiny bit off-track—”

“Right, I did hear about this visitor,” Justin interrupted. 

Mrs. Smith’s lips thinned. Beside her, Dr. Smith’s eyes turned skyward as if in prayer. 

“I was wondering, actually—who is she, exactly? A friend?” he innocently inquired. His eyes flicked between the two of them.

“Yes,” she ground out, “Yes, one of my oldest friends.” 

“How lovely!” Justin exclaimed. For once he meant it almost entirely sincerely. It’d be fantastic to get an outsider’s view of the situation... “And will she be sticking around for filming?” 

Mrs. Smith folded her lips tightly. He watched Dr. Smith gently touch her elbow. His wife steeled herself. 

“Probably, yeah,” she reluctantly admitted. Her husband’s arm settled around her and she leaned into him with a sigh. “Fair warning—by tomorrow she’ll be commanding your entire crew,” Mrs. Smith direly predicted. 

Justin’s eyebrows rose. “The sort to take charge, is she?” 

She snorted contemptuously. “And how!” 

“Mm.” He watched the pair of them for a moment longer. “So...my cameraperson downstairs did mention there was a tiny bit of tension when she arrived. Would that ‘take charge’ attitude of hers be why?” he asked. 

“Might be,” she allowed.

Well. Two women with ‘take-charge attitudes’ in the same room might very well have that effect. 

Mrs. Smith eyed him beadily. Her gaze darted to the cameraperson behind Justin and back again. 

“I won’t be having your lot poking their noses into all that,” she abruptly informed him. “My relationship with Nerys is my business, not yours. The house and all that, absolutely—that’s what we’re here for.” 

“That’s alright, er—damson,” her husband interjected, “I’m sure Justin understands.” 

Dr. Smith’s sharp glance would’ve had a less seasoned television presenter cowering in his boots, but Justin Valentine was built of sterner stuff. “While we’re discussing it, Dr. Smith, how do you think Nerys’ presence will affect the filming?” he asked. 

“Wh—?” 

“An extra body about the place could complicate some things, no?” Justin inquired. He observed every detail of Dr. Smith’s reaction. 

His face went very smooth—unnaturally smooth—and then shifted to caution. “I’m not sure I know what you’re driving at,” Dr. Smith eventually replied. 

“Are you concerned that having another witness might, well...scupper your plans for the rest of the day?” Justin elaborated. 

Dr. Smith’s eyes narrowed. “Hardly,” he said coldly, “Given that I don’t have any particular plans beyond welcoming my wife’s oldest friend into our home...and the scheduled filming later, of course.”

He’d opened his mouth to ask another question when Mrs. Smith interrupted. 

“Come along, muffin—I’m sure Mum has tea waiting for us,” she announced, and, hooking a hand in his elbow, Mrs. Smith swept her husband away. 

Justin was left to frown at their rapidly shrinking backs. 

Something...something wasn’t quite right. And it wasn’t merely the dismal environment, either.

He wrinkled his nose at the mildewed wallpaper. That would be the first to go—it’d offended his eyes more than long enough. 

“Right—back to work,” Justin brusquely directed the cameraperson. “Get some environmental detail B-roll, alright?” 

Chapter Text

“...For how long?” Nerys distantly asked. 

“Mm, not quite sure, actually...” came Mum’s muffled reply. 

The Doctor pushed the kitchen door open with his free hand.  

The bottom dropped out of Donna’s stomach when she spotted the notebook and pen. 

“Taking notes?” she snapped. “What, are you writing a bloody article for the Times?” 

Adding insult to injury, Nerys didn’t even do her the courtesy of looking up immediately. She took her sweet time crossing the T’s and all first. 

Donna’s nostrils flared. 

The earnest look on Nerys’ face struck a strangely familiar chord, despite Donna’s certainty she’d never seen her wear that expression before. 

She carried on glaring anyway. 

The Doctor let out a pained grunt. Donna loosened her grip on his arm.

Sorry, S—sparky.” 

He patted her hand reassuringly.

Wheeling back on Nerys, Donna hissed, “Where do you get off, taking notes about my marriage?” Probably just jealous again...

“It might be a shock to you, but your relationships aren’t actually the centre of my universe,” Nerys said coolly. “I’m a bit more worried about this whole haunting situation.”

“What?” Donna squawked. Oh, god—maybe she was jealous over the programme instead. “You seriously—?” 

“—Want this business with the house taken care of? Obviously, yeah.” 

Donna stared at her, but she still didn’t turn a hair. Nerys, a true believer in spooks and spectres? Since when?  

The Doctor cleared his throat. “You’re genuinely worried about it, then?” he asked. His voice dripped with false incredulity. Donna could only hope that Nerys wouldn’t see right through it. “But it’s only for television. Just smoke and mirrors.”

Nerys merely smiled—the butter-wouldn’t-melt smile, the one that drove Donna up the bloody wall every time she saw it. 

“We’ll see,” she said enigmatically. 

The Doctor’s brow creased with concern. “Really, it can’t possibly be real!” he tried again. “We only applied for the programme on the off-chance, since the house is famously haunted...and, er, our Sylvia’s such a fan...”

Mum snorted.  

“But—” Donna began—

Jas knocked apologetically on the door frame as he leaned in. “Sorry to interrupt, but Ms. Taylor? Our production coordinator is waiting for you in the library.” 

“Perfect.” Nerys ostentatiously flipped her notebook shut. She tucked it away and floated out of the room before Donna could stop spluttering. 

The dense legalese went right over her head as she pretended to read. 

Nerys moved her lips slightly as if she were mouthing the words. The eyes of the production manager nearly bored a hole through her as her mind worked at top speed. Her hand tightened around the item in her pocket.

Should she sign the waiver and consent to being filmed?

She shouldn’t, right? The risk was far too great—what if they saw it?

But Donna...

Nerys did her best not to clench her free hand into a fist. 

She’d already signed it—that much was certain. Donna was already being followed by a camera crew and her weedy new husband, her life filmed for broadcast across the bloody country—

Nerys took a deep, slow breath. She released it again just as slowly. 

Her best bet to halt the production had to be from inside the tent. If she didn’t sign it, it became far more likely that Donna would make Nerys leave no matter what Sylvia said, and then where would she be?

Not on the scene to solve the problem, that’s where. 

The production coordinator pointedly cleared her throat. 

Nerys rolled her eyes and reached for the pen. 

“Fabulous!” the coordinator cooed, “And initial here...”  

Nerys initialled there. 

She’d just initialled the fifth and final page when the man of the hour entered the library. 

“Ms. Taylor! So lovely to meet you.” He fairly oozed charm. 

“Likewise, Mr. Valentine.” She stood to shake his hand with a polite smile. Behind him the production coordinator scurried out the door. 

“Oh, please, call me Justin.” His grin was even brighter in person. 

Nerys eyed him for a moment. “If you insist,” she murmured demurely, retaking her seat. She let go and pulled her hand from her pocket as unobtrusively as possible. 

Justin took the chair opposite. “And you are...?”

“Nerys.” She gave crinkling her eyes to look more friendly a go. 

It was impossible to tell if it was working through the layers of practiced camaraderie that Justin wore like skin. Impressive, that.

“Nerys...that’s a lovely name.”

Nerys smiled thinly. “I’d like to think so.” 

His grin only widened further. “Quite. Anyway, I was hoping to ask you some questions.” 

“About what?” she asked sweetly. 

“How’d you meet Mrs. Smith?” 

“Donna?” Nerys’ mouth turned up slightly despite her best effort. “Oh, we go way back.” 

“So I gathered.” 

She bared her teeth in another grin. Justin twinkled back.

Well, might as well help him out. Clearly the presenter wasn’t about to back off, and perhaps applying pressure from another angle would help with the marriage problem. 

Donna definitely expected Nerys to take the direct approach of flirting with her husband…but there was no sense in being predictable.  

“I’ve known Donna for years and years. I was a bridesmaid at her wedding and all!”

“How lovely!” Justin insincerely exclaimed. “And when did you meet John?”

“Oh! I’m so sorry for the confusion—that wasn’t the wedding to John.” Nerys smiled even wider. “That was with Lance. Hmm...must’ve been over a year ago, now.”

His eyes widened. “So Mrs. Smith was married to someone else as recently as that?” Justin asked incredulously. 

“Oh, no, that wedding didn’t happen, in the end. There was a bit of a—a ruckus, I suppose, and Lance ran off...but that's when I met John.” 

Nerys savoured the disbelief in his eyes. It’d been bad enough witnessing it at the time—she might as well enjoy telling someone else about it. 

“But...” Donna finally stopped spluttering at Nerys’ retreating back, the slippery cow— 

The Doctor cleared his throat uncomfortably as the door swung shut again. “Hem. So, er, Sylvia...what’ve you told Nerys about—” He gestured vaguely at the room around them. “All this, anyway?” 

Donna’s eyes shot back to her mum. 

“The house...Justin, the programme and all that, you mean?” Mum asked. 

Donna was ready to throttle her—of course he meant the bloody programme!—but the Doctor nodded much more patiently than Donna could’ve. 

Infuriatingly, she shrugged. “Everything. Or, almost, anyway. Why?” 

“What?!” Donna yelped, but her mum only glared. 

“Well, why wouldn’t I?” she snapped. “That Nerys is a good egg—came all the way out here to congratulate you when she heard, even though you got married behind her back...” Mum’s eyes narrowed. “Or so she thinks, anyway.” 

The dire judgement in her tone sent Donna’s eyes rolling to the back of her head. “Mum, you know why we did this,” she told her exasperatedly. “We’re undercover—it’s not a real marriage, and that’s fine!” 

The Doctor’s arm dropped from around her shoulders, leaving Donna suddenly cold. 

She was suddenly and fiercely glad for the distraction of Jas popping his head in.

The assistant grimaced apologetically. “Sorry to interrupt again, but are you ready, Dr. Smith?”

“Eh?” The Doctor resembled a deer in headlights. Donna had to roll her eyes at him. 

Jas smiled a smile so stiff it might’ve been starched and ironed. “Justin and Mr. Mott were going to tour the upstairs with you?” 

Donna watched him expectantly, but the Doctor only frowned faintly. 

“Come on, M—monkey, you remember,” she cooed. Donna patted his arm encouragingly. “Go on ahead. I’ve got some more to talk to Mum about.”

“Right,” the Doctor drew out. “I’ll see you later...” He hesitated. “...Turtledove?” 

Donna swiftly shifted her scowl into a sunny smile. “You certainly will, if you know what’s good for you,” she promised. Her eyes spoke death despite the rest of her ostensibly cheerful expression. 

A dangerous spark of mischief kindled in his eye. 

Oh, god, what was he—?

Without another word, he leaned in to peck her lips again. 

Donna gaped at him. 

The Doctor’s grin widened—his dimple popped out, even. “Bye,” he chirped, and he was out the door before she could say a word in response. 

They were so lucky Jas didn’t catch a glimpse of her shell shocked face. 

Mum still glared at the closed door when Donna could bring herself to turn back to her. 

“Undercover or no, I certainly hope he’s not so presumptuous in private,” she sniffed. 

“Don’t worry, Mum. He’s not,” Donna bit out. And he really wasn’t.

So why was he now?  

“If you say so,” Mum murmured in that way that meant she’d believe it when she saw it. 

“I do,” Donna said firmly. It was true—he’d most definitely never kissed her before this whole filming thing. 

She’d remember that.  

Donna got down her own mug with an efficient clatter. She eyed the inside suspiciously before turning on the faucet. No matter how thoroughly Mum claimed to have cleaned that sludge from earlier, another rinse couldn’t hurt. 

“Mhm.” 

That was more than enough commentary from Mum for now. Donna swept over to the table and ostentatiously poured herself a cuppa. “Anyway—other than the house, what was Nerys interrogating you about?” 

“Oh, honestly, Donna,” Mum scoffed. “She was hardly interrogating me.”

“If you say so,” Donna muttered. A bit louder she asked, “I bet she was asking all sorts of questions about me and the Doctor.” 

“Not even one, actually,” Mum took great visible pleasure in informing her. 

“What? Seriously?” Donna demanded. That couldn’t be true!

But Mum was really taking her time about taking a sip of tea. Donna numbly took a sip of her own too. 

Only when she was good and ready did Mum set down her cup. “All she did was ask about the programme. The house, Justin, and the ghost stuff,” she told her smugly. 

Donna felt her eye twitch. “And not a single question about me and the Doctor?” she asked incredulously. “Not one about me turning up out of the blue married to some random man?” 

“No.” 

“And that didn’t seem, I dunno—odd to you?” 

Her brows contracted. “Well...perhaps a little bit,” Mum admitted. “But she did say she wanted to wait and ask you directly...”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Donna snorted. “Ask me directly and report back to Veena, more like.” 

Mum somehow sat up even straighter. “Nerys wouldn’t do that!” she indignantly exclaimed, but Donna just rolled her eyes. 

“Open your eyes, Mum! Nerys always has an angle.”

“You’re being ridiculous.” 

“Am I?” 

“Yes! Nerys wouldn’t come all the way out here just to spread gossip,” Mum stubbornly insisted. She collected the empty cups and whisked them off to the sink with an irritable clatter. 

Donna settled back into her chair and took a big slurp of tea. “One day you’ll see Nerys for the viper in the nest she is,” she darkly predicted. “Mark my words.” 

“Why’d you bother to keep up the act in front of her, anyway?” 

She jerked in her seat like she’d been slapped. “What?” Donna managed. 

“In front of Nerys, I mean,” Mum repeated, as if Donna hadn’t heard her the first time. 

“No, I heard you, I just—what d’you mean, ‘why’d I keep it up in front of her’?” 

“It’s just Nerys.” Mum turned to frown at her. “I understand keeping up the whole ‘marriage’ thing for the sake of the programme—it always is married couples on those shows, isn’t it? But what I don’t understand is why you’d bother to hide it from her.”

“Because!” 

Donna grappled for how to explain herself. It was—it was because of what Nerys would think, obviously. Because of what she might spread round to the other girls and all over Chiswick, if they all found out Donna had managed to almost-not-really get married again...but it wasn’t just that. 

Even considering confessing the truth about her non-marriage had Donna’s heart racing. But why? Claiming to be married to a spastic stickbug of a man ought to be more stressful, honestly...

Yet on some level Donna subconsciously preferred clinging to the Doctor’s elbow and letting him awkwardly peck her lips over explaining the plan to her scheming ‘friend’. Her conscious mind didn’t, obviously—Donna was well aware that this was never, ever supposed to happen between them...

But there it remained, contradictory as ever. 

She sighed, long and loud. 

Whatever the reason was, Donna was stuck with the charade now. God help her. 

“...Just—because,” she repeated lamely. 

“Sure. Like that’s a real reason,” Mum sniffed. 

The Doctor was over nine hundred years old. 

He’d faced down monsters, demons, and aliens of all shapes, sizes, and hygiene habits. 

He’d staved off death, despair, and disaster on more planets than he could remember. 

He was the last of his kind, the Oncoming Storm, Earth’s Champion, Defender of the Laws of Time...

The Doctor was still hard-pressed not to freeze on spotting Nerys’ very blonde self chatting to Justin in the entrance hall. 

Jas pointedly cleared his throat. 

Justin spun around with his usual broad smile. The cracks in his cheer were there for those who looked for them, though—that tension in his jaw had been there ever since Justin arrived at Morley Manse. 

“Ah, Dr. Smith! At last you’ve joined us,” he beamed. 

Behind Justin and Nerys, Wilf shot him a reassuring smile. The Doctor’s shoulders straightened of their own accord. 

“Er—yes, yes I have.” He tried to ignore the cameraperson as he’d been instructed, but the light glinting on the lens kept catching his eye. “Shall we?” The Doctor gestured for Justin and Wilf to precede him up the stairs. 

His eyebrow jerked upward when Nerys moved to join them. 

Unfortunately, she caught the look. “It’s alright if I accompany you, isn’t it, John?” Nerys asked sweetly. “I mean, I haven’t seen the place at all yet—my best friend’s new house! Isn’t that strange?” Her laugh was a bit reedy. 

The Doctor shook off his surprise. “Course. Course it’s fine. After you.” 

“This is a marvellous feature staircase, isn’t it?” Justin burbled. The Doctor rolled his eyes. 

“Filthy windows, though,” Nerys remarked. He could just picture her disgusted expression—it was already growing familiar. 

“We did have a go cleaning them,” the Doctor volunteered. 

Ahead of him, Wilf sighed heavily. “Yeah, you don’t want to see what’s been scrawled on them under all that muck...”

“Oh, rude language?” Justin asked with a forced chuckle. 

“I can imagine,” Nerys sniffed. “Horrid teenagers and their idea of a joke...” 

Wilf shook his head grimly, but added nothing more.

The Doctor finally joined the others at the top of the stairs. He gestured down the corridor with a flourish. “Right, so we’ve not really started renovating up here—”

“That’s obvious.” Nerys touched the picture rail and examined her fingertip with a grimace. 

The Doctor rolled his eyes again—that was twice already. He opened his mouth to continue, but Justin was already babbling about the potential of the space. Something something chandelier, something staircase, et cetera, et cetera—the Doctor was more than done with discussing décor already, and it’d only been a couple of hours filming.

“—Good to see you, sweetheart,” he caught Wilf saying to Nerys in an undertone. 

“You too, Mr. Mott,” she replied at a similar volume. 

Wilf waved that aside, wrinkling his nose. “Oh, call me Wilf, darling, how many times do I have to tell you?” he insisted, taking her hand and resting it firmly in his elbow. 

Nerys stifled a chuckle. 

The Doctor tried not to be obvious about listening in, but he couldn’t quite look away from the open fondness on Nerys’ face. 

That...that might be the first wholly genuine expression he’d ever seen from her. Now that he’d witnessed the difference it made, the mask Nerys usually wore stood out like a Judoon among Sontarans. 

What was she hiding? 

“—Magnificent,” Justin finally concluded. His grin was far too wide for his face—it couldn’t be comfortable, smiling like that.

Wilf went on about something else, but the Doctor was far too intent on his train of thought to catch a word. 

Nerys...

Everything he’d heard about her was contradictory. While the Doctor could dismiss Sylvia’s fondness as inconsequential, Wilf’s sincere greeting of Nerys was far more difficult to disregard. Donna’s grandfather was a man of great discernment—he’d be far less likely to be deceived for this long an acquaintance.

Meanwhile, Donna seemed to love and hate Nerys in equal measure...that was the only reasonable explanation for Donna’s keeping her around with such a vast litany of complaints. 

He supposed he couldn’t say much on the subject without being a hypocrite—not when the Master had lurked in the shadows of his life for many more centuries than Nerys could imagine living. 

The Doctor’s head abruptly snapped up when he caught his name. Or, well, his alias. 

“Hmm? Sorry, what was that?” 

Justin’s perpetual smile widened impossibly more. His cheek muscles must be terrifyingly strong... 

“What got you into this business, Dr. Smith?” the television presenter toothily repeated. 

“Oh...” The Doctor ruffled his hair absently. “Stumbled into it, really. Um—left home, ended up in a junkyard, one day, and—er—well, all went from there.” 

‘Home’—it was a word the Doctor rarely used any more...

Justin’s eyebrows rose. “And that’s where your love of reclamations comes from?” 

He jammed his hands deep into his pockets as he walked. “All got a bit out of hand,” the Doctor admitted sheepishly. “You see old things falling apart, and you’ve got to put them back together.” 

“He’s very good at it,” Wilf added with a chuckle.

The Doctor grinned at him. “Aw, thank you, Wilf.” He studiously ignored Nerys’ dubious snort—that sort of petty reaction couldn’t dent such a profound compliment as that.  

A delicately cleared throat recaptured the Doctor’s attention. “So. Now you put things back together for a living?” Justin asked. 

He felt his smile turn a bit wry. “Donna and I—well, it’s just what we do.” 

“Is it really?” Nerys interrupted. “Since when?” 

The Doctor glanced sharply at her. Her innocent twinkle was belied by ice-cold eyes. 

When he turned back to Justin, the presenter’s smile had a fresh edge. 

“The two of us—we’re a team, been travelling together for a while now,” the Doctor explained, “But we’ve had a bit of trouble recently, so we’ve come here and—well, some things you’ve just got to save.” He sighed. If that wasn’t the truth, he didn’t know what was. 

“So this renovation project is a way of saving your marriage?” Justin asked.

“Yes...” the Doctor said absently only to stiffen. “Wait—what?” 

“Ha ha! Now you’re for it!” Wilf laughed. Even Nerys snickered beside him.

The Doctor went briefly mad—that was the only way to explain the nonsense he found himself spewing. His horror rose higher and higher in sync with Nerys’ eyebrows. When would someone stop him?!

“...Jaffa cakes from the farmer’s market aside, are you worried about the effect Donna’s previous engagement might have on your relationship?” Justin inquired. 

He was keenly aware of how widely he was gaping—thoroughly unbecoming. 

“Wh—what?” the Doctor managed to ask. 

“She was engaged to a man called Lance, before, wasn’t she?” Justin asked. Suppressed glee danced in his eyes. “And didn’t you meet at her wedding...?” He trailed off suggestively. 

The Doctor blanched. 

“Oi, how’s that relevant?” Wilf indignantly asked. Good man!

“Yeah, I don’t see how that’s any of your business! That was ages ago, and—and we’re together now,” the Doctor blustered. Lance, that was just—if they dared throw him in Donna’s face now, keeping his temper would be difficult. “Donna’s married to me now, so you can go ahead and leave him out of it!” 

“And how long have you been married, anyway?” Nerys asked. 

Oh, thank Rassilon!

He opened his mouth to answer...and stopped.

“...How long, did you ask?” the Doctor asked feebly. 

Nerys gave him a Mona Lisa smile. “Yes.” 

“Er...” He frantically racked his brain for a plausible time frame. How long’d it technically been since that catastrophe with Lance, again? And how long would’ve been reasonable in human terms to wait to get married themselves...? 

Rather than risk answering, the Doctor lunged for the nearest door. “What’s through here, again—?” 

“Don’t!” Wilf shouted, but it was too late. A flurry of wings and cawing deafened them all. The Doctor threw his arms up to protect his face as Wilf explained the situation with those infernal birds. 

“That wretched tarpaulin doesn’t keep them out,” Wilf sighed. 

“And your grandson-in-law couldn’t come up with anything better than a tarp?” Nerys asked incredulously. 

It took a second for the Doctor to recall that that was referring to him. “Oi! I’m not a miracle worker!” he protested. Corvids were rather clever, too—they’d easily find their way past any jerry-rigged solution, anyway!  

Nerys took a breath—to berate him further, he was sure—but Wilf’s face twisted in on itself.

“This—looks like a kid’s room...” Wilf took a breath, and his expression only crumpled further. “Oh, imagine being a child in a room like this! That tiny window...” 

The Doctor finally recognised that look: grief. 

He stepped closer to rest a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Wilf, you alright?”

Wilf started at his touch. “Well, I—I just—got a feeling,” he stammered. Nerys took Wilf’s arm again, buoying up his other side, and he spared her a thankful smile. 

“Are you sensing a supernatural presence?” Justin eagerly asked. 

“...It’s cold,” Nerys announced. Was it?

The Doctor’s breath clouded before him, fainter than the humans in the room—it really was chilly. A fully physical manifestation...fascinating! 

“Yes, it is,” Wilf agreed at once. His eyes darted to Justin. “Can’t you feel it?”

To his credit, Justin did seem to think before answering. “Not really.” 

The Doctor fumbled through his pockets—his sonic was somewhere in there...

“Seriously?” Nerys asked sceptically. “We can see your breath, but ‘you can’t feel it’? How’s that work?” 

Justin stammered an inadequate response as the Doctor hid a smile with a cough. He had to admit her aggressive questioning could be genuinely useful when it wasn’t directed against him.  

He did his best to scan the area subtly, but Nerys’ head turned sharply at the sound. 

“What was that?” she demanded. 

“Oh, nothing!” the Doctor blurted out. He hastily dropped it back in his pocket. “Maybe...the wind through the roof?” 

Nerys frowned—first at him, then more generally at the room. “Hmm...” 

Wilf’s breathing abruptly grew more laboured. 

The Doctor put an arm round him. “Wilf, are you—?”

The old man nearly leapt out of his shoes. “Ah—s–sorry, Doctor, I just—sorry...” 

“S’alright. I’m sorry for startling you.” He ducked down slightly to get a better look at Wilf’s eyes. 

“We’d better get him downstairs,” Nerys decided. She put her arm round Wilf, too, shoving the Doctor out of the way without hesitation. 

The Doctor bit the inside of his cheek—her care for him was admirable, he told himself sternly. It really was. 

He cleared his throat. “Right, yes, let’s go down...Justin?” 

“Hm?” The television presenter turned back to him absently. 

“...It’s cold,” the Doctor reminded him. “Shouldn’t we go back downstairs?” 

Justin just blinked. 

“...Since it’s chilly?” the Doctor tried again. His eyes darted around the room. “Your crew are freezing, too,” he pointed out. The poor lad holding the boom mic was shivering in a t-shirt.  

“Oh, they’re fine.” He waved that aside dismissively. “It’s probably just the draft caused by the hole in the ceiling.” 

“All the same.” 

Chapter Text

The Doctor was squinting into the end of his sonic when a sharp jostle nearly poked his eye out.

“Oi!”

“Oh, I’m sorry—did I unexpectedly get into your personal space?” 

He froze mid-turn. 

“Er...Donna...” 

“Well spotted,” she snapped.  

When the Doctor finally looked at her, she was glaring just as furiously as he expected.

“To be fair, I didn’t actually spot you at all. Just heard you...” He trailed off feebly. 

Donna somehow glared even harder. The Doctor feared his smile was nearly a grimace. 

“Turtledove? Really?” she demanded. 

“Oh, come on, I’m trying my best,” he protested. “Besides, you called me monkey!” 

Donna threw up her hands. “I started saying ‘Martian’ in front of Jas! What was I supposed to do?” 

“Well...” The Doctor stopped. “S’pose that’s fair,” he grunted.  

“And...what about the other bit?”

“Hmm?” He glanced at her with his biggest, most innocent eyes. 

Donna’s eyes narrowed. Damn. 

He sighed. “I just—I don’t know why I...”

The Doctor swallowed hard. 

He’d kissed Donna. Again!  

Even he didn’t quite know why. Was it just to keep up the charade? To continue to pass themselves off as married in front of everyone?

Or...

No. 

“...We, um. Have to keep up appearances,” he said weakly. “Right?” 

Donna frowned up at him. “Guess so,” she finally said. 

The Doctor sagged with relief so hard he nearly dropped the screwdriver. He tucked it into his pocket for safekeeping. 

Then she smirked. “S’pose I’ll have to keep up my end, then.” 

“What?” he croaked. His hearts gave a strange syncopated beat as Donna’s eyelashes fluttered. 

“You thought I was just gonna let you have all the fun?” 

The Doctor’s mouth dropped open when her fingertip traced his lapel. 

“I...er...” 

A hesitant cough came from behind him.

“What?” the Doctor snapped. 

Jas flinched slightly. “Er...sorry, Dr. Smith, to interrupt. But Justin asked me to see if Mrs. Smith was available...?”

When he looked back at Donna, she was glaring up at him. Her hand fell from his jacket. 

“Don’t be rude, darling,” she gritted out. Her smile was aimed beyond him at Jas. “It’s alright, he understands. Doesn’t he?” 

The Doctor understood, alright. 

“Yes, sorry, Jas.” He found a stiff smile. “Course. Perfectly alright.”

It took a while, but Nerys finally found a bench that wasn’t too damp to sit on. 

The grounds of Morley Manse were clearly neglected, but the paths winding through overgrown herbaceous borders had a sort of rambling charm... 

Or, well, they might have charm if they didn’t somehow radiate the same melancholy as the house. 

Nerys retrieved her notebook and rested it on her knee. 

She frowned down at her previous notes. 

The cold, that overwhelming wave of emotions on Mr. Mott’s face...it was one thing to hear Sylvia’s dry recounting of events, and another thing entirely to witness it herself. The advance information was helpful, but there really was nothing like personal experience, in the end. 

She clicked her pen decisively. 

Based on what Donna’s mum said and everything upstairs, Nerys had to agree: it looked like Justin Valentine might be the source. He was one of the few common denominators between all the houses he’d visited for the programme...and it was unlikely to be anyone in the crew. 

No, it had to be him. Camera people and production assistants came and went, but the host remained. 

Justin Valentine carried the hauntings with him. 

He didn’t seem quite...normal, in Nerys’ opinion. He was too...too plastic. The mask he wore was a thousand feet deep. That manic grin, the way he purposefully made light of things...

Justin hid his true feelings from everyone, and from no one more than himself. 

Somehow she’d have to sort this out. It all depended on precisely what was causing these problems, though. Could it be an object he carried about? Something in the show’s props, or a personal item? Or was it something he was exposed to, some toxin he ingested by accident? She tapped the pen against her lips. 

Anything could be causing it...anything connected to Justin Valentine, anyway. 

She’d have to think more about that.

Meanwhile, another problem beckoned. 

Donna...and her new husband. 

John was still a mystery to her. An unassuming man attached to Donna at the hip, ineptly bumbling through Justin’s questions...he’d visibly quailed under Nerys’ questions, too. Yet according to Sylvia, John was the one who connected the dots and took decisive action. 

He’d gone ahead and purchased Morley Manse. He’d suggested applying to the television programme, and apparently he was the one hoping to solve Justin’s problem...however ill-equipped an ordinary human man actually was to do that, Nerys couldn’t help but be intrigued. 

And upstairs—of course he’d been horrified and embarrassed by Justin’s probing questions, so very embarrassed that he bumbled into that encounter with the crows. But something about him changed the instant the temperature dropped. John had snapped into sudden, sharp focus...and that sound, that strangely familiar sound—what was that?

The shush and thud of a nearby spade caught her ear. 

Nerys hastily tucked her notes away and followed the sound. 

“Mr.—I mean, Wilf? Is that you?” she called out.

“Oh!” He looked up with a start. “Hello there, darling.” 

The approaching footsteps sent the Doctor’s sonic behind his back as he hurriedly straightened. 

“Er, I was just examining the, er, wainscoting—nothing to see...” He trailed off as he turned. The Doctor frowned. “Donna?” 

Her wooden expression plucked a concerned chord in his chest.

“Doctor.” 

The Doctor’s brows drew together. “Are you alright?” 

“Peachy,” Donna bit out. 

She didn’t sound alright.

“For some reason I doubt that,” he gently told her. The Doctor touched her arm. “Here, c’mon, let’s...let’s sit down.” 

That Donna allowed him to lead her into the lecture theatre without comment only increased his worry. He got her settled into a theatre seat and folded himself into the one beside her. 

