THE RUNAWAY BRIDE PART TWO
edited as of april 13th, 2020
At the reception, everyone was having a magnificent time under an enormous disco ball when the three entered. Everyone was dancing to the music, even Lance, who wore a bright smile. Charlotte, seeing this when they walked in, wondered if her wedding was doing the same for her. Even when they entered it took a moment for the party to notice Donna- who stands in front of Charlotte and the Doctor struck by lightning. Finally realizing who stood at the open doorway, all the merriment screeched to a halt as everyone looked at Donna.
The bride in question was the first to break the silence as her family stared at her, wide-eyed. "You had the reception without me?"
Moving forward, Lance, seemingly worried, asks her, "Donna, what happened to you?"
Still filled with anger to them, she repeats herself. "You had the reception without me?"
"Hello," the Doctor greets in the silence between lines. "I'm the Doctor and this Charlotte Bolton." She gave an awkward wave.
Turning back to the two standing behind her, Donna repeats herself for the third time, "They had the reception without me."
"Yes, I gathered."
The blonde girl in the front pipes up, "Well, it was all paid for," she explains. "Why not?" For a second she reminded Charlotte of Jessie Westbrooke, someone who never ceased to annoy her in her home universe. Seeing how close she stood to Lance, it even furthered the resemblance.
"Thank you, Nerys."
Sylvia, Donna's mum, moved to the front of the crowd. "Well, what were we supposed to do?" She defended. "I got your silly little message in the end. 'I'm on Earth?' Very funny. What the hell happened? How did you do it? I mean, what's the trick, because I'd love to know." At that word, everyone erupts in their own thoughts.
However, they all shut up when Donna suddenly burst into tears, with everyone (excluding Nerys, who crosses her arms) applauding in pity. Lance brings Donna into his arms, instead of crying into his shoulder as he thought, she turns to face the two and sends the Doctor and Charlotte a quick wink from over his shoulder before quickly returning to her act.
Along with everyone else, Charlotte applauded her as the corners of her mouth rose into a smile.
---
During a dance later on, Lance and Donna seemed to be happy again as they danced with each other as if this were the first reception. Standing beside the bar with the Doctor, Charlotte almost forgot the events to transpire. Keeping her head forward she began speaking to him, "Doctor, I have to come clean about something."
"What?" He asked, almost surprised.
She took a short breath. "I know what is going to happen tonight. Look, I think I was sent here from a parallel world where-"
"I know."
Snapping her head to him, her eyes grew wide. "You what?"
"I put off telling you... but I know you already. I know that your universe had a show about my life. You've- You will tell me about your family-"
"Stop it," Charlotte snapped. "Just... Just stop it." If he knows a future version of her, that'd mean she doesn't go home yet and no part of her wanted to come to that realization. Taking in a deep, wavering sigh from the thought and looked back at him. "But that doesn't answer why you've been treating Donna differently to me."
He tilts his head. "What do you mean?"
"Well, you seem more concerned about her appearing in the TARDIS than me..."
"That's because I am," He responded, but seeing her blank expression he adds, "I'm used to having you appear in the TARDIS, because you have since my eighth regeneration..." His nose scrunches up as Charlotte's jaw falls to the floor. "Well, just that one time, but either way, you jump around my timeline... from one me, to the next, or back in my time."
Charlotte forgot how to breathe. All she'd like to do is go home, but instead, she's been thrown into Doctor Who for who knows how long. "How come I- I don't go farther back in your regenerations?" She wondered, why only the newer ones? It wasn't a complaint at all... Charlotte has yet to even finish the first season, as the wedding and work took up all her time.
He shrugged. "I think the energy inside you that takes you throughout my timeline just doesn't have enough to go far enough back. So, instead, it bounces back and forth through the same group of my regenerations."
Charlotte nods, it made a little bit of sense. "I get that..."
"Anyways I have a message from the future you," He announced with little to no excitement coming from her. "'Pay attention at 204.'"
