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majingojira · 4 years

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Batman Real-Time Aging Timeline

One of my fun hobbies is, well, a crossover universe where things age in real-time. I’ve been working on a timeline involving masked vigilantism, and Batman is, of course, central to it. Presented below is part of that rough timeline. Things are still in flux, but understand that the primary sources for this are a few select crossover stories (IE: Batman & Captain America, Batman & Tarzan: Claws of the Catwoman, Batman vs Predator, Batgirl & Ghost, etc), and stories that involve real-time aging for the Bat-Family (IE: John Byrne’s Generations -- though even that is a bit weird). And Pulps. Lots and Lotas of Pulps. Also, things are taken with a “Imagine trying to figure out what happened at Pearl Harbor when all you have to go on are the movies made from it” and most comics fall under the Michael Bay version.

I’ll focus on dates of birth, mantel adoptions, marriages, retirements and the like, but I’ll also mention fun crossovers that occur along the way. Not all of them, but some. So, brace yourself for weird. But I did my best to include EVERYONE.

1917 - Bruce Wayne born.

1928 - Dick Grayson born.

1929 - The Shadow saves the Waynes and their son from a mugger. (Batman #259 - “The Night of the Shadow”) However, he only delays the inevitable as the Waynes are gunned down in front of the young Bruce who swears to never let that happen to anyone else.

1930 - James Gordon, in an effort to clean up Gotham, takes to some mild vigilantism himself as “The Whisperer.” He does so for only a year before finding it too taxing. Also:

1931 - Barbara Gordon born.

1937 - Bruce Wayne adopts the mantle of “Batman” to prey on the superstitions and cowardice of the criminal lot.

1939-1945 - World War II

1939 - Batman/Tarzan: Claws of the Cat-Woman - Batman and Tarzan team up on an adventure. A Wayne founded expedition to Africa was corrupted by Finnegan Dent (an uncle to DA Harvey Dent) and they looted ... Wakanda. It’s Wakanda. Sure, they don’t call it that, but Wakanda is already in the crossover universe, and how many bast-worshiping Egyptian civilizations exist in Africa? One is enough. Also, The Cat-Woman is a princess priestess of Bast stealing back the looted artifacts and uses a black leopard themed outfit for her escapades. So, yeah, Catwoman is The Black Panther. And she’s a dark-skinned African Woman named Khefretari. The adventure concludes with her having to not use the mantle and ascend to kingship with the death of her father, but it is not the end of their story as she still has artifacts to return...

Batman and Superman meet for the first time.

The Justice Society forms. As a social club for vigilantes and superhumans to unwind in. They mostly share stories and shoot the breeze, but occasionally teamed up for larger missions, especially when America entered WWII. But it’s primary purpose is networking and recovery.

1940 - Dick Grayson’s family is murdered in front of him. Bruce Wayne adopts the boy and Dick soon joins Batman on his adventures as Robin the Boy Wonder.

The Masked Vigilante Boom of the 1940s begins in earnest, with many people taking to vigilantism to battle crime. Black Canary and Green Arrow get their start among many others.

1941 - Detective Comics #63 - Batman battles the master thief Raffles.

1945 - Batman Meets Captain America - The Joker may be evil, but he’s at least not a Nazi! He ends up in a gulag for his troubles. He doesn’t find it very funny.

1948 - The House of Un-American Activities starts to target Costumed Vigilantes. The Justice Society disbanded in response. Diana Trevor, Wonder Woman, starts working from inside the system to counter McArthy and J. Edgar Hoover. Subtly and openly, be it the Holiday Girls (secretaries make excellent spies) or secretly abetting other superhumans. Still, most costumed vigilantes retire at this point. As for the rest... Some are apprehended, others sign up with the government, and others still are killed in FBI Raids.

As Superheroes are under fire from the government, several class-action lawsuits also hound more public figures of superheroes, and only a few survive with their reputations and resources intact.

1949 - Dick Grayson goes to College (and later, law school).

Khefretari/Selina Kyle finishes her mission and abdicates her role as Black Panther. With the aid of Diana Trevor, she explains her situation to the UN world court. In the end, she still serves some time for what she did (Colonizers gonna Colonize), but she is effectively let off with a slap on the wrist. She did this to help mend the rift between herself and Bruce Wayne. Doing so, however, removed her from the line of royal succession. Her brother, T’Chaka, father of T’Challa, becomes the next Black Panther. Khefretari’s timing, however, could have been better, for you see ...

1950 - Bruce Wayne marries Julie Madison.

Bruce Wayne jr. born.

Dick Grayson takes over as Batman II primarily with Bruce focusing a bit more on Family life. However, he cannot leave it fully alone.

Kathy Kane and Bette Kane attempt to help out their cousin Bruce on various cases, as Bat-Woman I and Bat-Girl I.

1953 - Batman #253 - Batman and the Shadow meet as crime fighters for the first time.

Kathy Kane and Bette Kane retire as Bat-Woman and Bat-Girl.

1954 - Batman #259 - Batman and the Shadow meet again.

Barbara Gordon is off to a party, and her own “Batgirl” costume gives her a minor edge when she stops a crime in progress. Thrilled with the idea, she begins to operate as Batgirl II. Eventually getting Dick and Bruce to agree. Because she will not take ‘no’ from either of them.

Sandra Wu-San a.k.a. “Lady Shiva” is born.

1955 - Julie Madison and Bruce Wayne divorce. Even married, even with family, Bruce is a might obsessive with this vow of vengeance.

At this time, Bruce Wayne begins matching his wits against a man the comics report to be “Ra’s Al Ghul”, the Demon’s Head. He is also known as The Devil Doctor, Fu Manchu.

Khefretari/Selina Kyle is now a free woman.

1957 - Bruce Wayne marries Khefretari/Selina Kyle. Helena Wayne born.

1958 - Batman: The Brave and the Bold “Trials of the Demon!” - Batman is summoned back to the 1890s by Jason Blood for help escaping being blamed for occult crimes. Jason is subdued, but Holmes and Watson are there to help Batman adjust and rescue Jason Blood/The Demon Etrigan from the forces of hell itself.

1959 - DC Comics: The New Frontier - The Centre attacks.

Diana Trevor works out a government organization to better employ multi-mystery-man operations in the future with her at the head and thus limiting access to their identities or technologies by the other branches. This is often called “The Justice League” or “The Avengers” among other things. The laws about costumed vigilantism are changed somewhat. The short of it is, Good Samaritan Laws apply now to people in masks, but vigilantism is still illegal. Most Superheroes work either for government agencies or are deputized by such, work as private investigators, or bail bondsmen. Some still act independently of that, but again, Good Samaritan laws apply. This is why the “No Killing” rule became so common in superhero stories at this time.

1960 - Dick Grayson marries Barbara Gordon. They have a son, James Grayson.

1961 - Birth of Jason Todd.

1964 - Dick and Barbara Grayson’s second son, Dick Grayson Jr, is born.

1966 - Batman/The Green Hornet - “A Piece of the Action”/“Batman’s Satisfaction”

1971 - The New Scooby-Doo Movies “The Dynamic Scooby-Doo Affair” - Batman and Robin meet Mysteries Inc.

1973 - Barbara Grayson christens Helena Wayne as the new Batgirl (Batgirl III). Barbara Grayson refines the “Oracle Database”

1974 - Dick Grayson is critically injured on a case and retires as Batman. Bruce Wayne Jr. becomes Batman III.