The Doctor determinedly ignored how his knees crunched against the row ahead. 

“What happened?” he asked. 

Her lips thinned. 

“Oh, Donna...” Putting an arm round her made him feel slightly less helpless. 

“It was nothing, really. Not—it really shouldn’t be a big deal. I just...” Donna sighed. “...Jas asked me some questions about Lance. That’s all.” 

The Doctor’s teeth audibly ground together. “I was afraid they would,” he said tightly. 

“They talked to you too?” Her eyes flickered up to his. 

“Yeah.” He grimaced. “I’m sorry I didn’t warn you, I—I s’pose I was hoping they just wouldn’t bother you about it...” The Doctor’s brows furrowed. “I’ll talk to them.”

“Oh, don’t.” 

He just set his jaw. 

“No, seriously, don’t.” Donna gave him a look. “They’ll just smell more blood in the water if you do that,” she warned. 

“But they—”

“No buts! Just leave it,” she ordered. He wasn’t quite ready to concede the point, but then Donna sighed, “...God. I’ll bet you anything Nerys told them about him immediately.”

The Doctor frowned. “Are you sure?” he asked. “You’re sure she’d do that?” The person he’d seen supporting Wilf upstairs...would she do that?

“Pretty sure,” Donna told him dryly. She made a face. “Who else would tell them? Not like Mum would be so eager to talk up my failure.”

“Your failure?” the Doctor incredulously repeated. 

“Failure to get married, I mean.”

His frown deepened. Sylvia thought it was her fault that the wedding fell apart? 

“Donna—” 

“It’s fine,” she interrupted. “It’s fine, I know—I know she’s just stuck in her own concept of what I should be doing with my life.”

It wasn't fine, not for a second, but clearly Donna wasn't willing to entertain that argument now. He made a mental note for later.

“Yeah, that, but also...” The Doctor lifted her left hand with his own. The stone on her engagement band sent flickers of green light in all directions. 

Donna half-smiled. “Right, but it’s also fake.” She tried to reclaim her hand, but the Doctor clasped it tighter. 

“Sure, might be,” the Doctor allowed. The gem certainly wasn’t, but that would hardly comfort her now. “But you’ve got the benefits while it lasts, eh, darling?” He waggled his eyebrows. 

She snorted. “As if, Spaceman...” Donna smiled a little more genuinely. “...But thanks.” 

“...One of his things for detecting supernatural activity,” his assistant said, and Mrs. Noble scoffed.

A slight frown curved Justin’s mouth—what were they discussing? Surely he wasn’t sharing all his little detection things with the subjects of the programme...

“Does it scare you?” she asked, and there was a long pause. His lip curled. He sped his footsteps. 

“Ah, looking at my toy cat?” Justin asked. 

Both of them jumped. 

He put on his best smile and reached for it. “Here, I’ll show you the trick. Motion sensitive. I reach out like this—” 

Justin waggled it with a grin. The toy cat meowed plaintively.

“See? I leave it on with a camera running, and if anything disturbs the static fields...” 

The grin didn’t seem to have much of an effect—if anything, it had a negative one. Mrs. Noble’s nose wrinkled. “Nightmarish, I’d call it.” 

Okay, that was enough. He pointedly cleared his throat. “Alright, Jas, do you mind...?” 

The slight smile evaporated from his assistant’s face, and with a sharp nod he vacated the room. 

Alone at last. Well, except for the cameraperson lurking in the doorway behind him. Justin turned his blinding grin on her. “Now, Mrs. Noble, I’ve been meaning to ask you a few questions...is that alright?” 

Her eyes darted to the camera and back to him. “Ask away.” 

It only made sense to start from the beginning, 

“So there’s been a surprise addition to the household. How long have you known Ms. Taylor?” 

She perked up at once and eagerly explained the whole saga—met her daughter in school, Donna even bit her, the poor dear—they grew up together, et cetera, et cetera...

Justin patiently nodded and smiled at appropriate moments. It was largely congruent with the other information he’d gathered, but he’d expected that. 

“...And she was a bridesmaid, wasn’t she? At Donna’s first wedding?” he eventually interrupted. 

“Yes—” Mrs. Noble caught herself and scowled blackly. “Hang on...” 

“Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just something Ms. Taylor mentioned...” 

Justin smiled reassuringly, but it didn’t lighten her expression. To be fair to Mrs. Noble, there'd been a suspicious glint of satisfaction in Ms. Taylor’s eye when she brought up Mrs. Smith’s first wedding... 

Clearly Mrs. Noble also had complicated feelings about it.

“It’s not a bad thing to have been engaged previously, of course! Many people decide not to get married, in the end,” Justin said cheerily. “It is unusual, however, to meet your future husband at your almost-wedding.” 

He made a point of chuckling, but Mrs. Noble only bristled, scowling even deeper. 

“Well, I’m sure I can’t speak for my daughter,” she bit out, “But that whole day was a disaster, if you ask me. That’s when it all went downhill...”

Now that was interesting. 

“Do you mean to say that meeting Dr. Smith wasn’t a good thing for her?” Justin inquired. 

Mrs. Noble flushed. “Of course not!” she snapped. “I mean—Lance...he was a perfectly nice man, and for that to happen to him...” She frowned as she trailed off. “It just isn’t right.”

“Right,” he said slowly. “And you’ve not come to terms yet with John taking Lance’s place in your daughter’s life?” How recently did they get married? That was something he’d had no luck at all nailing down. 

She pressed her lips white. “Clearly no one can tell my daughter what’s best for her,” she told him stiffly. “She always decides for herself.”

When Mrs. Noble swept out of the room, he didn’t try to stop her. 

“Mum, Gramps...” Donna wrung her hands until that man took one in his. “...We’re going to be married.” 

“What?!” she squawked. Sylvia’s pencil and crossword dropped from numb fingers. 

Dad was up on his feet shaking his bloody hand already, the traitor. Her eyes darted to Donna’s left hand to find—hang on—

“Going to be? Then why’ve you got two rings on already?” Sylvia demanded sharply. Surely she hadn’t—

Donna flushed bright red. “Mum, you don’t—”

“—Always knew there was something there,” Dad loudly announced with a twinkle in his eye. Sylvia glared at John, who also glowed bright red. 

“Gramps, that’s not—we’re not—I meant for the programme!” Donna finally burst out. 

“Oh!” Sylvia exclaimed inanely. She ran through the entire conversation again in her head—right, she’d meant—

“Yes! What Donna said!” that man belatedly added. The panic was clear in his eyes, darting between all three of them. 

“I think they’ve got it now, Spaceman,” Donna said dryly, but she took his hand again while she said it. 

All three of them studiously ignored Dad’s continued chuckling. 

She pursed her lips. “...It makes sense, I suppose,” Sylvia had to concede. At least it wasn’t real.

Only then did she feel equal to retrieving her pencil and newspaper from the carpet. 

“No matter what she’s wrong about, I’m sure your mum wouldn’t say anything too horrible to Justin...” The Doctor trailed off hopelessly. 

More than anyone else, Donna would know precisely how baseless his assertions about Sylvia’s behaviour were. 

He tried again. “...Well, she wouldn’t want to make her daughter look bad on camera, would she?”  

Her mouth turned up a little. “S’pose not,” Donna muttered. She kept looking away, though—fiddling with her rings and refusing to look at him. 

The Doctor carried on despite his keen awareness of being out of his depth. 

“Your Gramps would speak up to defend you...and you know I did, right?” 

Donna’s eyes snapped up at once. “Of course you did!” she protested. Her hand landed on his leg.“I know that.”

“Oh, good,” he sighed. 

“You’re the founding member of the Donna Noble Fan Club—course you’d jump in to defend me.” The reassuring squeeze she gave his thigh had him rather more tense than she’d likely hoped. 

The Doctor forced himself to relax. 

“Obviously,” he sniffed. “I didn’t invest in matching badges and caps just to let some presenter raise a big stink.” 

He actually relaxed when Donna let out a proper laugh. 

“I’m just glad you went with a colour other than blue. Wouldn’t have surprised me if you matched them to the TARDIS,” she said dryly. 

“Oh, believe me, I would’ve...but I had to make sure the stickers would pop against the TARDIS walls,” the Doctor solemnly told her. 

Donna’s snort sent her body forward. The Doctor’s arms snapped out to stop her before he’d quite realised she wasn't really falling....but then her blue eyes were staring up in surprise from much closer than he was used to. 

“...Er,” the Doctor said eloquently. 

“...Yeah,” Donna breathed. 

He’d never been more grateful and irritated to catch the sounds of distant shouts and frantic running. 

Nerys gave him a disapproving look. “I thought you were going to rest after that business upstairs.” 

“Oh, come off it.” 

She held her stare, but it didn’t dent Mr. Mott's happy-go-lucky grin in the least. 

“I’ll take a turn. Give it here.” Nerys held out an insistent hand for the spade. 

Mr. Mott handed it over with a sigh. “I’m not that old,” he grumbled anyway. 

“No one’s too young for a rest,” she pointed out, and he let her hoist him up to his feet with a grunt. 

“S’pose not,” he allowed. 

She snorted and set to at once. 

“...Why’re we digging here, anyway?” Nerys eventually asked. “Are you planting something?” 

Mr. Mott’s laugh was a bit awkward, she thought with a frown. 

“Well...it’s actually something the D—I mean, something John asked me to have a look at,” he admitted. “Something odd about the earth here, he said.” 

Nerys jabbed the spade into the ground experimentally. It did crunch a bit oddly, now that he mentioned it. 

“...Huh.” 

She gnawed at her lip for a moment—something to scribble down later...but the topic change wasn’t a bad one. 

“...This John, though...?” Nerys trailed off into an implied question. 

“Ha! I knew you’d get round to asking about him eventually,” Mr. Mott chuckled. 

“Yes, well,” she muttered. Course he did. “And? What’s he like?” 

“Oughtn’t you find out for yourself?” he asked sensibly. “Get to know him and all?” 

Nerys rolled her eyes down at the hole. “I know...and I will,” she told him, “But I’m just trying to figure out what you lot think first. You’re Donna’s family...and it was all rather sudden, wasn’t it?” 

“Well...yes, it was a bit of a surprise,” Mr. Mott admitted. She watched his lips turn up as he added, “You know she tried to tell me there was nothing between them at first?” 

“Really?” Nerys asked sceptically. Even having spent so little time with them, Donna had hardly seemed capable of not keeping hold of John through it all. 

“Yeah, a more ridiculous thing I’ve rarely heard,” he laughed. “Anyhow, the—John’s a good lad, really. Unfortunate how Sylvia’s so dead-set against him...or she was, anyway.” Mr. Mott shrugged. “We’ll see.” 

She raised an eyebrow. “Still hoping the son-in-law factor will soften her?” Nerys drawled. 

“Where there’s life and all that.” 

Nerys hummed in wordless acknowledgement and got back to serious digging with a grunt. 

“It’s hard to see John as a match for Donna,” Nerys abruptly remarked. “Meekly following in her footsteps, stammering if I so much as look at him...he’ll never get a word in edgewise.” 

Mr. Mott badly hid a smile. “Oh, you’d be surprised.” 

She opened her mouth to ask something else. 

“What are you doing out here?” Justin asked out of nowhere, and she nearly leapt out of the hole. 

It was her landing that jostled the soil. Something went wobbly, and Nerys stumbled with a cry. 

“Nerys, are you—?” Mr. Mott sharply asked, but before he could finish the question she was already falling.

Chapter Text

Of course Justin was already droning at one of his camera people when the Doctor and Donna caught up with the others. A couple more crew members still huffed and puffed behind them. 

“—If you’re just joining us tonight on ‘Haunted Makeovers’, as you can see behind me the ground has begun to collapse under the weight of Ms. Taylor—”

“Hey!” Nerys breathlessly protested. 

She was up to her waist in dirt, and the Doctor was already flat on the ground examining the hole with his specs on. She was tempted to take a photo for posterity...

“What’s going on?” Donna panted.

“The earth went out from under her!” Gramps explained. His eyes danced with excitement as he proffered a strange object. “And look—this is bone, isn’t it?” 

“Bone?” Donna demanded disbelievingly, reaching out to touch it, but of course that was when her mum arrived. 

“What the hell is happening?” Mum snapped. 

“Nerys fell down a hole,” Donna informed her. “No idea why.” She glanced back at what Gramps was holding. “...And Gramps found a bone. Who needs a dog?” 

“Oi!” Gramps elbowed her, but she caught how his lips twitched. 

The sound of scrambling caught her ear, and the three of them turned to watch Nerys somehow slither to safety as even more soil caved in. 

“Ooh, an underground cavern!” The Doctor leapt into the hole before Donna could move a finger. 

Donna took a step toward him, but Mum’s grip on her arm pulled her to a halt. 

“You’re not going down there, are you?” Mum demanded. 

“What if more of it goes to dust?” Nerys wondered aloud. 

Donna rolled her eyes. “Grab the spade, then,” she said dryly. “Either way, I’m not letting the—husband go down there alone.” She tugged out of Mum’s grasp and considered the jump down. 

The Doctor looked about and, when he was sure no camera people were in eyeshot, quickly soniced around the hole. A bit more of the ground fell to bits, but it did make the descent easier. 

“What was that sound?” Nerys asked sharply. 

“Nothing—just the D—dumbo’s whistling,” Donna claimed. She gingerly shuffled down the rough incline. 

“Thanks,” the Doctor muttered dryly. She mouthed ‘sorry’ as he extended a hand to help her down the last bit. Her cheek did not heat in the least at his touch. 

From outside, they heard Mum screech, “Dad, you can’t! I absolutely forbid it!” 

“I’m not that old,” Gramps grumbled, and the Doctor leapt to guide him too. 

Donna wandered over to examine the entrance. Behind her, Justin resumed his narration. 

“As we get closer, it becomes clear that there’s an entire underground chamber that’s been lurking below the surface. Is it an abandoned air raid shelter, perhaps? Or—“

“No, I think it’s older,” Donna interrupted. “Just look at the masonry.” She traced the rough-hewn stone of the arch. 

The Doctor came closer and flashed his screwdriver over it. “Yeah, it’s old. Very old,” he murmured. 

“I’m coming down too,” Nerys called, and some of the film crew members obligingly shuffled to one side. The Doctor hurriedly tucked the sonic back in his pocket. 

Frankly, Donna was shocked she was risking getting dirt on her shoes. But she supposed Nerys was already in the hole...and she always was insatiably curious. 

Nerys turned sideways to pass Justin, who was back to addressing the cameras. “Could this underground cavern be the source of the supposed hauntings at Morley Manse?” he breathlessly asked.

“We can only hope,” Nerys muttered under her breath. “Get this nonsense wrapped up quick.” Donna did her best to stifle a snort. 

“Oh, come out of there—it looks horrid!” Mum wrung her hands outside the hole. 

“Well, I don’t know about how horrid it is, but this could be really old...” Justin took a closer look at the stonework. “We should probably call for an archaeological survey team.” 

He might be right, but Donna couldn’t imagine the Doctor waiting for that—he had trouble waiting for a bus, let alone for heaps of paperwork to be filed.

“Yes, we should,” she agreed, “But a nine-month delay makes for terrible television!”

“Donna!” Mum gasped. Donna rolled her eyes. 

“We’re not waiting around, are we, D—darling?” she asked, and he shot her a cheeky grin.

“You got that right, petal.” 

“Pass the sick bag,” Nerys grumbled. 

“You followed us down here,” Donna snapped. 

Luckily Justin suddenly had to apologise profusely for catching Nerys with his elbow, leaving her no time to retort. 

A fuss about light panels and potential risk assessments among the crew followed, but Donna was reasonably sure they’d end up filming anyway. It wasn’t like the Doctor was going to stop investigating...and Justin was sure to follow the action. 

The instant the crew produced a light, the group ventured deeper and deeper into the chamber. Strange carvings came into view—unsettling figures, and what could be ancient writing... 

Just by looking at him Donna could tell the Doctor was itching to pull out the sonic again. She could only be grateful that he wasn’t putting his alien gadget on display for Nerys... 

Gramps stumbled over something, and Donna swooped over to take his arm at once. 

“I’m alright, sweetheart,” he immediately told her, but he still accepted the support without further comment.

Distantly Mum shouted, “You come out of there right now! It could collapse—then where would you be?”

“Buried,” Donna shouted back. Nerys sniggered. 

She wasn’t surprised to hear another quick buzz of the sonic screwdriver. 

“Funny whistle you’ve got,” Nerys remarked. 

“Oh—er, yes. Sorry, bad habit.” The Doctor directed the crew member with the light panel to shine it on one wall. “But if the ceiling’s held up for centuries, I don’t see why it should give up now.”

“Centuries?” Justin inquired. “Are you sure?”

“Yep.” The Doctor popped the ‘P’ smugly. “Six hundred years, to be exact.”

“Really?” Donna asked sceptically. That sort of precision was especially unlikely with him.

He made a conciliatory gesture. “Er—well, six hundred years and a bit...”

“That’s more like it.” 

The shadows cast on the Doctor’s face made his grimace oddly sinister. 

“And how are you so certain of that?” Nerys demanded to know. Her suspicious eyes darted between them. 

The Doctor blanched. “Oh—er—” 

Donna jumped in at once—she knew what sort of nonsense he’d come up with on his own. “Didn’t I mention my little love boat over here is a doctor?” she chirped. 

And if the Doctor wasn’t lying, that might even be true. 

“Little?” the Doctor protested. Donna pretended not to hear. 

Gramps hastily disguised a bark of laughter as a cough. 

“...Yes, it did come up.” Nerys bit out. “But of what, pray tell? Medicine?” Beyond her, Justin visibly perked up. The two of them probably had matching bloody notebooks. 

“...Er.” The Doctor looked to Donna in mute appeal.

“Oh, don’t be modest, dear,” Donna twittered, resting a hand on his back, “He’s collected a whole bouquet of doctorates, haven’t you?” She linked her arm through his. 

“Y–yes,” he stammered, “Yes, I’ve, er, got a few now. Lots of things—medicine, cheesemaking...though I’ve let that one gather dust a bit...” 

“...And history,” Donna added. “Right?” She gave his arm a pinch for emphasis.

The Doctor nearly leapt out of his trainers. “Ow! I mean, yes, yes, history. Love history, me.” 

She patted his arm approvingly. “Fascinated by time, this one,” she chuckled. 

When Donna glanced back at Nerys she couldn’t quite decipher her expression. Her mouth was somewhere between a smirk and a frown, while her eyes focused on something far away...

The Doctor did his best to tune out the chatter as he squinted at the carvings. There was something peculiar about this place...and it wasn’t just that strange soil texture he’d mentioned to Wilf. There was something...something else. 

If only he could use his sonic! But Nerys was so close, and she’d noticed the sound more than once already. 

He couldn’t help but wish there was just Justin and the crew to deal with...but with Donna’s future on Earth to think of, the Doctor wasn’t quite so comfortable slinging his usual lies and half-truths about. 

That was peculiar, too. 

“Look at the detail in the arches!” Justin exclaimed, and he was off to the races with his usual yammering about the potential of the space. The Doctor had to wonder if he recognised how he used that nonsense to avoid his feelings about returning to the Manse.

He allowed himself to grimace—and for once he felt free to, even with the cameras there. They couldn’t possibly have a good angle down the tunnel, anyway.

“Oh, just—will you stop nattering?” Nerys abruptly snapped. 

The Doctor abruptly reversed his opinion—he was suddenly terribly thankful for Nerys’ presence. She jostled Justin, passing him in the narrow passage. “Can’t you tell that this place is...?” 

Nerys visibly struggled for words. The Doctor could empathise—even he didn’t know what was wrong with this place yet. How could she be expected to put it into words?

“...Just...just leave it, will you? Have some respect,” she finally demanded. “Something happened here.” 

With a huff, Nerys swept ahead of even the Doctor. 

He couldn’t begrudge her for escaping the presenter’s orbit. The Doctor would too, if he could. 

“...That’s the point of the programme,” Justin called stiffly after her. “We find effective uses for all sorts of spaces,” he continued, drawing himself up even more until his head nearly brushed the ceiling. “We reclaim exactly this sort of supposedly haunted building, and we make it—” 

“Hang on, are these—? There are manacles in here!” 

No one could fault Nerys for being even more shrill than usual. 

The Doctor and Donna exchanged a quick glance as they rushed to join her. 

“Oh, there are!” Fascinating...the Doctor knelt for a closer look. A light appeared over his shoulder—Donna had somehow appropriated the light panel. “Thanks,” he absently muttered. 

These—these were quite old, just like the rest of the construction, hand-forged and all...and yep, they were fastened deep in the stone walls...

“And there’s these scratches, too...” Nerys traced the deepest groove with a frown. 

“Oh, wow.” He leaned even closer for a better look. The Doctor glanced up at her appreciatively. “You’re clever, aren’t you?” he remarked, his mind already racing ahead. “Good eye.” 

“What’s this mean, though?” Justin asked. “Manacles, in a space like this?” 

The Doctor sat back on his heels with a sigh. “Something was imprisoned here.” He was getting old, not recognising a cell when he saw one. 

Donna’s expression caught his eye—she looked...upset, maybe? He rapidly rewound through the last minute or two, and—

Oh. 

“Don—?” he began, but then things began to happen quite quickly. 

“Something about this place—it feels...evil, doesn’t it?” Mr. Mott burst out. 

Nerys’ gaze jumped to him at once. Out of nowhere he wrung his hands, he was overflowing with tension...but where was it coming from? 

“Evil?” John spun to his feet to look at Mr. Mott properly. 

Nerys’ rather low respect for him ticked up a tiny notch at his visible concern. 

She herself didn’t feel anything particularly strange beyond the normal discomfort of being in a dank, enclosed space. Beyond Mr. Mott, Justin just looked confused...

“No, it’s not evil—it’s more sad,” Donna gasped. She suddenly looked on the edge of tears.  “Like every time I breathe...I want to cry.”

John offered her his hand. Donna’s knuckles whitened around it at once.

Nerys couldn’t help being fascinated by all this...not their relationship—the hauntings. Of course she was concerned for everyone’s safety, but this manifestation was just so different from the physical cold spot upstairs...

She noticed a bit of upset among the camera crew—was that assistant...was he crying?  

Despite that, Justin felt it appropriate to loudly insist, “It’s probably just the air.” 

She snorted. Of course. Why would he bother to care about anyone but himself? 

This overwhelming flood of emotion was something new. She could almost see it moving through the others—the fear, the despair, the powerful resentment and anger. This time the manifestation was wholly non-corporeal. 

“This is just mass hysteria! You’re feeding each other’s delusions—”

“Delusions?” Nerys laughed derisively. “You just don’t believe anyone but you has real feelings, you pompous—”

But the presenter only raised his voice over her, loudly declaring, “This place has been sealed up for a long time. Once we get the air circulating—”

“Justin!” John shouted. He lowered his voice once Justin stopped. “One of your crew—two of your crew—are crying.”

Justin just stared at him. 

Her eyes narrowed. Justin’s unemotional affect really rubbed her the wrong way.

...Lack of emotion...and an emotional overload. Was this a leakage of Justin’s feelings? 

It was a plausible explanation for what she was witnessing...and it would confirm that he really was the focus of whatever was causing this. 

At any rate, Nerys would bet anything it was a psychic projection, whoever’s emotions they were. Now that she thought to check, that might be some psychic fluttering just beyond her ken...

John’s eyebrows rose expectantly. “Don’t you want to do something about the crying?” he asked—rather sensibly, actually. Another point to him, she supposed.  

Hmm. Actually, thinking of John...he hadn’t reacted to this emotional atmosphere at all.  

None of the overwhelming terror or pain of the others had crossed his features. Wilf, Donna, and the crew all clearly felt it. Justin hadn’t seemed to feel it at all, but Nerys chalked that up to being the epicentre of the whole event. John, though...

He hadn’t even flinched. 

What kind of shielding did he have?

“...Um.” Justin seemed at an utter loss. 

Donna stepped up, reluctantly dropping the Doctor’s hand. “It’s alright, you lot, let’s just—just get out of here, yeah?” 

Little as she wished to leave him behind, someone clearly had to take responsibility for the others. None of the crew had any idea what they’d signed up for. 

“Here, I’ll pass the light panel to—” Donna did her best to keep her teeth from grinding, “Nerys. She’ll stay with the—with the others.”

Nerys gingerly accepted it. 

“Be careful, ladybird.” The Doctor’s hand circled her arm, pulling her close enough for another fleeting peck. 

Her eyes narrowed. That ‘You’re clever, aren’t you?’ directed at Nerys still rang in her ears. 

“You be more careful, bunny,” she crooned. Donna savoured the indignant flash in his eyes. Before he could protest, she pressed her lips to his again. Longer than his pitifully chaste peck... 

She gave his bum a pinch too, for good measure. The Doctor jerked away, but any exclamation was too muffled to understand. 

Top that, Spaceman. 

Donna disentangled herself from him with a sniff. 

“Right! Come along, everyone...” She chivvied a couple of stragglers ahead of her, putting an arm around poor Jas. He was still sniffling, poor thing. 

“Everyone, just stay calm...” Justin’s feeble words trailed off as the entire crew retreated. 

She did enjoy a good comeuppance. That’d better teach him to care about his own crew. 

Ahead of them, her mum still wrung her hands—they must be nearly bloody by now. 

“Mum, help me get them out—” Donna’s shout cracked into a shriek. “My ears!”  

She could barely hear the Doctor hollering her name, but Donna somehow managed to keep her feet. A band of pain tightened around her temples—her hearts raced faster and faster—

A hand yanked her forward a couple more steps, and the moment she was outside the pressure lifted. 

“Thanks,” Donna gasped, lungs going like a bellows, and Jas gave her an anxious smile. 

“No problem,” he muttered. 

The Doctor’s tense voice echoed from the passage. “Donna? Donna, are you okay?” 

“M’alright, now,” Donna called back. He’d never be able to focus until she answered. “It was this pressure, like a bombing plane, and my heart was going like anything—it’s all fine now I’m outside, promise!” 

She caught a few acidic words from Nerys and a grumble from His Nibs, but the Doctor seemed to settle back down. 

Good.

Donna loitered a moment longer, frowning down at the entrance.

The Doctor needed to get all the information out of that box of nightmares he could, she knew that, but leaving him with clever little Nerys by his side set her teeth on edge. 

What if she caught on to their fake marriage? She’d...oh, god, Donna just pinched the Doctor’s bum. Even if Nerys hadn’t caught on, what the hell would she say to him?! Whatever challenging, competitive thing they’d begun, that was a whole new level—

Oh, never mind that—worse than catching on, what if Nerys still believed in their marriage? 

Every time Nerys ever ruined things with her previous boyfriends flashed before Donna’s eyes. She always managed to chuck a spanner in the works.. 

The Doctor, though—he was so much more important than any of her gobshite exes. She’d lose so much more if he preferred the clever, shiny, new girl over dull, temporary, old Donna...

She took a deep breath. 

No. Donna had to trust him. She did trust him. 

Mostly.

Anyway, she really couldn’t leave the entire crew to Mum alone, could she? 

She straightened her shoulders.

“Right, you lot, let’s get you inside,” Donna barked, and she and Mum herded the stragglers back up to the house. 

Chapter Text

“Are you even paying attention?” 

Justin nearly smacked his head off the roof at Ms. Taylor’s sudden jab. 

“Course I am!” he yelped. 

Her eyes narrowed. 

“Don’t you have questions?” she asked. 

The weight of their eyes paralysed his tongue. 

“Er—”

“Your entire crew and Donna had to leave because they felt something so intensely,” Ms. Taylor scathingly reminded him. “All those people. Do you even care?”  

Justin drew himself upright indignantly, something swelling inside him, as Ms. Taylor squared her shoulders for a fight—

Instead, a burst of sound and fury sent all four of them scrambling for the exit. 

Justin ran. Odd stones jutted from the floor and sent him crashing into each wall in turn. He was certain Ms. Taylor was only a couple steps behind, her breath hissing in and out as she, too, sprinted on—

He couldn’t stop until he was outside, nearly collapsing flat on the sparse grass, chest roiling with a soup of unidentifiable emotions. 

When Justin dared to look back, Dr. Smith was half-carrying Mr. Mott out the doorway. 

“That was good of you.” 

The Doctor blinked rapidly. 

“Er—pardon?” 

Nerys’ frown only deepened. “That was good of you,” she begrudgingly repeated. “To help Mr. Mott like that, I mean.” 

“Of course I did! It’s Wilf, I wasn’t just going to leave him behind.” The Doctor was actually offended by her surprise. 

“Good.” 

Apparently that was all she had to say for now. Nerys sped up, nearly catching up to Justin at the front door. 

The Doctor frowned. 

He slowed a bit and gently tugged Wilf to a stop. 

“Sorry, just—erm, I was wondering...”

“Eh?” Wilf’s keen eyes shifted between his. “Everything alright, son?” 

“Do...do you know what’s going on with Donna and Nerys?” he asked. 

Wilf chuckled. “Oh, lord, you’re really lost, aren’t you?” 

“No!” the Doctor protested. “Not lost, I’m not—I sort of get it, I think.” 

He hesitated...but this was Wilf. 

“I might’ve had a friend not unlike Nerys, actually,” the Doctor admitted. His throat bobbed. “Gone now, of course, but...”

“I’m sorry.” Wilf touched his arm gently. 

He shook off the melancholy thinking of the Master always brought. “No, it’s alright. That was a while ago now. But this…it’s a bit different.” The Doctor considered it, frowning slightly. “It’s...I don’t know how to describe it, really, but I just wanted to get your view.” 

“What’s a silly old man going to see that you can’t see for yourself?” 

“I think you know you see more than most.”

“Oh, well,” Wilf looked away, clearly embarrassed, “I might’ve noticed a thing or two...” 

“And you know Donna better than anyone, I think,” he added. 

“Only because you haven’t known her as long,” Wilf quipped. 

The Doctor flushed. It was his turn to look away with embarrassment as the other man chuckled knowingly. 

“...Anyway, Donna might protest, but Nerys really is a friend to her.” Wilf nodded sharply to himself. “A good friend. They’ve had tension for a while now, almost a rivalry, I s’pose...jealousy, all that.” He shrugged. “But that was bound to happen.” 

“Was it?” the Doctor asked. “Why?”

“Well, it didn’t have to, I suppose,” he allowed. “But when two strong women move in the same circles...it’s like only one of them can succeed, you see. Something about it...they just rub each other the wrong way.” Wilf grimaced. “This world isn’t kind to womenfolk, and sometimes...sometimes the ladies don’t exactly help matters.” 

“Hmm.” Gender politics...a sensitive subject on any planet. 