"A number with a message?" She thought it was going to be something easy... Like not to trust someone, but this wasn't that, and she didn't want to juggle decoding it right now. "I don't get it."
"Well neither do I, do you still have that phone?"
"Yeah," she pulls the flip-phone from her dress pocket, holding it out to him. "It can't search, though."
"True..."
Putting the phone back in her pocket, she looks over to a man standing only a few steps away from her holding a smartphone. "Do you mind if I borrow that?" She asked him. "I need to call a friend."
He gave her the phone without a question. "Yeah, sure."
Taking the phone from the stranger, she hands it over to the Doctor. "Here you go."
The Doctor slid on his glasses before he took the phone. Then, looking over his shoulder, Charlotte watched as he searched up HC Clements. Looking up from the phone, he inspected the room before pulling out the sonic screwdriver and used it to speed up the process of finding what he was looking for.
"Come on, take me home," the Singer sang on the front stage. "'Cause my body's tired of traveling and my heart don't wish to roam."
As many other results flashed across the screen, it stopped at one; 'Sole Prop. TORCHWOOD' it read. The Doctor closed the phone, handing it back to Charlotte, who hands it back to the stranger beside her. "Thank you," she said to him, who responded with a hum and began using it again.
"Well, you took me in, you stole my heart, I cannot roam no more," he continued to sing. "'Cause love it stays within you, it doesn't wash up on a shore. Then a fighting man forgets each cut, each knock, each bruise, each fall. But a fighting man cannot forget, why his love don't roam no more."
Charlotte noticed how the Doctor was looking into the crowd of dancers with a melancholy expression. So deep in his pool of thoughts, he hardly noticed Charlotte looking into the crowd as well... remembering a wedding she and Ian attended a few years prior- the laughter, the happiness, she thought nothing could ruin her and Ian's day.
She finds her head subconsciously bobbing to the music. She too was in the deep end of her thoughts, longing for her family over anything else right now, that she gave little notice to the Doctor as he left the spot standing beside her.
Glancing to where he stood previously, Charlotte realizes he left. She looked around the room and spots him across the room beside the cameraman. Leaving the spot against the bar, she moved across the room to stand beside him.
"Oh, I taped the whole thing," the cameraman tells him just as Charlotte reaches them. "They've all had a look. They said sell it to You've Been Framed. I said, more like the News. Here we are." He began playing the video.
They watched the replay of Donna, with a scream, turned into gold particles, and then flew up to the roof and disappeared. "Can't be," says the Doctor. "Play it again."
"Clever, mind," the cameraman adds as he rewinds the tape. "Good trick, I'll give her that. I was clapping." Playing the footage again, the Doctor's brows furrowed.
Charlotte hears clapping from the footage. "Yeah," She nods. "I think I heard you."
"But that looks like... Huon Particles!"
"What's that then?"
The Doctor ignores the question, taking off his glasses and continues talking to himself. "That's impossible. That's... ancient! Huon energy doesn't exist anymore, not for billions of years! So old that..." A string of words rang in Charlotte's head as his and her eyes get drawn to Donna- how could she be so forgetful? "It can't be hidden by a bio-damper!"
He grabs her hand, pulling her with him as they run to a window at the front of the church only to see a group of Santas slowly approaching outside. Running back, he continued to pull Charlotte behind him through the crowd of dancers to Donna and Lance. "Donna!" He shouted to her from across the room, as Charlotte fell back after releasing her hand from his.
The Doctor broke up the two dancers and focuses on Donna. "Donna, they've found you."
She quits dancing and looks over to him. "But you said I was safe." She looks over to Charlotte too once she reaches them. "You both said I was safe." Charlotte has never said such a thing, but didn't correct her.
"The bio-damper doesn't work," the Doctor quickly filled in. "We need to get everyone out of here."
"My God," Donna looks around the room, glancing at her family and friends. "It's all my family."
"Out the back door!" He shouts, then leading the two to the back door.
Charlotte passed and pushed through the many dancers as she ran behind the Doctor. Unfortunately for them, through the windows covering the said back door, they were met with a pair of Santas marching down the sidewalk- one holding a menacing trombone and the other with a controller.