Detective Comics #446 “Slaughter in Silver” - The new Batman crosses paths with The Shadow.

1975 - Jason Todd is taken in by Bruce Wayne jr.

1975-1984 - The “Biomega” War.

1977 - Khefretari is nearly killed after suffering blackmail. Helena is incensed by this and becomes the Huntress to reflect her darker outlook.

Batman Family #18 “A Choice of Destinies” - Helena Wayne joins the Lawfirm her family runs: Cranston, Grayson, and Wayne. Founded by Bruce Wayne (Batman), Dick Grayson (Batrman II) and Lamont Cranston (The Shadow).

1978 - Stephanie Brown born.

1979 - Jason Todd starts college, Dick Grayson Jr. steps up to become Robin IV while he’s away. Jason is ... a little annoyed at this, but doesn’t speak up about it.

Tim Drake is born to Jack and Angela Drake.

Formation of The “New” Teen Titans, the prior group being a publicity op and little else. The members are gathered by Raven, a sorceress daughter of an extremely powerful demonic entity (The First? Nyarlathotep?). They include a Founder alien living on earth known as Garfield Logan or “Beast Boy”, Dick Grayson Jr. as first Robin IV and then Nightwing I, Kori’ander a.k.a. Starfire (a Vigori of Oden’Tall), Victor Stone a.k.a. “Cyborg” (a more severe cyberization given to a high school senior after a terrible accident than that of Steven Austin), and the amazonian handmaiden to the royal family known as Troia or Donna Troy/Wonder Girl. They are ‘supervised’ by Wally West a.k.a. The Flash III.

1980 - Barbara Gordon survives an assassination attempt, but is left paralyzed from the waist down.

The Oracle Database becomes the Oracle Network.

James Gordon sr. is tortured and nearly killed by the same assassins.

Helena Wayne marries Santo Bertinelli, a young man born into a Mafia family who turned on them out of a sense of justice. Helena Bertinelli Jr. born.

Batman vs. The Incredible Hulk: The Monster and the Madman

1981 - Fu Manchu/Ra’s Al Ghul meets his final end. Several groups spawn from the dissolving of his group, and others expand their bases of operations with the power vacuum established. These include the Atlas Foundation, The Hand/The Foot, the League of Assassins, and the League of Shadows. Bruce Wayne and Khefretari fake their deaths to lead one of those splinter groups (after a Lazarus dip) in secret and try and turn the network towards good.

Bruce Wayne Jr., Batman III, forms a covert band of metahumans dubbed “The Outsiders,” consisting of himself, chemical shifter Rex Mason (Metamorpho), Geokinetic Brion Markov (Geo-Force), martial artist and enchanted weapon wielder Tatsu Yamashiro (Katana), atomic mutant Gabrielle Doe (Halo), Psychokinetic Emilia Briggs (Looker), and Electrical Mutant Jefferson Pierce (Black Lightning). others join or leave over time, the team operates for a few years before disbanding.

1982 - Jason Todd is killed in action. Talia Al Ghul/The Daughter of the Demon, steals his body and revives it to begin twisting him into a weapon against the Wayne family that helped kill her father and leave Si-Fan in tatters. Dick Grayson Jr. becomes Nightwing I.

1983 - Cassandra Cain was born to “Lady Shiva” and David Cain.

1984 - Carrie Kelly becomes Robin V to Bruce Wayne Jr.’s Batman III.

Spider-man and Batman: Disordered Minds

1985 - Batman and Spider-Man

1986 - Detective Comics #572 “The Doomsday Book” - Batman III (Bruce Wayne Jr.) and Robin V (Carrie Kelly) join Ralph Dibney (The Elongated Man) and aged private eye Slam Bradley on a case that takes them to London to prevent the assassination of Queen Elizabeth by Edgar Moriarity. Mary Jane Watson-Parker is on the scene, herself a descendant of Doctor John Watson (and Red Sonja of Hyrkania), just in time for all to me the 132-year-old Sherlock Holmes as he helps ensure Edgar’s capture. Peter Parker, also on the scene as himself, learns that he is also a descendant of the Moriarity’s. Holmes gives the couple his blessing.

1987 - Dick Grayson Jr marries Kori’ander/Kory Anders/Starfire of Oden’tal.

1988 - Mar’i Grayson of Earth/Mary Grayson is born.

1989 - Helena Bertinelli Sr. retires as Huntress.

1990 - Harley Quinn first appears as the Joker’s go-to henchwoman.

1993 - Damian Wayne born to Bruce Wayne Sr. and Khefretari.

Dr. Pamela Isley makes a bargain with the fae realms and becomes a creature of fairy similar to a Dryad. She is known only as Poison Ivy.

1994 - Carrie Kelly becomes the “heroic” Catwoman in part to counter all the “Pretenders to the Throne” as it were (and to stop the Helenas from killing them outright for the insult). She also starts operating heavily within the Oracle Network, being groomed by Barbara to be her replacement.

1995 - Tim Drake becomes Robin VI. Stephanie Brown becomes The Spoiler.

Poison Ivy takes in Harley Quinn and helps her recover from the abuse the Joker heaped upon her or at least tries. She is kept as a ward of the fairies and has an extended life span as a result. It still takes her over a decade to get over “Mr. Jay.”

1996 - Carrie Kelly takes over the Oracle Network's primary leadership role.

1998 - Helena Bertinelli Jr. takes up her mother’s mantle as Huntress.

2000 - No Man’s Land begins. Cassandra Cain becomes Batgirl III.

2004 - Bruce Wayne Jr. starts working in an armored “Beyond” Batsuit. Tim Drake changed his costumed and started to be called “Red Robin” to his annoyance. Jason Todd Attacks. Cassandra Cain manages to annoy the editors of DC Comics.

2005-2015 - The Biomega Menace trickles through with various attacks until it comes to a head in 2015 when it revives the Centre. The beast is destroyed, ending the Biomega threat...for now. (Atomic Robo and the Ring of Fire, Pacific Rim)

2005 - Bruce Wayne Sr. and Selena Wayne recruit Cassandra Cain among others for “Batman Inc” to help them take down the other Si-fan factions, in particular, the League of Shadows which followed Cassandra’s mother, Lady Shiva (who could care less about it, but her uncontrollable force-of-nature like movements were throwing everything into chaos). Cassandra adopts the identity of “Hei Bianfu” (Black Bat) or just “Batman of Hong Kong.”

Damian Wayne is sent to live with the rest of the “Bat-family” to hopefully temper the bad influences still remaining around his parents that had seeped into the boy’s development.

Kate Kane becomes Batwoman II.

Stephanie Brown becomes Batgirl V.

2010 - Tim Drake starts taking over as Batman IV.

Cassandra Cain becomes Nightwing III.

2011 - Tim Drake weds Stephanie Brown. Cassandra Cain lives with them. Their relationship is the stuff of tabloid platinum.

2013 - Luke Fox joins the American Batman inc. as Batwing II.

2014 - Duke Thomas starts leading the Robin gang, to Damian’s irritation. Of the group, Terry McGinnis, Harper Row, Riko Sheridan, and Isabella Oritz, along with Duke, do eventually meet Damian’s exacting standards. Eventually.

2015 - Duke Thomas becomes The Signal.