“And our Nerys...” Wilf sighed with feeling. “She’s not the softest, I’ll grant you, but her heart’s in the right place. She sometimes goes about it the wrong way,” he admitted with a wry smile, “Takes the direct route, if you catch my meaning. But she always wants the best for our Donna—I’m sure of that.”

The Doctor hummed noncommittally in response, his eyes unfocused.

This new context made some sense. Nerys was still around despite the clear history of conflict between her and Donna. That had to mean something, that she was invested in Donna in some way...and Nerys’ clear care for Wilf—could she fake that sort of concern? 

The Doctor did generally trust Wilf’s instincts...but on the other hand, Donna had known Nerys more than long enough to decide for herself. She distrusted her motives from the off—surely that wasn’t for no reason.  

The Doctor sighed. There he was: right back where he started. 

“...Well, while we’re at it I can offer some advice,” Wilf finally said. A twinkle grew in his eye. “Watch your step.” 

“What? Why?” 

Wilf’s grin widened. “If Nerys has even an inkling you’re no good for our Donna, she’ll do her level best to get between you,” he warned. 

“What?! But—” The Doctor’s thumb automatically went to trace his ring. Get between them—what did that mean?

“Not that I think it’d work, mind,” Wilf laughed. The twinkle in his eye resolved into pure mischief. “You two are rock solid far as I can tell. Specially after that, er—show, back there.”  

All the blood in his body rushed to his cheeks. Oh, no—did Wilf glimpse when she’d—?

“But—I, she, it’s not—” the Doctor stammered wildly. 

Wilf just laughed some more. “Whatever you say, son.” 

The Doctor hurried inside, but the chuckle relentlessly followed.

Nerys peeked into the next room. When she found it empty, her sigh of relief was truly heartfelt. 

There were many reasons the film crew irritated her, but the way they were almost everywhere was currently top of the list. Were they somehow multiplying when she wasn’t looking?

She shut the door behind her slowly. Best to keep quiet, to avoid another ambush... 

Nerys flinched when she turned back to the room. What the hell was that?!

...Oh. A mural. 

Nerys wandered closer. Her brows drew together. Was that...?

Yep. That was an enormous lizard. It towered over a crowd of people, chasing them, and—mhm, that was blood—killing them. There were some monks and nuns among the crowd. 

Right, Morley Manse used to be a monastery lodging-house, didn’t it? 

She took several big steps back and frowned at it. 

There was something odd about that thing...and it wasn’t just the inexplicable imagery. 

Well, the whole situation was bonkers, but that was a given. Cold spots, mysterious caverns, ancient bones, and now this bloody mural—it was all frankly bizarre. 

Actually, some of it fit together rather nicely. Bones, death, ghosts...there was something there. Those bones, where someone was imprisoned...

Did...did they die there? Trapped in that suffocating cave? 

A shudder crawled up Nerys’ spine. It was hard to imagine such a grim fate. Even when inspired by such a work of—well, she supposed that mural was technically art. 

That thunderous sound down there—she’d run before she knew what was happening. The terror flicked on like a switch. She’d been overcome by a sudden irrational fear of the roof falling in, struggling for breath, never seeing the sun again—

Nerys shook herself. 

She withdrew her hand from her pocket—she’d clutched it too hard again. Nerys traced the deep imprint in her palm.

It hadn’t happened. Nothing collapsed—the chamber was still there. And even if it had, Donna, Sylvia, and the crew would’ve come back for them. 

She couldn’t help but feel for Mr. Mott, though. To be filled with that same panic, but unable to run nearly fast enough to assuage it... 

John, though—he’d stepped up. It’d been hard to tell what happened through the panic, but Nerys only heard Mr. Mott stumble once before John muttered “I’ve got you,” and when she’d turned back he was all but carrying him the rest of the way...

Guess John wasn’t as pathetic as she thought. 

Or as weedy. 

That care for Mr. Mott—that was something Nerys couldn’t help but respect. Mr. Mott’s affection for him was more than clear, too, and she usually trusted his opinion. 

Was Donna’s husband—was John actually a decent bloke? Guilt welled up inside her...

No, Nerys had to focus on her job here. It was her responsibility to break them up. Full stop. No matter how much it would hurt John or Donna, Nerys had to do it. 

She had to.

But Veena’s words echoed in her ears: “Must’ve been quick, if you know what I mean...”

Donna could very well be pregnant.

Could Nerys follow through if it meant leaving an innocent child fatherless? Or breaking up their parents, at least—It was too late to prevent permanent attachments if Donna was, anyway...

Nerys pressed her lips white. This...she didn’t have to focus on it yet. The silver lining of having a larger problem. 

Regardless of any potential baby, she had to sort this haunting situation first. It was a more immediate danger, that was certain...any respectable infant took their sweet time making an entrance, anyway. 

And once Justin’s issue was sorted, there was the programme—that would be another higher priority, too. She’d have to keep an eye out for ways to halt the production...

Then and only then would she have the bandwidth to properly dig into Donna’s personal life. Not that Nerys would turn down the chance to jab at Donna’s marriage in the meantime, if she found a way. 

That image of a burning nun was strangely compelling to the eye...

Nerys frowned. What kind of a home was this for a child? 

“There you are!” 

The Doctor rushed into the drawing room. 

Donna only redoubled her passionate polishing. God knew the silver tureen needed it after mouldering in a cupboard all these years. 

The heat in her cheeks was from the effort, obviously—no other reason. 

“...“Are you alright?” 

Donna’s head snapped up despite herself. “What?” 

“Are you alright?” the Doctor asked again. His concerned eyes flicked over her. 

So this probably wasn’t about the pinch...and clearly Jas hadn’t found him in the meantime. Thank god.

Her eyes narrowed. Then...he must mean that bit with clever little Nerys. 

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Donna snapped acidly. Ooh, that was a bit more sour than intended...but leaving him behind with her really left a bad taste in her mouth. 

She stripped off her cleaning gloves with furious energy. 

“There was that strange moment outside—when you were on your way out, with the pressure...” 

Donna blinked rapidly. Oh. The haunting...of course. The reason they were here at all. 

She felt rather silly...again. 

“Right, yeah, that,” she said inanely.  

His brows knit. “You’re sure you’re alright, then?” the Doctor checked again. 

“Yep.” Donna added a nod just to be sure he got how alright she was. “I’m fine—perfectly fine. That all dissipated when I got outside, like I said earlier.” 

“Good. That’s good.” The Doctor’s shoulders relaxed slightly. 

He wandered over toward the mantlepiece to fiddle with those strangely phallic vases. Ugly things—she’d been meaning to get rid of them...

Well. If that was all he had to ask, that was fine! Donna could do very well not explaining that little display earlier. It wasn’t like she could even explain it to herself, anyway. 

If the Doctor was going to ignore it, all the power to him! 

She pulled her gloves back on and resumed polishing.

His third thunderous sigh broke her resolve. 

“What is it?” Donna barked. She threw down her gloves in a huff. Better to just get this conversation over with than listen to his bloody sighing all day.

The Doctor jumped. Tragically the phallic vase he was examining didn’t smash on the floor. 

“Er...” 

She watched him hesitantly approach until he finally collapsed next to her on the hideous sofa. 

“I just...” The Doctor sighed. “I’m sorry about that moment with Nerys down there.” 

Donna froze. Damn it—of course he'd noticed her insecurity...and of course he was going to address it. 

He really was the best friend she’d ever had.

When the Doctor slipped his arm around her shoulders, Donna couldn’t keep herself from relaxing into him. 

“She is clever, but that doesn’t make you any less clever.” He pressed his lips to her temple. Her breath hitched. “Aren’t I always telling you how brilliant you are?” 

“Yeah, well, that’s just you,” Donna scoffed, rolling her eyes even as her cheeks burned. Brilliant—clearly she wasn’t that brilliant, given how many times she’d been wrong in just the last five minutes...

“No. It’s not just me,” he murmured. The Doctor tightened his arm around her. “I really mean it...bumblebee.” 

Donna snorted. “That’s a bit better,” she admitted. “I don’t hate that one.” 

She felt his chuckle vibrate through him. “I’ll have to try harder.” 

“Yeah, you will,” she laughed. 

His responding hum touched something inside her that Donna didn’t care to identify.

“...So. That...pinch.” 

Donna’s breathing stopped. The Doctor definitely felt that. 

He huffed out a laugh. “You definitely held up your end of ‘appearances’.” The Doctor's arm around her tightened even more.

Her heart sank even as the bottom rose back into her stomach. 

“Good,” she managed. Donna swallowed hard. “Just doing my bit.” 

She nearly leapt from her seat when a hesitant finger traced her knee. 

The Doctor was already looking down when she glanced up. His hand slipped over to span the full width of her thigh. Something was brewing in those brown eyes—something almost like—

“Donna, are you almost done with—?” 

The Doctor and Donna were at opposite ends of the sofa in the blink of an eye.

Mum scowled at the both of them from the doorway. 

“...‘Not presumptuous’ my foot. And of course you’re still not done with the silver,” she bit out. “Doctor, out. Let Donna get on with it—surely you have something to point that penlight at, anyway?”

“—Have we truly disturbed spirits from their rest in the grounds of Morley Manse? Or is the homeowner simply on a mission to validate his own theory?” 

Justin paused. 

The light on the microphone continued blindly blinking. The silence in the library was absolute.

Dr. Smith had to be doing this. That was the only reasonable explanation for everything he’d experienced here. The cold upstairs, that all-encompassing roar outside—the bones, even—

Otherwise a vast ocean of uncertainty beckoned. If this was real, what about every other place he’d investigated?

No. No, that wasn’t possible—Justin knew it wasn’t possible. Not even at Morley Manse. 

He was a child back then. He just hadn’t been able to...to put the pieces together. There was a logical explanation. 

For all of it.

Definitely. 

“Justin—?” 

He nearly leapt out of his chair. His finger slipped off the record button. 

“Oh!” Jas blinked at him. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“S’fine,” Justin grunted. He cleared his throat and resettled into a more self-assured posture. “What is it?”

“...Right. Er, I’ve got the tape from—from interviewing Mrs. Smith about, er, that odd moment in the tunnel...and about her ex-fiancé. And the bit with Ms. Taylor.”

“Ah, perfect! Drop that here, please.” Justin gestured at the appropriate bin. “How’d it go?” 

“Which one?” 

“Mmm. Well, I s’pose we’ll see about all of them eventually, but I meant the one about Mrs. Smith’s ex-fiancé.” 

It really was odd, the Smiths getting married so soon after her non-wedding...if they really were married at all. Justin shook his head at himself. As if they’d bother faking that.  

No, if Dr. Smith was faking anything, it was most definitely the hauntings. 

“It wasn’t...the worst confessional I’ve filmed,” Jas finally pronounced. His mouth twisted wryly as he continued, “But I wouldn’t say...well. Mrs. Smith was decidedly short with me. Said some things about telling you to leave her personal relationships out of it.” 

Justin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, she might have,” he allowed, “At the time she was specifically referring to her relationship with Ms. Taylor, if memory serves.” 

“Yeah, well...” Jas shrugged. “She basically said she was well shot of this Lance character. Loves her husband, all that. Nothing special.” 

“Hmm.” He pushed himself a bit to the side in his chair, letting his legs stretch out properly. “...Bit silly for Mrs. Smith to forbid her personal life,” Justin eventually remarked. “This is a reality programme—personal lives are half the point.” 

“I sincerely doubt Mrs. Smith will accept that argument,” came his assistant’s diplomatic reply. 

Justin snorted. That was an understatement. 

“Ah, well,” he sighed, “We’ve got the footage, anyway. We’ll see if it’s usable.” 

“Right. Good.” 

He turned back to the microphone. Now, where was he...?

A delicately cleared throat came from behind him. 

“What else is there?” Justin demanded. 

Jas grimaced politely. “I...well, the sound engineers have something to show you...”

“Ah, there you are!” 

Nerys failed not to enjoy how Donna froze the moment she spoke from the doorway. 

“Right. Hello again, Nerys,” Donna ground out. 

Nerys shut the drawing room door behind her. Donna somehow tensed even more on that repugnant sofa. Why hadn’t they gotten rid of that eyesore? 

...Actually, the tension might actually help—Donna might slip and reveal even more...

Or so Nerys hoped. 

She cleared her throat. “I’ve been meaning to find the time to chat,” Nerys purred, sashaying into the room. Donna redoubled her effort at whatever she was doing—polishing silver? 

She wrinkled her nose. 

“I’m sure you have,” Donna spat between her teeth. 

Nerys sank into an armchair. “So. John, huh?” No point beating about the bush. 

Donna scrubbed even harder. 

She just raised her voice. “John, huh?” 

“...Yep.” Donna dropped the filthy rag on the table and grabbed a fresh one. 

One word answer, eh? Nice try. 

“Not unattractive, is he? Well done, Donna.” Nerys leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand. “You must be deliriously happy—newlyweds always are.” Hmm...what else could she prod at? “Terribly affectionate, too.” 

Donna kept her head down, but that couldn’t hide her scarlet flush. “We—we’re not so bad,” she stammered. 

Nerys held back a triumphant grin with difficulty. 

“Oh, you’re far from the worst I’ve seen...but you are almost always touching.” She tried for a tinkling laugh. “Haven’t you noticed?” 

Donna’s brows knit. 

...Had she actually not noticed? Interesting. 

“You met at your first wedding, right? Well, first attempt at a wedding.” She managed a strained giggle as Donna bridled, fumbling the cleaning cloth. “It’s rather romantic, really...”

“What?” 

“Meeting at a wedding, and then getting married yourselves?” Nerys clasped her hands, sighing with exaggerated wistfulness. “Too bad for poor Lance, though...” Maybe she could finally find out what really happened there. 

Donna stiffened. “Too bad Lance wasn’t worth my time, in the end, you mean,” she bit out. Donna set down the silver dish with a clang. She stripped off the cleaning gloves with sharp, furious motions.

Hmm. That was certainly an interesting reaction.

“Thanks ever so much for telling Justin about him, by the way. And,” Donna continued, raising her voice over Nerys’ instinctive retort, “For the record? Not that you care, but romance was the last thing on my mind when I met the D—John.” 

She couldn’t help how high her eyebrows rose. “Really?” 

Donna’s nostrils flared.“Yes, really,” she spat. She threw down the gloves on top of the spent rags.

“Well! That does surprise me.” 

It actually did, a bit. Nerys had had her suspicions at the time, but when that doctor man never rematerialised she’d nearly forgotten.

“Seems like you two got past that.” 

“Yeah, well...yes, we did,” Donna bit out.

“How did John propose, in the end?” Nerys asked sweetly. “Didn’t you elope?” 

Donna looked away. 

“—Never liked wallpaper, anyway. We should just paint the entire house TARDIS blue and be done with it,” the Doctor was saying, and Donna was about ready to strangle him. Or possibly Mum. Maybe both? 

She could easily manage it by tying the stacks and stacks of fabric swatches together—her mother was somehow far worse about this house-decorating business than her wedding, and that was saying something. 

...Well, maybe she’d spare the Doctor. It wasn’t really his fault she was so tense, anyway. 

Donna frowned down at the vast array of paint chips. 

She started at a gentle touch to her elbow. 

“Are you alright?” he asked. When she grimaced, the Doctor amended the question to, “What’s wrong?” 

“...We really should be married.” The dreaded words finally fell from her lips.

He started violently. “What?!” 

Donna turned almost purple. “Oh—no, no, I—for the programme!” she yelped. “Applying, I mean! They’re not exactly going to go for two best friends renovating a house together, are they?” 

She forced an awkward laugh, but the Doctor just looked confused. 

“...They won’t?” 

Times like this, his alienness was impossible to ignore. 

“No, no, it’s—look, you’ve seen a few episodes now, right?” Donna desperately asked. 

The Doctor nodded obligingly. 

“Were the homeowners all couples?”

He frowned. “Well...”

“I can answer that for you—they were.” Donna sighed heavily. “Half of the programme’s appeal is the relationships,” she explained. “The audience having opinions on who’s a bad husband, whether they should get a divorce...that sort of thing.” 

“Seriously?” 

“Yep.” 

He blinked rapidly. 

Donna waited for a barrage of further questions, but none came. Instead, the Doctor plunged his hand deep into his left-hand trouser pocket. 

“What’re you doing?” she demanded suspiciously, but he didn’t reply. 

The Doctor gave up on that one and moved to the right-hand pocket instead. 

What the hell did he need his sonic for?

“Doctor...” 

He let out a triumphant “Aha!” and shoved his chair back as he stood. 

“What are you—?” 

Donna cut herself off as the Doctor knelt before her in the sea of wallpaper swatches. Her hearts didn’t skip a beat. 

She smacked him in the arm. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The Doctor grinned cheekily. “Not proposing,” he told her. He slipped two rings onto her left hand. 

Donna had gone rather pink, fiddling with her wedding bands.

“...Well?” Nerys prompted. It must’ve been good...or awful. Hard to tell. 

“None of your business,” Donna finally told her. Her mouth turned up...so soon after being irritated. Unusual, for Donna. “But it was—it was really rather sweet...for him.” 

For him? That wasn’t saying much, given how awkward John was, but she supposed that was for Donna to decide. 

“That’s just great for you!” 

Donna’s smile twisted into a grimace. 

“And it’s totally alright if you don’t want to tell me something, by the way,” she added virtuously. “Privacy can be so important when couples hit that first bump in the road, as I’m sure you know...”

“What?” Donna demanded. 

Nerys widened her eyes guilelessly. “...Oh, I’m so sorry if I’m speaking out of turn! John just happened to mention something earlier—something about how you two’ve had a bit of trouble. That you’ve hit a rough patch...”

“Did he.” That clipped tone was so familiar. 

She hid a triumphant smirk. “It’s really so lovely how you’re saving this house and your marriage, together...” Nerys leaned forward and reached out a hand. “And I’m always here if you need to talk.” 

She congratulated herself on the tightening of Donna’s jaw. 

This might be a good time to hint at the hypothetical baby, with her already off-balance.

Nerys had just opened her mouth when Donna frantically checked her watch. 

“Oh, I’m late to meet Justin and—and, er, John—so sorry!” Donna shot to her feet, nearly upsetting the massive silver dish, and was out the door in no time flat.

The door swung wildly behind her. 

Nerys pursed her lips. 

Well. There would be other opportunities.

Chapter Text

“Donna? Are you alright, sweetheart?” 

She blinked. Right, she’d been glaring at the table a while now, hadn’t she? 

“Sorry, Gramps,” Donna sighed. “What was that?” 

He frowned at her. “Something’s bothering you. Your old Gramps can tell. What is it?” 

Her scowl deepened. “...It’s my ‘husband’,” she growled—as best she could when doing air quotes, anyway. “Something Nerys saw fit to pass along.” 

Daft Martian muppet waltzing about spilling their private business to all and sundry...

Not that they had actual private business, but the principle was the same.

“Oh?” Gramps slid her the biscuit plate. She claimed the last chocolate digestive. 

“Apparently my marriage has hit a rough patch,” Donna muttered. “First I’m hearing of it.” She took a baleful bite. 

“I said he’d be for it right off the hop,” Gramps sighed, shaking his head.

“He actually said that?!” she squawked. Crumbs went everywhere.

Donna appreciated that he at least hid his smile behind his mug. She took a moment to sweep the biscuit crumbs onto the empty plate—Mum would have her head if she came in to find that mess. 

Gramps sobered slightly. 

“What is it?” she asked, trying for dignity despite it all. 

The creases in his forehead deepened. “...Are you two going through a rough patch?” he finally asked. 

Gramps held up a hand to pause her immediate reaction. 

“Just—there was something he said, I just...” He suddenly looked years older. “I worry about you, out there, you know? Both of you.” 

“Oh, Gramps...” Donna’s mouth turned down. “...Sort of,” she hedged, fiddling with a teaspoon. “It’s not—not between us, don’t worry about that. But...”

The shadow of Messaline hung over them still. It’d cut the Doctor to the bone, of that much she was certain. 

Hopefully...hopefully that wasn’t what he’d meant. 

“Well, I can’t know what he said to you, but what I’m thinking of, it’s...” She trailed off uncomfortably. “...I’m not sure he’d want me to say anything,” Donna finally said. “It was more his hurt than mine.”

“But...you were hurt, too?” 

The concern in his voice warmed her heart even as it sank. 

“...Yeah,” Donna sighed. She swallowed. “Yeah, it was—it was awful.” She was so lovely, and so like him...

Gramps’ hand landed on hers at once. “Oh, sweetheart—I, I know you don’t feel you can say, but just know I’m here when you can. For you and that wonderful man of yours—always.”  

“I know,” she croaked. “And he does, too.”

Donna cleared her throat. 

“Not that he’s my ‘wonderful man’,” she hastily added, withdrawing her hand abruptly. “Or anyone’s ‘wonderful man’. He’s rather hard work, actually. Leaves his socks everywhere...”

“If you say so, darling.” 

She darted a sharp glance his way. Gramps’ eyes danced over the rim of his mug. 

“Yeah, well...I do. So there,” she told him sternly. 

Donna glared when he only chuckled. 

“...In fact, I’m going to go find him and give him a piece of my mind.” Donna’s chair scraped the flagstones as she abruptly stood. “‘Rough patch’...we’re having one now, that’s for sure.”

If Justin kept staring at his feet, he could almost forget he was at Morley Manse at all. 

The crows overhead quarked and quorked to each other in their own language. 

God, this place. He’d been certain he’d never return. So sure he’d never set foot on this cursed ground again...

...No, not cursed, that was far too fanciful. Too close to that superstitious nonsense. Maybe—er—more like...

Justin glanced around. 

...Gloomy? Gloomy ground? No, that wouldn’t do at all. Perhaps...hostile?

He considered that for a moment. The feeble sunlight spattered hopelessly against dark stone walls. 

Yes. Hostile. That was it precisely. Something about Morley Manse just pushed you away. Kept you at arms’ length. 

Maybe that was why he’d never felt welcome here. 

The grimace spread over Justin’s face without permission at the thought. ‘Home’...the idea meant less than nothing to him. All the years he spent here didn’t make this place a home. 

It never was. 

Justin vigorously cleared his throat, sending the crows up into the sky again, cawing an alarm. Never mind that emotional bollocks—work, he’d better focus on his work.

That nonsense the sound engineers showed him...they were far too susceptible to the usual mystical nonsense, if you asked him, claiming they’d picked up a spooky voice in the recordings.

It was all a load of tosh, obviously. He’d tried to seem open to it, of course, even listened to the staticy tape over and over again, but there was no way there were actual words. 

Really.

No way at all.  

He was just trying to impose order on chaos. Reading patterns into nothing. That’s exactly what every person who swore up and down a ghost lived in their attic did. 

A curtain fluttered—an improperly balanced door swung shut—the lights flickered—maybe nothing at all happened...no matter what did or didn’t happen, these ridiculous people would bleat that Great-Aunt Eunice obviously wanted them to turn the heat up. 

No one was shouting ‘HOME’ in words too distorted to hear. 

No one.

And if someone was, it had to be Dr. Smith’s doing. 

“There you are.” 

The Doctor looked up with a start. “Here I am,” he agreed. 

Donna glared down at him.

He squinted through his specs. “Are you alright?” 

She only glared harder. “I have a bone to pick with you,” Donna bit out. 

His eyes lit up. “You found another one? Where?”

“Not that sort of bone!”

Her voice echoed down the corridor. 

“Oh, god, the cameras—look, get in here.” Donna hauled him sideways into the nearest room—eugh, the ballroom, not her favourite. 

“Er...so you’re not alright, then?” the Doctor asked. He uneasily eyed the painted lizard.

“Do I look alright?” Donna ground out. 

He looked her up and down. 

“...Yes,” the Doctor decided. 

Biggest dunce in the universe, this one.

“You told bloody Nerys that our marriage is in trouble! I’m not going to be alright until I’m good and ready, Spaceman!” Donna roared. 

“I what?” he yelped. “When did I—? Oh.” 

“Yeah, ‘oh’,” she huffed. “And I know you said it! Gramps told me so!” 

The Doctor grimaced. “I—Donna, I didn’t mean—”

“What did you actually say?” she demanded sharply. “Did you tell Justin too? Maybe the whole crew while you were at it?” 

“...Well, it was sort of, er—on camera...” 

He trailed off as Donna scoffed. Of course it was filmed—should’ve taken out an advertisement while he was at it. Might as well announce to the entire world that Donna Noble’s marriage was foundering already! 

The Doctor stuffed his hands deep into his pockets. “...Look, I was just explaining how we—how we ended up here, back on Earth, in this house...” He cleared his throat. “...After we’d had a bit of trouble.” 

He abruptly found his own shoelaces fascinating. 

Donna caught her breath all at once. For once she wished she wasn’t right about what he’d meant—and she was right. It was all right there on his face. Oh, Doctor...

“...And then I’d wandered off into saying that we have to save certain things. Next thing I knew, Justin asked me if we were trying to save our marriage by saving this house, and—well, you know me!” The Doctor somehow managed to shrug with his hands still in his pockets. “My mouth answered before I even knew what was happening.”

She wanted to keep shouting. It’d be much easier to still be flatly furious with him, but all her anger had snuffed itself out the instant he’d even obliquely referenced Jenny. 

Well, he’d be no use to anyone in this mood. She’d have to break out the big guns.

“...You’re a massive space nitwit, you know that?” Donna sighed. 

The Doctor’s head snapped up. “Oi!” 

“Daft alien twit.” 

His mouth twitched. “No wonder we’re having marriage troubles if that’s what you call your husband,” the Doctor dared to say. 

Her mouth twitched. “I just call ‘em like I see ‘em.” 

“Alright, then...Your Majesty.” He swept a surprisingly graceful bow.

Her mouth didn’t just twitch this time—it was a full-blown smile. Donna held out an imperious hand. “That’s more like it,” she told him. “Keep that up and we’ll be perfectly fine.”

The Doctor claimed her hand and clutched it to his chest as he straightened. “Very well, snugglebump.” 

“Penguin.”

“Emerald of my life,” he crooned.  

Her eyes darted to her ‘engagement’ ring, resting over his hearts.

“Twinkletoes.” 

He visibly baulked at that one, but Donna stood her ground. 

“Well, what d’you call that fancy footwork there with the bow?” she demanded. 

The Doctor’s eyebrows rose. “If you think that’s fancy, just wait for our next ball,” he threatened.  

“Not in this ballroom, I hope,” Donna muttered darkly, eyeing the aforementioned lizard. Gave her the creeps. “Oh, by the way, we’re supposed to meet Justin in...” 

She briskly checked her watch. 

“...Ten minutes. D’you remember what we talked about doing with the corridor?” she asked. 

The Doctor grimaced. “Are you sure we can’t just paint it blue and call it a day?” he hopelessly inquired. 

“Where are you staying?” 

Nerys caught Sylvia’s distant question, but she only really started paying attention when she realised who she was talking to. 

“A hotel under the flyover,” answered Justin’s assistant.

“Lovely. I’d take the crew back there now—it’s not safe,” Sylvia insisted, and wow—that was a fantastic idea. 

Really. 

Not just because it’d mean the filming would end, either. 

“We’re fine,” the assistant was awkwardly saying when Nerys burst in. “We—”

“What a fantastic idea,” Nerys announced, beaming. The less stray people in harm’s way, the better. 

That she’d also have more leeway to corner Donna again or get a minute alone with John was just a bonus. As well the tiny benefit of no longer risking Donna being broadcast for them to see...

“But,” he began, but Sylvia brightened on receiving backup. 

She turned back to that poor assistant with renewed spirits. “See? She agrees with me—you’ll all be better off far away from this place. Bad things happen around him!” 

The assistant opened his mouth to speak...and then closed it again awkwardly. 

“Excuse me.” 

Oh, god. The prima donna had arrived. 

Nerys would not quail in the face of a mere presenter. She turned on the spot to face him. 

Justin broadened his glare to both of them. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” he spat. 

Sylvia didn’t flinch. “They really should leave,” she said baldly. “It’s not safe.”  

“She’s right,” Nerys chimed in, but Justin only redirected his glare back at her. 

“...I’ll just...” The assistant went to stand, but Sylvia grabbed his arm. 

“You—sit back down.” She glared back at his boss, but Justin didn’t shift an inch. “Don’t be afraid to speak your mind in front of him.”  

He awkwardly sat back down.

“Excuse me?” The words barely made it through Justin’s gritted teeth. 

“These people don’t have to stay here if they don’t want to,” Nerys announced. She crossed her arms. “No job’s worth risking your life.” 

“Well, I—” the assistant began, but Sylvia spoke over him. 

“I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, ghosts, skeletons, whatever it is—but it’s not safe.”  

“There is no supernatural,” Justin growled. 

Nerys scoffed. “Right, and I’m the Queen.” 

The television presenter’s jaw tightened. 

“Have you slept through the last few years?” Sylvia snapped. “There’s been more strange things happening than you could shake a stick at!” 

“Mass hysteria—” 

“You seriously think all of them were mass hysteria?” Nerys demanded incredulously. “President of America gets killed, Downing Street blown up, all the cars go berserk—you had to see some of that for yourself! Or are you just that stupid?” 

“None of that matters!” he roared. Nerys took an involuntary step back—Sylvia shut her mouth with a click—the assistant somehow shrank smaller in his seat. 

Justin’s chest heaved with fury—

Then he stormed out of the room. 

“For the last time, it’s bengal beige—not taupe or cerise,” Donna hissed in his ear. “Or ecru, before you ask.” She kept a wary eye on the cameraperson perched across the room. 

The Doctor barely resisted the urge to irritably rub that ear. 

“Yes, yes, I get it,” he grumbled under his breath. If he never had to think of wallpaper again, it’d be too soon. 

She took another breath, probably to berate him about the choice of settees or the finish on the sconces, but thankfully the rapidly approaching footsteps put a stop to that. 

Justin entered, his face twisted into an unfamiliar expression.

The Doctor arranged his features in his best approximation of ‘welcoming’ and ‘excited to discuss décor some more’. 

Then Nerys burst in after him, already shouting, “Don’t be such a bloody coward—”

“A coward?!” Justin wheeled around in one swift movement. Nerys skidded to a stop just inside the entrance hall. 

“Yes,” she spat in high dudgeon, “An arrogant coward. Can’t even imagine that you don’t have the whole picture, that there might be some relevant information you don’t have—”

But he didn’t appear to be listening. “A coward, really—when you two are determined that my entire team should run away?” Justin bellowed. His face shifted to an unbecoming shade of cerise. “Run from imaginary danger?”

Nerys’ eyes narrowed. 

“What—?” the Doctor tried to say, but it was no use. 

“How dare you interfere with my crew! They work for me, and they’ll leave when I’m good and ready!” The television presenter’s eyes were wild—somehow even wilder than when the four of them had fled from that underground cell. 