"Maybe not," He admits.
They left the door and sprinted to a French window, looking out they saw another pair of robot Santas- one held a golden trumpet and the other held a controller. "We're trapped," says Donna.
"No, kidding," responds Charlotte. Then she remembered what the control in the Santa's hand controls- her heart skips a beat as her eyes widen. "Doctor... Christmas trees."
"What about them?" Donna asks instead, still looking to the Santas outdoors.
Charlotte was close to answering in his place, but he clarified it for her, "They kill," bluntly, said the Doctor. He began shouting warnings at the guests about the trees, running around, and shouting "get away from the trees!" Donna and Charlotte did the same, rushing around and spreading the same message.
"Don't touch the trees!" Shouts Donna.
Charlotte ushers a group of children away from the Christmas tree. "Back away! Shoo, go!" She repeated over to them, hoping they wouldn't run back to it as she moved along to shout the same words to the adults.
"Get away from the Christmas trees!" She heard the Doctor shout as he ran around the room. "Everyone get away from them! Everyone stay away from the trees! Stay away from the trees!"
"Oh, for God's sake," exclaimed Sylvia near the Doctor, while Charlotte stood near a corner of the room, still ushering people away. "The man's an idiot. Why? What harm's a Christmas tree going to-" Sylvia paused, as the plastic baubles started floating off the tree and into the air. "Oh."
The three eyed the baubles suspiciously as they danced in midair, however, everyone else looked at the ornaments amazed- chatting away with astonished smiles. In a matter of seconds, their amazement turned into terror as the baubles began dive-bombing as many people in the room they could- exploding loudly, and causing chaos as everyone tried to find somewhere to take cover.
Charlotte spotted a man go flying into the air and drop onto the wedding cake. Presents were being blown up to shreds as one of the baubles lands near them. Thinking quickly, she huddles on the ground with a shaky couple underneath the refreshment table with a long table cloth keeping them all hidden from the baubles' views.
A bauble explodes near them and the woman sat beside Charlotte began shaking uncontrollably. "This is insane!" She whispered over the pandemonium ensuing from outside the table cloth. Her partner, who held her hand throughout the explosions, gave a choked-up hum in response.
"Everything will be alright," Charlotte assured the both of them, and part of herself in doing so- while she knew the majority won't be hurt, she had no idea if one bauble will dive-bomb this table. "This is going to end soon. I know it will."
And then, just a moment after she finished, she heard the Doctor's voice even over the panicking wedding attendees, "Oi! Santa!" He yells to the robots, who now stand inside. "Word of advice. If you're attacking a man with a sonic screwdriver..." He held up the microphone at the DJ system, saying into it, "Don't let him near the sound system."
"Plug your ears," Charlotte warns the couple next to her, as she covers her own ears with the palms of my hands. Just in time, they both plugged their ears with their fingers, as the Doctor jammed the sonic screwdriver into the DJ's deck, resulting in a horrendous ring.
Once the buzzing stopped, and all of the robots were shaken to pieces, people stood up to find their friends and family. Charlotte crawled from underneath the table to spot a fallen bauble split in half. Her heart dropped... if the Doctor waited any longer...
She doesn't think about it any more than she did. Standing up, the woman helped the shaken couple up as well, then went to stand behind the Doctor as he checked out one of the heads (stripped of the Santa mask) of six collapsed scavengers.
"Look at that. Remote control for the decorations." He held a remote control up in another head, showing Donna and Charlotte. "But there's a second remote control for the robots. They're not scavengers anymore. I think someones took possession." He explained.
"Never mind all that, you're a doctor," Donna says to him, standing beside the other bride. "People have been hurt," she stressed. Charlotte nodded along, but with the Doctor's back turned to them, he did not notice.
"Nah, they wanted you alive, look." He threw one of the dead baubles to Donna. "They're not active now."
Catching the ornament easily, she continued, "All I'm saying, you could help."