Night of the Monster Men: Gotham is threatened by a fierce attack from Biomega under the control of a man invoking the name of Hugo Strange. 4 of the monsters are unleashed, several of them also carry a variant of the Insania Virus in their blood and viscera. When people are exposed to it, it drives them to high aggression or even transforming them into hideous beasts. A cure is quickly deduced, and Hugo captured. The Bat-family during this crisis consists of Timothy Drake (Batman IV), Cassandra Cain (Batwoman III), Stephanie Brown (Nightwing IV), Sin Lance (Orphan--visiting from the Arrow family), Tiffany Fox (Spoiler II), Duke Thomas (The Signal), and a being referred to as “Clayface” (Identity currently unknown).

2020 - Damian Wayne takes over as the primary Batman, but also dons the Nightwing attire because he likes it. Terry McGinnis and Duke Thomas share roles as “Batwing” or “Batman Beyond.” Cassandra Cain is known as simply The Batt. Stephanie Brown as Nightwing IV, with Tiffany Fox as Batgirl V. Harper Row mostly operates behind the scenes, but has the identity of “Bluebird” to help when it's needed. Tim Drake is fully entrenched as part of the Oracle network. Riko Sheridan and Isabella Oritz share duties as Robins.

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elevenspond · 5 years

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it’s absolutely staggering how many people insist amy pond and clara oswald are nothing more than idealized caricatures while in the same breath claim rose tyler and donna noble are the most relatable companions in doctor who. if you ask me, amy and clara are two of the most realistic female characters i’ve ever seen in fiction.

let’s start with amy. in season 5, one of the central difficulties she has to overcome is her fear of commitment to rory and her initial reluctance to get married. a fear of commitment in fiction is usually portrayed in male characters despite it being common in reality across all genders, and it doesn’t come from a lack of love for the other person. amy experiences a fear of devoting herself fully to someone after all of the abandonment she suffered throughout her childhood (parents that were mysteriously never around, the doctor leaving her waiting, etc). but she overcomes this fear after being confronted directly with the loss of rory and finishes the season happily wedded to him. she faces realistic, internal challenges in her life and conquers them over the course of her own character arc. amy does this again in season 6, when she has to face the fact that the doctor is not the fairytale hero she’s seen him as ever since she was a child; that he won’t always be able to save her, and that he is as imperfect and vain as anyone else. and although it’s heartbreaking, amy accepts this about him and moves on from her own idolization of him. this arc of her character represents the moment we all experience when we stop seeing the world through the eyes of our childhood selves and realize its imperfections, as well as the moment when we learn to accept those imperfections for what they are. after this, in season 7, amy is ready to move on from a life of adventuring with the doctor to a life of normalcy with her husband. an ordinary lifestyle may not seem appealing to many of us, but to most people on this earth, it’s all we will ever have, and amy’s development into someone who can leave behind her childhood fairytale in order to live out normal days with the person she loves--- it’s so applicable to real life, and quite frankly, so inspirational.

now, on to clara, whose arcs are a bit in the reverse order of amy’s. when we first meet clara oswald in season 7, she’s an ordinary young woman who is swept away into adventures across time and space with the doctor. she’s witty, clever, bossy, confident, and wholly unique as an individual, and despite all of that, so much of clara remains ordinary. in season 8, she works as a school teacher, one of the most mundane (yet extremely important) jobs in the world, and she falls in love with a fellow teacher. she balances a life of traveling with the doctor with an exceedingly ordinary life. “normal is overrated” she says, but the fact remains that she’s still an ordinary woman even while being so clever and brilliant, and her arc in season 8 is about clara accepting that she can do ordinary things while still being extraordinary, which is honestly so inspirational. then comes season 9, and therein lies the tragedy of her character. clara has suffered a personal loss of incredible magnitude in danny pink’s death, severing the strongest tie to her ordinary life, and in attempting to move on from her grief, she throws herself fully into her travels with the doctor. she becomes more reckless, more unafraid, more confident in her own dangerous choices and actions. it’s such a realistic way of dealing with, or in this case, suppressing immeasurable grief. not everyone reacts to loss this way, but many do, and for many, the reckless lifestyle they embrace in order to forget the pain is more destructive than the pain itself. and this is exactly what happens with clara. she continuously takes risks throughout season 9, always confident in her own ability to calculate the odds and pull through, until her overconfidence leads her to a risk that proves fatal. clara oswald is killed by the self-destructive way she dealt with her own grief. this is unbelievably realistic and tragic. it’s also something that, like amy’s fear of commitment, is an arc that’s usually only written for male characters. although the doctor manages to bring her back with a time stream loophole, her fate is sealed, and she’s forever destined to die in that moment of time. so she goes off into the universe in her own tardis, traveling through time and space, always running from her own fate, from her grief, from everything that will ever hurt, plunging herself into the ultimate distraction from all things ordinary, just like the doctor does. it’s a bittersweet ending for her arc, and it echoes something that is very real in a lot of people’s lives.

tldr: amy is relatable in the childlike wonder she retains and the way it’s consistently challenged; in the fear she feels toward devoting herself to others that is rooted in issues of abandonment; clara is relatable in the absolute normalcy of her life outside of the doctor; in the overwhelming grief she experiences over a loss and how she avoids that grief. they aren’t mere idealized caricatures. they are flawed, and they face distinct challenges in their own personal outlooks with arcs that give them proper resolutions, whether happy or sad, to these challenges.

now, let’s look at rose tyler and donna noble, the two companions people most often relate to.

rose is a completely regular teenage girl. her school grades were consistently average, she has no particular talents to speak of, she works in a shop, she has no future prospects for a better job or higher education, and nothing special has ever happened in her entire life. rose is the absolute peak of ordinary, which is why so many people relate to her. we could all easily fit ourselves into her shoes. i also like eating chips and am bored 24/7. but then the doctor whisks her away, and her life begins to revolve solely around him. this is where the relatability nose dives for me. we’re all searching for the escape that will let us ignore how boring or awful the world around us is for a little while, whether that’s music, books, a new fandom, anything at all. traveling with the doctor is rose’s permanent escape from her world. the thing is, this is never portrayed as anything but a good thing. the doctor is rose’s whole new life. she occasionally visits home, but it’s only a visit, nothing to indicate that life on earth is something she’ll ever want to dabble in again. she’s been completely liberated from all the troubles she once faced. i can’t relate to this at all, because there will never be anything that will whisk me away from needing a job, needing money, or needing an education. what rose experiences is a full blown pipe dream. yes, it’s fun to watch, and think about, and wish for, but it isn’t exactly relatable. rose is never portrayed as a character who is avoiding the challenges of regular life--- she’s just having a great time. even when she’s trapped in a parallel world, she doesn’t have to return to the mundane life she once knew. she works with torchwood and continues on in that same vein of alien threats, time and space, alternate dimensions, etc., where her brand new true potential thrives. she gets to focus on reuniting with the doctor, and the only challenge she faces is the actual act of crossing worlds, not any kind of personal challenge. one might say she has to deal with the difficulty of living on with a meta crisis clone of the doctor instead of the real doctor, but that’s a different rant. rose simply never had an overarching character development in which she could confront her own personal flaws, which is something that made amy and clara so relatable. she simply had a great time with a handsome doctor she fell in love with, and then circumstance pulled them apart.

