Hi all! Something new. The bunnies will not die, and they're all Ten/Martha fans!

And in fact, if you've been paying attention to my "work" over the past years, you'll know that I rarely write a piece that's not about the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones, and usually their relationship (or lack thereof). This one is no exception. Although, my previous story had the relationship at the forefront sci-fi on the back burner... this one is the opposite. It's mostly about running from aliens, and somewhat about love and angst. At least, that's the plan. Sometimes the love / angst stuff gets away from me.

But I realized when I began the outline on this, I've never really written anything for Donna! That is to say, I've only ever made her a peripheral character for my own purposes... she's never been at the forefront, as the Doctor's companion. Well, it's time that changed! She has a fun voice to write for, so I'm giving it a shot!

So, please enjoy!

ONE

An ancient, unknowable but ever-present connection was coming to fruition somehow. Not that it ever really went away. It wasn't the first time she had seen it, but it hadn't yet ceased both to amaze and vex her a bit.

The Doctor circled the console, flying his timeless vessel to her next (as-yet unnamed) destination, taking a breather from the pulse-pounding adventures he was wont to stumble into. In his slow pace round the controls, he stopped moving when he reached the Hiluvan circuit board. Each toggle on the board had a small point of light that shone through the space between the switch and its anchor, and the panel lit up like Christmas, when the blue Police Box was in flight. What was glimmering behind them was the Heart of the TARDIS, the piece of the Vortex that allowed her to navigate time and space. It was the part of her that communicated with the world around her, especially with the Doctor.

Points of light, points of Heart. A few dozen of them, pulling him in for a silent chat, perhaps…

His Companion watched him, and wondered if some conundrum concerning the controls themselves was proving so riveting that he couldn't take his eyes away. Though, she reckoned, apart from the pull of the TARDIS, she knew some of what was actually bothering him, given the frenetic adventure they'd just had, and the mass destruction they'd just witnessed.

"Doctor?" she said.

"Mm?" he answered, absently, never looking away from the circuit board.

She suspected he hadn't really heard her, but had answered "Mm?" almost as an autonomic response to the frequency of her voice in the air. She'd been told that she had an annoying voice. Not that he was exactly James Earl Jones.

"Doctor?" she said, a little louder.

"Mm?" he answered again, absently.

"Look at me."

There was a pause, while she waited to see if her words and their meaning would sink in. "What?" he said.

He then seemed to have to peel his gaze away from the Hiluvan circuit board, and it came to rest on her. Then all at once he seemed to come to, and his eyes widened and seemed to genuinely focus on her.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "What?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, of course," he said. "Always."

She crossed her arms over her chest, and gave him her best gimme a break stare, and said, "Seriously."

"Yeah, seriously."

She sighed heavily, as though his obtuseness were such a burden to her. "Okay whatever," she said. "But talk to me, Doctor. Tell me more about this fixed point stuff. I mean, it sounds bonkers."

Now it was his turn to sigh. He had attempted to explain it to her the previous day, a bit on-the-fly, the concept of an event that must happen. Most times, as she knew, he had some wiggle room, to save people, stop the horror, be the hero. But days like yesterday in Pompeii, something in his gut just said, "This must be." A Time Lord, as he'd told her, can see the universe for all the threads and connections, causes, effects, what's possible, and what must never come to pass. He'd hoped that breathing the words, "That's the burden of a Time Lord," to her might make her back off. But Donna Noble didn't just back off.

"It's not bonkers," he protested, grumpily. "Fine. What do you want to know?"

"I just… I don't understand how you know that Vesuvius exploding was a fixed point, but, say, the Hindenburg disaster is not."

"How do you know it's not?"

"Is it?" she asked, her voice jumping two pitches.

"No, of course not," he answered.

"So… could we just go stop it happening? Save all those people dying?"

"Best not."

"Why?"

"Because, Donna," he said. "I don't just flit about looking for trouble, contrary to popular belief. And I'm not a bloody super-hero."

"You wouldn't have to be. Just tell all the passengers to shuffle into the TARDIS before the thing blows."

"No, Donna, it would be an abuse of my… oh, hello."

"What, oh, hello? Hello, what?"

"Don't you hear that?" he asked.

She listened, and now noticed a lower-pitched alarm sounding, beneath the screech of the TARDIS' usual gear-grinding. "Now you mention it, yeah. What is that?"

"It's a potential security breach," he said, as he pulled the computer screen round, so that he could see it.

"A potential security breach? As opposed to an actual security breach?"

"Yeah," he said, scowling at the screen. "The TARDIS is letting me know that there are instruments in the area that could penetrate the forcefield and airlock surrounding us."

"What? This is a TARDIS! How is that even possible?" she asked, with rather a high-pitched shriek.

Wow, she thought. My voice is annoying.

"Well," he muttered, typing in commands. "Yeah. But to be honest, flying the TARDIS is nigh on impossible, unless you're a Time Lord, but the standard physical security measures surrounding her are not that sophisticated. There's a handful of civilisations in the universe that could pull them down with their technology or their weapons, et cetera."

"And one of them has a ship in the neighbourhood?"

"Yep," he responded, pushing the screen away, and now making adjustments to the controls on the console itself.

"Do you think it's a coincidence?" she asked. "Or are they looking for you?"

"I don't know," he said, shrugging, still distracted. "I've just changed course, though. And we're going to find out if they want me, or just stumbled into this sector of the universe."

"How do we do that?" she wondered.

"Hold onto something," he warned.

"Oh, blimey," she whined, getting up off the stool. She braced herself with her arms around the railing on the outside of the centre platform. "What are you going to do?"