While understanding what Donna was saying completely, even agreeing with bits of it, Charlotte disagrees that he isn't helping. "I think he wants to help, just in his own way..."
The Doctor held the head to his ear. "Got to think of the bigger picture... There's still a signal!" With the robot's head, he took off running.
"Own, special way," Charlotte finished, chasing after the Doctor to stand by a beautiful fountain set just outside the Reception Hotel.
Beginning to scan the robot head he cradled, when she arrives, he says, "There's someone behind this, directing the roboforms."
Donna caught up, standing on Charlotte's other side. "But why is it me? What have I done?"
"If we find the controller, we'll find that out." He moved past the two brides, pointing the sonic from the head and up to the sky. "Oh! It's up there. Something in the sky."
They stood there in silence for a moment, as he had the screwdriver to the sky, trying to see if they could see any ships themselves. Coming into the hotel's parking lot was a group of ambulances. Charlotte lowered her head- ashamed she couldn't stop it, but knew if she didn't the events to happen later may have been altered.
She put her attention to the much bigger problem- the Racnoss was what the alien was named, right? Maybe, she could do something, maybe even save someone. But, she couldn't. Anything and everything could go wrong with Charlotte here... World War Three, the Apocalypse. For a second she considered running away, but then remembered what the Doctor told her earlier. She'll just come back again and again.
Lance comes up from behind the trio, noticed first by Donna who leaves the Doctor and Charlotte's side to talk with her fiancé near the back of an ambulance. His arm lowers a second later. Alerted, he turns to Charlotte promptly. "I lost the signal!" He pointed the sonic to the Robot's head once again, trying to find the signal. "The connections gone."
In just a second, after he rolled the head into a bush, he slipped the sonic screwdriver back into the inside pocket of his jacket as he followed behind Charlotte to where Donna and Lance stood together with troubled faces. Not noticing their expressions, though, he immediately looked to the woman. "I've lost the signal, Donna, we've got to get to your office. HC Clements. I think that's where it all started." He looks over to Lance- who has noticed the blank stare at him from the brunette woman.
"Lance! Is it Lance? Lance, can you give me a lift?" Not waiting for an answer, the Doctor sped away from them. With an annoyed eye roll from Charlotte and huff from Donna, they began chasing after him with Lance following.
---
The four, with Lance taking up the rear and the Doctor leading, ran into the empty HC Clements and rushed into Donna's office. The Doctor darts to a big, white computer decorated for the holidays. "This might just be a locksmiths," he began as he worked with the computer. "But HC Clements was brought up twenty-three years ago by the Torchwood Institute."
"Who are they?" Asked Donna.
Looking to Donna as she stood by the entrance, Charlotte answered. "Behind the Battle of Canary Wharf... Cyberman invasion. London skies filled with Daleks."
Donna still held the silence for a moment. "Oh, I was in Spain."
Looking over from where he was hunched over the computer, the Doctor says to her, "Cybermen were in Spain."
"Scuba diving."
"That big picture, Donna. You keep on missing it." He kept talking on as he moved to another computer, which looked just slightly newer. "Torchwood was destroyed, but HC Clements stayed in business. I think someone else came in and took over the operation."
"But what do they want with me?"
Stepping away from the computer, he gave Donna his full attention. "Somehow you've been dosed with Huon energy. And that's a problem because Huon energy hasn't existed since the Dark Times. The only place you would find a Huon particle now is a remnant in the heart of the TARDIS. See? That's what happened. Say, that's the TARDIS." He picked up a mug. "And that's you." He picked up a pencil. "The particles inside you activated. The two sets of particles magnetized and whap." He shook the pencil and mug, then dropped the pencil inside of the coffee mug. "You were pulled inside the TARDIS."
"I'm a pencil inside a mug?"
"Yes, you are. 4H. Sums you up." He sets the mug and the pencil back onto the desk while Donna stood there in shock. "Lance? What was HC Clements working on? Anything top secret? Special operations? Do not enter?" The Doctor sits down in front of the computer and Charlotte moves to look over his shoulder as he uses the sonic to immediately be sent to the page he was looking for.