now, for donna. i do love donna. i love the friendship she has with the doctor, but the foundation of her character is very similar to rose’s. donna is an incredibly average woman who has worked a series of temporary jobs, never feeling important, but always wanting more. it’s another character template we can all easily fit ourselves into. donna does have an arc where she confronts her own lack of self worth over the course of season 4, an arc that is met with her being told that she is the most important woman in all of creation. every companion has a title associated with them: amy is the girl who waited, clara is the impossible girl, martha is the woman who walked the earth, and donna noble is the most important woman in the universe. donna’s struggle with self worth is met with the fact that she is the most important woman in creation because she's the woman who saves all of reality from davros and the daleks, however this is where this arc still loses all trace of relatability for me. donna doesn’t become the most important woman in all of creation in light of her own ordinary qualities--- she only becomes this by becoming part time lord and, in her own words, by gaining “the mind” of the doctor. donna as herself already had great potential, but her arc of dealing with her own self worth is resolved by giving her the attributes of someone else, and only by happenstance. it’s played off as destiny or fate, but all she had to do was touch the hand and the meta crisis happened on its own. and yes, the narrative insists that it’s donna’s human traits that make her even more intelligent than the doctor when she’s part time lord, but the fact still remains that she required part of him to reach that potential at all. like rose being liberated entirely from her own boring life, this just isn’t realistic, and therefore isn’t relatable.

donna and rose are both people who need the doctor in their lives, and without him, they feel either worthless or as if their life has no meaning. contrarily, amy and clara develop themselves as characters who are able to exist separately from the doctor, who have their own personal conflicts apart from him and who forge lives outside of him. amy and clara are both involved in the overall stories that are led by the doctor, but they also both have internal struggles that are independent of him and are resolved as part of their own development, sometimes with his help but never because of him.

maybe someone out there reading this disagrees with me. but this is my observation after seeing so many people claim that amy pond and clara oswald are worse, less likable, and less relatable than rose tyler and donna noble.

(and if anyone is wondering why i didn’t talk about martha or bill, it’s because i don’t see anyone calling them either relatable or unrelatable. in fact i don’t see people really talk about them at all, which is an entire problem in and of itself, and is why i didn’t include that problem in this rant)

#doctor who #moffat era #amy pond #clara oswald #rtd era #rose tyler #donna noble #dw meta #my rant #long post #i woke up at 3am thinking about this so here we are #idk if i even expressed these ideas properly #but in this house we stan amy and clara

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raywritesthings · 7 years

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Lost in Translation 3/?

My Writing Fandom: Doctor Who Characters: Donna Noble, Tenth Doctor Pairing: Doctor/Donna Summary: In a universe where people are born with the name of the person destined for them displayed on their skin, intergalactic soulmates can be rather difficult to navigate. AO3 link

The Doctor could not believe it. Again.

Donna Noble had careened right back into his life as suddenly as she had the first time. Even more unbelievably, she'd done so on purpose. She, of all the humans in all the history of planet Earth, had tracked him down and found him. Yes, it had been coincidence that brought them both to Adipose Industries — coincidences abounded around himself and Donna, it seemed — but it didn't change the fact she had somehow managed to place herself right back at his side.

And the Doctor didn't know how he felt about that. He stared at her car, parked only a few feet from where he'd landed the TARDIS that morning, and only dimly registered Donna letting his arm go.

“That is like destiny,” she exclaimed, and in his head he had to privately wonder if she might be more right about that than she realized.

But she couldn't be — she wasn't. Yet here Donna was, the only Donna who he had ever met let alone felt himself drawn to, and she was…opening the boot of her car for some reason.

The reason turned out to be several bags, suitcases, and a hatbox stuffed inside. She began loading up his arms with them, the Doctor only just barely managing to snap himself out of his numb state in order to accommodate her.

Donna was chattering away a mile a minute, so excited about the possibilities she could see awaiting her. But gradually, she seemed to realize he was not meeting it with his own chatter, for she slowed and then looked at him still standing and staring at her in the TARDIS doorway. “You’re not saying much.”

“It's just,” he said, then stopped himself. How could he even try to explain to her what was going on, the conflict warring in his mind? He’d thought himself destined to be alone after she turned him down that Christmas Eve. Finding Martha had been a brief respite, but he’d ruined it all with his own loneliness and self loathing. Even doctors-in-training couldn't work miracles.

Then for a moment, when his old friend had come out of the watch and terrorized them all, he hadn't been able to help the faintest hope that maybe the Face of Boe was right — he wasn't alone and wouldn't have to be, with one of his own people back. It could be like before the Time War, before he’d ever given the name on his back any serious thought. But the Master must have known that, and as always knew just how to deny him even that small comfort.

The last of his kind and companionless once again, he'd had little real direction or motivation. Now Donna was here, just like before, and if it seemed too good to be true then he supposed that was because it was too good to be true. She wasn't the Donna that was meant for him, and yet here she was. And he couldn’t tell her any of that, could he?

“It’s a funny old life, in the TARDIS,” he decided on instead.

The smile dropped off her face. “You don't want me.”

“I’m not saying that.” He wanted her more than he should, considering he was barking up the completely wrong tree.

“But you asked me,” Donna reminded, sounding so very hurt that something twisted painfully in his chest.

He had asked her, and he couldn't imagine what would stop him asking again, not even another Donna. The proper Donna, he supposed. But that was a bridge they might have to cross someday.

“Would you rather be on your own?”

“No,” he answered immediately. “Actually, no. But—” he set her bags on the ground, struggling to think of some way of addressing the problem without actually addressing it. How to set some kind of boundary without revealing why the boundary needed to be set in the first place. “The last time, with Martha, like I said, it- it got complicated. And that was all my fault,” he admitted, feeling badly enough he was using Martha as a means of handling his Donna-issue.

She watched him, saying nothing, allowing him to say his bit. Donna always seemed to know when and when not to interrupt him. How could she know him so well? How was this fair?

“I just want a mate,” the Doctor sighed.

Donna’s eyes narrowed. “You just want to mate?”

Oh, he’d gone and stuck his foot in it, hadn’t he? “I just want a mate! Not a- not like—”

“You’re not mating with me, sunshine!” Donna declared, retreating half behind the TARDIS door as if afraid he might pounce suddenly.

“A mate. I want a mate,” he enunciated, hoping that would clear things up. “A friend.” There, that was the word. He should have gone with that from the start. Calling Donna any kind of mate of his was dangerous enough territory as it was.

“Well, just as well, because I’m not having any of that nonsense,” she said, coming back out of hiding at the least. “I mean, you’re just a long streak of nothing, you know. Alien nothing.”

He nodded in acknowledgement of her rather harsh assessment. Of course Donna wouldn’t have been harboring any interest towards him — not that he wanted her to, because that could only end badly.

“And I don’t mess around with that ‘mate’ stuff either, remember?”

“Right, yeah. Nor me,” the Doctor lied once again, looking at a spot just to the left of her. “There we are, then. Okay.”

She lost the stern look, and a smile rose tentatively in its place. “I can come?”

“Yeah. Course you can, yeah.” They’d weathered the storm, so to speak, and now that they knew where they stood there was nothing to keep Donna from traveling with him. Finally. A smile stretched across his face. “I’d love it.”

Donna let out a delighted laugh and ran at him, her clear intent a hug. But she stopped just short of him abruptly. “Car keys!”

The Doctor stood with arms still held open. “What?”

She took out a set of jingling keys on a ring. “I’ve still got my mum’s car keys!” Then she darted past him, calling over her shoulder, “I won’t be a minute!”