"This!" he said, throwing a hand-toggle into place with flourish.

With that, the TARDIS accelerated quickly, and within five seconds, was travelling at break-neck speed, through the cosmos.

Donna screamed "Doctor!" as loud as she could, so surprised and frightened was she by the impact. "What the hell are you doing?"

He did not answer, he simply held onto the console for dear life, and reached out slowly for the screen once more. He pulled it toward him.

"Damn it," he hissed. "They're following!"

"They're following us at this speed?" she shouted. "What, are they mental?"

"All right then," the Doctor said, more to himself than anyone else. "If we can't shake them off this way, then we'll have to go to plan B. Sorry old girl."

"Did you seriously just call me old girl?" Donna cried out. "You're gonna pay for that one later, space man!"

"I wasn't talking to you!" he snapped.

And again, he threw something into gear, and the TARDIS slowed down considerably, so as to allow both of them to move about, without having constantly to hang onto something. Donna returned to the console, and the Doctor took his place at the computer.

"Okay, here they come. I'm really, really, sorry about this," he muttered, staring at the screen. He did some quick typing, and then said. "Might want to brace yourself again, Donna."

Without asking questions, Donna resumed clinging to the railing. Within seconds, the TARDIS was jostled, hard, as though it had crashed. The box tumbled end-over-end, so quickly that the vessel did not have time to compensate properly for the change in gravity, and so both humanoids inside were pulled off their feet, screaming, momentarily, before gravity kicked in again, and they landed back upon the metal floor.

"What just happened?" she asked, loudly, as usual.

"I boosted the forcefield round the TARDIS," the Doctor answered, once the madness had stopped. "They just bounced right off us. Sent us, and them, careening off in opposite directions, like billiard balls."

"You had a forcefield that they can't penetrate, all along? Why haven't we been using it?" she wondered, straightening her teal and white top, and nervously fluffing her hair.

He explained at a million miles per hour, "It's a rare type of technology, stolen, ages ago, from the Balm-Zepples. Their domed city was absolutely impenetrable to every known society in the universe. Unfortunately, when their own people turned hostile and factions of radicals sprang up and started attacking from within, they called for help, but no-one could get inside to help. Eventually, the planet fell."

"Happy story."

"The point is, the Time Lords finally tried to intervene at the computer-level but by then it was too late," he said. "So, when the dust settled, the High Council of Gallifrey ordered an investigation into how the dome could keep us out. Once they got their answers, they scavenged the technology, and outfitted the next generation of TARDISes with it. That would be the Type-40 line. Trouble is, it's not of Gallifreyan origin, and the engineers hadn't yet worked out how to make it energy-efficient, so it drains the hell out of her, when we use it. Some of the later models were able do it without too much fallout, but not this one. That's why I only use it once in a great blue moon." He patted the console, as though to comfort the vessel.

Donna noticed then that the TARDIS' gears were making a weak, sickly sound. It was as though her usual noise was being played back on a cassette tape, on a slow setting.

"Ooh," she said, pulling a face, and stroking the console now, herself. "I heard that! Poor thing."

"Yeah," he sighed. "She's going to need a rest. But not before we find out who was chasing us, and where they're going next."

"Really?" Donna asked, incredulously. "She can do that, even now?"

"Should be able to do. This sort of thing is easy for her," he told her, once more typing in commands. And indeed, in just a few seconds, a ping came from somewhere on the console. The Doctor smiled widely. "Ah, see? That's my girl! She's found them already! Let's track them down, yeah?"

One more large toggle thrown into place, and TARDIS began to travel much faster, though not at a speed that required bracing oneself.

"So, now we're following them?"

"Yeah," the Doctor confirmed, keeping track of progress on the computer screen. After two or three minutes, he said, "Oh, I don't like this at all."

"What? What's wrong?"

"They're heading toward Earth."

"What? Why?"

"Dunno," he said.

"Well, you said that they bounced off us and spun out of control, like we did," she offered. "Maybe they just happened to go that direction, and don't actually have any interest in the Earth."

"No," he said. "They've changed their trajectory since then, and are now headed straight for it."

"Are they going there to look for you?"

He looked at her gravely, in a way that suggested that this hadn't really occurred to him, and also that it was all-too-likely true.

And the Doctor continued to look grave for the next hour, because what he discovered did not please him in the least.

"What's happening?" Donna said, upon re-entering the console room with two cups of tea. "What's with the face?"

"I finally worked out how to intercept their communiqués without being detected. Turned out, it wasn't too difficult, because all of their security and detection machinery is focused on the Earth."

"They are looking for you, aren't they?"

"Couldn't swear to it, but it sure seems that way."

"Okay. What do we do?"

"I dunno," he whispered. "Try not to get caught?"

For several minutes, the Doctor stood deadly still, apparently watching the communiqués fly by on the screen. And then, suddenly, "Oh!" He looked at her momentarily, wide-eyed, then, "Oh!"

"What?"

"Erm," he said, adjusting controls. "I think they think they've found me."

"What?"

"They're headed down to terra firma," he said.

"So, are we going to follow them?"

"We've got to know what they're up to."

The TARDIS began to move. The tell-tale sign of grinding gears filled the space.

"Well, are they headed for London? If they know you, they know it's a decent place to start to try and find you."

He pulled a face. "No, it looks like they're headed to Spain."

"Spain?"

"Yeah, Mallorca."

"Why do they think you're in Mallorca?"

"No idea."

All righty! Please play fair: leave a review! I'd love to know what you think!