"I don't know, I'm in charge of personnel. I wasn't project manager," Lance answered defensively, then raising his voice. "Why am I even explaining myself? What the hell are we talking about?"
A 3D floor plan of the building was displayed on the monitor in front of them. "They make keys, that's the point. And look at this... We're on the third floor."
---
When they wait for the lift to reach their level, the Doctor said, "Underneath reception, there's a basement, yes?" They go to where the lift entrance is, once it comes down Charlotte was the first inside with the Doctor next. The other two stood outside, not positive on going inside.
The Doctor looks at the elevator controls. "Then how come when you look on the lift, there's a button marked 'lower basement?' There's a whole floor which doesn't exist on the official plans. So what's down there, then?"
Lance looked to the Doctor as if the man were joking. "Are you telling me this building's got a secret floor?"
"We will show you if you get in the lift," responded Charlotte.
"It needs a key," Donna pointed out.
"I don't," the Doctor used the sonic screwdriver on the keyhole. Bighead, thought Charlotte.
"Right then," He started, putting the sonic in his pocket and looking over to Lance and Donna. "Thanks, you two. We can handle this. See you later."
Charlotte gave the Doctor a stern glance. "No, we can't," She reminded him, looking to the two outside next. "Donna, in."
"No, we're good." The Doctor insisted.
Donna shook her head, knowing far better. "No chance I am leaving, Martian. You're the ones that keep saving my life. I ain't letting you out of my sight."
With his finger still on the button, the Doctor replied sarcastically, "Going down?"
"Lance?"
The man in question began pointing his body to the direction out. "Maybe I should go to the police..."
"Inside." At Donna's command, Lance went into the lift and stood beside her.
"To honor and obey?" The Doctor jokes.
Without looking to where Donna stands on his right, Lance responds, "Tell me about it, mate."
"Oi!" Hollered Donna to him. Even if was partly because of Lance, Charlotte's face lit up from the chit chat- despite it only lasting a moment and hardly held anything special.
---
As Charlotte grew more anxious every second, the ride to the lower basement felt slower than it really was. Once they arrived at the lower basement corridor was lit an eerie green. "Where are we? Well, what goes on down here?" Donna wondered out loud.
"Let's find out," the Doctor responded, just as curious as her.
"Do you think Mister Clements knows about this place?"
"The mysterious Mister Clements? I think he's part of it," The Doctor's eyes were caught onto something in the distance. "Oh, look. Transport." The other three look in his line of vision to spot four electric scooters parked side-by-side.
They began the trek on the scooters as seriously as anyone else would riding one of them. Halfway through, after realizing how comical their serious faces were riding the scooters, Donna began bursting into laughter. The Doctor joined in, laughing with her as he rode the said scooter. Charlotte smiled greatly, looking from the Doctor to Donna. Seeing Lance from Donna's other side, she noticed he had little to no smile.
Soon, the group abandoned the scooters as they arrived at a bulkhead door labeled Torchwood, with a sign on it stating 'Authorised Personnel Only.'
"Well, guess we can't get in."
The Doctor instead turned the wheel on the door to reveal a ladder. "Wait here. Just need to get my bearings. Don't do anything." To emphasize his point, he pointed his finger to the three of them as he raised his eyebrows.
"If you don't come back, Doctor, I swear-" Charlotte warned him as he started climbing the ladder.
He interrupted her, "I know, I know.." He continued climbing up, ignoring the huff of air sent from her.
"Donna... have you thought about this?" Lance looked over to Donna seriously after the Doctor began climbing. "Properly? I mean, this is serious! What the hell are we going to do?"
Thinking he was talking about the wedding she answered with, "Oh, I thought of July."
"July weddings are great," Charlotte joined in, remembering her parents' July wedding.
The Doctor went through a sealed cover, standing up there for a moment before climbing back down. "The Thames flood barrier right on top of us!" He said, jumping off from one of the last few bars. "Torchwood snuck in and built this place underneath."