He watched her run off, still rather thrown. Donna had that effect on him. Would continue to have that effect on him, because she was coming along. He was still having trouble believing this was real.

Her many bags were evidence enough, and he supposed those needed to be gotten on board before anything else. The Doctor began to gather them up. He had to make a couple trips to get it all inside and only brought them as far as the console room. No doubt Donna would want to decide where exactly they ended up, and she'd be back any minute now.

He’d left the door unlocked so she let herself in. Donna barely let him get started on the basics before reminding him she’d had the crash course already. “Although frankly, you could turn the heating up,” she told him.

He elected to ignore that criticism. “So, whole wide universe, where do you want to go?”

She met him right at the console. “Oh, I know exactly the place.”

He hadn’t expected that. Then again, he hadn’t really been expecting Donna Noble before today, so.

“Which is?”

She turned her head to the left. “Two and a half miles that way.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, but began entering the approximate coordinates.

“Can you fly it in the air, like you did on the motorway?” Donna requested.

“I don't know,” he began.

She grabbed onto his arm, looking up at him with beseeching eyes. “Just for a little bit? Please?”

“Why does it need to fly?” He asked to avoid immediately saying yes. That didn't stop his fingers from already moving to push the right buttons and flip the right switches, which Donna clearly noticed.

“It's important.” She hurried down the ramp. “Can I open the door?”

“You’ve never asked before.”

“Oi! Cheek!” She chided, though it lacked any real irritation. Donna had to be awfully excited about where they were and who they were showing off for. She pulled open the door, and the Doctor saw they were above a neighborhood not far from London proper. There was a hill below them with a single human stood on top of it. One of Donna’s relatives, he supposed. She must have wanted to say goodbye, and in quite the spectacular fashion.

Donna began waving her arm madly as the man on the hill whooped and cheered. The Doctor found himself giving a jaunty wave of his own.

Donna shut the doors soon enough, likely remembering what happened last time the Old Girl was flown like this for too long. She turned around, face flushed with happiness, and came back up to where he stood at the controls. “I’ve never seen him so excited.” She did hug him now, he was pleased to note. “Thank you.”

“Not at all.” The Doctor smiled broadly and held on as long as he felt could go unquestioned. “So then, first official trip. What's it going to be?”

Donna stepped back and looked at him sharply. “What, right now?”

“Yeah, right now,” he echoed. “Problem?”

“Yes,” Donna said emphatically. “It’s the middle of the night!”

“Well, technically, there’s no night or day in the Vortex. No time either, really.”

“Yeah, well by the time I get my things unpacked all I will be ready for is a bed,” she told him. A thought seemed to occur to her. “Are there bedrooms here?”

“Course there's bedrooms,” he replied. “There’s lots of things. I just thought we’d get to that later, you know, after the universe. You can’t be that tired, can you?”

“You try running around in flats all night and tell me if you’re raring to go after that,” she shot back, then turned and hefted the hatbox in her arms. “Now, come on, you can give me the tour at least.”

The Doctor watched her march down a corridor at random and sighed, grabbing the handles of two bags and breaking into a jog after her. “Donna,” he called.

“How long does this go on?” He heard her voice echo from up ahead.

“Even I don’t know.” The TARDIS appeared to be in a good mood, for when he rounded the corner he found Donna waiting right there as opposed to halfway across the ship. “Okay, tour then. The rooms tend to get mixed around a bit—”

“Figures,” she snorted.

“—but,” he continued as though he had not been interrupted, “if you’re nice and she likes you, the TARDIS will help you navigate. Kitchen’s been somewhere down this way the last few weeks,” he said, pointing. “And the library’s been down the other corridor. Swimming pool, too.”

“So which is my room?”

“Any room. Take your pick,” he told her, gesturing with an arm to the many doors lining the corridor.

Donna chose with a remarkable determination, striding to one and yanking the door open. Whatever was inside made her stop short. “Oh!”

Curious and also eager to divest himself of the rather heavy bags he carried, the Doctor stepped up behind her to have a look.

“Oh yes,” he agreed, “she must really like you.”

The room Donna had chosen — or, more accurately, the room the TARDIS had let her choose — could put a presidential suite to shame. Spacious, with what looked to be a walk-in closet, an en suite, an ornate vanity in one corner, and a wide, very comfortable-looking bed set against another wall. There was a painting of the Rosette Nebula where a window might have otherwise been, and a loveseat was placed beneath that.

“Very nice,” said Donna, eyes nearly popping as she looked about to take it all in. “I could get used to this.”

“Could you?” He teased with a grin.

She ignored him, instead walking over to set the hatbox down by the closet before going over to flop onto the bed. He didn’t blame her, seeing as he would’ve done the same. Probably at a bit of a run, too.

“So, I’ll just go get the rest of it then, shall I?” He asked with a somewhat sardonic edge to it.

“Yeah, thanks,” Donna replied, kicking off her shoes.

The Doctor shook his head, looking up to the ceiling for a moment before setting the bags he’d already brought with them by the foot of her bed and heading back to the console room. He had to wonder if Donna had been living out of her car, she had so much packed away. If he got the two heaviest suitcases out of the way first, he could probably manage the rest all on a third trip. It was with that in mind that the Doctor gathered the bulky luggage up and went back down the corridor.

He elbowed the door back open to find Donna busy unpacking. Her undergarments, specifically.

“Oi!” She dropped the panties she'd been holding to glare at him. “Don't you knock?”

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, dropping the suitcases and immediately backing out the door. The Doctor backed straight into the opposite wall and let his head thunk back against it.

Brilliant. Just what he needed, to be thinking about Donna’s under...things. They were just clothes, he told himself. Humans typically wore them. Most aliens wore something clothing-like. It wasn’t as if he’d caught her indecent. But boundaries...boundaries had been a very good idea.

Best to just get the remaining bags. The Doctor pushed off the wall and jogged back to the console room.

This time on the return trip he did knock, calling out for good measure, “Donna? Got the rest of it.” He decided he should probably wait a minute before opening the door as well.

Though before the minute was up, it was being pulled open from the inside. Donna favored him with the slightest smile. “It’s safe, you dumbo.” Then she stepped back to let him through.

The first two bags looked to have been cleared away. She’d already gotten both suitcases opened and half unpacked as well. Very efficient.

“Take as much time as you need unpacking or sleeping or whatnot. Get settled in. We’ll start fresh in the — well, morning, if that’s what you want to call it,” he rambled as he placed the remaining bags down.

“And how do I find you?” She asked.

“Oh, I’m in the console room, usually. Library, sometimes.”

“What if you're asleep?”

The Doctor very nearly asked why she would want to find him when he was asleep, but thought it not wise in light of their all too recent conversation. Boundaries. “It shouldn't be a problem.”

Donna frowned, but seemed to accept it as an answer for the meantime. “So, where are we going tomorrow?”

“Oh, now you’re interested? No, it’s a surprise for you,” he decided on the spot.

She gaped at him. “Are you joking?”

The Doctor backed out of the room. “Goodnight.”

“Doctor!”

“Get some sleep!”

“I’ll get you in a minute!”

She didn’t appear to be making any move to chase after him, though, which he was unsure whether or not to be disappointed by.

What was he thinking? Donna was here, was back, who had time to be disappointed? Maybe the universe was determined he be the last of his kind, maybe it often left him alone, maybe it wanted to tease him with this woman who seemed a perfect match to him in all but name — well, his name, he supposed.

