Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
When we last left our crack fic.....
It was an emotional moment for the Eleventh incarnation of the Doctor. He had not set foot on his own planet in several regenerations. It was wonderful to be home, the orange sky was brighter than he ever remembered. Yet, the last time he was home, he sort of blew the whole place up. He wondered if the other Time Lords would hold it against him.
Deep down, he was afraid. More for the girls than himself.
The Doctor looked around him in surprise.
"Where are they all then?" Amy asked. "There was definitely somebody yelling at us, but look."
The three of them turned in every direction, Donna even peering around the TARDIS to check behind them. "Nobody," she said. "They definitely said that we were surrounded, but we're the only ones here."
The Doctor looked around carefully. They were clearly inside the Citadel, but it was not the Citadel as he had last seen it. Stepping out of the TARDIS, he had expected to see wreckage, the great dome broken open, the city surrounded by destroyed ships and the bodies of those soldiers killed too fast to regenerate. That was the Gallifrey he saw when he closed his eyes.
But the city looked pristine. The streets were clean and orderly, the great buildings standing tall against the orange sky, the dome intact. It looked as it had in his childhood, hundreds (or, if he was honest with himself, more than a thousand now) of years ago. But he saw no one else.
"This isn't right." He told the girls, "everything's how it used to be."
"So where is everyone?" Donna asked, "even if we have gone back in time, there still ought to be people here, shouldn't there?"
"I don't know," he replied, "I just don't know."
"Let's go back to the TARDIS," Amy declared, "something just doesn't feel right out here."
"There's a problem with that," Donna said, squeezing the Doctor's hand tightly. "The TARDIS is gone."
The Doctor whirred around. She was right. The TARDIS was gone.
For the first time, Little Donna looked genuinely scared. She clung so tightly to the Doctor that he wondered if he was going to lose a hand for the second time in his life. Unable to extricate himself from Donna's grasp, he gently pulled his other hand away from Amy and pulled his sonic screwdriver from the inside pocket of his coat. He held it above his head and fiddled with the buttons, but nothing happened.
"Has it run out of batteries?" Amy asked.
"It's a sonic screwdriver, Amy, not a remote control! It hasn't got batteries!" he snapped. Then regretting his tone, he opened his mouth to apologize. But before he could get a word out, the dome cracked above their heads.
It was a thundering noise, like the sky itself was splitting. "Run," the Doctor shouted, reaching for his companion's hands- he reached them, but they were so short compared to his own gangly stride, that it made their fleeing clumsy. Around them shards of glass began to rain.
"Faster, Doctor," Amy shouted.
He looked back at her. Surely she knew there was only one way to do that? As quickly as he could, he swept Donna up in one arm, and then looked resolutely into Amy's eyes. "I'm going to let go. But we're going to run together!"
She looked scared, abandonment still lurking, but she nodded. The Doctor let go. And together, they ran for safety.
It was difficult to do with Donna in his arms, but the Doctor took off his jacket, and draped it over Amy's head to protect her from the falling glass as his body shielded Donna. He saw a doorway not too far away. That was their best bet. But as they were getting near, Donna slithered from his arms and ran to the left.
"What are you doing?"
"Follow me," she called back.
The Doctor didn't have time to think about the risk he was taking, and turned to follow Donna with Amy under his protective tweed.
To say that the Doctor was surprised when he found the crew of the TARDIS standing before him after they all ran through the doorway Donna had led them to would have been an understatement. He was shocked, flabbergasted, amazed, stunned, and many other synonyms of the word 'surprised.' Especially since, after discovering the TARDIS was missing, he had believed the entire TARDIS had been vaporized! Or at least pulled back through the Time-Lock and her occupants turned into nicely stacked piles of fruit, considering the way this had all started.
Rory sighed. "So we're going to die. Again." He hugged Amy. "Love you darling."
A man walked up wearing a DREADFUL rainbow coat. "Now now. None of that. The events we find ourselves in are quite compelling. I'll just hang out with the man of the furry tarp and maybe make a show of being cordial to the childish woman to see how they turn out."
"Rory?" Amy sputtered, startled. "How did you get here? Where's the TARDIS?"
"Well you see, after you got off the TARDIS--"
"Not now, Rory," Eleven interrupted, staring at the newcomer.
"How?" Amy insisted, tugging on Rory's jacket.
"Well, no one would tell me what was going on--"
"Not NOW, Rory!" The Doctor repeated.
"And?" Amy perservered.
"There was this door, next to the wardro-mrph." Rory was cut off by a hand over his mouth.
"Now," Eleven stated, firmly silencing Rory and Amy. "What are you doing here?"
The Sixth Doctor shrugs. "I don't know! Last I remember I was in some trial and suddenly I'm surrounded by your two men and your... what is she? Our new Peri?"
"What's that? Oh! This is Amy Pond and that's Donna," Eleven replied inclining his head. "Amy travels with me, but she's normally quite a bit-taller."
"Hmph!"
"And that's Rory. He's with Amy."
"And Donna, is she normally taller, too?" Six inquired.
"No. Well- her predecessor, who was the genetic map for my--. She's a bit more complicated. How did you two get here?' Eleven continued
"The other two, the one with a scarf that is compensating for something and the one with the suit and trainers, were fighting about which one of them was the most popular. It got heated and they couldn't hear the cloister bells ringing. This one pulled me out of the TARDIS." Rory nodded in the direction of Six.
"And I haven't heard a 'thank you,' or anything. No matter, I'll get us out of this mess."
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((ELSOS - I am so sorry about all the edits this time around! We had a couple bigger continuity problems then we usually do so I sort of smoothed them a bit. I hope that I didn't go treading on anyone's toes!))