Donna, not believing him, says sarcastically, "What, there's like a secret base hidden underneath a major London landmark?"
"I know. Unheard of," replied the Doctor as he began leading them away from the door.
At the end of the corridor, they moved through double glass doors and into a massive laboratory- with long test tubes of water extending far past all of their heads and chemistry equipment. "Oh, look at this..." he compliments the room, looking to one of the pipes. "Stunning!"
"What does it do?" Asked Donna.
"Particle extrusion. Hold on..." He darts to one of the skinny, and tall bubbling tubes. As he looked through it, he tapped onto the glass. "Brilliant. They've been manufacturing Huon particles. Course, my people got rid of Huons. They unravel the atomic structure."
"Your people?" Lance interrogated him. "Who are they? What company do you represent?"
"Oh, I'm a freelancer." He left the tube and stood beside another closer to the three. "But this lot are rebuilding them. They've been using the river! Extruding them through a flat hydrogen base so they've got the end result, Huon particles in liquid form." He picks up a small test tube of Huon particles
"I don't get it, why would they want to make the particles in the first place?" Asked Charlotte. "If it..."
"Unravels the atomic structure," he finished when she couldn't remember what he said. Not having a complete answer himself, he shrugged. "They may not even realize it yet."
"And that's what's inside me?" Donna asked him, looking to the tube in his hand.
The Doctor turned the knob on top of the container he was holding, causing the liquid inside of it to glow gold. Charlotte notice Donna glows the same shade of gold as the particles. "Woah," Charlotte muttered under her breath.
Donna looked down at herself and gasped. "Oh, my God!"
"Genius. Because the particle is inert, they need something living to catalyze inside and that's you. Saturate the body and then. Ha!" The Doctor jumped backward as he began being filled with enthusiasm. "The wedding! Yes, you're getting married, that's it! Best day of your life, walking down the aisle. Oh, your body's a battleground! There's a chemical war inside! Adrenaline, acetylcholine."
Donna looks up to him, dumbfounded by how he seemed to relish in this. The other woman agreed with the redhead, while she knew the Doctor meant well, he should've acted differently seeing how much distress she was in.
"Wham! Go the endorphins," He still continued. "Oh, your cooking! Yeah, you're like a walking oven. A pressure cooker, a microwave, all churning away. The particles reach the boiling point. Shazam!" He laughed to himself, pointing to Charlotte, who watched on not catching a word as he spoke quickly. "And it was similar for you! All those years multiplying, then your wedding comes around! Messed everything up and pow! The energy began multiplying by the billions! Brilliant!"
As he compliments what caused her to come here, Charlotte watched him in pure annoyance. Yes, she was interested in the science behind how she was here, and she was glad he knew, but she could not think of a worse time than now. Just as annoyed as her, Donna stepped forward and slapped him across the face.
Pushed back, he looks to Donna slightly miffed. "What did I do this time?"
"Are you enjoying this?"
Relaxing, the Doctor didn't answer her. By the way his eyes cast down for a second, Charlotte knew he felt at least a little guilty.
Donna steps forward, breathing heavily. "Right, just tell me, these particles, are they dangerous? Am I safe?"
"Yes!" He exclaimed, unconvincingly.
"Doctor... if your lot got rid of Huon particles... why did they do that?"
He gulped before telling her as gently as he could, "Because they were deadly."
"Oh my God..."
"I'll sort it out, Donna. Whatever's been done to you, I'll reverse it. I am not about to lose someone else."
Crashes from above erupted, causing them to look up to where they came from. Charlotte moves to stand beside Donna, looking up along with them as a voice comes on from the intercom, "Oh, she is long since lost." The female voice caused Charlotte's heart to drop... Suddenly, she felt completely unprepared and useless.
The wall in front of them began rising up, revealing an enormous circular hole that she knew went all the way to the center of the Earth.
"I have waited so long, hibernating at the edge of the universe..." says the Empress, causing the three to be too distracted to notice Lance sneak away.
"... Until the secret heart was uncovered and called out to waken!"