But for however long the universe let him have Donna Noble, he thought things might just be okay.

—-

Having a best mate was rather like everything Donna had always hoped having a soulmate would be, just without all the relationship bits. So that was better, really, wasn't it?

Relationships were messy and complicated, and she and the Doctor weren’t those things at all. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so happy before traveling on the TARDIS. They just had fun — when they weren’t running for their lives, that was, though admittedly that could still be fun at times. He definitely thought so.

There were ups and downs of course, like when they’d ended up in Pompeii instead of Rome, and Donna had learned just what it meant to make an impossible choice. She didn’t know how he’d lived having to make those all on his own before. Least now he had her to make them together.

And at the very least, they’d saved the family they’d met. Caecilius, their would-be TARDIS thief; his kind and long-suffering wife Metella; their rebellious son Quintus; and daughter Evelina, who had been put on the track to seer-hood due to being born with no soulmate mark. Donna didn’t think she’d ever forget them, or how the Doctor had saved them for her.

They made a great team, really. The Doctor was brilliant, daring, and clever, but Donna was there to slow him down and show him it wasn’t all about fixed points and big picture timeline stuff. They balanced each other out.

Unfortunately, they seemed to balance each other out a little too well. She’d lost track of how many times people they met on their travels assumed they were soulmates, or even just a couple! Donna had repeated the old “haven’t got a mark” line so often she was nearly beginning to believe it. She might as well not have one; for once, Donna found herself far too content with her situation to even idly dream about soulmates or wonder about her mark.

It occurred to Donna some time after the Ood. Well, more specifically it occurred to her after dinner one night. Spaceman offered to do the washing up — she had a suspicion he was still worried about her asking to go home after hearing the Song of Captivity, but Donna was too embarrassed to bring it up again even just to reassure him — and as she made trips back and forth from table to sink to bring him the dishes she picked up his humming and then singing. It wasn't very good; he seemed to have trouble carrying a tune, for one thing, and for another she didn't understand a single word.

“What's that?” She asked eventually, giving up on trying to identify it. It seemed familiar, but then he was singing nonsense, wasn't he?

“Hm? Oh, just a Venusian lullaby.”

“It sort of sounds like ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’,” Donna remarked.

He considered that for a moment. “Might do. It's not, though. Completely different meaning. Used to know the whole thing, but I seem to have forgotten some of the words.”

He frowned, more than a little troubled.

“Well, that's what happens when you're coming up on a millennium,” she said airily, patting his arm with mock sympathy.

“Yeah, I suppose — oi!”

She managed to dart out into the corridor before he could do much more than look round at her with an injured expression, and Donna couldn't help the peal of laughter that escaped her.

He didn't seem about to chase her, and when she listened Donna could hear him chuckling to himself. A smile spread over her face at the sound. She liked knowing she could get him laughing, even about things like this.

“Doctor?” She poked her head back in the archway, and he looked back at her over his shoulder. “Could you teach it to me once you’ve remembered it all?”

He grinned. “If you like.”

Donna excused herself back to her room for bed. Funny how that translation circuit worked sometimes. She hadn't understood a word of that song, not to mention whenever he started making exclamations in other languages, it often took her a moment to recall the meaning from the snatches of French and Italian she knew. Oughtn’t the TARDIS turn those into English for her instead? She'd ask, but he’d probably get all defensive of his ship and claim it was too complicated to explain. With a scoff, she shut off the lamp and closed her eyes. And that's when it occurred to her.

Abruptly, Donna sat up in bed. There were alien languages.

What if her mark was only strange because she'd been on the wrong planet? She was traveling the whole universe now! Who knew when and where she might meet the person who was meant for her? The idea that she could bump into him while on one of her and the Doctor's trips seemed a little nerve-wracking at the moment, to tell the truth. But surely once she got used to the idea she'd feel much better about it. Right?

Now there might at least be a chance. That was all she'd ever wanted as a child.

Donna got up and went into the en suite, flicking the light on. She turned her back to the mirror, pulled her shirt up over her head, then held her hair to one side as she craned her neck around to look. She’d spent so long learning to avoid even noticing the mark, but what if—

Nothing had changed.

“What?”

That couldn’t be right! Was there actually something wrong with the translation circuits? Or was her mark not even in alien?

If anyone had the answer, it’d be Spaceman. Donna yanked her shirt back on and went out into the corridor. She found him — or, more accurately, his legs — sticking out from under the grating beneath the console.

“Does the TARDIS translate all writing? Or just Earth writing?”

“No, it does more than Earth.” He paused in whatever it was he was doing to push himself out far enough to look at her. “Why do you ask?”

Donna hadn't anticipated needing a reason. She couldn't tell the Doctor she'd been lying about not having a mark, that'd be so shaming! “Well, what if I need to read a sign somewhere?”

“You should be fine. Anyway, you’ll have me there if you're not.”

While Donna appreciated his assurance, now was really not the time. She seized on the less sentimental aspect of his statement. “So there are some languages that don't translate?”

“Some,” he acknowledged, “but they're very rare. You shouldn't need to worry about them, honestly Donna. Is this the sort of thing that keeps you up at night?”

Belatedly, Donna realized she hadn't even pulled on a robe over her nightclothes. She crossed her arms over her chest. “And what if it is?”

“Then I’m happy to have helped you to a more restful sleep.” He retreated back under the grating. “Pleasant dreams.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she huffed, and stalked out of the console room.

So her soulmate might be from some far-off, barely heard of planet. Oh God, was he from the backcountry of the universe or something? She didn’t think she could make it out in the intergalactic sticks!

Donna tried to calm down. She still didn’t even have a name, so there was no point worrying yet. Probably no point at all, if the name on her back was in some language even the TARDIS wouldn’t translate.

But Spaceman knew those languages. And if he’d learned them, then there were probably books! She could look it up, see if there was anything that looked remotely like her mark and figure out how to translate it all on her own. Plan set, Donna rolled over and went to sleep.

It turned out, however, that the language dictionaries section of the TARDIS library was enormous. He had everything, from English to something called Silurian to flipping Aramaic. This was going to take longer than she’d hoped.

Donna pulled down every alien text she was unfamiliar with, careful to mind the swimming pool he’d neglected that first night to mention was in the library, and began sorting. Everything that seemed to have characters like an alphabet got put back. Anything that had circles, big or small, she placed in a pile to go through.

The Doctor found her a few hours in. “Donna? What are you up to?”

“Nothing,” she said immediately, snapping the book she'd been flipping through closed. That of course allowed him a perfect view of the cover when he leaned over the back of her chair.

“English to Draconian,” he read aloud. “What do you want to learn Draconian for?”

“Maybe I want to be able to do something on my own, ever think of that?” Donna snapped, leery of him looking too much into this. “Like I said last night, just in case.”

“The TARDIS translates Draconian,” he informed her.

“Well how am I supposed to know which ones it does or doesn't? Not as if you made a list,” she defended. “I don't even know who speaks Draconian!”

“The Draconians do.”

“Oh, of course they do!”

“Donna,” the Doctor sighed, coming around the front of her chair. “I promise, I will translate whatever your heart desires whenever it desires it. It's gonna take you decades to learn an alien language by yourself, and, frankly, I can think of a million better uses of our time.”

Donna looked up at him. “Like?”

“The Hanging Gardens of Babylon?”

The book slid off her lap and onto the floor. “No. Really?”

He nodded. Donna leapt up and hugged him.