A sound that was more feeling than actual noise reverberated in the Doctor’s bones. Donna pressed closer to him. 

“They’re in danger!” Nerys shrieked. Her bony fists clenched even tighter—was she holding something in one of them? “It isn’t fair to them!” 

“Life isn’t fair!” Justin screamed at the top of his lungs. “God knows it was never fair to me!” 

That sound escalated into a deafening rumble. Every item in the room vibrated with the sound—an elaborate bowl of potpourri was jostled off the edge of the credenza and smashed to bits on the flagstones. 

The Doctor stepped forward and opened his mouth to shout something—even he didn’t know what—but the sight of the paper tearing itself from the walls halted him in his tracks. 

He stifled any glimmer of glee over ruined wallpaper at once as a stiff breeze whipped through the room. 

“What do we do?” Donna hollered into his ear. The Doctor winced. 

“I don’t know,” he shouted back—but then the chandelier swung, creaking ominously. 

On instinct the Doctor threw himself and Donna back against the closest wall, covering her with his own body—

He pressed his face against her shoulder—her heartbeat fluttered so rapidly—and an ear-splitting crash shook Morley Manse. 

One moment Sylvia was comforting that nice young man, then the next she was in the entrance hall, breathlessly gaping at the shattered chandelier. 

A part of her mourned the light fixture—it really had offset the feature staircase beautifully—but the rest of her was busy anxiously calling Donna, Nerys—was Dad inside the house?! No, no, he went out again to dig up the flower beds—

“I’m fine, Mum,” her daughter called from across the room. 

Sylvia impatiently wafted at some of the dust. She could just make Donna out through the haze—had that man tackled her? 

“Good,” she crisply remarked. 

“...And the Doctor’s fine too, in case you care at all,” Donna added dryly. 

“I never doubted he was,” Sylvia sniffed. “A cockroach, he is—whole house could be flattened and there he’d still be.” 

“Uncalled for!” he protested, but it was easy to ignore him.

Anyway, that was one down—or two, she supposed—all the rest still to go. “Nerys?” she called. 

“Also fine...I think,” came the response, far closer and far quieter than Sylvia expected. She whipped round to see Nerys leaning against the wall, her face rather pale. 

“Oh, dear, you look awful—well, let’s just make sure everyone else is alright first...”

Justin, that wretched man, stood frozen very near the epicentre of the mess. How he’d managed to escape with nary a cut was beyond Sylvia. 

But the crew—all those other poor people, they were all frozen too, just like Justin. In shock, the poor things. 

Oh—no, it was only most of them who were frozen. That poor production coordinator silently wept under one of the large arms of the chandelier, and tears and mucus trickled down the cheeks of that lad with the big bushy thing on a stick... 

With every passing moment more members of the crew looked on the edge of tears. 

Time to get to work. 

“I’m sending the crew to their hotel,” Sylvia briskly announced. “They’ve had quite enough house fall on them for one day.” 

“Agreed,” Jas said faintly. He must’ve followed her here at some point, she presumed. He took in the mess with rising horror. “I’ll...I’ll call us some cabs. And perhaps an ambulance...” He produced his mobile from nowhere as he hurried over to help up the production coordinator. 

“Good.” Sylvia whirled around to glare at Justin. “I don’t care what he has to say on the subject—no television programme is worth risking lives. End of!” 

She kept a beady eye on the crew until the majority of them managed a nod. 

Chapter Text

Nerys was bleeding. It was all Donna could see.

Not literally, obviously—to one side Mum was herding most of the crew outside, while Jas and another crew member checked on the production coordinator on the other. Oh, what was her name—Cindy, maybe? And then there was Justin, still standing there like an abandoned marionette, that wretched camera in his hand like always...

But across the room Nerys bled from a handful of minor cuts. She was so pale...her eyes unfocused... 

The Doctor and Donna exchanged a speaking glance. 

Without saying a word, the Doctor gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and headed toward Justin. 

Donna led Nerys away to the kitchen. 

She was surprised by the lack of protest—when was the last time she’d seen Nerys silent for more than a minute or two? But it went on and on...

She must really be in shock. 

In fact, Donna was cleaning the first cut when the first sound escaped her—a hiss when she gently dabbed hydrogen peroxide over a long scratch on her arm. 

“You alright?” 

Nerys’ mouth twisted. “Bleeding.” 

Donna let out a surprised laugh. “Fair.”

She applied a swipe of antibiotic ointment and covered the wound with a bandage. 

“One down. Loads still to go, unfortunately.” 

Nerys sighed.

Well, might as well keep on while she was quiet. Donna got back to work. Luckily she only needed the tweezers twice, where a splinter and a shard of crystal was stuck in Nerys’ skin...and none of them were very deep, either...

She was so engrossed in the rhythm of clean-ointment-bandage-repeat that Nerys’ next word nearly made her jump. 

“Thanks,” she murmured at the top of Donna’s head. 

Her head snapped up in surprise. “What?”

Nerys’ mouth pursed into a much more familiar expression. “You heard me,” she told her. 

“...You’re welcome, then.” Donna fumbled through unwrapping another bandage. “What was I supposed to do, let you bleed out on the upholstery?”

Nerys actually snorted. A tiny one, but a snort nonetheless. But when Donna glanced at her, she pointedly looked away...though her cheek looked like she just might be smiling.

Donna never did back down from a challenge. 

“Getting the armchairs re-covered once was enough of a nightmare,” she added. “Bloody receptionist wouldn’t return my calls. Once is an accident, twice is coincidence, but four times? That’s grounds for declaring war.” 

Donna took pride in the chuckle she startled from Nerys. She hadn’t heard that sort of relaxed laugh from her in a long, long while. Actually, she couldn’t quite recall the last time, despite how familiar it was...

“What d’you think, then?”  

Nerys obligingly looked over the arrangements. 

Three midnight blue armchairs bookended the settee—two on one side, separated by a tiny side table, and one on the other. The mahogany coffee table in the centre was inlaid with a delicate pattern of lighter wood and mother-of-pearl. 

The rug, though...

“It’s nice,” Nerys remarked, “But that rug is definitely too small.” 

Her face fell. 

“I didn’t think it was so bad...” She trailed off, twisting a lock of ginger hair between her fingers. 

“Sorry, but it really is. It’s barely even the size of the table!” It made the rest of the furniture look incongruously large—like the table and rug were its own little island, completely separate from the rest of the seating. 

“Damn. I paid way too much for that rug,” she grumbled. 

“Buck up. I’m sure you can find something else that fits.” Nerys awkwardly patted her on the back. 

Something else occurred to her. 

“Why’re there three armchairs, anyway?” Nerys asked. “Don’t people usually stick to two?”

“I dunno, actually.” She frowned suddenly. “They came as a set. I just...the third one would’ve been lonely if I left her behind.”

Nerys couldn’t hold in a genuine laugh. She barely even resented the smug grin directed at her after.

Donna had almost lost track of what she was saying by the time she got to the final scrape. 

“...Hand to god, he actually suggested painting everything blue just so we could be done with deciding all of it. Blue!” Donna rolled her eyes. “Not that it’s a bad colour or anything, but you can’t just use the same colour throughout, you know?” 

“So you were fighting over the house a bit, huh?” 

With that question she came back to herself. Oh, god, what was she thinking, venting about the Doctor to Nerys?  

“I—I mean, maybe a little? Nothing, er, strange about that, I’m sure,” Donna stammered. “Just—a normal amount of conflict. Normal for any couple.” 

“If you say so.” 

Donna’s eyes narrowed. “I do, actually,” she bit out. 

Nerys turned up her nose. I’ll just shut up, then,” she muttered sourly, “Clearly you don’t want to hear what I have to say...”

“Maybe I would if you knew him at all,” Donna snapped, “But you don’t.”

Nerys’ eyebrows rose. “How well do I need to know him before I can say anything?” she asked tartly. “As long as you did before marrying him, or will a few more hours magically make me worth listening to?” 

Donna’s fingers tightened on the cotton bud, squeezing more hydrogen peroxide over the scrape than intended. Nerys flinched from the sting. 

“What’re you—?” she began indignantly, but Donna interrupted. 

“How dare you judge my choices? I can marry whoever I damn well like!”

When Nerys stood, Donna did too. 

“And not that your opinion actually matters, but he happens to be the best man I’ve ever known! Or, one of them, anyway.”

“Listen—” 

“No, you listen,” Donna snapped. “My opinion of him matters. Gramps’ opinion of him matters. No one else’s. I’m going to live my life how I like, even if it’s a mistake, and you, my mum, and everyone else need to just shut up and leave us be!”

Nerys’ nostrils flared. The set of her mouth was familiar to Donna—she still didn’t agree. 

All of her frustration with the five years of Nerys’ antics boiled over at once. 

“What’s your actual problem with me, anyway?” Donna burst out. “Why’s it every time I have anything good in my life, you have to poke your nose in?”

“I—”

“D’you have some sort of alert on your mobile, maybe? Something that goes off whenever I’m happy?” she demanded. “‘Oh, can’t let Donna live her life in peace—time to scare off her boyfriend!’ Is that it?” 

“I—I don’t—” Nerys fumbled for words in a way she very rarely did. One hand slipped into her pocket. “It’s not—it’s—it’s not what you think, it’s—Donna, you just don’t understand!”

Her eyes narrowed. 

“Bollocks!” Donna snapped. “That’s utter bollocks—‘oh, there’s a good reason, I swear, but I just can’t tell you’? What kind of an answer is that?”  

Nerys’ mouth worked silently for a long moment. 

“I’ll tell you,” Donna hissed, “It isn’t one.”  

Her whole body seethed with fury—Donna hardly knew when she’d been so furious before. 

“I don’t know how I haven’t hit this point before, but I’m hitting it now: you aren’t my friend.” 

Donna furiously shoved her sympathy aside when Nerys took a halting step back, her face twisting. 

“A real friend wouldn’t act like this!” she spat. “A real friend wouldn’t go out of her way to—to stop me being happy. It’s a low bar, and you can’t possibly meet it. What do you think that means?” 

Nerys turned away—Donna glimpsed her hand curled round something, knuckles completely white—and without a word, she stalked out of the kitchen altogether. 

Donna’s fury finally began to subside, but what inexplicably replaced it was...guilt. 

The fresh air outside that mausoleum was more than welcome. Nerys paused just outside the front doors, her chest still heaving. 

The bustle of Sylvia shoving the last few crew members into a cab caught her eye. 

Thank god—that was one problem dealt with. The risk of Donna’s image being beamed across the nation was finally over. She was safe. 

...Of course, that also meant Donna’s personal life moved up the ‘to do’ list. 

Good thing she hadn’t just had a massive fight with her about it or anything. 

Nerys hurried around the side of the house to escape into the grounds. She didn’t want to risk talking to Sylvia right now. Better to walk it off than to end up shouting at someone who wouldn’t understand why it was so infuriating—  

She took a deep breath, held it, and slowly let it out. 

In—clouds...still water...other relaxing things...

Out—cool breezes...rustling trees...how dare she?

Okay, deep breathing wasn’t helping. 

After all this time, Donna bloody Noble dared to lecture her about friendship?! 

That was just—Nerys didn’t have the words to describe how she felt. She kicked out at the gravel so furiously she nearly tripped. 

That conversation—no, that wasn’t even a conversation, that was a scolding! Like she was a child! But it was the cherry on top of a shite sundae she’d been shovelling back for years.  

Her fingers began to ache. Nerys dropped it back in her pocket, flexing her fingers to ease the strain of gripping too hard for too long. 

Nerys could just leave if her efforts were so unwelcome. She could get back in her car and drive away from Morley Manse, away from Chiswick—away from London altogether, even—and disappear, never to be bothered with Donna Noble’s messes ever again...

Nerys sighed. 

No. No, she couldn’t. She couldn’t possibly do that. Not when the stakes were so high.

She’d do her duty, Nerys told herself sternly. But listening to that self-righteous, ignorant load of bollocks wasn’t her sodding duty. 

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Nerys told her flatly. 

But her face was set in the most serious expression she’d ever seen her have. “‘Fraid not. I’m going to change, and you—well, I can’t make you do anything, but I can say I’d really appreciate not being captured...” 

Nerys couldn’t help being impressed by how fast she was typing under so much pressure. But what she was asking of her, to protect her human self from who-knew-what consequence...how exactly could Nerys look her in the face and say no? 

Could she say no? 

What would happen if she did? Would Nerys be captured too?

“But—but—how long will we be stuck there?” she stammered.  

The ship’s sudden lurch nearly sent Nerys sideways. Luckily her grip on the console held. 

“No idea!” her friend said with grim cheer. “It’s—just don’t have much time to set it all up. I dunno if I can calculate that with any accuracy.” 

Not even an estimate? Was she going to spend the rest of her life babysitting her?!

She’d opened her mouth to shout just that when the next big bump sent Nerys to the floor. A yelp escaped instead. When Nerys regained her feet, her friend was explaining some more as she frantically typed away. 

“—Anyway, the TARDIS will pack us each a bag. I’ve asked him to put together a list of rules, some do's and don’ts to help guide you for the time being—I really don’t know how long it’ll be, but obviously they can also travel in time. So it could be a while,” she told her rapidly. 

Oh, thank god, at least there was a guidebook. 

Then her sudden frown took Nerys off-guard. 

“The one thing is they’ll definitely be scanning local communications. It’ll be in the rules I’m sure, but you need to make sure I don’t draw any extra attention, alright? No television interviews, no snaps in the tabloids, and absolutely no vlogging.” 

“I s’pose,” Nerys grumbled. Her head spun with information. Vlogging—she’d definitely heard that word before. What was it short for again? “Any other requests? Watermelon margarita or something?”

Her friend flashed that familiar grin for a second—but then the TARDIS dropped some sort of spidery mechanism from the ceiling, and her grin disappeared at once. 

Nerys found her hand back around that ruddy fob watch in her pocket, squeezing hard enough to cut off circulation. 

‘For the time being’ indeed. It’d been years, now, and she’d had about enough of this shite. All she wanted was to go home. 

‘Home’...she hardly knew the meaning of the word any more. 

It definitely wasn’t the prohibitively expensive shoebox she lived in now. Did it mean the crumbling dive where she grew up? Or maybe her crappy old flat, with all its shortcomings...

Her pace slowed as she turned a corner—thankfully, as it turned out, since Mr. Mott and Justin were standing right there. 

“Oh, Nerys!” Mr. Mott exclaimed. 

“Sorry,” she told him, a bit awkwardly, “I—I didn’t mean to interrupt...” 

Nerys avoided Justin’s accusatory gaze. 

“Oh, it’s alright, darling.” Mr. Mott’s eyes widened with concern. “Looks like you were in the thick of that mess with the chandelier, eh?” 

She looked down at her arms with a start—the cuts had mostly stopped stinging, so she’d almost forgotten about them...

“Oh, dear, they missed that one with the bandages.” He pointed out the scrape that Donna was last tending. 

How appropriate that Donna poured salt in a metaphorical open wound even as she left her with a literal one.

“Right, yeah—I just needed to get some air,” Nerys quickly said. “I’ll go back later.” 

Her eyes flicked between the two of them. Mr. Mott looked strangely shifty. 

“What’re you two up to?” she asked. 

“Oh, nothing,” Mr. Mott claimed. Justin muttered something mostly indecipherable, but ‘Dr. Smith’ was easy to make out. 

“Discussing the good doctor, eh?” Nerys raised an eyebrow at Mr. Mott, who gave her a droll look. 

“Nothing important,” he dismissed at once. “Justin...well, he’s concerned that John might be arranging things specifically for the programme...”

She couldn’t help rolling her eyes—a less likely theory she’d rarely heard. 

“As if,” Nerys scoffed. “John couldn’t scheme his way out of a custard.” 

“You sure about that?” Mr. Mott asked. His eyes sparkled with mischief. 

He might be capable of acting in the moment, but Nerys couldn’t picture John pulling off a long con. Not with all the king’s horses and all the king’s men at his back. 

"I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

When he finally found her, the Doctor took a moment to linger in the doorway and watch her at the piano. 

He’d checked the library and the kitchen first, so the tea was no longer piping hot...which was actually fortunate. Donna had very specific temperature preferences. 

She ran her fingers over the instrument, but the silence in the music room was overpowering. 

Why’d Donna never tell him she could play? He would’ve taken her to meet Beethoven straight away! Hopefully before he lost his hearing, of course, but even if they landed afterward he could always interpret...

Her brows knit. As he watched, her fingers came to rest on the keys...but she still didn’t play a note. 

“Going to serenade me?” 

Donna’s face brightened at the sound of his voice. It hadn’t quite registered until then how very sad she’d looked. 

“I would if I could remember a tune,” Donna said dryly. 

“You don’t remember any?” The Doctor ambled closer, frowning slightly. “Not ‘Ode to Joy’, not ‘Für Elise’—nothing at all?” That was rather odd. 

She frowned, too, down at the piano. “Not one. Guess all those years of lessons really were a waste.” 

“I’m sure you told your mum so at the time, eh?” 

Donna snorted. “You’ve got that right.” Her eyes drifted to the cup he held. “What’ve you got there?”

“Oh, right.” The Doctor held it up proudly. “Here—I brought tea for my bumblebee!” 

Donna cheered up markedly, but balanced that with a stern glare at the pet name. Possibly the rhyme, too, but she didn't say anything about it. 

She couldn’t be too annoyed, though, since she made room for him on the piano bench. He gleefully slid next to her, sitting hip to hip. 

Taking her first sip, Donna’s eyes fluttered shut with a groan. “Oh, that’s perfect. Even the temperature.”

There was the slightest possibility that he was preening when she opened her eyes again. 

“Calm down, marshmallow Martian,” she told him dryly, “It’s just a cup of tea.” 

He did get it exactly right, though.

“Marshmallow? How exactly am I a marshmallow?” he asked. 

Donna raised a dubious eyebrow. “What, it’s not soft and sweet to bring your wife the perfect tea?” 

The way the word ‘wife’ rolled off her tongue with no hesitation at all left him tongue tied. The Doctor’s cheeks warmed. 

“Makes me wonder why I married you, if you’re not sweet and soft,” she mused, keeping an amused eye on his reaction. He shut his mouth with a click as she continued, “No one wants a hard-as-nails husband rattling about the place—that means they’ve gone stale.” 

“I—er—” The Doctor’s face burned even hotter as he struggled for words. If he were a marshmallow, he’d be melting all over the floor. “That’s—er, um—”

He wasn’t even sure what he wanted to say—her so casually referring to him as her husband was just one of so many things he was desperate and terrified to point out. The Doctor wanted to backpedal and move forward and hover on the spot all at once, but the longer he panicked the more desperate and terrified he became, and then the more he wanted to backpedal-move-hover—

What finally halted the cycle was Donna’s cackle. When his head whipped round to stare at her, her head was thrown back with a howl of laughter at his predicament.  

The Doctor’s mouth slowly turned up. Despite the constant blows to his ego, this might be what he loved most about Donna: her ability to so easily reduce him to a stammering jelly. 

It was difficult to find the hearts to spoil her fun...but he couldn’t stop recalling her expression when he’d first come in.

“...What were you thinking of?” the Doctor asked. 

“What, when I married you?” Donna laughed. “I’ve been asking myself that every day.” 

“N—no,” he stammered, “I—I meant when I came in here.” 

The spark of laughter dimmed as she sobered. “Right,” Donna sighed, “Of course you noticed.” 

“Thoughtful, perceptive husband over here—course I noticed. Ow!” 

She’d elbowed him rather hard in the ribs. 

“Yeah, yeah, Spaceman,” Donna said, rolling her eyes, “You’re all that and a bag of crisps.” 

The Doctor’s arm slipped around her. 

“...I was horrible to Nerys.” Her voice was rather low.

“What?” He craned his head uncomfortably to keep her close and see her face at once. 

“It—I was...” 

Donna’s face twisted. 

“I didn’t—but it wasn’t entirely my fault! She really has been horrible to me for years!” she burst out. “I just—she was just being awful, and that was the last straw! I’ve had it with her! And I told her so...”

The notch in Donna’s brow deepened. The Doctor suppressed the urge to smooth it out with his thumb with difficulty.

“...But it wasn’t...I mean, Nerys is Nerys. Always has been. With the things she’s said and done over the years, it’s—I just didn’t expect to feel so guilty.”   

He stroked her arm comfortingly. “What did she say?” the Doctor asked. “This time, I mean.” 

“Well...” Donna traced a few black keys. “...It might’ve been something...about you,” she eventually admitted. 

His brows drew together. “Oh?” 

“Something...sort of rude,” Donna muttered. 

She peeked up at him and scowled on spotting his grin—but in his defense, how was he supposed to not grin? Donna fought with her friend over him! To defend him! 

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, old man,” she snapped, “I just—couldn’t have her thinking I regretted deciding to marry you, that’s all. It’s about me, not you.” 

“Whatever you say, cuddlefish,” he said cheerfully. His arm tightened around her for emphasis. 

Donna glared, but the Doctor still couldn’t repress his grin. In fact, it widened a bit more. 

“Still a fake marriage,” she dourly reminded him, “But since for now our hands are tied...” Donna’s mouth quirked up. “Literally, I s’pose.” 

...Did humans usually handfast at their weddings? The Doctor was reasonably sure they didn’t, but his knowledge of Earth marriage customs was largely academic, and it’d been a while since he cracked open a book on the subject...

The Doctor had just decided to bite the bullet and ask when muffled shouts reached their ears. 

“Oh, good,” Donna sighed, “I was just thinking it was too quiet.”

Chapter Text

Justin dropped another handful of kindling on the pile. 

Without a word Ms. Taylor—Nerys, she’d insisted he call her Nerys—began to arrange it around the stack of firewood. The gravel crunched under his feet as he wandered back toward where Mr. Mott was collecting more sticks. 

That frantic footage he’d shot right after the chandelier fell was horribly embarrassing, now. It’d felt so vital to get the immediate aftermath of the mess on camera, though—like it was important evidence of Dr. Smith’s scheming. 

Out in the fresh air it was all so ridiculous. He’d been hopped up on adrenaline after the near miss, that was all. Looking at the trees, grass, and overgrown hedges, the very idea of any sort of plot was utterly incongruous. 

Even his woolgathering the last time he was brooding out here, babbling to himself about the gloomy ground, how this place was unwelcoming...it was all so patently ludicrous. Pure paranoia. 

A careless step sent a pebble flying off the path. A trio of crows were spooked into the sky, spiralling toward the clouds...

“You alright, son?” 

Justin started—the camera balanced on his arm jerked upward. 

“Oh, sorry, do you want me to—?” Mr. Mott jerked a thumb over his shoulder. 

“No, no, sorry, I’m just—sorry. I was capturing the...the peace out here, I suppose.” He lowered the device self-consciously. 

“Oh, that’s nice.” Mr. Mott beamed at him. “Shall I go and look somewhere else, let you get back to it?” 

“No, no, don’t worry about it. I’m done for now.” 

Justin absently checked it—yep, still running, loads of tape left...

Mr. Mott’s eyes still examined him when he looked back. “You’re looking a lot better,” he remarked. “Calmer.” 

“Yeah?” He considered it. “Good.” 

“Less dusty, too.” 

“Ha! Yes, well.” Justin’s hand shot up to his hair. “The longer I’m away from all that mess and noise inside, the better I feel,” he sheepishly admitted. ‘Better’ was far too weak a word for it. 

The old man patted him on the arm reassuringly. “Good, glad to hear it.” He paused for a long moment, looking uncertain of whether to keep speaking...but in the end, Mr. Mott continued. “To be frank, I’ve never quite felt comfortable in that house. Some places...they just aren’t happy.” 

Justin roughly swallowed back the lump in his throat. “Yeah,” he croaked, “S’pose so.” 

The words reverberated over and through him—an unhappy place... 

Yes—it always had been. 

“...It’s alright to stop, you know.” 

He started. “What?” 

Mr. Mott’s bright gaze pinned him to the spot. “It’s okay for you to stop, son,” he repeated.  

Justin blinked. What...?

“Oi, you two! Get over here!” 

Ms. T—Nerys’ voice was a bit more shrill than usual.

He faltered in Mr. Mott’s wake when they found Nerys beyond the unlit firewood, lingering at the entrance to that underground cavern. 

“Look! Something’s changed,” she called. 

Justin braced himself before glancing down where she pointed.

“See? The soil’s sort of fallen away from the entrance...even more than it already did, I mean,” Nerys said, and Mr. Mott was already nodding. 

“Now that’s odd,” he remarked. 

She frowned down at the anomaly. “Almost like something’s trying to escape, even now...”

Her words froze Justin’s breath in his chest for some reason. 

“I’m going to have a quick look,” Nerys decided, already preparing to clamber down—at least, until Mr. Mott put out an arm. 

“No, we’d better call the Doctor to have a look first,” he told her, a worried crease deepening in his forehead. 

Hang on—

“You call your grandson ‘the Doctor’?” Justin asked. Beyond Mr. Mott, he caught Nerys’ eyes narrowing. 

“Er—yes, sometimes,” Mr. Mott admitted sheepishly. “It’s—a nickname I call him. Because...he’s a doctor and...I’m proud of him.” 

He eyed the old man shrewdly. It didn’t sound false. 

Nerys huffed loudly. “Fine, whatever. I’ll go get him.” She flounced off with an irritated tut. 

But gravity drew Justin’s gaze back to the darkness of the chamber. Dread leeched from his very bones like it’d been living inside him all along. The peace he’d found outside was just a dream, this was cold reality coming back around like it always did. 

Fear of strife to come welled up inside him—certainty that it would come, that with every inexorable tick of time pain and terror and suffering were on their way—

Justin’s hand tightened around the camera in his hand. 

The camera...

His whole crew was gone. 

Only he was left to carry on filming. And no matter how much better he felt in the wind and the open air, that obligation still tugged at him. He must carry on filming, no matter what foolish foreboding welled up inside him. 

“I’m going in,” Justin announced. 

“What?” Mr. Mott squawked. He grabbed for Justin’s sleeve, but he pulled away just in time. “I thought we were going to wait for—”

“Dr. Smith? No, I’d rather get a look without him first.” 

“Justin, it’s not—you don’t have to do this,” Mr. Mott repeated, but he just set his jaw. 

Every step he took was harder than the last, like the ground itself didn’t want to release his feet, but Justin grimly carried on. 

“Justin?” Mr. Mott sighed behind him. “Oh, blast...”

He risked a glance back only to find Mr. Mott following after, spade in hand. 

“What’re you—? You don’t have to come!” Justin exclaimed. He rushed to support him, a hand under his elbow. “Really, you don’t.”

“I’m not letting you go alone,” he told him obstinately. 

Justin swallowed hard. He wanted to send him back out, to keep the kind old man safe...but he desperately didn’t want to go in alone.  

“Thank you.” Simple words could never be enough to express his gratitude. 

Pacing wasn’t helping to relieve Nerys’ tension any more by the time the Smiths finally joined her outside. 

“It’s about time! How long’s it take you to run down a flight of stairs?” she snapped. 

Donna bridled at her tone, but Nerys didn’t give her time to respond. 

“Come on, already—Justin will’ve convinced your grandad to go underground again by now!” Nerys turned to run back over there, but first Donna and then John passed her. 

“I’m right behind you, Donna,” he was shouting. What the hell was he rummaging through his pockets for?

“I know,” came Donna’s faint reply. 

Nerys put all her energy into running. Her irritation tried to resurface, but she grimly tamped it down—sorting things out with Donna would have to wait.

When she finally caught up, Donna had already disappeared into the tunnel. John brandished a slim silver doodad as he charged in after her. Nerys followed him. 

“—Making an old man do your dirty work? What is wrong with you?” Donna’s bark echoed down the tunnel. She thrust the spade into Justin’s hands so hard it knocked him back a step. 

“I’m not that old,” Mr. Mott complained. He was slightly out of breath as John helped him back to his feet, though. 

“Old enough to let someone younger do the digging, thanks,” Nerys told him sternly, out of breath herself. 

“He insisted!” Justin protested, but Donna only glared more. “Fine,” he snapped, and he set to work with resentful flicks of the spade. 

“Why’re they digging, anyway?” she asked. The small silver object in John’s hand caught Nerys’ eye again—he was flat on the ground squinting at the pile of loose earth. 

“Good question,” Donna bit out. Her hands were busy shaking dirt from her granddad’s jacket and straightening his collar. 

“Really, darling, I’m fine,” Mr. Mott sighed. He put out a hand to stop Donna’s fussing. “And I did insist.” 

“That’s no excuse,” Nerys sniffed. “He could’ve insisted back harder.”

Donna opened her mouth to say something else when a loud thunk reverberated through the enclosed space like ripples in water. 

“What was that?” Donna demanded, but Nerys’ first instinct was to dive right in. She was on her knees next to Justin in the blink, getting her hands right into the dirt as he tried to pry up whatever it was he hit. 

One of her nails bent. Nerys gritted her teeth and soldiered on nonetheless. 

Thanks to her sacrifice, between them they eventually got whatever it was out of the hole. 

“I think there’s more,” Justin panted, “There was something else grinding against the spade...” He jabbed it into the dirt experimentally and instantly hit something else. The same sort of thunk echoed through the tunnel again. 

The two of them were in the middle of prying up a third thing when Nerys noticed a new sound had joined the faint remaining reverberation in the chamber—a terribly familiar sound. The one John called ‘wind through the roof,' the one Donna blamed on John’s whistling, but no wind or whistle ever sounded like that. What the hell was it? And where was it coming from? 

She looked wildly around the room—it wasn’t her, obviously, Wilf wouldn’t have anything, the thunks of the spade were another breed of noise entirely—

Nerys’ eyes landed on the silver device in John’s long fingers—was it glowing blue?—but then Justin demanded her attention for their digging and she set it aside. Time enough to address his odd little torch later—

“Bone,” John remarked casually. That strange sound stopped as he abruptly sat up. 

“What?” Donna asked. 

“It’s bone.” He held it out for inspection by Donna and Mr. Mott. “Just like the ones we found outside, actually.”

Nerys dropped the latest item they’d pried up at once. The thunk of its landing added more layers to the growing resonance throughout the underground chamber. 

“Eugh, are they all—?”  

“Yep.” Her nose wrinkled at the irritating way John popped the plosive. The spade fell from Justin’s hands. 

She scrubbed her fingers uselessly on her trousers. “That’s horrible!” God, what wouldn’t she do to wash her hands right now—

“Hang on, couldn’t this be a mausoleum, then?” Donna asked. “A tomb or something? If someone was buried down here—” 

“I don’t think so, no,” John interrupted. “Not with the bones just outside as well...they’re the same age, too, buried at the same time, and if one set was left outside the chamber—”

“Outside the cell,” Mr. Mott corrected. Nerys almost missed how ashen Justin was. 