Charlotte looks back to where Lance was standing previously, seeing no one there instead. Her jaw clenches as she becomes more frustrated in herself. Looking forward, she makes out the armed robots in black robes pointing their guns to them from the balcony above.
Standing at the edge of the hole, the Doctor looks down. "Someone's been digging... Oh, very Torchwood. Drilled by laser. How far down does it go?" He asked the Empress.
"All the way to the center of the Earth," Charlotte answered instead, peering down into the hole beside him.
"The other bride is intelligent."
Charlotte didn't take the compliment. "Shut up," she muttered under her breath.
"Really?" The Doctor responded, looking over to her. "Seriously? What for?"
"Dinosaurs," Donna piped up.
He looks over to her, confused. "What?"
"Dinosaurs?" She repeated.
"What are you on about, dinosaurs?"
"That film, Under the Earth, with dinosaurs. Trying to help."
Charlotte shrugged. "Kind of close."
"Such a sweet couple." Mocked the Empress.
The Doctor looked up as if he were talking face-to-face with her. "Only a madman talks to thin air and trust me, you don't want to make me mad. Where are you?"
"High in the sky. Floating so high on Christmas night."
Charlotte was beginning to become as impatient with the Empress as the Doctor is. While she very much did not want to see the giant red spider (she can hardly bear the small ones, what makes her ready for the Empress? Her legs became jittery at the thought) she, however, still wanted to get it over with quickly.
The Doctor shouts up to the Empress, "I didn't come all this way to speak to the intercom! Come on, let's have a look at you!"
"Who are you with such command?" She questioned him.
"I'm the Doctor."
"Prepare your best medicines, doctor-man, for you will be sick at heart."
Out of thin air, the Empress teleported inside of the drilling area. Just looking at her made Charlotte wish the Doctor did prepare some of his best medicines. She was gigantic, maybe as big as a bus, definitely taller than her childhood home, and was as red as an apple. Her stomach flipped over in disgust.
The Doctor looked up to her, shocked. "Racnoss... but that's impossible. You're one of the Racnoss?"
"Empress of the Racnoss," She corrected, pride spewing out of her voice.
"If you're the Empress, where's the rest of the Racnoss?" He wondered, "Or... are you the only one?"
"Such a sharp mind." She complimented him.
"That's it, the last of your kind." He looked over to Donna. "The Racnoss come from the Dark Times, billions of years ago. Billions. They were carnivores, omnivores. They devoured whole planets."
"Racnoss are born starving," She defended easily. "Is that our fault?"
Donna looked disgusted as she asked the Doctor, "They eat people?"
"HC Clements did he wear those... those er, black and white shoes?" He asked her.
"He did. We used to laugh." Donna continued, "We used to call him the fat cat in spats." The Doctor drew their attention to a pair of feet with black and white shoes sticking out from the gigantic spider web that went across a large part of the ceiling. "Oh, my God!" Exclaimed Donna as Charlotte's nose scrunched up.
The Empress cackles. "Mmm. My Christmas dinner."
"You shouldn't even exist!" Asserted the Doctor. "Way back in history, the fledgling Empires went to war against the Racnoss they were wiped out." Lance entered on the balcony above the Empress. When Donna and Charlotte spotted him, the latter unpleased, he motions for them to be quiet.
"Except for me."
To distract the spider, Donna began speaking. "But that's what I've got inside me, that Huon energy thing. Oi! Look at me, lady, I'm talking. Where do I fit in? How come I get all stacked up with these Huon particles? Look at me, you! Look me in the eye and tell me," Donna demanded the Empress.
"This bride is so feisty." Lance began sneaking behind her with a fire ax.
"Yes, I am!" Donna tried to distract the spider more. Knowing what was soon going to happen, Charlotte stood beside her. "And I don't know what you are, you big thing, but a spider's just a spider and an ax is an ax! Now, do it!"
Lance started to swing the ax towards the Racnoss. The Empress turns and hisses at him, dropping the ax, Lance started to laugh along with her. "That was a good one," He said. "Your face."
The Empress looked down at them. "Lance is funny."