“Oh my God! Have I mentioned I bloody love you?”

“Once or twice,” he said, rocking them side to side slightly as he held on. She could hear the grin in his voice, obviously pleased with himself. When they both pulled back, he offered his hand. “Shall we?”

Though Donna forgot her language woes for a time, she recalled them the next time she came to the library — for the swimming pool this time. As she did a few laps, she thought things over.

There was really no way of discovering what language her soulmate spoke and if they'd be able to communicate until she met him. And she knew she didn't really have to worry about it as long as the Doctor was there.

But, if she found her soulmate, could she really expect the Doctor to be there forever?

Setting aside the fact her soulmate was an alien — which was a bit hard already — her soulmate was likely somebody who lived in one time and one place. Which was just something the Doctor didn't do. Would he just leave her behind with whoever her soulmate was?

Maybe she could convince her soulmate to come on board the TARDIS. They could all just travel together — but then, she didn't really think the Doctor would want that sort of thing on his ship, seeing how he was with domestic. She hardly thought he'd offer to cook or tidy up for more than just Donna, at any rate. And truthfully, Donna couldn't picture her, the Doctor, and her soulmate living together very well either.

So either she'd be left behind on some planet or she'd be bringing her soulmate back to Earth with her and end up right back home. She could deal with him being an alien — provided he wasn't the giant insect kind. Her best friend was an alien, after all, long streak that he was. But once she found her soulmate, her traveling would be over and the Doctor would be gone.

And that was something Donna wasn't sure she could deal with.

So then, maybe there was no need for rush. She'd waited this long, hadn't she? There was still plenty of the universe left to see. This right now, traveling with the Doctor, was the happiest she'd ever been, and she wasn't near ready to give that up. If they came across her soulmate, well, she'd decide what to do about it then.

When the Doctor asked her a few days later, “So, how are the language lessons coming along?” Donna had a ready answer.

“I’ve given them up. Waste of time.”

“Quite right,” he agreed, rounding the console to end up at her side. “Well, since you've got some free space in your schedule, I was wondering if there was something else you'd be interested in learning.”

She tilted her head in exaggerated consideration. “And what's that?”

He gestured wordlessly to the controls.

Donna stared. “Okay, you have got to be kidding me this time.”

“Really not.”

“But it's your ship,” she disputed. She knew how men were about their transport, even alien ones. This had to be his baby or something! “I mean, why me?”

“Well,” his gaze fell to somewhere about her shoes, and one of his hands went up to rub at his neck. “I thought you might like to be able to do it on your own.” He looked up and met her eyes, and he seemed very relieved to find her smiling.

“Yeah, I might.” She stepped in a bit closer, till their elbows were practically brushing. “Where do I start?”

Donna supposed there still was something strange about her mark situation. If it came down to a choice between them, she would choose her best mate over her soulmate every time. And she knew that wasn't supposed to be right.

#ten x donna #doctor x donna #tenth doctor #donna noble #doctor who #the doctor #my writing

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esonetwork · 4 years

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Timestamp #203: Turn Left

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/timestamp-203-turn-left/

Timestamp #203: Turn Left

Doctor Who: Turn Left (1 episode, s04e11, 2008)

What could have been if not for a Noble companion?

The Doctor and Donna have stopped in a bustling marketplace on an alien world. While mixing it up with the locals, Donna wanders away to explore and finds herself in the company of a local fortuneteller. Offered a free reading since she’s a redhead, Donna takes a seat. The fortuneteller talks to her about the Doctor and Donna recounts her first meeting with the Time Lord.

While a mysterious scurrying occurs behind her, she flashes back to her time as a temp with H.C. Clements and the offer she turned down businessman Jival Chowdry. The moment of decision for her entire future was sitting at an intersection with her mother. She turned left…

…but what if she had turned right?

A large insect latches on to her back and the fortuneteller convinces her to turn right. She does.

The next time we see Donna Noble, she’s at a Christmas party celebrating her recent promotion with a round of drinks for her friends. One of her friends, Alice, almost sees the creature on her back, but they’re interrupted by the arrival of the Racnoss Webstar. The invading spacecraft is destroyed by UNIT and the Racnoss queen was killed, but the Doctor drowned in the assault. He was unable to regenerate.

Donna walks away by is soon met by none other than Rose Tyler. She came so far but was too late to meet with the Doctor, but she spots the insect on Donna’s back before vanishing into thin air.

Due to the closure of the Thames, Chowdry’s company has been losing money and Donna has been fired. Simultaneously, the Royal Hope Hospital has vanished into the sky. When it returns, there is only one survivor: Medical student Oliver Morgenstern. He was saved by Martha Jones, but she died as a result. Sarah Jane Smith and the Bannerman Road Gang were there as well, but they died while trying to stop the incursion. Wilfred is convinced that aliens are to blame, but Donna wants to hear none of it.

Donna takes a walk and finds Rose again as she emerges from loud flashes of light. The insect comes up again before Rose asks her about Christmas plans. She suggests that Donna and her family take a holiday, using the winnings from a future raffle ticket to afford it. Donna warns her to stay away and Rose vanishes again.

Sure enough, next Christmas, Donna’s family travel to the countryside. On Christmas Day, they watch as the Titanic smashes into Buckingham Palace. As a mushroom cloud rises over London – and Donna nearly spots the insect in a mirror – the terror and shock set in as they realize that everyone they know is dead.

Now refugees, her family is forced to relocate to Leeds to escape the radiation. Meanwhile, France has closed its borders to refugees, but the Nobles are allocated a house with two other families. The United States offers monetary assistance, but they are forced to withdraw their support when sixty million Americans are killed and converted to Adipose. Every major world city is affected as well.

The Nobles bond with their housemates, but they’re interrupted by soldiers firing at cars. The Sontarans have activated the ATMOS system and covered the planet in a poisonous fog. One of the soldiers spots the insect and takes aim at Donna, but he can’t find it later. Donna follows the flashing lights to find Rose in a nearby alley.

The two companions sit on a bench and talk about the crisis. The sky lights up as the gas burns away, courtesy of Torchwood Three. Gwen and Ianto died in the attempt, and Jack was taken to the Sontaran homeworld. Rose talks about the Doctor, how he saved the world from all of these events, and how Donna traveled with him in another reality. Had she been there to save him from himself under the Thames, the world would be in a better place. Rose has come to warn the Doctor of a darkness that threatens both of their universes, calling Donna the most important woman in the whole of creation.

Rose asks her to come along, finally settling on a time three weeks from now. She vanishes with an ominous prophecy: Donna Noble will die.

The Nobles bid farewell to their Italian housemates, courtesy of a new law that evicts all immigrants from England. They’re going to labor camps, which Wilf recognizes as the first step to fascism that he fought against before. Later that night, Wilf and Donna relax by the fire as he looks through his telescope. While trying to find Orion, the stars vanish from the night sky. Donna finds Rose and tells her that she is ready.

They hitch a ride with UNIT to a warehouse filled with computers, mirrors, and the TARDIS. The police box was salvaged from the Thames wreckage, and when Donna goes in, she finds it cold and dark even though she’s amazed. The ship is dying but still trying to muster the energy to help.

Using that energy, Rose is able to show Donna the insect with a circle of mirrors. The beetle feeds off time, specifically from decisions not made. By turning right instead of left, Donna has given the beetle a temporal smorgasbord. Rose recognizes that both the Doctor and Donna are necessary to stop the stars from going out. Scared out her mind, Donna asks what she can do to help.