“Oh,” Donna sighed. “Oh, no. They...they almost escaped, didn’t they?” 

“Justin, are you—?” Nerys began to ask, but the low echoes shifted into a rumble that grew steadily louder. 

“Not this again!” she heard Donna shout, but her voice was rapidly outpaced by the rising tide of sound, and then the breath was knocked from Nerys’ lungs. 

The air pressure tripled in one moment. 

All of them cried out sharply—all except John, some small part of Nerys noted.

The Doctor was so attuned to his screwdriver he barely heard anything else. There was something—something he was missing—

The smack to his shoulder caught his attention. 

“What?” he yelped, but he’d hardly gotten through the word when it became obvious. The gentle reverberations had grown louder and louder—

“Doctor,” Donna shouted, but her eyes were screwed shut—all of the humans were doubled over, presumably with pain. “What’s happening?”

“Don’t know,” he hollered back as he shoved the sonic back into his pocket. 

Behind her Nerys and Wilf staggered toward the exit. The Doctor pushed Donna to follow in their wake—she shot him a stern look as she went, but he had to stay and help Justin, surely she understood why he had to stay at the epicentre of this outburst—

“Justin, are you alright?” the Doctor loudly asked, but the television presenter didn’t react beyond a dry sob. 

He bent to try to make eye contact. Justin’s face was locked in a rictus of fury and terror, his eyes locked on the unearthed bones.

“Justin?” the Doctor’s voice rose to a shout as the rumble only grew stronger. He risked dropping a hand on Justin’s shoulder, but he only crumpled more under the weight. The Doctor retracted it at once.  

“Not home, this is not home,” Justin moaned. The Doctor strained to catch the words as he bent beside him. 

“You’re right, this isn’t home, but it doesn’t have to be, eh?” the Doctor tried.

The rumble weakened ever so slightly. 

“It’s alright, Justin—this isn’t your home,” he repeated, and he kept on repeating it as Justin’s breathing hitched and slowly calmed. The sound quieted along with the presenter’s agitation. 

The Doctor glanced back toward the entrance. Something inside him relaxed on seeing that the others all got out safely...though Donna, of course, lingered right outside. 

His mouth turned up without his leave. She never could leave him behind. 

Donna put on her best glare. 

The Doctor turned back to Justin, but she was determined he should feel her burning a hole through the back of his head. If he’d expected her to just leave him there unsupervised, he was dead wrong. 

Nerys’ elbow caught Donna painfully in the side. “What’s going on?” she demanded. 

“The—John’s calmed Justin down,” Donna snapped. 

She could’ve sworn that Nerys muttered something about ‘psychic phenomena’, but that couldn’t be right... 

A cough from Gramps caught her attention. 

“Oh, no, Gramps—are you okay?” Donna asked, but he just waved her off, bending over to cough again before straightening. 

“Just the dust, I think,” he told her thickly, “I’ll be alright, just give me a minute.”

“Good,” Donna sighed. Nerys got to work fussing over him.

Then there was movement inside—the Doctor was reaching out again, maybe to hug Justin? But Justin threw off his arm—and then Donna scrambled out of the way to let him stalk out of the chamber, plastering herself to the side of the hole to make room. 

When Donna made her way back inside, the Doctor frowned down at the collection of bones on the ground. 

“You’re okay?” she demanded. 

The Doctor rolled his eyes, but he held out his arms and legs. “Ready for inspection,” he told her dryly. 

Donna looked him over from head to toe and pursed her lips. “I suppose you pass muster,” she grudgingly said. “But didn’t the rumbling bother you? You didn’t react at all until I hit you!” 

He made a face. “I heard it, yeah, but...hmm. My shields must’ve protected me from the real impact.” 

She frowned. “What shields? That suit’s not exactly armour, even if you act like it.” 

The Doctor’s mouth twitched up. “My psychic shields,” he specified. 

Donna’s frown only deepened. Did he say something about that earlier? Did Nerys just repeat something she overheard? ‘Psychic something’, she thought Nerys said...no, it couldn’t have been. She must’ve misheard. 

Of course he’d kept on talking while she thought. The universe might end if the Doctor’s lips stopped flapping.

 “—Suspected the manifestations weren’t truly physical for a while, but now I’m sure. Just look at that goo in the kitchen cupboard! Tasted of particulate residue, but it wasn’t quite right—it was fainter, more like a copy of a memory of a recollection of particulate residue...”

“I’ll have to take your word for it—I wasn’t about to taste it too,” Donna said impatiently. The very idea sent a shudder through her entire body. “But there were physical things with the other manifestations. How d’you explain the wallpaper ripping itself? And the falling chandelier?” 

She was distinctly dissatisfied by his shrug. 

“Can’t be sure, Donna. But if the power inside Justin built up enough, perhaps it grew strong enough to resonate on another plane...” His lips worked silently after he trailed off. 

“Is that how psychic phenomena work?” Donna asked sceptically. 

The Doctor shrugged again. “I dunno. It’s just a hypothesis.”

“How reassuring!” she grumbled, but he was already crouching over the bones. Donna grudgingly bent to join him. “So what’s going on with these, then?” 

“Not quite sure yet,” he muttered. The Doctor ran his fingertips over them. “They feel just the same as the others...like psychic cotton wool.” 

Donna braced herself—god, the things this man had her doing—and touched the bones. “Oh,” she was startled into exclaiming, “They do feel weird. Dunno if it’s for psychic reasons, though.” 

“Hmm.” The Doctor frowned down at them. “Well, two locations with the same sort of bones implies that there might be two complete sets of remains...” 

He flashed a smile—the one that let him get away with murder. Donna’s eyes narrowed. 

“Care to join me in exhuming them?” 

She sighed. “God, you’re a rubbish date.”

“Here you are.” Nerys set the fresh pot of tea on the table. “Milk and sugar?” 

“Ta, sweetheart.” Mr. Mott had just set his teaspoon aside when Sylvia stormed into the kitchen. 

“My mural—it’s gone!” she wailed. Cloudy water dribbled from the sponge she clutched.

“That godawful—” Nerys caught herself just before Mr. Mott’s poke in the arm. “...Work of art in the ballroom?” 

In her opinion the world was much better off without that vivid depiction of a giant lizard murdering the populace—the local nightmare rate would surely be cut in half. 

“I’m sorry to hear about that, sweetheart,” Mr. Mott told his daughter. “You did your best, I know that—it’s not your fault it was so fragile.” 

“But it wasn’t fragile,” Sylvia bit out. The steam coming off her was almost visible as she stalked over and poured herself a cuppa. “It wasn’t loose at all before that rumbling!” 

Nerys’ ears pricked up at once. “Rumbling? There was rumbling inside too?” she asked intently. “We had some outside in that chamber.” 

“Yes—deafening, it was.” 

Now that was interesting. This time the manifestation extended quite far from the source...it couldn’t just be Justin, then, she decided. Obviously he was the centre of it all, maybe a catalyst? But Justin originally picked up whatever psychic weight he carried here, at Morley Manse. 

Could whatever it was have infected the house itself?

...Actually, thinking back, both manifestations in that underground chamber felt far more direct than anything in the house. That rumble, the pressure, the terror they all felt—it was more than enough to make all of them flee at once. While the physical damage to the walls and the chandelier was definitely showier, but no one actually ran from it...

Might whatever it was have originated underground in the first place? Sylvia’s complaints couldn’t distract from Nerys’ train of thought now, not when she felt so close to working it out.

The source might very well have soaked into the land itself, spreading slowly but inexorably to Morley Manse, and when an impressionable young man stayed in the house for years...mightn’t it have infected him, too? 

“—Hours of my time, sweat and tears and care, and now look at it—nothing but a pile of rubbish!” Sylvia took a furious sip. “But of course it all went to pot—I ought to’ve known better than to care so bloody much about anything when the Doctor’s here.”

She’d infused the words ‘the Doctor’ with a peculiar twist of venom.

Nerys narrowed her eyes. “Why d’you call your son-in-law ‘the Doctor’?” she asked. 

Sylvia froze. 

“Er—you see, it’s like this...” Mr. Mott began awkwardly. 

But Nerys didn’t catch a word of his excuses—something about that odd moment had struck a chord. 

Nerys’ heartbeat thundered in her ears—she just needed cover.

“An electronic copy of your parking citation will also be sent to you,” the robot droned behind her. Her eyes rolled despite the danger—why hadn’t that hacker turned off the damn speakers too?! 

Her hair flew everywhere as one of its retractable arms shot right past her ear and smashed a shop window. A strangled shriek escaped her despite herself. Oh, god, what if more of them heard that? 

Nerys took an abrupt hairpin turn. Behind her she heard the whoosh of the robot overshooting. Ha! 

She zigzagged through the rows and rows of parked vehicles. If Nerys could just get to the nearest train station—

Then directly in front of her came those chilling words: “Parking according to bylaws is safer for everyone.” 

She barely skidded to a halt in time to avoid its flying fist when this second bot smashed into the pavement before her. 

“Shite,” Nerys said with feeling. 

“Get out of the way!” 

Forever afterward Nerys would thank her excellent survival instincts for how quickly she dropped to the ground. 

A beam of virulent violet light shot through where she’d just stood with a strange sound, and the robot fell back with an irritable whirr. 

“Stay down, I think I’ve finally got it—” 

A woman with long ginger hair smacked a small triangular gadget against her thigh with a curse. It emitted another strangled buzz—what the hell was that? 

“—Or I might finally have it, if this thing cooperates—” 

“Who the hell are—?” 

The end of her question was cut off by a roar of motion. Nerys flinched even as she turned to look—

The robot handily folded down into a smooth spheroid. Finally its eyes flickered from scarlet to a peaceful lilac and its arms slithered away, retracting into its body. Off to the side, the same folding-down sounds echoed strangely off the vehicles—she must’ve caught that one, too. 

The hand appeared so suddenly before Nerys’ nose that she flinched again. 

But it was just that woman again. “Are you alright?” she asked. 

Nerys eyed her and then her hand for a moment before allowing her to help her up. 

“I think so.” 

“Good! Well, I’ll just be off—” 

Nerys’ hand darted out to stop her. “Hang on a minute and answer my bloody question!” she snapped. “Who are you?” 

“Oh, I’m no one,” she demurred. 

Nerys tightened her grip. 

“Ow—you’ve got your talons in me!” she yelped. The woman pried her fingers off her arm. 

“Oh, calm down, you’re not bleeding,” Nerys grumbled. “And it wouldn’t have happened anyway if you’d just answered the question!” 

“Fine!” she snapped. The stranger took a moment to flick her fringe out of her eyes. “Call me ‘the Enigma’.”

Nerys stared at her blankly. “That’s never a proper name.” 

The Enigma sighed loudly. “Why does everyone say that?”

That might be too much of a coincidence. The strange things happening around this place—the way John kept being called by a title rather than his name—his almost blasé lack of response to the hauntings...surely he wasn’t—?

No.

No, that just—it wasn’t possible, surely it wasn’t possible. 

It wasn’t probable, at the very least. 

Nerys brought a hand to her temple—god, she was getting a headache. 

Sylvia sighed rather loudly and pushed back her chair. 

“Suppose it’s on me to make supper,” she grumbled. “Everyone had better be alright with spaghetti hoops.”

Chapter Text

The Doctor handed off another bone. “Thanks, sugarplum,” Donna said dryly.

“Oh, it’s no trouble, blossom.” He diligently raked the spade through the dirt a few more times, but he didn’t hit anything—that might be the last one. 

The Doctor rocked back onto his heels with a sigh.

Donna’s brows drew together in concentration as she dusted off a bit of soil and set it down in the correct place. 

“...Well. That’s almost two complete skeletons, then,” he remarked. “Give or take a few vertebrae. Definitely not human.”

“Poor things,” Donna murmured. 

“Yeah,” he sighed. The Doctor wasn’t surprised to feel her hand slip into his. Donna always knew. “There were two prisoners in this cell...and one almost got out.” 

He felt her shiver. 

“I can’t imagine...I feel so horrible for whoever they were,” Donna sighed. “Locked up in here for no one knows how long—and manacled, too. So far from their home...and they never saw it again.”

A lump filled his throat. “Yeah,” was all the Doctor could squeeze past it. He swallowed furiously.

Donna’s fingers tightened around his. “How could they do this?” 

“They?” he asked. 

Donna swallowed hard. “We,” she whispered. “I meant ‘we’.” 

“Oh, Donna—”

“Why do we do this?” 

The question he’d asked himself so many times hit him hard.

“I don’t know,” he told her. “It’s—if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that humanity is capable of great things...but they’re just as capable of cruel ones.” The Doctor sighed deeply. “And ignorance has always been the kindling for humanity’s greatest mistakes.” 

Donna visibly deflated. He released her hand, but only to get an arm around her. 

“I’m surprised you bother with us at all,” she muttered, but she let him pull her closer. “We’ve done such awful things, killing each other in such horrible ways...”

Oh, he knew that well. 

The Doctor gave her a squeeze. “I s’pose I just still have hope. People like...well.” He hesitated to say it for just a moment. “...People like you come along and keep me hoping.” 

Donna pulled back to stare up at him, eyes wide, and he couldn’t look away.

Not that he wanted to—the Doctor was more than happy to watch the minute shifts of her expression. Speaking of, now she was watching him too. Her face grew almost...speculative. 

The Doctor raised his eyebrows expectantly. Donna pursed her lips—his gaze dropped to her mouth. For some totally logical reason, he was sure—

She leaned closer. Her lips—her lovely warm lips pressed softly and then harder against his. 

A huff of surprise escaped him. Donna took full advantage of the opening.

Donna’s head spun. 

Those familiar lips teased unfamiliar sensations from her—unfamiliar with him, anyway, but the shadowy memories of any other lips but his swiftly faded away.

She was hard-pressed to recall why they hadn’t done this before. 

One broad hand spanned the small of her back, pulling her closer, but the other startled a sound from her with a gentle tug of her hair—a sound muffled by his mouth, and his answering groan shot straight to her centre. 

She shifted her weight to bring a hand to his cheek, but her fingers sent a few bones skittering—

Donna instantly pulled away. The way the Doctor chased her lips was a bit flattering, she had to admit. 

“Okay, new rule: no snogging on a burial site,” she told him sternly. 

The Doctor sighed, but popped right to his feet. Donna took his hand and allowed him to help her up too. 

Every thought that should’ve halted the impulse to kiss him rushed back to her at once as if standing restored vital blood flow to her brain.

“Wait—what the hell were we just doing?” 

The Doctor scratched his neck awkwardly. Apparently he had no explanation to offer.

Anxiety came to a boil in her gut. 

“Oh, god, what have I done?” she wailed. “We—we weren’t supposed to...” 

Her hands wrung themselves—Donna had never felt less in control. 

“It's all supposed to be fake, it’s—oh, god, I can’t just—” 

Her breathing sped up. There were rules, rules that they’d set with each other long ago, before she’d set foot on the TARDIS outside Adipose Industries—rules she’d just completely disregarded. Why did she do that? Just to one-up him for some stupid fake contest?

“Was this what I—what you always wanted? Did we—we were just mates, are we going to—?” 

The words cut themselves off the moment the Doctor firmly put his arm around her. She automatically allowed him to usher her down the tunnel. 

“What—what’re you doing?” 

“Not snogging on a burial site was your rule,” he told her patiently. “You’re not going to talk yourself out of this relationship on a burial site—that’s my new rule.” 

Her mouth dropped open. 

The moment they were outside, the Doctor reeled her into another kiss. 

No, it definitely wasn’t standing that’d allowed her worries to return. 

It was that she’d stopped kissing him. 

Justin stalked down the musty corridor. 

That impotent fury still bubbled under his skin—even after stomping all the way back to the house, up the stairs, and down countless corridors in a blind rage.

He could hardly recall that feeling of peace from that time in the grounds. That curtain of assurance that Dr. Smith was in no way scheming to destroy his reputation was shredded to ribbons—now all the half-forgotten fears hidden behind it surged to the fore. 

Fear—complete and utter terror, dread, horror—there weren’t words for how that terrible place made him feel.

...Doomed. He’d felt doomed. Fated to perish in that nightmarish hole in the ground—

“No,” Justin snarled, startling himself. He stopped in his tracks. Had...had that been him? His voice? 

Since when did Justin Valentine allow himself to be unnerved like this?

He set his jaw. 

This was no different from any other episode. He wouldn’t be lured into hysterical paranoia by some...some doctor. There was a logical explanation for all of this. There had to be. 

That horrifying encounter in that wretched hole in the ground, the rumbling sound...it could be done with strategically placed subwoofers. Yes, and a well-hidden set of speakers amplifying high frequencies could easily induce panic. It was obvious now that he thought about it! 

Justin gave a sharp nod at nothing and walked on.

All of it was fake. It must be. It was.

He’d suspected it from the start. This Dr. Smith was too shifty, too animated, too devoted to his wife...he was clearly hiding something—hiding a plot to get his fifteen minutes of fame courtesy of ‘Haunted Makeovers’. 

A prank Justin could handle. An ordinary situation with rigged doors opening and shutting, a trick fuse in an electrical panel, or a hidden speaker with some spooky noises would be expected...but this was getting seriously out of hand. 

Whatever air pressure device Dr. Smith was using could seriously hurt someone. And it wasn’t just the once, either, it’d happened twice, now! Putting his wife’s grandfather through all that physical and mental stress couldn’t be good for him. 

And just look at how his crew was scared off! Dropping an actual chandelier on actual people? That was far too dangerous—it wasn’t a breakaway version like in films. There’d been real cuts and bruises!

A distant squeak caught his ear. Justin stopped to listen. 

There—there it was again...

His ears led him to those nauseatingly familiar double doors. 

Justin slowly put out a hand. They opened with hardly a creak.

He entered the lecture theatre for the first time in decades. 

Nerys impatiently brushed her hair out of her face. 

Her own thoughts writ large stared down from the chalkboard. 

The idea was that writing them down would lessen the buzz of questions, answers, and hypotheses, but her mind still whirled with possibilities. 

She’d listed all the manifestations and their effects....her suspicions of how Justin affected his surroundings over the years...some more thoughts about the mysterious remains they found...

But there was one subject which occupied her mind like no other. 

A dangerous one. Mostly because it was distracting her from the task at hand. 

Nerys pressed her lips white. She had to get it off her mind—otherwise she’d never be able to focus on sorting out this haunted house nonsense.

With a huff, she raised the chalk again. 

Dr. John Smith...

Or, as he also seemed to be known, ‘the Doctor.’

Was he a Time Lord? 

She frowned. 

He didn’t look like anything but a normal human bloke—two arms, face, hair, et cetera—but then again, neither had the Enigma. She’d claimed there were countless physical differences before. There was something about their retinas, and they could handle the cold better...

Most of the differences were internal, though. Nothing Nerys could check without suspicion.

John didn’t behave strangely, either. No specific mentions of aliens, no references to anything off-planet...none that she recognised, anyway. 

...Well, she supposed the devotion to Donna was a bit out of the ordinary. And the immunity to psychic attacks was odd, but that might be a natural ability. Some humans were just born with it. 

She sighed sharply. Damn it—still no answer. 

Nerys would have to keep a close eye on him in future, just like she’d already planned to. It just wouldn’t only be for ways to break them up, now—she’d have to watch out for any more signs that he might be a Time Lord. 

Signs such as....hmm. References to times or places beyond Earth. Mentions of extraterrestrial technology...ooh, any sign of a TARDIS...

“What’s a TARDIS?” 

The question sent the chalk screeching across the chalkboard. 

“Who’s that?” Nerys bit out. She brandished the stick of chalk like it had any power to intimidate. 

Justin threw up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, Ms. Taylor,” he said, dusting off that terrifyingly wide grin for the first time in a while. “Guess I came in a bit quietly.” 

She spun back to the board to rapidly search her own words. 

Nerys swifty wiped off the words ‘Time Lord’. 

“Right, a TARDIS...” She paused for time, her brain frantically working. “Er—it’s an acronym. Stands for, er...‘Transitory Apparition Recorder and...Dimensionary...um...Interplanar...Signaler’.” 

Yeah—T, A, R, D, I, S, TARDIS. 

“Sorry, it’s a bit of a mouthful—hard to remember. Thus the acronym.” She smiled almost as wide as he usually did.

...Would he accept that?

Justin eyed her doubtfully for a long moment. 

Nerys tensed even more. 

...Then he went back to reading. 

Her shoulders relaxed slightly. 

“So you suspect Dr. Smith of hiding something, too?” he asked. 

Her shoulders tensed back up. 

“...I’m not sure,” Nerys said cautiously. “I...I don’t know him well yet, as you're aware. Only met him properly today, and it’s been a while since we first met.” She aimed for a blasé shrug. “There could be a perfectly normal explanation for things.” 

The look he gave her was somehow even more doubtful, but Justin again held his peace. 

For a moment, anyway. He snorted. “Oh, lord—psychic phenomena? Seriously?” 

“What about it?” Nerys snapped. 

“You actually believe in that stuff?” he asked incredulously. 

A sharp blonde eyebrow rose. “How else do you explain all this stuff happening?”

“Dr. Smith.” Justin’s tone implied that that conclusion was obvious. “He’s the one with the most incentive to make a big spectacle of—”

Nerys interrupted, asking, “You don’t think you’re a bit biased there?” 

“Hardly!” he protested. “I barely know the man either, there’s no reason I’d—”

Justin cut off his own words with a start. 

“What is it?” Nerys asked. 

“You—that’s—that’s my name there.” 

She spun to face the chalkboard again, retracing her own words with her eyes. “...Right. Yes, it is,” she had to admit. 

When Nerys looked back at the presenter, he was bristling. 

“You seriously blame me for all this?” Justin snapped. “Me?”

“I...I mean, blame’s a strong word. It’s—it’s just—just a theory,” Nerys stammered, but that vein in his forehead began to pulse. 

“My fault? Oh, I’ve been carrying a ‘dark psychic influence’ around with me, sure—like that’s real,” he sneered. 

“I just—” 

This just wasn’t worth fighting about. She hadn’t meant for him to see it at all! She was just trying to exorcise her brain, not start a bloody war with this arsehole!

Nerys reached out and erased half of what she’d written about psychic stuff in one swipe of her arm. “Look, it’s gone, okay?” She brushed off her sleeve. “You don’t have to keep—” 

“And even worse,” Justin snarled, “You’re implying that I’ve been putting everyone in danger all this time!” 

“I—”

“So it is my fault, after all!” he bellowed, red-faced. His fists clenched at his sides. 

Nerys had had more than enough. 

“That’s not what I was saying! I never said it’s your fault!” she shouted, barrelling on even as Justin opened his mouth again, “It’s actually not your fault that you have some sort of—sort of psychic hitchhiker!” 

“Oh?” His voice was suddenly a lot quieter—a dull background roar Nerys hadn’t quite noticed calmed a degree or two—but she had more to say. 

“Yes!” she bit out. Her eyes narrowed. “But what is your fault is keeping your bloody crew on-site when you could’ve sent them home earlier. Would've been loads safer.” 

“What?” 

“It’s at the very least neglectful,” Nerys sniffed, her nose in the air. 

The rush of cold in the lecture theatre covered her in goosebumps. Oh, god—

“Neglectful?!” he growled. All that suppressed fear and anger fairly blazed in his eyes. The volume of the roar surged right back up. 

She fell back a step. 

Oh, god...what had she done? Justin was only getting more furious. The wind was beginning, and that rumble would only get louder. What if he shook the entire house to bits? Sylvia, Mr. Mott—they were still in the kitchen, far as she knew, and Donna—John—

Her brain kicked into high gear. It was time. Time to solve this, once and for all.

But Nerys still didn’t even know what was causing it! The sea of possibilities was still vast—anything could be the catalyst: an artefact he kept hidden on his person that activated the manifestations, some innate ability to tap into the psychic shadow haunting this place...

Oh, never mind the origins of this mess—they didn’t actually matter. The actual effects, though...they might be the key.

The cold, the thunderous roar, the high winds and physical movement, the leaking emotions—

A gust of arctic air had her shivering on the spot—or was she shaking with fear? 

Fear...hang on.

The emotions.

Nerys was on the verge of the answer all along! Justin Valentine was suppressing his emotions.  

It’d grated on her from the beginning, the way he made light of everything—including this ancient house where he’d grown up. He always redirected the conversation away from substantive discussion deeper than the resale value of Morley Manse...

It wasn’t just that some contagious influence had seeped into Justin’s bones. 

Well, it was, but he’d only made it worse. On top of that ancient snarl of terror and dread, he’d furiously repressed his own feelings too, pushing all of them deeper and deeper until it couldn’t help but explode out of him when he was finally overwhelmed. 

And what emotion was more overwhelming than anger? 

Donna wasn’t exactly surprised that their second kiss was interrupted by distant shrieks and shouts. 

She was a bit surprised by the growing rumble, but it’d sort of become normal at Morley Manse. 

When Donna forced herself to pull away, the Doctor’s mouth slipped down her jaw to her neck. She stifled a gasp. 

“We—we have to go,” Donna managed. 

The Doctor shot her a wink. “I know,” he told her, barely even winded, and with that he was dashing off toward the doors. 

“Bloody Martian,” she grumbled.

Donna finally caught up to him in the entrance hall. His head tilted like a confused dog as the sonic bleeped at him. 

She raised her eyebrows when she caught her breath. “Where is it, boy?” 

The Doctor scowled at her, but he offered no rebuttal as he turned on his heel and sprinted up the stairs.

“Course it’s upstairs,” she muttered disgustedly. 

The muffled roar grew clearer and louder with every step Donna took. The light bulbs shook in each sconce she hurried past. Paintings rattled on the walls—the wallpaper rippled furiously—rugs pulled themselves into trip-hazard wrinkles. 

It was all such classic haunted house stuff that she felt a tiny bit nostalgic.

Up ahead the Doctor skidded to a stop outside the lecture theatre. 

The moment she caught up, they didn’t pause to exchange a word or signal before they burst through the doors. 

Justin...he stood at centre stage, down in the centre of the room, arms akimbo. Every muscle in his body was drawn taut. His face—his lips were drawn back in a threatening snarl, baring his teeth at Nerys.

Shockingly, she wasn’t cowering before him. Instead, her posture was...determined, Donna decided—but determined to do what?

“Justin, calm down!” the Doctor shouted over the tumult. He still didn’t sound even slightly winded, the bastard. “Keep calm, we can get through this!” 

A cold breeze whipped through the theatre. The lecture seats flapped up and down and didn’t stop, filling the room with ominous creaking on top of the rest of the noise. 

“Shut up!” Nerys howled, somehow louder than the cacophony and the Doctor’s shouts put together. 

“Don’t you—!” Donna began, still a bit breathless, but Nerys just kept going at that impossible volume. 

“Calming him down won’t work! It’ll never work!” she screeched.

“What the hell are you—?” 

The sound of the Doctor’s screwdriver added itself to the clamour. He cycled through a few settings, the buzz growing higher and higher—

“Put that bloody screwdriver away!” Nerys shrieked. “It won’t help! He’s been pushing it all away too long—he has to feel it!”  

Donna’s eyes widened. Oh. Oh, of course—

“Of course,” the Doctor exclaimed. She could only make it out since he was right next to her. 

The stiff wind grew even stronger, whipping ancient leaflets and detritus with it. Donna screwed up her eyes. The chalkboard abruptly flipped and it kept on flipping, faster and faster, spinning madly—

Then her mum burst through the doors. 

“Downstairs! The spaghetti hoops, there’s this liquid,” Mum was wailing, and of course Gramps was hobbling into danger right behind her—

“Oh, good, Sylvia!” the Doctor chirped, and Donna almost laughed. First time he’d ever said that. He briskly turned to Justin, dropping his screwdriver into his pocket. “Justin, there’s great power in you, and now is the time for you to get angry! This is it! Very, very angry!”

“This is all—it’s all a hoax!” Justin growled, his voice somehow shifting much deeper. “You’re—you’re a fraudster, this—this is a sham!” 

The ear-splitting roar got even more deafening when his voice added itself to the cacophony.

“C’mon, you lot, we’re holding hands!” The Doctor held one hand to Donna, the other to her mother. “Donna, Wilf, Sylvia—Sylvia!”  

Mum started. “Er—sorry!” She took it at once. 

Gramps hurried over too, and Donna held out her free hand to Nerys. 

She bloody hesitated.   

This was an emergency, for god’s sake!

“Get over here!” Donna howled, and finally Nerys grabbed on with a roll of her eyes. 

The Doctor’s eyes flicked to Justin too. “Join us! It’s time to let it all go!” he shouted. 

“No!” Justin growled. 

“Oh, you stupid boy—do it before we’re killed!” Mum screeched.

“Oh, honestly,” Nerys bellowed. She lunged closer, and before he could dodge out of the way she caught Justin’s hand in hers. She yanked him over, and Gramps snatched up the other even as he shied away. 

“Why don’t you all shut up?!” Justin howled. He wrenched away from the group, but the lot of them just staggered after him. “Shut up and leave me alone, I’m home now—home now!” His words echoed strangely over the rest of the roar. “Home now—home now—home now!”

It intensified even more, rising to a deafening crescendo—

—and then there was silence. 

Chapter Text

Her arms began to hurt as she neared the others. Of course none of them helped, Sylvia thought to herself sourly. It was always the lot of mums, being taken for granted...

She conveniently forgot the offers of help she’d declined. 

The distant voices became clearer with each step. 

“—Whatever’s in his head’s gone now, then?” Dad asked. 

“Yep!” John cheerfully answered. 

“Seriously? This is Justin’s personal safety we’re talking about, and all you have to say is ‘yep’?” Donna demanded. 

Sylvia wasn’t best pleased to find her daughter nestled beside that man, his arm possessively around her waist. Her lip curled. 

“Oi! I was just confirm—” 

“I found champagne,” Sylvia announced. She brandished the massive green bottle with the same grim determination with which one might ward off a vampire. 

“Ooh, I’ve been saving that one!” John exclaimed. At last he untangled himself from Sylvia’s daughter. “One of the earliest vintages, that is—1543, if I’m remembering right. One of the first champagnes ever ma—”

“Go on and open it then,” she interrupted. Sylvia dropped the magnum into his hands with a sigh of relief—it was rather heavy. “May as well make yourself useful.” 

He looked rather deflated, she was pleased to see...well, until Donna patted his hand consolingly. He reinflated quite quickly. 

Too quickly, for her taste. 

Sylvia pursed her lips. 

...Ah, well. She couldn’t say she was surprised. It always was a bit odd how John threw himself into pretending to be married, if you asked her...but Donna never did ask, did she? 

She handed round the snacks as that man worried at the sealing cage. It did look a bit more complicated than usual...