"What?" Donna responded quietly.
"Donna," Charlotte put one of her pale hands on Donna's shoulder. "I'm so sorry."
"Sorry for what?" Donna looked back at Lance and shrugged her hand off. "Lance, don't be so stupid! Get her!"
"God, she's thick," He insulted the still very confused woman. "Months I've had to put up with her. Months. A woman who can't even point to Germany on a map."
Still not comprehending it, she says, "I don't understand."
Charlotte focused on her, trying to stay calm despite the burning rage flowing through her veins. "Donna, how did you meet him?"
"In the office."
She continues, "He made you coffee, didn't he?" Glancing to the Doctor, Charlotte could tell he understood what happened.
"What?"
Lance interjected as if he were explaining something to a child. "Every day, I made you coffee."
The Doctor adds on, "You had to be dosed with liquid particles over six months."
Donna, much to her disappointment, connected the dots. "He was poisoning me."
"Yeah, he did." Charlotte nodded her head solemnly.
"It was all there in the job title." Said the Doctor, "'The Head of Human Resources.'"
"This time, it's personnel." Lance corrected, laughing along with the Empress.
"But... we were getting married."
"Well, I couldn't risk you running off!" He said as if it were obvious. "I had to say yes. And then I was stuck with a woman who thinks the height of excitement is a new flavor Pringle. Oh, I had to sit there and listen to all that yap yap yap. 'Oh, Brad and Angelina.' 'Is Posh pregnant?' X-Factor, Atkins Diet, Feng Shui, split ends, text me, text me, text me. Dear God, the never-ending fountain of fat, stupid trivia."
Donna looked up to him with her face contorted into a painting of increasing hurt and confusion.
"I deserve a medal," He finished.
Finally boiling over with all the frustration of the day and hatred she felt towards him, Charlotte crossed her arms as her face turned red. "How dare you!" She snapped. "Is this what the Empress you? What even are you? Her henchmen? Her puppet? I would say accomplice but snakes and spiders don't get along."
Chuckling, Lance rolled his eyes. "Anything is better than a night with her."
"But I love you," Donna begged.
"That's what made it easy." He answered her, repulsively. "It's like you said, Doctor. The big picture. What's the point of it all if the human race is nothing? That's what the Empress can give me. The chance to... go out there. To see it. The size of it all. I think you understand that, don't you, Doctor?"
"Who is this little physician and the other bride?" The Empress asked Lance.
"She said he's a Martian," he told her. "She's human."
"Oh, we're sort of... homeless," The Doctor corrected them. "But the point is, what's down here? The Racnoss are extinct. What's going to help you four thousand miles down?" He looks down, interested. "That's just the molten core of the Earth, isn't it?"
Lance looked over to the Racnoss. "I think he wants us to talk."
"I think so, too," the Empress responded to her henchman.
"Well, tough!" Huffed Lance. "All we need is Donna."
Looking over to the robot mercenaries, the Empress orders them, "Kill this chattering little doctor man and his friend!"
The redhead immediately stands in front of the Doctor and Charlotte. "Don't you hurt them!" Donna yelled at the Racnoss.
"No, no, Donna. It's all right." The Doctor reassured her. "We'll be fine."
Frightened, she didn't move an inch as she stared up to Lance and the Empress. "No, I won't let them!"
"At arms!" At her command, all of the robots pointed their guns towards the trio.
"Ah, now," said the Doctor but was ignored by the Empress. "Except."
She continued to command the robots. "Take aim!" She ordered, and they obliged.
"Well, I just want to point out the obvious..."
"They won't hit the bride," The Empress assured them. "They're such very good shots."
"Just- just- just- just... just hold on," says the Doctor. "Hold on just a tick. Just a tiny little... just a little tick. If you think about it, the particles activated in Donna and drew her inside my spaceship. So reverse it... and the spaceship comes to her." He turned the knob on the container of Huon particles he still held and around the three the TARDIS built herself with them inside.
_______
GIF FROM noble-timelord ON TUMBLR