Rose tells her that Donna needs to travel through time.

After a quick briefing, Donna steps back into the mirror circle – which is actually a homemade time machine – with the intent of changing her car’s direction. The machine is activated, but Donna has the revelation that she still has to die to save the world.

She materializes on a sidewalk in Sutton Court, half a mile and three minutes from her destiny. She starts running but soon realizes that she won’t make it in time. With the revelation echoing in her mind, she understands what she has to do.

She steps out in front of a truck, sacrificing her life to cause a traffic jam. As Donna dies, Rose whispers two words in her ear as a message for the Doctor, and Donna Noble turns left.

The insect falls off as the reset button is pushed. The Doctor comes in as the fortuneteller runs off, and Donna wraps him in a hug. They examine the insect as they talk about Donna’s adventure and her knack for finding parallel worlds. The Doctor wonders about the coincidences in their travels together, and when he calls her brilliant, Donna remembers Rose.

Except she never knew Rose’s name.

But she does know two words: Bad Wolf.

The Doctor rushes back to the TARDIS, seeing “Bad Wolf” everywhere. Inside, the console room is bathed in red light and the Cloister Bell is ringing.

The end of the universe is coming.

This “what if” story is a great dark tale that is really just a setup for the season finale. We get the greatest hits of the Tenth Doctor’s saves of Earth without seeing much of David Tennant at all. He was filming Midnight while Catherine Tate was engaged on this “Doctor-lite” adventure, one in a similar vein to Love & Monsters and Blink, but with a much darker direction.

It’s also a tease for the all-star cavalcade to come with nice touches for each mention: Martha’s theme and a pop of the Torchwood theme accompany their non-appearances, and the news report surrounding Sarah Jane’s heroic death mentions her employment with the Metropolitan, which is where she mentioned working to the Third Doctor in Planet of the Spiders. Rose obviously gets her theme throughout.

Catherine Tate sells this story, from Donna’s depression as the planet falls apart around her to her abject terror when she finally sees the time beetle on her back, which finally pays off the prophecy from The Fires of Pompeii. Her acting skill is just amazing and is showcased by not being overshadowed by or in competition with Tennant’s energy.

Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Stolen Earth and Doctor Who: Journey’s End

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

#Doctor Who #Tenth Doctor #Timestamps Project

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raywritesthings · 7 years

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That is Like Destiny!

My Writing Fandom: Doctor Who Characters: Donna Noble, Sylvia Noble Summary: The Master's broadcast of a nationwide hunt for the Doctor is quite the inadvertent boon for one Donna Noble. AO3 link

It was a rather average afternoon. Every afternoon had been average ever since that last Christmas, much to Donna’s chagrin. Even the trip to Egypt had just felt so dull in comparison to that mad, unimaginable day.

Get up, get ready for work — or not, if she were between jobs like now — see the girls — or maybe not, as she’d been less and less inclined lately — come home, endure her mum’s nagging, join Gramps on the hill, then bed.

Losing dad hadn’t helped. Certainly not her and her mother’s relationship once the worst of the grief had passed. Mum thought she wasn’t doing anything with her life; Donna knew she wasn’t, but she also knew that a permanent position in some office and a nice bloke of a husband wouldn’t be doing anything with her life either. There was just so much more out there, and it felt like she was the only one who truly knew it!

And she could have seen and learned so much more. That was the worst part. That ridiculous alien had stood there in the snow he’d made for her and asked her along — and she’d turned him down. If she could time travel all on her own, Donna would go back and smack her past self upside the head.

But there was no use in it, really. She was pretty sure that wasn’t allowed. And anyway, if she were to be able to time travel, she’d need a time machine in the first place, and only the Doctor had one of those. So really, what she needed was him.

And that was precisely what Donna was planning to do; she was going to find that Spaceman.

So far, none of the suspicious goings-on had yielded any results. The UFO sighting had been faked, the crop circle just some drunk teenagers messing about in a neighbor’s field, and the sea monster was just a blurry photograph of a whale. But one of these days, it was going to pan out. She couldn’t expect right away, not with him probably halfway across the universe.

But Donna just knew he had to come back to Earth at some point. For one thing, he’d said he loved Christmas, so that meant he hadn’t just been passing through on some tour. And for another, alien as he was...she suspected being on Earth made him feel less lonely, with no planet of his own to go home to.

The kettle whistled, and Donna rose from the kitchen table to prepare her tea. She’d ask her mum if she wanted any, but that’d probably start another row about what she was doing hanging about here instead of looking for a new temp position. She would, soon. Donna just needed a day to recharge, do a little more research, and figure out what would be the best position to have to help in her next investigation into the abnormal. She’d just found an article only today about disappearing bees that sounded rather promising.

The program that had been on was interrupted unexpectedly, an announcer claiming they had a terror watch update. Donna hadn’t heard anything like that was happening. There hadn’t even been an attack.

“They are known to be armed and extremely dangerous,” the television stated, and Donna turned around with her steaming mug for a proper look at the suspects.

Something shattered. It took Donna a moment to realize she was no longer holding her tea and there were shards of glass scattered about the floor in a puddle of water.

“Was that one of my mugs?” Her mother’s voice called from the next room. “They're part of a set!”

It was him, it was actually him! The Doctor was right there on the telly!

“Oh my God,” Donna breathed. “Oh my God! ” A laugh escaped her. She couldn’t believe it! This was happening, right now!

“Donna,” her mum groaned, having stomped into the kitchen.

“Sorry, sorry,” she dismissed quickly, grabbing a rag and wetting it before stooping to wipe the glass and tea up.

“Use a broom! You’re gonna cut your hands,” her mother scolded.

“No time!” Donna shook the glass out into the trash, then dumped the rag in the sink. She dried her hands and hurried over to her bag. Phone, wallet, IDs she’d picked up from various temp jobs, it was all there.

She bustled back into the kitchen. “Mum, I need the car!”

“And just where do you think you're going?” She asked with a hand on her hip. “You promised you’d look for a job today.”

“I am,” she lied. “Got an interview.” It’d be something like an interview, at least, meeting up with him. Seeing if the offer still stood.

“You’re not dressed for one.”

“It’s business casual,” she said, trying not to sound too terse. “Where are the keys?”

“In my purse,” her mother finally answered with a huff. “You know, if you took a real job you could afford your own car.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Donna, not really listening. She found the keys and then hurried to the door.

“When are you going to be back?”

“I don’t know!” The door slammed behind her and Donna hurried down the drive to the car. She recognized that shopping centre those photos had been taken in front of. It was only a matter of getting there before the Doctor got back in the TARDIS and was gone again. Then she could hear about all the rest of that terror bit. She wasn’t worried; clearly the news had got it wrong.

Donna also didn’t know who the other man and woman were in those photos, but if they were with the Doctor that could only mean good things. At the least, he’d taken her advice and wasn’t alone.

That could be a bit nerve-wracking, really, showing up unasked and inviting herself along with them. Donna paused with the key in the ignition.

She couldn’t just let this chance slip by her, though, not again. Anyway, if the whole country was searching for them, they could always use some help. And that was something she was more than willing to do.

Donna started the car and pulled out onto the road, speeding off for what she hoped would be the start of the adventure of her life.

It was a good thing she’d packed!

#donna noble #sylvia noble #doctor who #ten x donna #doctor x donna #my writing

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