‘For the programme’, Donna had said. Sylvia snorted. He ‘wasn’t presumptuous’, her foot—that was a patent falsehood, too, if that spectacle in the drawing room was any indication. 

The bonfire popped satisfyingly when Dad gave it a good poke, casting flickering light over the manse.

Well, at least he could afford the house. That wasn’t nothing, even if he kept dragging Donna all over creation—they had a home base around here to come back to. Might even see her more than once a month.

The cork finally popped, the usual merry exclamations came, and Sylvia accepted a glass of bubbles when offered. It wasn’t...bad, she had to admit. 

On the other side of the bench Justin squatted on a convenient rock. Sylvia sidled past her father and Nerys, joining them on the bench. 

“Always tickles my nose,” Dad laughed. He took another sip. “Rather nice, though.”

Sylvia tutted, but with Nerys chuckling she didn’t bother to say anything. There was no point—a nice girl, that Nerys, but she did encourage him.

John angled himself closer to Donna again on the other side of the fire. He was mumbling something about ‘drinking the stars’—typical romantic twaddle. Sylvia’s eyes rolled, but her daughter smiled as they clinked their glasses together.

“Fantastic champagne, Dr. Smith,” Justin began, but Nerys interrupted.

“You two must be relieved.” Her eyes were locked on John and Donna, across the fire. Sylvia eyed her over her glass. What was she on about?

“What?” Donna frowned up at Nerys. 

“That all this is cleared up. From the house, I mean,” Nerys clarified. Her mouth turned up. “Should make it a lot safer for the baby, right?” she asked.

Sylvia choked on her champagne. 

Nerys savoured the expression on Donna’s face. 

John fumbled his champagne. He would’ve dropped it altogether if his wife’s hand didn’t snap out to stabilise his arm. 

The bench shook slightly with Mr. Mott’s suppressed laughter next to her. Nerys could perfectly understand that—John’s thunderstruck look was hilarious. 

Glancing round to Sylvia, though...she stared unblinkingly at her daughter. 

“Well, isn’t that lovely!” Justin exclaimed, scrambling to his feet. The firelight refracted strangely on his face through his glass as he held it high. “A toast, then! Congratulations to you both. I’m, er, terribly sorry for all the fuss...I, um. I promise I don’t make a habit of endangering pregnant women...” 

He swallowed hard. Nerys was hard-pressed not to roll her eyes.

Justin managed to get it together, raising his glass even higher. “Anyway, all the best to your growing family!” 

Nerys joined the toast. From the corner of her eye she saw Sylvia woodenly follow along, while Mr. Mott had had to set his glass aside altogether, still shaking too hard to participate. 

“Right, er—I mean...thanks?” John squeaked. His face was a peculiar shade of cerise. 

Beside him Donna eyed her glass for a long moment...and then threw back the rest in a massive gulp, heedless of the bubbles. 

Nerys’ eyes narrowed. Drinking during pregnancy—

“You’re—you’re not—are you?” Sylvia spluttered. 

“No!” Donna growled. “Not pregnant, thanks for asking, Mum, Nerys—really appreciate that.” Her hand snapped out and commandeered the bottle, pouring herself another glass. 

A great deal of strain left Nerys’ body all at once. 

Sylvia fell back in her seat, similarly limp with relief. Hang on—she was relieved not to have a grandchild? Nerys still had a thousand questions about Sylvia and John’s relationship.

Speaking of the man himself, he’d regained something approximating his normal skin tone by now...or so it seemed, in the flickering firelight. His hand slipped round Donna’s waist as he leaned in to whisper in her ear. 

Donna went pink and smacked his leg. “Stop that,” she hissed, but John’s smug grin implied that was rather unlikely. 

“Anyway,” Donna said more loudly, “Why’d you think I was—?” 

Nerys shrugged. “Sorry. Suppose I must’ve misunderstood something Veena said,” she said insincerely. Relief still coursed through her—thank god, thank god Donna wasn’t pregnant. That crossed another thing off her ‘to do’ list...

...But their marriage itself still remained.

An unshed sigh filled her chest to the brim. Nerys felt horribly guilty about even considering breaking them up. It would’ve been much worse with a baby in the mix, but still...

Lance and the previous string of boyfriends were much shallower attachments on Donna’s side. It’d hurt her to lose them, of course, but it wasn’t such a mortal wound. 

John, though—he was still a weedy disaster, but he was Donna’s weedy disaster. The connection between them was self-evident. 

What would losing him do to her? 

“No, not like that, Dad,” Sylvia scolded, and she confiscated the bag of marshmallows altogether. “You can’t leave the bag on! Someone might eat it, and then where will we be?”

The Doctor bit back a grin when Wilf shot him a droll look. 

Perhaps he’d skip the s’mores...but he was rather enjoying the champagne and the bonfire. Good of his past self to hang on to that bottle. 

Bubbles pleasantly tickled his nose as he tightened his arm around Donna. His Donna, if he dared think of her as such.

...Well. Perhaps he’d keep that to himself for now. Particularly with Sylvia’s eyes drilling through his hand on Donna’s hip. 

The fresh air, the cool evening, the warmth of the flames...even the occasional eye-watering breath of smoke was utterly freeing after all this time trapped in that house. 

No wonder Justin never felt at home at Morley Manse. The Doctor hadn’t felt at home anywhere in a long time, but that box of misery? 

He much preferred his own box, thanks. 

The Doctor took the opportunity to bury his nose in Donna’s hair. Her familiar scent mixed with that homely whiff of smoke...he pressed a quick kiss to her shoulder. A delicious shiver went through her as Donna shot him a crooked sideways little smile. 

Yes, this was a decidedly lovely evening, the barely-averted danger and Nerys’ sharp-nosed presence notwithstanding. He even found appreciation for Sylvia as he claimed a handful of the prawn-flavoured crisps she’d brought outside. 

Strangely, they paired rather well with the wine. He’d have to make note of that.

Across the fire Justin looked lighter by several stone. He let out the most genuine laugh the Doctor had ever heard pass his lips at some remark of Wilf's. What a lovely man, always looking after others...

The presenter’s face stiffened into solemnity, though, when Sylvia asked about the future of his television programme. 

The Doctor sighed. Of course she was asking about that—Sylvia could sense when a person was just beginning to relax. 

if he didn’t know better, he’d suspect she had some innate psychic talent.

Wilf was just adding another log to the fire when the Doctor suddenly stilled. Psychic...he’d almost forgotten.

“Nerys, I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” he said, completely derailing Sylvia’s stilted questions.

Nerys looked up, her thoughts clearly far away. 

“Why was the word ‘TARDIS’ written on that chalkboard?” he asked.

Donna shot bolt upright. Somewhere in the back of his mind he mourned her moving away from him, but most of his focus was on how Nerys stiffened. She knew the name...but how did she know it? 

“On the chalkboard?” Wilf asked keenly. He gave the fire another poke before sitting back down with a pensive frown. “I didn’t get a good look at it, in all the fuss.” 

“What’s it got to do with anything?” Sylvia demanded. “What’d you say, ‘TARDIS’? That’s not even a proper word!”

“Nerys explained that to me earlier.” Justin paused for a moment. “Wasn’t it something like...‘Transitional Apparent Recording...Dimension...Interceding’...?” He trailed off awkwardly. “Well. Something sort of like that, anyway.” 

The Doctor’s keen eyes hadn’t left Nerys’ pale, pale face. He leaned closer, adding, “You recognised my screwdriver, too...called it by name. I almost missed that in the heat of the moment.” 

She went a shade paler. 

He ignored Donna’s clutching at his elbow. Nerys knew something—something important. 

“What do you know about my people?” the Doctor asked evenly. 

She was on her feet before she knew it. Nerys’ chest heaved—she couldn’t bring herself to risk blinking—her hand shook as it went unerringly to the watch in her pocket—

Mr. Mott touched her arm, but she shook him off. No, she had to be ready, ready to run—  

But then Donna was standing too. Nerys stared uncomprehendingly into her utterly calm eyes. Was she ready to run too?

“It’s alright, Nerys,” Donna told her. 

The words meant nothing to Nerys for a long moment. Alright? Nothing was alright!

Donna leaned a little closer. “It’s okay. The Doctor wouldn’t hurt anyone, you’re going to be fine. He’s a big softie, really.” 

What?

“Oi!” John protested. Donna just called him ‘the Doctor’ again, some distant part of Nerys observed. 

Donna waved off his objection. “Oh, stop that,” she scoffed, “Just wait until the word gets out that ‘the Oncoming Storm’ cried like a baby at the ending of ‘Mamma Mia 2.’” 

He flushed. “That just means I have two hearts like anyone else,” John—the Doctor? whatever his name was—grumbled, somehow managing to shuffle awkwardly while sitting down. “Besides, it’s not like you didn’t tear up too!”

“Of course I did! They’re counting on us crying, that’s the whole point. I couldn’t exactly let the side down!”

“What side are you even talking about?” John demanded. “There aren’t teams in ‘Mamma Mia!’” 

Nerys didn’t even know where to look, let alone stand. She was unutterably grateful for Mr. Mott’s hands guiding her back down onto the bench. She was grateful for the warmth from the fire, too—it steadied her, somehow. 

“You’re alright, sweetheart,” Mr. Mott murmured. His hand stayed on her arm, a comforting weight when Nerys felt ready to float away. Everything—all the familiar mooring lines were suddenly cut, nothing was as she’d thought—what was even going on?

“Hang on—what do you mean, ‘your people’?” Justin belatedly demanded. 

“Yeah, what do you mean, ‘your people’?” Sylvia demanded too, significantly louder. “And I thought ‘Mamma Mia’ wasn’t coming out until later this year!”

“Right...” Donna exchanged one of those speaking glances with her husband. “Well...”

She turned back to the others, squaring her shoulders. The flames shadowed her face ominously. 

“He’s an alien. From another planet and all. That’s what he means by ‘his people’.” 

Nerys’ jaw dropped. Her fingers traced the fob watch in her pocket. 

Donna hesitated, and then added, “And he can travel in time as well as space. That’s how we watched ‘Mamma Mia’ early. And the sequel.” 

Every word Donna said hit Nerys like a a cricket bat to the skull: she desperately needed the umpire to call a foul. How’d Donna manage to travel with one of them when—?

“There’s going to be a sequel?” Sylvia asked interestedly, even as Justin squawked, “That’s not—”

“—Not possible?” John—no, the Doctor finished for him, his eyebrows rising. “I thought you’d finally learned that more things are possible than you knew.” 

“Anyway!” Donna said loudly, drowning out Justin’s response entirely, “His ship’s called ‘the TARDIS’—it doesn’t mean whatever Justin said, though, that was probably just made up—”

“Does Pierce Brosnan come back for the second one?” Sylvia interrupted to ask. Nerys nearly choked on her own spit. 

“Mum!”  

“Sylvia, really,” Mr. Mott sighed.

“What? I’m not allowed to be curious?” Sylvia demanded. 

“What the hell is this?” Nerys screeched. 

She only realised she was back on her feet after the fact. Everyone blinked bemusedly up at her. 

“Nerys, sweetheart, you’re alright...” 

This time she ignored Mr. Mott’s comforting words. She didn’t take her eyes off of Donna or this Doctor.

They exchanged another unspeakably irritating glance. 

Before Donna said a word, she smiled—an incredibly patronising smile. 

“You see, the Doctor—‘John’, here—” She pointed to the Doctor. “He’s not human. He’s an alien.”

Nerys did see, but she wasn’t quite ready to believe it. 

“As in, he’s not from Earth,” Donna said, rather redundantly. 

“Wh—?” Sylvia couldn’t even finish her question. 

“So that’s where you’ve been?” Nerys spat incredulously. “You’ve been travelling through time and space with him?” She jabbed an accusatory finger at the Doctor. 

“Yeah. That’s right,” Donna softly told her. Condescension oozed from her every word. 

Nerys’ eyes nearly rolled into the back of her head.

Donna watched Nerys’ grip on whatever that was in her pocket tighten even more. 

Oh, Nerys...she was clearly overwhelmed by all this alien business. It must be difficult taking all of this in, even if she did already believe in the supernatural. 

“Do you have any questions?” Donna gently asked. She had to have at least a few. 

Nerys audibly ground her teeth together. Poor thing. 

“Yeah, I have a question or twelve,” she bit out. “First of all, how dare you?!” 

“What?” Donna yelped. “What’d I do?” 

“What didn’t you do, more like,” Nerys spat. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides.  “You—you marooned me here! Years I’ve been stuck on this backwards bloody planet!” 

All Donna could do was gape at her old friend. 

Nerys looked ready to explode—she was vibrating with what Donna finally recognised as fury. “I love vintage fashion, but there’s such a thing as too many damn tunic tops!” she shrieked. 

As if in sympathy, the bonfire spat a few sparks over Donna’s shoes. 

Donna had a feeling that she understood what Nerys was on about, but that couldn’t be right. It just couldn’t.  

“What do you—?” she began, but Nerys reared up like a viper ready to strike. 

“It’s all your—it’s all Donna bloody Noble’s fault I’ve been trapped in the silicon age for five years!” she screeched. 

Her world tilted on its axis. Donna dropped nervelessly onto the Doctor’s coat again. A concerned hand landed on her back.

“What?” The word came out in a whisper—too quiet to be heard over the crackling fire. 

But of course the Doctor leaned forward, his eyes alight with that insatiable curiosity. “Of course! Your psychic shielding...you’re human, but you’re not from this time,” he breathed. “So when are you from, then? And where?” 

Nerys’ chin came up. “The thirty-third century. New Calryxia.” 

“Whoa,” Gramps breathed. Donna just tried to breathe at all.  

“You—you can’t—I mean, what?” Mum spluttered. Her hands spasmed in a gesture of disbelief. The dregs of her champagne slopped into the bonfire with a hiss. Donna was dimly aware she’d usually laugh at that sort of mishap. “But—but you grew up with our Donna—I, I just—” 

Donna felt a similar horrified panic. How—how much of her life wasn’t real? Was Nerys just some alien who’d implanted memories of their years of complicated friendship?!

“We could drop you at home,” the Doctor casually offered. “I’m sure it’s on our way.” 

Nerys’ lips thinned. “I can’t just leave.”  

Donna finally found her voice. “Why not?” 

The Doctor watched Nerys scoff at Donna’s question without answering. An odd reaction...

“I don’t see why you can’t,” he amiably remarked. He watched Nerys closely. “Clearly you ended up here by mistake. You’re homesick and want to go back. I can get you there.” The Doctor shrugged broadly. “What’s the problem?”

She eyed him for a long moment. What was she looking for?

“First,” Nerys abruptly said, “You’re going to tell me more about this planet you’re from.” 

The Doctor caught and lost his breath all at once. He was intensely grateful for how quickly Donna grabbed his hand. 

Nerys’ eyes narrowed. “What’s his problem, then?” 

“You’re being cruel,” Donna bit out. “You don’t know it, but you are. His planet...” 

She squeezed his hand. The Doctor squeezed it right back. 

“It’s gone, alright?” she snapped. 

Nerys’ jaw dropped. The Doctor clenched his. 

“There was this awful war, a Time War—not that it’s any of your business,” Donna hissed. “But the Time Lords...they’re all gone.” 

Wilf stifled a gasp. He flinched. 

“The Doctor, he’s the last of his kind.” 

He focused on steadying his breathing. The silence helped, interrupted only by the companionable crackling of the flames. 

When he dared to look round, Sylvia openly gaped at him. The Doctor’s eyes flicked to the others. Justin looked like he wished himself anywhere but there, good old Wilf had tears in his eyes, and Nerys still stared in disbelief. 

Beside him, Donna took in his every flicker of expression. That raw caring she rarely showed was writ large across her face. Warmth welled up inside him.

“Seriously?”  

The shriek made both him and Donna jump in their seats. 

“Wh—?” 

“I’ve been hiding you from the bloody Time Lords all this time for nothing?!”  

The Doctor was faintly surprised Nerys hadn’t shattered the glasses with that screech. 

“What—what the hell do you mean, ‘hiding me’?” Donna demanded. “And what d’you mean, ‘for nothing’?”

Nerys’ white-knuckled fist came swiftly up.

Chapter Text

Donna flinched and yelped for all the good it did. 

The object Nerys hurled at her bounced off the Doctor’s leg and landed harmlessly in Donna’s lap. 

“Ow!” The Doctor rubbed his shin indignantly. 

She was sure he had plenty more to say about that, but all sound faded away the moment she picked it up—Mum’s questions, Gramps’ concern, and the Doctor’s whining all dissolved to nothing...

The next thing Donna knew, the Doctor was calling her name. His hand rested on her cheek. 

“I’m fine—course I’m fine,” she muttered, but her preoccupation clearly hadn’t gone unnoticed. Donna turned it over in her hand. “What’s wrong then?” she asked. 

Donna let the Doctor gently tilt her head up to search her eyes, but he only looked even more worried. 

“What’d she say?” Gramps was asking, but Mum waved off his inquiry as she picked her way around the fire. Even Nerys looked concerned. Justin, poor bloke, looked keenly aware that he shouldn’t be there at all... 

“What’s that you’ve got there, Earthgirl?” the Doctor softly asked, drawing her attention back to him. 

Donna started—right, she’d picked something up. 

She languidly brought it up between them. The Doctor supported her hand with his as she opened her fingers...

He let out a low sound she’d never heard from him before. 

Firelight flickered on an intricately engraved fob watch in her hand.

“What is it?” Mum sharply demanded. “Do you know what it is? Is it alien?” She stopped in her tracks, wringing her hands. 

Nerys snorted softly. Mum wheeled on her. 

“Do you know, then?” she snapped. The bonfire cracked and snapped in sympathy. 

“Yes.” Nerys cleared her throat. “It’s...definitely alien.”

“Is it?” Gramps asked, obviously intrigued. 

“Oh, god—oh, no—what can we do?” her mum moaned, wringing her hands even harder. 

Donna tried to focus on the Doctor, but he wouldn’t look up.

“Doctor?” 

He still didn’t respond. She even tapped his cheek, but his eyes were locked on the watch. 

Meanwhile Nerys was really making a meal of whatever she was saying. 

“—You see, it turns out that Donna isn’t actually related to you by blood. At all.” 

Justin gasped. 

Donna rolled her eyes. 

“...Yes, dear. We know that,” Gramps finally said. He looked rather concerned. 

Nerys stared at him. “What?” 

Mum’s eyes narrowed. Her arms crossed. “Don’t you remember that Donna’s adopted?” she demanded. “I expected better from you.” 

Donna tried not to savour the completely pole-axed expression on Nerys’ face. 

“L–look, of course that’s not what I meant,” Nerys finally stammered. “I—I just—” 

Her hand snapped up to point accusingly at the Doctor. Donna automatically bristled. 

“Donna’s like him!” Nerys proclaimed. 

It was Donna’s turn to search his eyes, but the Doctor still seemed unable to look away from the watch. His face was alive with hunger and conflict. 

“Doctor?” she asked. Donna gave him a gentle nudge. 

“That—that’s impossible, I—” the Doctor stammered. His gaze flicked up to hers, his pain starkly visible, and right back down to the watch again. “You can’t be—I, you—”

“You’re a Time Lord,” Nerys told her sharply. “Or Lady, I’m actually not sure.”

“What?” Mum squawked. “A Time what?”  

“Our Donna, a Time Lady?” Gramps sounded nearly ecstatic. 

“Oh, come on,” Donna scoffed. “You can come up with a better lie than that.”  

Nerys stared in disbelief. “Why would I lie about this?!” 

“But we—I—Donna’s—” Her mum fell back onto the bench. “We’ve had her since she was tiny!” Mum protested weakly. Her lips continued to work, even if nothing resembling words came out. 

“It just looks like an ordinary fob watch! How’s it work?” Gramps asked. 

Nerys threw up her hands with an irritated tut. “Look, I don’t know how it works, and it’s none of my business either! I’m not a bloody Time Lord! But that watch,” she pointed directly at Donna’s hand, “Has her Time Lord self inside. And it helped get us set up with a backstory on Earth, somehow.” 

Oh, lord—she’d clearly had a break with reality. 

Donna pointedly ignored that she’d already known about the TARDIS and the sonic screwdriver.

“Oh, come on, Nerys,” she sighed. “You’ll have to come up with something a lot more believable for me to swallow.” 

“More believable than the truth?” Nerys spat. “What—why—? Why would I bother to make that up?” 

“I’m sure I don’t know why you do anything,” Donna scoffed. “Why would you bother sticking around if you were so bloody miserable?” 

“What was I supposed to do?” Nerys asked. “You needed me!” 

“I needed you?” 

Donna hadn’t intended to sound quite so incredulous, but her tone had Nerys inflating like a furious bullfrog.

“That’s what you told me, anyway,” she hissed. “God knows if it was true.” 

“And when exactly was that?” Donna demanded. “I don’t recall ever mentioning that I needed you for anything at all!” 

Nerys’ eyes narrowed dangerously. “Right before you crammed all your memories into that damn watch is when. All your memories of your real life.” 

“And then what’d he say?” Nerys asked. 

She still wasn’t sure she believed a word, but the story about the Emperor of Nguzzini was too juicy not to finish. 

The Enigma’s smirk grew. “Well, first I informed him that any marriage proposals had to be vetted by my seven older brothers first...”

Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t have seven brothers, do you?” 

“You’re much better at detecting lies than the Emperor,” the Enigma chuckled. She took a long slurp of her skörnk latte. “Very clever, you are.” 

Nerys was torn between preening and rolling her eyes. “D’you try to sound that condescending, or does it come nat—?”

Her question ended in an unexpected yelp when the TARDIS abruptly hewed to one side. 

“Oi! What is it, boy?” the Enigma exclaimed. Somehow she’d managed to keep her feet, Nerys thought resentfully as she stood back up. At least her coffee spilled—there was some justice. 

Nerys snagged a towel from the nearest shelf. 

“Oh, no,” the Enigma breathed. “Hang on to something!”

She didn’t quite register that the direction was meant for her in time. The breath was knocked out of Nerys as she landed flat on her back this time. 

“That hurt!” she wheezed. Her diaphragm worked fruitlessly to give her air. “You said...you passed your flying test with...flying colours!” 

When she got back to her feet, Nerys held the nearest railing fast. She swung the towel over the floor to soak up the mess. 

“I did!” the Enigma protested. She tossed her long hair out of her face with an irritated tut. “We’re being followed—excuse me for trying to evade them!” 

“What?” The words simply didn’t compute. “But we were in the vortex!” 

“I know,” her friend bit out, “And that sort of narrows down who it could be.” 

“Meaning?” Nerys risked leaping toward the console. She made it just in time to weather another bump. 

The irritated look the Enigma shot her gave Nerys pause. 

“...It has to be someone capable of time travel,” she said slowly, “And you said before that that’s very rare in the universe...” 

The Enigma’s jaw tightened. 

“...So could it be—?” Nerys cut herself off—the answer was right there in her friend’s blue eyes. 

“Told you you’re clever,” the Enigma told her. Her lips turned up slightly. “Yep, it’s Time Lords after me. Got to be. Hang on, I’ll try and lose them again—” 

She landed the TARDIS several times in quick succession. Nerys hardly felt the landings—she only knew they’d landed at all because the Enigma pulled the brake lever each time. 

Then, though, intense vibrations nearly shook her hands off of the console altogether. 

Nerys held on for dear life. “What the hell are you doing?” she shouted over the engine’s whine. 

“We’re flying through space,” the Enigma shouted back. “Only through space—he doesn’t much like it, but he’s perfectly capable.” 

The TARDIS’ groan of protest echoed through the room. 

“Oh, hush—you’re just lazy, you know that?” The Enigma’s fond stroke of the console belied her stern tone. 

“Stop distracting me,” Nerys snapped. “Why’re we being chased by other Time Lords? They’re your people, right?” 

“Ye–e–es,” the Enigma said slowly, “But things before I left...they got a bit complicated.” She shifted gears with one hand as she flipped switches with the other. 

“What d’you mean, ‘complicated’?” Nerys demanded. “You can’t just say that like it explains anything.” 

The Enigma’s mouth twitched. “Time is a bit limited, you know, being chased and all that,” she pointed out, “But...there was a reason I left. They’re here to take me back, and—” Her hand came up and hit four buttons at once, jolting the TARDIS rather hard. “—I do not want them to.”

“Why not?” 

Her lips turned decidedly down. “I was facing some serious consequences when I left,” the Enigma revealed. “By now...by now they’ll be much worse.” 

How bad did those consequences have to be to make her swaggering, irritating, wonderful friend so pale? 

“Right. Then we’ll have to find a way out,” Nerys said briskly. She hesitated. “There is a way out, right?” 

The tension dissipated from the Enigma’s face for one glorious second as she grinned. 

“Course there is,” she replied. “Just watch.” 

Her hands somehow sped up even more on the controls. 

“Dipping around the Cats’ Eye Nebula—” Everything inside the TARDIS jerked one way as the ship jerked in the other. “—Dodging ‘round Adipose Three—” Nerys felt herself lift up off the floor. Her feet slammed back down with a jolt. “—And we’ll zip through a few more solar systems on our way.” 

The Enigma’s eyes flashed to hers. “Don’t get too excited—they’re definitely close behind,” she told her grimly. “I have a plan, but...eugh, you’re not going to like it.” 

Nerys set her jaw. “Try me.” 

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Nerys told her flatly. 

But her face was set in the most serious expression she’d ever seen her have. “‘Fraid not. I’m going to change, and you—well, I can’t make you do anything, but I can say I’d really appreciate not being captured.” 

Nerys couldn’t help being impressed by how fast she was typing under so much pressure. But what she was asking of her, to protect her human self from who-knew-what consequence...how exactly could Nerys look her in the face and say no? 

Could she say no? 

What would happen if she did? Would Nerys be captured too?

“But—but—how long will we be stuck there?” she stammered.  

The sudden lurch of the ship almost sent Nerys sideways. Luckily her grip on the console held. 

“No idea!” her friend said with grim cheer. “I don’t have much time to get this all set up. Dunno if I can calculate that with any accuracy.” 

Not even an estimate? Was she going to spend the rest of her life babysitting her?!

She’d opened her mouth to shout just that when the next big bump sent Nerys to the floor. A yelp escaped instead. When Nerys regained her feet, her friend was explaining some more as she frantically typed away. 

“—Anyway, the TARDIS will pack us each a bag. I’ve asked him to put together a list of rules, some do's and don’ts to help guide you for the time being—I really don’t know how long it’ll be, but obviously they can also travel in time...so it could be a while,” she told her rapidly. 

Oh, thank god, at least there was a guidebook. 

Then her sudden frown took Nerys off-guard. 

“The one thing is they’ll definitely be scanning local communications. It’ll be in the rules I’m sure, but you need to make sure I don’t draw any extra attention, alright? No television interviews, no snaps in the tabloids, and absolutely no vlogging.” 

“I s’pose,” Nerys grumbled. Her head spun with information. Vlogging—she’d definitely heard that word before. What was it short for again? “Any other requests? Watermelon margarita or something?”

Her friend flashed that familiar grin for a second—but then the TARDIS dropped some sort of spidery mechanism from the ceiling, and her grin disappeared at once. 

“What’ll happen to him, though?” Nerys suddenly asked. “The TARDIS?”

The Enigma’s mouth twisted. “He’ll...he’ll be towed,” she sighed. Her delicate hands clutched the controls possessively before she let go with a sigh. “They’ll be able to find him no problem. Oh, I’m going to miss you, dearest.” 

The ship’s bereft hum most definitely did not bring a tear to Nerys’ eye. She cleared her throat furiously. 

“I’ll miss you too,” Nerys told him thickly. 

The hum warmed even more. 

The Enigma took a turn clearing her throat. “Right! No more dawdling—no time for it.” She turned to the spidery-looking thing in a businesslike way. “Make sure to get me outside once it’s done.” 

“How long will it—?” 

But the question died in Nerys’ throat with the first shriek of pain torn from her friend’s throat. 

“Bloody heavy, you are,” Nerys grumbled under her breath. Both duffel bags already awaited them outside. Her mobile was safely in her pocket, along with that list from the TARDIS. 

Her arms, though, had an unconscious non-Time Lord sagging out of them and onto the pavement. Or, Time Lady? She wasn’t sure, and she couldn’t ask now. 

The screaming—the screaming still echoed in her ears... 

Nerys set her teeth. With one final heave, she propped up the Enigma against their bags. 

She bent down to squint at her face. Yep, still out like a light. 

Nerys was anxiously glancing back over her shoulder at the TARDIS, handily disguised as an archaic red booth of some kind, when a hand grabbed her elbow. 

“Oi!” she squeaked, throwing it off, only to freeze when she realised—

It was the Enigma.

Whoever she was, now, she was blearily blinking up at Nerys. 

“...Sorry. You startled me,” Nerys finally said lamely. There was an awkward silent moment. “...You alright?” 

Her eyes narrowed into a glare. “How could you let me drink so much? I can’t believe I passed out!” she demanded furiously. "I'll never be allowed in that pub again..."

“...What?” 

With a scoff, she got unsteadily to her feet. Nerys automatically reached out to help, but her friend smacked her hand aside. “God, my head’s killing me. I’m definitely calling it a night.” 

“...Right.” Frankly, Nerys had no idea what to say—not just in response to what she’d said, but to this stranger-friend at all. It wasn’t exactly a precedented situation. “....Well. G’night, then.” 

This new person turned up her nose. “I’ll just make my own way home, then, shall I?” she sniffed. In no time at all she’d claimed her bag and stalked off into the night. 

Nerys stared after her a moment longer before shaking herself loose. Better get away from the TARDIS before those other Time Lords caught up. 

Only a few blocks down the street did Nerys fumble for that list in her pocket—surely he noted down the Enigma’s new name and address somewhere...

The Doctor tried to look away from the watch. Really, he was being rather rude—he ought to at least look at Donna... 

He glanced at her and winced at her utter confusion. Oh, Donna...

The Doctor carefully moved close enough to slip his arm around her again. 

Her eyes flashed to him. “It—this, it’s ridiculous,” she stammered in a low voice meant just for him. Something swelled in his chest. “It—it can’t be real. I’m just Donna. Just boring, dim, old Donna Noble. There’s no way—I can’t be like you.” 

His hearts ached for her. “Donna, you’re brilliant.”  

She swallowed hard. 

The Doctor cleared his throat. “No matter who you are, you’re brilliant. That much will always be true,” he croaked. 

He held her gaze for a long moment, willing her to read his sincerity. Donna’s eyes softened. She was about to speak when across the bonfire Sylvia’s voice rose shrilly over the murmur of conversation. 

“You’ll never convince me I don’t remember raising my daughter,” she declared for anyone within several square miles to hear. She’d certainly regained her composure. “Dad held her when she was tiny, Geoff kissed her skinned knees better, I dropped her off at school—all of it happened! The bloody piano lessons!” 

Sylvia turned to appeal to Donna. The Doctor watched her shy away from her mother’s mutinous expression. 

“Donna, you remember piano, right? Oh, what a fuss you kicked up—practically had to drag you here every weekend—” 

“What school did Donna attend?” the Doctor interrupted.

Sylvia baulked. “What’s that got to do with anything?” she demanded. 

“Just—humour me for a minute. What school was it?” 

She opened her mouth to answer.

No words came. 

“Can you name one of her teachers?” he asked. The Doctor did his best to ignore the increasingly desperate look on Donna’s face beside him. The truth—they had to find the truth. “Or maybe piano—who taught her piano when you dragged her here?” 

Sylvia’s mouth worked, but no sound came. 

She had no counter-argument. 

It was hard to feel glad of anyone’s worldview being shattered. The Doctor went through it himself, all that time ago in Farringham...the foggy memories of trying to understand what this watch really was still haunted him. 

That stomach-churning feeling of solid ground disappearing under your feet...

His arm tightened around Donna. 

The Doctor cleared his throat yet again. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But that watch...I did recognise it. It has my—our people’s writing on it.” He involuntarily looked at Donna as he switched pronouns. 

She looked so lost. 

“What’s it do?” Sylvia demanded. “Is it—did it hurt her?” 

Beside her Wilf stiffened, concern written all over his face. 

“No!” The Doctor caught himself—that wasn’t entirely true. “I mean...the process hurts, yeah,” he had to admit. “There’s a larger device that activates it, and that...yeah. That...it changes every cell.”

He leaned forward intently. 

“...But the watch itself doesn’t hurt her. I promise.” The Doctor’s gaze flicked between Sylvia and Wilf. 

“Good,” Wilf breathed. ”Good.” He relaxed back into his seat. Sylvia tutted, but she didn’t have any further questions yet. 

Over beyond Justin Nerys resumed pacing, scowling at nothing as she went. 

The Doctor tightened his arm around Donna even more. 

“In fact, it’s protecting her. Just like Nerys said,” he continued. “The watch is holding on to all her Time Lord-ness... and it helped to set up her life on Earth.” 

The Doctor couldn’t take his eyes off of Donna. The firelight flickered over her hair, making it shine even brighter. 

“See, the device knew exactly what Donna needed. It gave her memories of her new family, of these people who she loved and who loved her no matter what...” He cracked a small smile. “It gave her a home.”  

Sylvia let out a sob. The Doctor assumed the rustling on the bench was Wilf comforting his daughter, but the shine in Donna’s eyes was about to overflow. 

“All the feelings were real...even if the memories weren’t,” he told her quietly. 

When she hid her face in his chest, the Doctor pulled her onto his lap. 

Pacing only did so much to release her feelings. 

Nerys scowled harder at the dim shape of Morley Manse against the sky. The stars beyond barely twinkled through the light pollution. 

She’d expected...

She didn’t know what she’d expected. 

More relief, Nerys supposed. And she was relieved, but...

When she turned back around, her eyes instantly landed on Donna’s shuddering shoulders. 

Her scowl deepened. 

God. Nerys had assumed she’d be purely enraged, raining righteous fury on her—and she was furious, somewhere underneath this stack of other complicated feelings. 

If she could just be furious at Donna—or at the Enigma, rather... 

Nerys watched the Doctor murmur something in her ear, running a hand soothingly down her back. 

Donna’s pain...it bothered her. 

There—she’d said it. 

Even after these years of frustration and stress and simmering rage, that bedrock of caring still lingered. Watching her crumple into her husband’s lap, devastated by the truth of things—that hurt her. 

“Donna...” she began. 

Nerys regretted opening her mouth at all the moment she started speaking. But everyone turned to look her way—Wilf with wonder, Sylvia with desperation, the Doctor with curiosity—and her friend’s blue eyes, reddened with tears...

“...In my opinion, for what it’s worth, Donna and the Enigma are essentially the same person,” she finally said. 

Donna muffled a sniffle with her sleeve, still staring. 

The Doctor silently mouthed ‘the Enigma’ to himself. Nerys didn’t care to decode his expression. 

Nerys tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Donna’s just as irritating and brilliant and occasionally dense now as the Enigma ever was.” 

She reclaimed her seat with a sniff. 

“...‘The Enigma?’ Seriously?” Donna asked sceptically. She accepted the Doctor’s handkerchief and dabbed delicately at her nose. 

“Yep.” Nerys shrugged. “Never told me why.” 

“Sort of defeats the purpose of being called ‘the Enigma’ if you explain,” the Doctor suggested. Mr. Mott chuckled. 

Donna aimed a weak smack at his chest. “Oh, stop that...” 

When he pulled her closer to whisper in her ear, Nerys pointedly turned to Sylvia. That was something she never wanted to observe too closely. 

“Are you alright?” she asked. 

Sylvia, too, muffled a sniffle with her sleeve. “What d’you think?” she asked tartly, but the acid was weaker than usual. “My daughter’s not my daughter...” 

“She is, though,” Nerys interrupted. She risked gingerly patting Sylvia’s hand. “In every way that matters, she’s still your Donna. Just...she’s got some different stories to tell. Or she will, anyway.” Once she actually opened the watch. 

“She lied to me, though.” Sylvia’s eyes narrowed. “You lied to me, too. And you actually knew you were lying!” 

Nerys froze.

“Sylvia, sweetheart,” Mr. Mott began, but Nerys couldn’t hold her tongue. 

“Look, I just—I didn’t know what to do! I was just following the story I was given—and I was stuck here, couldn’t go home—” She cut herself off with difficulty. 

This...this wouldn’t help. 

“...I’m sorry, Sylvia. Really, I am.” A short, sharp sigh came through her nose. “No excuses. I apologise—to both of you.” 

Mr. Mott, bless him, silently nodded his acceptance at once. His reassuring smile warmed Nerys through, even as she awaited his daughter’s verdict.

“...Well.” Sylvia’s shrewd eyes scanned her face. “I suppose it’d be rude not to accept your apology,” she finally decided. “And you always were such a good girl.” 

“...Thanks,” Nerys managed. Her shoulders shook with the bizarre impulse to laugh, but she held it in. Her willpower wasn’t helped by Mr. Mott’s irrepressible chuckle. 

A familiar snort from the other side of the fire caught her ear. 

Donna pulled away from her husband, grinning damply up at him. “And you’re sure? Really sure?” she asked. 

The Doctor’s nod held more conviction than Nerys had ever seen in any gesture. “Always. No matter what,” he vowed. 

She averted her eyes when Donna leaned in to kiss him—oh, right, there was Justin, still sitting there incredibly awkwardly. Beside him sat his ever-present camera.

It only now occurred to Nerys that it might still be recording. Her mouth opened to address that, to demand that he chuck the tape directly into the fire—

—But that was when Donna pulled away from him and opened the watch. 

Chapter Text

For a moment Sylvia was certain that the light was just in her head. Or perhaps a trick of the firelight—it did send continual flickers of light and shadow over everything... 

She blinked rapidly, but no—it was still there. A strange substance was floating out of that watch. 

It was gold, but it didn’t sparkle like metal. It just shone. The energy twined its way up and around Donna, through her hair, over her face—her daughter’s eyes fluttered shut—

It soaked into her skin. 

A shiver ran through her entire body. 

Sylvia’s grip on her father’s hand tightened. 

Beside her the Doctor looked nearly frantic. It suddenly occurred to Sylvia that perhaps she should be frantic too. 

She opened her mouth to ask, but that was when Donna’s eyes fluttered back open. 

“Eugh...” Her mouth twisted into a grimace.

“Donna? Donna, are you alright?” Sylvia demanded…but her daughter completely ignored her question. Typical.

It was more surprising that she ignored that man’s fussing as well. 

“...I’m so, so sorry, Nerys,” Donna finally said. 

No, not Donna—what was that ridiculous name, again? Enema? No, surely not...Omega? Insignia? 

Oh, never mind. Whatever it was, her daughter would always be Donna to her. 

“You’d better be sorry,” Nerys bit out, heaving with injustice. “But what exactly are you apologising for, though? Stranding me on this godawful backwater planet? Running off with him on my watch? Or maybe for trying to get married so many times?!” she spat. 

The flames highlighted the roll of Donna’s eyes. “Yeah, all of that,” she drawled, “But I mainly meant I was sorry for being so condescending.” 

“...Seriously?” Nerys spluttered. 

“Yeah.” Her eyes darted to the Doctor for a moment. “Now that I’ve experienced it for myself, I can finally see how arrogant Time Lords are.”

“Oi!” 

She raised her voice and an eyebrow at him. “Always going on about how clever you humans are—and always with the tone of surprise, like you’re a talking animal...” 

“Donna! I never meant anything like—” 

“That superiority complex really is something else,” Donna continued loudly. She glared at him until he stopped flapping his lips.

Sylvia had rarely felt prouder of her daughter. 

“Well...” Nerys trailed off consideringly. “I suppose that’s...acceptable.” 

Donna briskly nodded. “Good.” 

Sylvia felt her gaze like a physical touch.

“Mum,” Donna murmured. 

The next thing she knew, Sylvia was holding her father and daughter in a confusing tangle. 

“Oh, my darling, you’re alright,” Dad choked out over Donna’s shoulder, “You’re alright.” 

“Course I am, Gramps.” 

“Oh, Donna...” Sylvia hardly recognised her own voice. 

She felt every movement of Donna clearing her throat. “...I really love you both,” she hoarsely told them. “But I—I completely understand if you don’t want me to stick around after—after I lied to you all that time—” 

“Nonsense,” Sylvia snapped. Something tightened deep inside at the thought of never seeing her girl again. She clutched Donna even closer. “Don’t be ridiculous. What would Suzette think if you stopped coming round for Sunday roast?” 

Donna let out a strangled laugh. 

“...Mind you’re not late, though,” Sylvia added. God alone knew how bad that man’s sense of direction might be—for all she knew he could turn left instead of right and arrive early Thursday morning by mistake. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll set the coordinates myself.” 

“You’d better.” This time her words came out in a damp whisper. Sylvia buried her face in Donna’s shoulder—best to let those tears go unnoticed.

“You’ll always be my granddaughter,” Dad vowed thickly. “The brightest star in my sky. No matter what happens.” His arms tightened around them. “Eh? You got that?” 

“Thanks, Gramps.” Her daughter’s words were almost entirely muffled in his coat. 

Sylvia only let go when Donna pulled away. Dad must have too, since she made a beeline right back to that wretched alien. 

Her lips pursed. Unfortunate, that—it was almost certainly too much to ask that her daughter might leave him behind, under the circumstances. 

...Well. At least he had a house in a decent catchment area.  

All was finally right in the Enigma’s world. She remembered everything again, her adoptive family still wanted her, and Nerys had even accepted her preliminary apologies.

Everything should’ve been at peace. 

Emphasis on should.

“You don’t actually think I thought you were below me, do you?” the Doctor hissed in her ear. 

“Shut up.” 

“But I—”

“I said, shut up.” She tightened her arms around him. “You’re ruining the hug, Spaceman.” 

The sudden pressure on her ribs startled a squeak out of her. 

“Just remember: suffocating me would also ruin the hug.” 

His grumbling scraped his stubble against her neck. It sent a shiver through Donna even as it made her smile. 

Justin cleared his throat. 

Before she properly recognised the sound, the Enigma had already whirled around and off the Doctor’s lap. 

“Er...sorry for interrupting,” he began awkwardly. “I, er...I think I’ll just head out. I, er, realise I probably shouldn’t have heard all that...so, um. Sorry about that, too.” 

“Oh,” Donna said dumbly. “Right.” She’d completely forgotten he was there. 

“That bloody camera had better have been off through all this,” Nerys snapped. The Doctor started to his feet along with her. 

“The camera—?”

Justin froze before bending to check it. “...Right, sorry,” he said sheepishly. “Almost out of tape....”

He caught her eye and flushed. The Enigma glared down her nose at him. 

“...I’ll edit out any sensitive information, of course,” Justin quickly promised. 

“You’d better,” Donna muttered darkly. 

She’d better double-check that later. Couldn’t have footage of her personal business floating around on Earth...let alone all that talk about Time Lords. 

“So you’re going to finish the episode, son?” Gramps asked. The crease between his brows deepened. “Are you sure?” 

Justin just shrugged. “I...I don’t know,” the television presenter admitted. He looked terribly uncertain. “I suppose...I suppose I don’t have to.” 

“But—” Mum began, but the Doctor interrupted. 

“You’re free now, Justin,” he told him. “Free to finish it—or not. Whatever you choose.” 

“Well,” Justin said slowly, “I...I’m not going to keep filming the programme. Not after this. I’ve had more than enough spooky things happen for a lifetime. But...” 

His eyes drifted down to the camera in his lap. 

“...Well. If I already have this last episode shot anyway, I suppose I might as well cut it together,” he sighed. “And I did sign a contract.” 

“Right, then!” The Enigma jumped—Mum looked rather excited all of a sudden. “We could really get cracking tomorrow. Dad can fill in that hole, and I can start on the wallpaper—”

“No, no more wallpaper, please!” the Doctor desperately cut in. Donna held back a snort. 

Gramps shook his head. “No, no. Some buildings can’t be saved!” he announced with an affirmative nod. Her mouth turned up. 

“I don’t think anyone needs another luxury house,” the Enigma added. 

“But...” Mum looked from face to face to face to face to face, but there was no succour to be found. “But the money!” she wailed. “And the catchment area’s just perfect!” 

“Mum!” Donna’s cheeks burned. Next to her the Doctor choked on air. 

“Some things,” Nerys sniffed, “Are more important than money or catchment areas.” She lowered her nose to stare thunderously at the Enigma. “Particularly as she isn’t having a baby right now. Right?”  

“I’m not!” she managed faintly. When would she escape this hell? “I swear!” 

The Doctor collected what remained of his dignity as he held out a large branch. “Justin...you are now free.” 

“...Right,” Justin said, accepting it. He regarded the branch doubtfully. 

“Use that to...you see that puddle?” 

Justin nodded.

The Doctor leaned toward him, his eyes wide. “Petrol. Light the blue touch paper and retire.” 

“No,” Mum breathed, horrified. She looked ready to launch herself at Justin. 

Gramps extended his arm in front of her. “Go on,” he encouraged. “That’s a lad...”

Donna watched Justin take a deep breath. 

He gamely stuck the branch into the flames. 

The addition of the burning manse to the light of the bonfire was blinding. 

The Enigma tugged the Doctor down to settle on his coat again. 

His arm snaked around her rather quickly. 

“I didn’t realise arson had this effect on you,” he murmured throatily. The Doctor pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her temple. 

She rolled her eyes. “Hardly,” the Enigma tartly replied. She lowered her voice. “My sense of romance might be slightly skewed thanks to you, but it’s never, ever going to include my mother’s wailing.” 

Her mum’s distant moaning continued apace. 

“Ah, well,” the Doctor grumbled, extricating his hand from her back pocket, “Just seems a waste of a good fire...as well as a house.”

A muffled whoosh of an explosion startled all six of them. 

“What was that?” Mum demanded sharply. 

“My car!” Nerys shrieked. “Oh, my god, that was my car!”  

The Doctor and Donna just looked at each other.

“...At least I added fireworks?” he said hopefully. 

The fireworks were rather lovely. 

Chapter Text

“Home, sweet home...” 

Donna—or perhaps ‘the Enigma’...he really must ask about that—was all but whistling as she bustled around the console. The fond whirr of the engines brought an involuntary smile to the Doctor’s face.

“Good to be back, eh?” he asked. 

She flashed his favourite grin in his direction. 

The door creaked open behind him. The Doctor turned to watch Nerys‘ first faltering steps inside. 

“Oh,” she breathed. Her eyes flickered over the console, the jump seat, the coral pillars, the railings...

Nerys’ lips pursed.

“...Bit knackered, isn’t it?” she finally remarked. 

“What?” the Doctor squawked, but Don—the Enigma cackled. 

“I know, eh?” she laughed. “Poor thing’s in rough shape. Could use a bit of a going over, couldn’t you, girl?” 

“Oi! I keep her in good order!” he protested, but both women side-eyed him in unison. The snickering rumble vibrating his feet didn’t help either. "Ganging up on me, you are.” 

“Don’t worry, Nerys, I’ll have her shipshape in no time.” The Enigma decisively flipped the aesthetics gauge into the ‘standby’ position. 

“I mean...” The Doctor faltered. 

It would be nice to know what colour the grating should be. Perhaps to get some proper padding on the handrails, too...and to know for sure where the Irish Crown Jewels got to. He really ought to return those someday, now that the infestation was sorted. 

“I suppose...if you’re set on doing it anyway, I won’t stop you,” he conceded.

The Enigma scoffed. “As if you could.” 

“As if I’d even try,” the Doctor corrected her dryly. 

 She tried to glare at him, but she just looked too happy. 

“...Eugh, I really need that sick bag,” Nerys muttered sourly. 

The Enigma cleared her throat. “Right! Let’s get you home.” She twiddled a few handy knobs. “Mind if I park inside your flat?” 

Nerys shrugged. “Go for it.” 

The Doctor couldn’t help hovering behind her. “Careful with the—”

“—Choke, I know,” the Enigma said calmly. She nudged the correct dials to compensate for it. “Someday we’ll have to get her temporal carburetor properly sorted.” 

He scowled at the back of her head as she took off. “It’s not that bad—” 

“It’s not good, though,” she interrupted. “And doesn’t the Old Girl deserve the best?” 

The Doctor hastily shut his mouth when a smug purr reverberated through the console room. “Course she does,” he grumbled. “That goes without saying.” 

Nerys’ chuckle took him by surprise. “You really won’t get a word in edgewise between Herself and your TARDIS, now,” she predicted. 

His lips turned up despite his pique. “As it should be,” the Doctor agreed. 

Donna looked over her shoulder at him with a delightfully soft smile...

The TARDIS landed. 

Nerys rushed out at once. 

The Enigma looked after her. “Really hope I haven’t parked on her ferns,” she muttered, “She bloody loves those things...”

His eyebrows rose. “Will she be taking them with her? They’re not native to her planet. Shouldn’t bring a potential invasive species back.” 

“Well, it’d be alright if she kept them on the TARDIS...”

“Yeah, I suppose...” 

Her eyes flashed to his. “What, you’re suddenly not okay with a few ferns? You’ve got an entire arboretum on here!” 

“I never said I wasn’t okay with them!” the Doctor protested. 

Nerys popped back in at the exact right time to forestall an argument, lugging an enormous duffel behind her. 

“Oi, about your ferns,” the Enigma began, but she waved her off dismissively. 

“Sod the ferns, I’m going home!” Nerys dropped her bag with an emphatic thump. “Hang on, I’ll just fetch my boxes.” 

She’d rushed back out before the Doctor could offer to help. “Think she needs a hand?” he asked. 

“Mm, probably not. Practical girl, Nerys is—she never was an overpacker.” 

His brows drew together. “Well...she is packing up her whole life, this time,” the Doctor pointed out. “Five years of it. Little bit different from jetting off on a whirlwind trip, no?” 

The Enigma set her jaw. “S’pose,” she muttered. 

...Hmm. The Doctor watched her stiffly run a diagnostic for a moment longer. 

Nerys staggered in, huffing and puffing. This thump was much louder as she dropped a sizeable cardboard box next to her bag. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it,” she panted, and she stalked back out. 

Her scowl, however, communicated the exact opposite. The Doctor hurried after her. 

The Doctor was well aware that he had a much different perspective on non-dimensionally-transcendent living spaces, but this flat was smaller than he ever could’ve imagined. It was amazing that the Enigma had managed to park the TARDIS at all, really.

He carefully edged around the narrow sofa. There was a mere six inches of room to move around in most of the place. 

It was rather difficult to conceal his horror. 

The Doctor cleared his throat. 

“What’s all that?” he asked. The Doctor eyed the vast array of cosmetics Nerys was shovelling into a large violet carry-all. 

“Make-up,” she said shortly. 

“Yeah, but...why bother bringing it?” He picked up one of them—palettes, he thought they might be called. 

Nerys snatched it from him at once. The Doctor bit back an automatic protest. 

“Are you kidding?” she demanded. “You can’t get this stuff in my time! Real eyeshadow?” Her snort of derision was deafening. 

Right, eyeshadow—he’d heard that word before. “None at all?” the Doctor asked. That seemed odd. 

“Well, yeah, some,” Nerys huffed, “But the formulations are rubbish!” She frowned down into the carry-all, which hadn’t drooped at all with the weight of countless things. “Almost makes me wish we still had animal testing...obviously I don’t actually, but they really are awful. Crumbly as anything—can't do a proper smokey eye with that.”

The Doctor blinked. “...Right,” he said faintly. That...that was too much to address. He made a mental note to ask Donna what a ‘smokey eye’ was later—now didn’t seem the best time to ask. 

She let out a sharp sigh and straightened. “Right! Anyway, take that box. Should be the last once I get everything else in this.” Nerys bustled past the famous ferns to the other room. 

At least this box was smaller than the other one.

The Doctor slid it off the table and staggered under the weight. “What’s in there?!” he squawked.

“Clothes, mostly,” Nerys answered loudly, slightly muffled by distance. “Shoes, belts...a few kitchen things, that cast iron took a hell of a lot of seasoning...and the books, of course—you can’t get analog books like that any more, either.” 

“All that just in this?” the Doctor asked disbelievingly. He concentrated on lifting from his legs, not his back. 

“I just used my pocket interstitial—”

“—Convergence field manipulator, right,” he sighed, finishing her sentence for her. “Forgot about those.” Handy things, really. The only drawback was how heavy things got when they overlapped in space like that. 

The Doctor hastily got moving—he was beginning to lose feeling in his arms. 

He paused just outside the TARDIS with a curse. 

“Sorry, Old Girl,” he muttered, and the Doctor kicked the doors open as gently as he could. The TARDIS beeped accusingly. “I said I was sorry,” he groaned. 

The Doctor tried to set the box down softly, but it slipped from his numb fingers and landed on the grating with a deafening thud. 

“Oi! Be gentle!” 

“I’m trying!” the Doctor protested. “But Nerys used a pocket ICF manipulator and didn’t warn me first!”

She glanced up from the monitor with a frown. “Oh, dear. No robots to fetch and carry here...”

“No. Just Time Lords,” he grumbled, rubbing his lower back. 

“Oh, stop pouting,” the Enigma ordered. Her voice softened slightly. “How’s the back?” 

The Doctor stretched experimentally. “Tight,” he admitted, “But mostly fine.” 

“I’ll give you a backrub later, then.” Her fingers kept on busily tap-tap-tapping away. 

He swaggered closer, draping himself over the dematerialisation lever to waggle his eyebrows. “Oh, will you?” the Doctor purred. The moment she made eye contact, her cheeks went bright pink. 

“Sick bag—seriously,” Nerys groaned. How’d he missed the creak of the door?

The Doctor scrambled off the console. “Hem!” One hand raked through his hair. “Right, yes. Need any more help?” 

“That’s the last of it.” She balanced the carry-all precariously on top of the boxes. “I’ve texted my landlord that I’m leaving. He can sort out the cleaning for himself, I really can’t be arsed.”

“Won’t he charge a fee?” Don—the Enigma asked at once. 

Nerys shrugged. “Not like I need it where I’m going. What would I do with pounds, anyway?” 

“Fair enough.”

“Yeah.” 

The Doctor idly rolled from heel to toe where he stood. 

Across the console room Nerys itched her nose. 

The Enigma cleared her throat. 

“Alright, then! We’re all set.” She took off into the vortex with a sharp crank of the dematerialisation lever. “Where to now, then?” 

The Doctor looked to Nerys immediately. She opened her mouth and shut it again awkwardly. 

“We really should take a little while before visiting my family again...but not too long. Mum’s expecting us at Easter, by the way,” the Enigma announced. 

She levelled a chilling stare at him when he opened his mouth. 

“No arguing! We’re definitely going.” 

He threw up his hands at once. “I’m not arguing! We should just visit the Oeufzone first, though. They have these fantastic little—”

Her face brightened. “Candied eggs! You remember that?” The Enigma directed the question at Nerys. 

She smiled and nodded in response...but it looked rather automatic. And that smile better resembled a grimace. 

Oh, dear.

“Or maybe Intarsis would be a better first stop,” the Enigma mused. “All that shopping—d’you remember that brilliant little bookshop with all the fish tanks?”

“Course I do,” the Doctor answered patiently, “I’m the one who showed it to you.” 

“Nerys would love it, though. She always prefers hard copies.” 

“Yeah...” His eyes flashed back to Nerys, then back again. “She did mention something about that.” 

Surely his own about-to-leave-the-TARDIS conversations with his companions weren’t this bad. 

The Enigma opened her mouth to speak again, but the Doctor cleared his throat rather loudly. 

Her eyes narrowed. “What’re you—?” 

“So, Nerys,” he interrupted, “Where and when would you like to be dropped off?” 

The Doctor tried to ignore the betrayed look on Donna’s face as he gently nudged her away from the controls. Nerys, however, looked rather relieved. 

“Calryxia—er, the Upper South Side, specifically. 53rd of August, 3246.” She rattled off her full address too. “Please,” Nerys added belatedly. “Any time after three should work.” 

Only half of the Doctor’s attention remained on setting the coordinates—the other half was on the Enigma’s stricken expression. 

“Nerys...are you sure?” she asked. 

“Yes.” 

The Enigma blinked uncomprehendingly. The Doctor bet the answer came far quicker than she’d anticipated. 

“Look, don’t think I...” Nerys sighed loudly. “Enigma, it’s not like...like I regret travelling with you. Really. We saw so many amazing things—things I’d never imagined I’d see.”

She grimaced. 

“Well, I do regret the years of worry,” she corrected. 

“...Right,” the Enigma said faintly. 

“But I just...after all this time, I want to go home.” The yearning fairly dripped from Nerys’ voice. “I miss my life! My crappy little flat, my other friends, my mums—god, I even miss my waste-of-space brother!” 

The Doctor set the TARDIS into motion. Nerys stumbled, but the railing was right there for her to grab. The Enigma barely even wobbled. 

“...Enigma?” he hesitantly asked. 

Her face turned toward him, but she seemed elsewhere entirely. 

“Christ,” Nerys muttered disgustedly. “Look, I—I don’t want to hurt you, but...” 

The Enigma’s chin came up defensively. “You’re not,” she insisted, “It’s fine! Course you want to go home, you’re perfectly entitled—” 

“Shut up!” she snapped. 

Donna—the Enigma looked like she’d been slapped. 

“Always with the talking,” Nerys groused. “It’s my turn, alright? You got that?” 

Her only response was a crisp nod. The Doctor double-checked their course, adjusting the spatiolabe a minute degree. 

“It’s not just how long I was stuck on Earth,” Nerys said baldly. “I mean, it’s partially that. Five years isn’t nothing when you’re not a bloody Time Lord—and I wasn’t exactly relaxing the whole time, either.”

“No?” the Enigma asked dryly. “I seem to remember a decent amount of cocktails and dancing.”

Nerys’ eyes narrowed. “So I tried to have a little fun sometimes,” she bit out, “In the five years of being terrified that other Time Lords were gonna fall out of the sky and haul you away. Five years of stress and worry and having to monitor your personal life to make sure you didn’t violate the rules you gave me!” 

“Technically my TARDIS gave—”

“I said, shut up!” Nerys bellowed. 

The Enigma shut her mouth with a click. 

The Doctor suddenly felt even better about most of his leaving-the-TARDIS conversations. 

“My god, you really can’t just hush for a bloody minute?!” Nerys scowled blackly. “Not exactly selling coming with you again, are you?” 

The clench of Donna’s jaw caught his eye. The Doctor hit the final key to update the temporal coordinates and flipped on the autopilot.

He took the Enigma’s hand. 

“You clearly don’t understand what I went through,” Nerys spat, “So I’ll try and use small words you can understand.” 

Bits and pieces of the last five years flashed before Nerys’ eyes. The loneliness—the paranoia—the anger—all the emotions she’d been forced to cram deeper and deeper inside her were ready to burst out her eyes.

Nerys might very well explode if she wasn’t careful. A deep breath hissed in and out again as she tried to master herself. Now that she’d cracked the seal, though, everything she’d been repressing wanted out.  

Another deep breath in...and out.

No. She wouldn't hold back.

No more crushing it down. No more hiding. No more lying. 

“You left me alone in a random street, and I had to figure out everything after that by myself. Everything!” Nerys shouted. So much for not exploding. “Thank god your TARDIS left me a bit of psychic paper, or I would’ve been bloody homeless!” 

Her heart ached at the thought of that empty spot where the old fellow had landed...but the pain only stiffened her spine. 

“Then I had to hold down a job, and a flat, and I had another full-time job looking after you,” she growled. “All while being totally unsuspicious while I assimilated into an archaic culture! D’you know how many times I nearly referenced ‘Coronation Starship’ by mistake?” 

It’d taken her an embarrassingly long time to realise that she’d even needed a job in the first place. Of course there wasn’t universal housing that early, but Nerys was never that interested in historical politics... 

But that wasn’t the worst of it—that wasn’t nearly the worst of it.  

“You asked me to give up the rest of my life, you know.” The words fell heavy from her lips.

“What?” the Enigma yelped. She surged a step forward, tugging the Doctor after her. “I never—”

“Uh, yes, you did!” Nerys snapped. Didn’t she think any of this through?! “You told me you’d have to become human, blah blah blah, and you had no idea how long it’d be for. No end date at all—could've been the rest of my life!” 

The Enigma’s flinch filled her with sour satisfaction. “Well...well, I...” 

Then came the killing blow. “You didn’t say a word about how I’d know it was safe to open the watch, either. How was I supposed to figure that out on my own?” 

The Enigma deflated before her eyes. 

"You were under pressure, obviously,” Nerys stiffly admitted, “And you did ask if I was okay with it, but how could I possibly say no? Think about it! ‘No, just get captured. I’ll just live the rest of my life on whatever planet this is, knowing I doomed my friend to whatever dire fate awaits’...” 

She arched a sharp eyebrow. 

“You know me. D’you really think I’d choose that?” 

“...No,” the Enigma quietly said. “No, you wouldn’t.” 

Nerys narrowed her eyes. “Don’t think I’m done telling you off just because I sort of understand—I’ve got plenty more,” she bit out. “The bloody aliens—don’t get me started on the bloody aliens! More and more of them every year, like we were advertising to attract them!”

She began to pace. 

”Thankfully you weren’t too bad about staying out of the way, but it was luck alone that kept you home when the Nestene Consciousness were wandering about the high street—and thank god that lift at my building was broken the day the hospital went to the moon…”

”You met the Nestene—?” The Doctor mimed zipping his lips before Nerys could do more than glare in his direction. “Sorry,” he told her, immediately breaking the imaginary lock anyway.

Nerys rolled her eyes. No matter—there was still plenty more.

“Did you think that I had a fantastic time pushing myself into the mess of your wedding plans?” she inquired sweetly. 

The Enigma made a telling face. 

“For the record, flirting with Lance wasn’t my first strategy. That was only after weeks of tea with his mum, tailing him everywhere, hacking into police databases...” 

Nerys pressed her lips white. 

“I was desperate to find out he was some sort of criminal boss or something,” she admitted a little sheepishly. “That or cheating on you. Anything to stop that bloody wedding.”

“I didn’t mean to—“

”Hush!”

Nerys brandished a furious finger under the Enigma’s nose. 

“Your TARDIS gave me the rule about no permanent attachments,” she hissed. “I was just following the rules! Couldn’t tell you that, though—course not, why make things any easier for me? Instead you gave me the cold shoulder for ages after you caught me flirting with him...don’t even try telling me giving me the wrong address for the hen party was a mistake.” 

The Doctor badly stifled a snort. Nerys gained a little satisfaction when he got the Enigma’s elbow in the gut. 

“And then,” Nerys began, really hitting her stride, “After that wedding went down in flames—which, you have to tell me how you managed that disappearing act someday, that looked brilliant...”

The Enigma grimaced. 

“...Then you started driving all over bloody creation!” Nerys scowled at the Enigma again. “One time I followed you all the way to Plymouth at two in the morning! What the hell were you doing that for?!” 

“Er...” The Enigma looked rather awkward. “I was just...er...”

Her eyes darted about helplessly, but Nerys certainly wasn’t going to rescue her.

“...I was looking for him, alright?” she finally snapped, jerking a thumb at the man himself. 

The smug look on the Doctor’s face sent Nerys’ eyes rolling to the back of her head. God, the ego on this one...and she thought she had it bad with her Time Lord. 

The Enigma’s hand came up to anxiously push her fringe out of her eyes. That obnoxiously large engagement ring caught her eye yet again—it was practically a bloody landmark.  

Nerys scowled. 

“Eugh, and then the actual disappearing act—how d’you think I felt when I found out you’d gone off with some man?” she demanded.

Panic—sheer panic was what she felt, but of course Nerys couldn’t just go ahead and just panic at the time. No, instead she’d had to hide an anxiety attack from Sylvia in the middle of the bloody produce section!

“I knew from that moment that something would happen—either you’d finally get caught by the Time Lords in Ibiza or wherever, or you’d elope and I wouldn’t have a chance to stop it.” Nerys glared at the Doctor. “Turns out it was both,” she growled. “Maximum efficiency, eh?”

At least the Doctor had the good grace to turn scarlet as the Enigma went purple. He opened his mouth, but Nerys had no desire to hear his excuses. 

“Of course, then there were the reality programme and alien ghosts on top of everything else,” she continued loudly. “Can’t you see why I’d be ready to just—just go home?”

“I...” The Enigma sighed heavily. “I suppose I can, yeah,” she muttered. 

“Good.” 

Hang on. 

Nerys frowned at the Doctor. “Why aren’t we there yet?” she demanded. “It never took this long to get anywhere on the other TARDIS.” 

He visibly started. “Oh! Right—I set the autopilot to take the scenic route.” 

“Why?” Nerys demanded. 

The Doctor grinned crookedly. “Knowing you and Donna...you needed the time to talk.” 

Hot resentment burnt her throat—how dare he presume to know her so well? But just then, the vibration of the TARDIS engines changed from a steady chug to a gentler idle. 

“...And here we are!” He strode back to the console and pulled the brake. 

“Thank god,” Nerys said fervently. “All I want after all this is to lie down.” 

Her friend’s mouth turned up slightly. “Sounds ideal.” 

Nerys headed to the doors, her heart beating faster and faster—outside was her flat, she’d be home, finally home, home at last. 

“I’m gonna lie on my horrible lumpy sofa for hours, watch the worst 6D telly, and download the longest virtual massage I can afford,” she proclaimed. Nothing could be sweeter than a boring night in.

She flung open the doors. 

It’d been a long five years, but Nerys was pretty damn sure she hadn’t installed a rainforest in her breakfast nook. “...What the hell is this?” 

“What?!” That useless man rushed up behind her at once. “...Oh. Sorry, must’ve transposed a number in the temporal coordinates—”

“I’ll get it,” the Enigma sighed, already heading to the console. 

“And you have my number?” 

Nerys rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mum,” she grumbled. “And you have my communicator hash?” 

The Enigma rolled her eyes. “Obviously.”

“Good.” 

“Good.” 

They gave each other a brisk nod. 

The silence was broken only by the distant sounds of Nerys’ upstairs neighbour.

The Doctor held out a hand. “Good meeting you again, Nerys...and thanks for your help.” He hesitated for a moment. “I mean, not just with the ghosts and Justin and all. Also for, er, looking after our Donna all this time...” He trailed off with visible discomfort. 

Her lip curled. “Pleasure,” Nerys said acidly. 

She gave his cool hand a cursory shake and let go as soon as possible. 

“...Likewise.” He slunk behind his wife. 

Nerys eyed the Enigma.

The Enigma eyed Nerys. 

Above them her neighbour sounded astonishingly like a herd of giraffes in roller skates. 

The Doctor sighed. “...I’ll just wait inside.” 

She didn’t look away from her as the TARDIS door creaked open and shut. There was no way Nerys was going to let her win—not a chance in hell. 

Not when she didn’t know when she’d see her next.

“...I’ll miss you,” the Enigma finally said, a bit grudgingly. Victory was sweet. 

Nerys shrugged. “S’pose I’ll miss you too,” she said. “Or I will in a couple of weeks, anyway.” 

Her mouth twitched. “That’s fair, I guess.” 

“Yeah.” 

When the Enigma stepped forward, Nerys did too. They met each other with a hug in the same moment.

“Thank you.” The words were muffled in her hair, but Nerys’ back straightened. 

“You’re welcome,” she whispered back. “Or, not welcome—don’t ask me to do that again, but...oh, you know what I mean.” 

“Yeah.” Her chuckle vibrated through Nerys’ chest. 

“Yeah...” 

Nerys pulled away with a sigh. 

“I have two things left to say to you.” 

The Enigma’s eyes narrowed as she slowly crossed her arms. “Okay...”

She held up a finger. “One: you need a new shampoo. I know you don’t want to hear it, but you’re a bit flaky—get that sorted before I see you next.” 

“Right.” The word ground out from between her teeth. 

“And two...” Nerys took a deep breath in, held it...and then let it out. “I will see you again. You got that?” 

Her mouth dropped open. “Obviously!” the Enigma exclaimed. “Couldn’t get away from you if I tried, could I?”

“Good,” Nerys sniffed. “Right, then, get on that deathtrap before your ridiculous man accidentally leaves you behind.” 

“He’s not that bad at...” Fortunately the Enigma caught herself before speaking that untruth. “Alright, he can be, but he really is mostly alright. Well...sometimes.” 

“If you say so.” Nerys was sure her tone adequately communicated her doubts. 

“Alright, then I’m off.” The Enigma pushed open the blue door. She turned to flash that infectious grin at her one last time. “See you around.” 

Her mouth turned up despite herself. “I’d better.”

The sounds of her upstairs neighbour were briefly obscured by the obnoxious scraping sound of the Doctor’s TARDIS. 

Nerys looked forward to their inevitable noise complaint.

Chapter Text

The Enigma was nearly finished with her routine diagnostics when she noticed the Doctor wasn’t trying to take over. 

She turned to find him leaning against the railing. He smiled at her immediately, just like always, but his eyes...

Usually he’d have glanced away in a hurry, not wanting to show her this sort of vulnerability, but now he held her gaze. She wasn’t used to that charged sort of...fondness. That obvious affection.

Or maybe it was just obvious now.

“What?” she demanded. 

The Doctor just shrugged. “Oh, nothing. Back to normal now, eh? Just the two of us...”

That look...Donna swallowed hard. 

“Well...” His lips twitched. “Sort of normal, anyway.” 

“Yeah, I—it’s definitely a bit different...” She looked back down at the controls. Her fingers were still poised to continue her work. “Not sure you’d’ve been okay with me driving your baby like this before.” 

“I’d never dare call the TARDIS ‘my baby,’” the Doctor sniffed. He pushed off the railing and sauntered closer. “She’d drop me in the swimming pool without a second thought.” An affirmative grumble emanated from below the grating. 

“Yeah, well, good for her,” she managed. “She shouldn’t brook any—er, nonsense from you.” His arm circled her waist.

“She’d never,” the Doctor murmured. 

“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow. His thumb stroked her side. Donna caught her breath. “Why she hasn’t tossed you in the pool before with all the action that mallet gets, I’ll never understand.” 

“I told you, it’s just a tool!” he protested. 

“That’s not what she says,” the Enigma said dryly. 

His grip on her hip tightened as the Doctor scowled up at the ceiling. “Traitor,” he grumbled. 

“Can’t fault her for knowing where her bread is buttered.” Donna ran a fond hand over the console—so similar, yet so different from her old fellow...

“...Are you alright?” 

“Hmm?” She blinked with confusion. “What?” 

“You’re...” His long fingers came up to blot the tears on her face. 

The Enigma touched her other cheek in surprise and found more. “Oh! I’m—I’m sorry.”

The Doctor’s brow creased with consternation. “Don’t be sorry, I just...” He sighed, taking her hand. “C’mon, let’s get a cuppa.” 

She looked back at the monitor as he led her away. “But the diagnostic—” 

“We’re just idling, anyway.” He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “She’ll be fine.” 

A bloop of agreement echoed through the console room. 

“...Oh, alright, then,” Donna sighed, lacing her fingers through his. “Twist my rubber arm.” 

“You’ve got one of those? Lucky!” 

She snorted. “Shut up.” The ‘you daft git’ was merely implied. 

The Enigma felt strangely at home here. 

It seemed obvious that she would—of course she’d feel at home on the TARDIS! Donna Noble had been living here full-time for ages, cooking and sleeping and spending loads of time between adventures with the Doctor!—

But there was the teapot. 

This specific teapot, rather. It strongly resembled the one she’d left on her previous TARDIS. The design on the side was different, but the shape was identical...and the willoware pattern was precisely the same shade of blue...

And it’d had pride of place in the TARDIS kitchen as long as she’d been travelling with him. 

“...So why’re you called ‘the Enigma’, then?” The question came from behind her. 

The Enigma’s finger froze halfway through tracing a painted swallow’s wing. 

“...Two sugars, right?” she asked faintly—hopelessly.  

“Three. You know that,” the Doctor said patiently. His chair creaked rather less patiently. “And I know when you’re stalling, Don—” He caught himself. “Actually, I’ve been wondering...which name do you prefer?” 

“Oh.” Donna thought for a long moment. “I suppose...I’m alright with both. Either's fine. But be careful...” She darted a mischievous smile over her shoulder. “...‘Donna’ isn’t far from my real name.” 

His eyebrows leapt to the top of his forehead. “Ah,” he squeaked. “Good—er—to know.” 

The kettle finally came to a boil. The Enigma poured it over the loose leaves. 

“...How long have you had this teapot?” she suddenly asked. 

“Er, dunno. Maybe...” The Doctor blew air through his lips as he thought. “...Definitely had it while Martha was here. I think...hmm. I don’t remember it being here before that. Old one was green.” He shrugged. “Just figured the TARDIS wanted a change.” 

Donna’s lips turned up. Perhaps it’d coincided with the arrival of an irate bride in the console room...perhaps not. 

“So! Big fan of the code machine?” the Doctor cheerfully inquired. “Or was it the band? One of the bands?” 

She sighed sharply. “You’re not going to leave it, are you?” 

“Are you joking?” he demanded. His hands spread wide. “You called yourself ‘the Enigma’! Course I’m going to have questions.” 

The Enigma dropped her head forward to rest on the cupboard door. “I knew it was a mistake,” she muttered darkly. “I knew it, but I didn’t know why...”

“Was it the famous black diamond?” the Doctor asked brightly. 

Donna went ahead and banged her head on the cupboard again. 

“You’re not gonna guess,” she groaned, “So just hush until the tea’s ready.” 

“Right, sure. Absolutely. Yeah.” 

She savoured every moment of silence as the tea finished steeping. Relative silence, anyway, since of course he relentlessly drummed his fingers on the table. The Enigma got down their favourite mugs—matching willoware for her, a kitschy eyesore from their visit to FreudLand UK for him. 

The drumming abruptly stopped. “...Is it because of the Elgar variations?” 

“God, I knew you couldn’t hush for long,” she sighed.  

“But is it?”

“Of course it’s not!” the Enigma snapped. She slammed the mugs onto the table, sending a good quarter of the contents slopping over the rims. “Damn—” She spun around, searching for something to clean it up. 

“It’s alright, I’ve got it,” the Doctor interrupted. He calmly produced a tea towel to soak up the mess. “What’s got you so flustered?” 

Donna swelled up with indignation. “Who says I'm flustered?” she spat. 

He eyed her doubtfully. 

She flushed. 

“...You do,” the Doctor finally told her. “Not out loud, obviously, but...”

“Eugh.” The Enigma flopped into the chair next to him with a huff. “...Sorry, Spaceman,” she sighed, “I just...it’s embarrassing.” 

“Oh, Donna...” He shuffled his chair a bit closer. “It’s okay. It’s just me.”

“Exactly.” She could feel her face twisting into a grimace, so she looked away. “It’s you! You’re important!” 

“Oh, am I?” the Doctor asked. Donna could almost hear his eyebrows waggling. 

“Shut it, ” she told the wall. Lovely shade of russet, it was. Warm and welcoming.

The sound of his cheeks creaking into a grin was deafening. “And how many embarrassing things have you learned about me?” 

She finally looked his way, raising her own eyebrows. “How much time d’you have?” 

“Oi!” 

The Doctor was buzzing with curiosity. ‘The Enigma’...what a fantastic name. 

He really didn’t understand her embarrassment—he was honestly a bit jealous. ‘The Doctor’ was still quite cool, mind, he told himself sternly, there was no doubt about it. Absolutely none. 

...But there was something so effortlessly mysterious about ‘the Enigma’. Something so...

Well. 

Enigmatic. 

“...Parking tickets.” 

The Doctor blinked. 

“What?” he asked. 

She sighed sharply. “Parking tickets. That’s why I’m ‘the Enigma’—it all started with the parking tickets.” 

The Doctor stared at her. The Enigma glumly stirred her tea, avoiding his eyes. 

“...Parking tickets,” he finally repeated. His brows drew together. “How?” 

She set the teaspoon aside. “So many of them.” This sigh was longer and wearier. “Too many of them—that was the problem. I just...I put off sorting out the paperwork for way too long.” 

Donna shrugged. 

“I don’t even have an excuse. I just...I just didn’t sort them out, and then the arrest communiqué from the Chancellery Guard came.” She cocked an eyebrow at him when he couldn’t hold in an exclamation. “Guess how many tickets it takes to go from summary to indictable.”  

The Doctor’s eyes were getting dry, they were so wide. “Er...” was all he could muster. 

“A hundred and twelve,” the Enigma dolefully confessed. She suddenly found the sugar bowl fascinating as she muttered, “Anyway, I wasn’t keen to turn myself in for a full trial and indenture. My mum would never have let me live that down...” 

It struck him on one level as curious how ‘Donna Noble’ found such a similar adoptive parent on Earth, but the Doctor was far too shocked on every other level to vocalise anything of the kind. Trial and indenture...how was such a serious punishment being levelled for parking violations?  

“Not that it wouldn’t’ve been embarrassing on my own account, because of course it would. But, in the end…” The Enigma hesitated, side-eyeing him for a moment, but then she continued, “I panicked. Sort of ended up stealing a TARDIS and running off.” 

He couldn’t hold back a smile. Deep fondness welled up almost painfully—they really were a pair, weren’t they? 

The Doctor rested his hand on hers, finally halting her anxious fiddling with the sugar bowl. 

“Just like someone else you know,” he remarked wryly. 

Her mouth turned up. “Yeah, well...” Donna turned her hand over, letting him take it properly in his. “Don’t go getting a bigger head about it—not like I knew you were out there.” 

“If you say so.” 

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever, Spaceman.” 

The Enigma went a delicate shade of pink, though, when he brought her hand to his lips. He’d have to remember that for later. 

“...Where’d you go first?” he asked. 

“Oh!” She brightened considerably. “Well, it did take me a while to get into the proper swing of things. I was sort of terrified at first. Bit paranoid that they’d descend the moment I landed.” 

The Doctor chuckled softly. The Enigma gave his hand an affectionate squeeze. 

“Anyway, I ended up seeing all sorts of new planets, people, galaxies—the works! Picked up a couple of friends along the way. Most of ‘em just hung around for one or two trips, but Nerys...” She swallowed hard. “...Well, she was always thinking of new places to go. And why not, right?"

The Enigma raised a ginger eyebrow.

"Not like she was going to run into another rogue Time Lord to see the sights with, eh?” 

It was the Doctor’s turn to roll his eyes. “Too bad I was previously engaged when I ran into her,” he said dryly. 

“‘Engaged’, you say,” Donna snorted. 

“Hey, I put a ring on you, didn’t I?” he protested. The Doctor ran his thumb over the twin bands on her finger...

Her other hand landed over his mouth. “Hush,” the Enigma ordered, even pinker than before. “Let me finish!” 

She made it difficult for him to nod until she dropped her hand. 

“...Eventually the good times had to end,” Donna sighed. “Must’ve taken a bit for the paperwork to make its way up the ranks, but then all of a sudden the Guard was tailing us through the Vortex...”

As always, the Doctor couldn’t keep quiet for long. “They did tend to frown on Grand Theft TARDIS,” he pointed out reasonably. 

“I said hush!” She glared at him. “And I didn’t really steal him—he wanted to come! I didn’t have to hotwire anything at all!” 

“I’ll believe you. Thousands wouldn’t.”

The Enigma failed to keep a straight face for more than a moment. First a snort escaped, and then she was just laughing aloud. The Doctor had to join her. 

They each took a fortifying sip of tea in the meantime—it was finally cool enough for her. 

“...What happened to him?” the Doctor finally asked. “Do you know?” 

He immediately regretted the question when the pain crossed her face. 

“Never mind, I—sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.” Obvious—it was obvious what must have happened. Taken back to Gallifrey, and... “I’m...oh, Donna, I’m so sorry.” His last words came out in a soul-deep sigh. The Doctor gave up on chafing her hand between his and guided her onto his lap from her chair. 

It was a sign of how deep the loss was that she didn’t struggle. 

Instead, the Enigma buried her face in his shoulder. The Doctor wrapped his arms around her with another sigh. 

“It’s alright. I’ll be here, long as you need. It’s alright...” 

Monologuing was a handy tool to sort out the problems of various planets, but this was how he preferred to use it—in comfort, in consolation, to help the ones he...

Well.

Whatever Donna needed from him, however long she needed it from him, the Doctor would give her it. Forever, if need be. 

His resolve was sorely tested when his legs began to tingle ominously. The Doctor shifted uncomfortably in his seat. 

“Hang tight, Spacegirl,” he murmured. She barely responded as he hoisted her into his arms. 

Much later, the Enigma’s reddened eyes drifted to a familiar landscape of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon where it hung above them on the sofa. An original Matisse, if the Doctor was to be believed. 

“...When did we end up in the library?” she eventually asked. Usually she did notice leaving and entering rooms. 

The Doctor’s arms tightened around her. “Just after my legs started to fall asleep,” he chuckled. 

Donna froze—and moved to slide off of his lap. “Oh, no, I’m sorry—”

His hands stopped her halfway. “No, no—it’s fine. I just needed the cushioning.” 

Their eyes met at the precise moment they both realised he was gripping her hips.

The Doctor cleared his throat and shifted his hands safely onto her back. “S–sorry.” 

“Don’t worry about it.” The Enigma hardly recognised her own voice. “Mi casa es su casa.” 

“I’ll just make myself at home, then, shall I?” he choked out. 

They stared at each other. 

The Doctor was the first to break. 

His full-body laughter shook her right off of his lap anyway. It was contagious, too—Donna’s stomach was sore by the time she got herself under control. 

“Oh, my god, that wasn’t even that funny,” she groaned. One arm dangled from the arm of the sofa, while her legs still stretched over his lap. 

“I beg to differ.” Chuckles still vibrated through him as the Doctor claimed her hand again. 

“Well...I suppose you can differ all you like,” she magnanimously allowed. The Enigma stifled a groan as his fingers pressed into her palm in precisely the right spot. 

“Don’t mind if I do.” 

Her gaze roamed the room as his clever hands carried on their good work. There was so much to love about the Doctor’s library—Donna had felt right at home in this room immediately. 

Acres of bookshelves stretched into the distance. Immaculate bronze sconces cast soft light over everything, just right for reading. The pile of the large rug was so deep Donna nearly lost an earring in it last week, and it was silky-soft between her toes. The gorgeous mahogany coffee table was central to the seating area, inlaid with a delicate pattern of lighter wood and mother-of-pearl...

...And the sofa was framed by midnight blue armchairs. An uneven number—two on the one side, separated by a tiny side table, and one on the other. 

The Enigma blinked bemusedly. 

The TARDIS’ usual hum was joined by a self-satisfied purr. 

Well. 

At least this rug was large enough to reach all the seating. 

“...What do you think of these, anyway?” 

Donna blinked some more. 

It took a moment for her to notice the Doctor was tracing the two rings she still wore with his fingers again. 

“Oh, right. Almost forgot about them.” She shifted upright despite his grumbling to remove them. “Here—maybe you can get your money back.” 

“No, don’t worry about it. Not like I can return them anyway,” he chuckled. 

The Enigma frowned up at him, rings halfway off. “What’s that mean?” she demanded. “Obviously you’ve had the biodamper a while, probably outside the return policy—I get that. But the engagement band’s a whole other thing, isn’t it?” 

She glanced down at the ring in question. The stone was embarrassingly large, now that she really considered it. God, what Nerys must’ve thought....

“Er...” 

Her eyes narrowed. 

The Doctor’s shoulders slumped with a sigh. “I’ve—er—had that other one around a long time.” He darted an anxious glance at her. “Not sure where it came from, actually, that’s how long it’s been—could’ve been in that pocket for centuries, maybe...” 

“Like I’d swallow that,” the Enigma snorted contemptuously. “I know for a fact that you haven’t had this face that long, let alone wearing that coat!” 

She jabbed a furious finger at his sternum. 

“If you think for a second that I’m going to let you get away with lying to me just because we’re in a relationship, you’ve got another thing coming—”

The Doctor perked up. “—So we are in a relationship then?” he interrupted. 

Donna eyed him oddly. “D’you think I make a habit of snogging just anyone at a gravesite?” she bit out. “You’re the one who said the ‘relationship’ word first, anyway!” 

He only perked up more. 

For a moment she did try to stick to her guns, but he just looked too happy to keep scolding. 

Instead, the Enigma leaned in at the same moment he did, and let his kiss banish her questions for a while. 

“...So what are you hiding about the ring?” 

The breathless question froze the Doctor mid-movement. 

Donna pulled away slightly to glare down at him. His hands slipped from her back to her hips as she moved back. 

He should’ve known she wouldn’t forget the question. 

“Look, I didn’t mean to keep it,” he began resignedly. 

The Doctor barely flinched when she smacked his arm. 

“Oh, my god—what kind of contraband have I been wearing?!” the Enigma squawked. 

“Nothing dangerous!” the Doctor protested hotly. “I’d never put you in danger!”  

“What is it?” she demanded yet again.

The Doctor sighed. “There was this...thing...with an uprising.”

“Course there was,” Donna muttered. She settled on the sofa beside him, gracefully folding her legs under her. 

He valiantly ignored her commentary, determined to hurry through the story and get back to the ‘mi casa es su casa’ part. “I was helping the Imperial Family of Nguzzini to escape—” 

“Oh! I met the Emperor once!” she exclaimed. “Which one was it?” 

“As I was about to tell you,” the Doctor said patiently. “He was the last Emperor of Nguzzini. Got himself executed and all, in the end. There was nothing I could do...and he was a bit on the cruel and dictatorial side, anyway.”

The Enigma made an adorable grimace. “Oh, I remember.” 

The Doctor sternly reminded himself that the Emperor in question was long dead—not much point in vengeance on a pile of greasy ash.  

He cleared his throat. “As I was saying, I helped his family escape the mob. His mum, wife, and kids left with what they could carry...”

“...And whatever you had in the TARDIS pantry, I’m sure,” the Enigma added knowingly. 

Her smug little smile tugged the corners of his mouth upward. “Just because you’re right...” 

She sniffed. “Obviously.” 

“Alright, calm down, cupcake.” The Doctor took his life into his own hands and booped her nose. 

Donna confiscated his hand with an oath. “We are not making that a thing,” she told him severely. 

“If you insist,” he said airily. His free arm made its way around her. “But l’ll never get through this if you’re always adding your tuppence.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” the Enigma grumbled. She stretched out her legs onto the coffee table with a groan. “Just—get on with it.” 

For all his protests, the Doctor took his time getting his legs settled next to hers before he continued. 

“...So, I was helping his family out. The mum was having a tough time keeping the kids in line with her hands full, so I shoved most of her things into my pockets.” His fingers gently stroked her arm. “There was a close call with the Imperial Legion, but in the end I got them settled on Florana—”

“Oh, that’s lovely,” Donna said fervently. “Have you been properly? Absolutely gorgeous!” 

“Don–na,” he groaned, “I’m almost done!”

“Sorry.” 

The Doctor eyed her—she didn’t look particularly sorry. 

“Anyway,” he said loudly, “I had to empty my pockets of their things. That ring must’ve fallen out of her bundle of things, because I found it when I had to wash my coat the day after that—don’t ask,” the Doctor added immediately, “There was a lot of slime.” 

“So you’re sure it was from Nguzzini?” the Enigma asked sceptically. “Couldn’t it be from anywhere else?” 

“Nope.” The Doctor popped the ‘P’ in his own particularly alluring way. “It’s got an Nguzzinian engraving inside.” 

Donna released his hand, but that was acceptable because of course she was going to examine the ring. 

“Right, so, it says...”

She trailed off abruptly. Her (really amazingly blue) eyes abruptly snapped up to meet his. 

“Do you remember what it says?” the Enigma asked. 

“No...it’s been a while,” the Doctor admitted. “Show me?” 

Donna held it up. He had to steady it and bring it a little closer—

In delicate curling Nguzzinian script, the inside of the band read, ‘a token of eternal devotion to my enigmatic flame-haired lady’. 

Enigmatic?  

“Enigmatic?” the Doctor faintly asked. 

“Yep.” This time she popped the ‘P’ in her own particularly alluring way. “The Emperor...he may have proposed when I visited Nguzzini.” 

His mouth dropped open. “Wh—?” 

“Obviously I said no,” the Enigma told him smugly.

She frowned. 

“Didn’t you ever try and return this?” Donna demanded, brandishing the ring. “What that poor former Empress must’ve thought—”

The Doctor threw up his hands at once. “Of course I did!” he protested. “She turned it down, said she was happy without that reminder of her horrible husband. Not her words, obviously—” 

Donna’s eyes narrowed in thought. “...Was she ginger?” 

“What?” 

“Was the former Empress ginger?” she repeated. “Auburn? Strawberry blonde, even?”

“...No,” the Doctor said slowly. “Nguzzinians generally aren’t...”

“Or enigmatic?” 

“...Not particularly,” he answered even more slowly. 

“Well, then.” The Enigma smirked. “No wonder she didn’t want it back! She must’ve known he’d reused an engagement ring made for someone else. The cheek!” 

“Yeah, the cheek,” the Doctor said absently. His mind was somehow working at a thousand miles an hour and in slow motion at once. 

“He already had this made and all...” She slipped it back on and held out her hand to look it over again. His eyes caught again on the glinting jewel—it really was massive. “The Emperor really should’ve shown me this before proposing,” Donna remarked. “Might’ve changed my mind.” 

The Doctor blinked back to the present. “Oi!” 

“What?” That smirk still curved her lips. “Not like you were around to compete.” 

“Alright, that’s it.”  

An undignified yelp escaped the Enigma’s throat when he turned and tossed her lengthwise onto the sofa. 

“You’re gonna tell me exactly what went on with him,” the Doctor said against her throat. Her pulses raced under his lips. “Every little detail.” 

“Hope you’re ready for a whole lot of nothing,” she managed. Her grip on his hair tightened. 

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll find something.” 

By the time they reached the natural conclusion, the Enigma had told him everything. It was very close to nothing, of course, but she’d explained the entire story in detail—right down to the second. 

The Doctor was right, though—they certainly had found something. Several somethings.

Several satisfying somethings. 

His hearts gradually calmed under her ear. The Doctor’s warm fingers traced her bare shoulder in a hypnotic rhythm as she ran an idle hand down his flank. 

Donna’s mind ticked on as she caught her breath.  

“...You’ve got to take them back,” she finally decided. 

“What?” The Doctor craned his neck oddly to look at her. “Take what back?”  

Donna nearly asked aloud if she’d shagged his brains out, but fortunately the Enigma caught the words just in time. 

“The rings,” she told him patiently. Obviously she meant the rings. The Enigma’s thumb traced the inside of the bands still on her finger. 

“Why?” he asked.

The Doctor shifted onto his side, gently adjusting Donna to face away—all the better to spoon her, she supposed, so she oughtn’t complain. His bare skin felt fantastic against her back, warming her as her own body continued to cool. 

“S’not like it needs to be returned to the ex-Empress,” the Doctor remarked. 

Donna heroically repressed a shudder when his lips returned to that spot on her neck. His reconnaissance had been rather...thorough. 

“As far as history knows, it just happened to get lost in the chaos.” The Doctor’s stubble scraped upsettingly well against her nape. “Sad, really. The poor, poor former Empress, no engagement ring...”

“Um...yeah, well,” she managed somewhat unsteadily, “Maybe so. But you have to take back the biodamper, at least.” 

“Mm?” 

Donna slipped it from her finger. “There—it’s off.” 

“Why?” he grumbled into her hair. 

“Because we’re not married!” the Enigma bit out. She nearly dropped the ring when his arms tightened around her. “It's much too fast—especially for Gallifreyans,” Donna breathlessly added. “S'indecent. Even a quick decade’s courtship...” 

The Doctor chuckled. “I’ll take my time with you,” he promised. “Maybe...six years?” 

The Enigma twisted round to look at him properly. “Ten. If there’s one thing we have, it’s time to spare,” she told him dryly. “Space too, if we need it.”

His answering grin could’ve lit entire worlds.