Data Banks Full of Women
Donna woke up with a gasp. It was a bit of shock, because she was still dead.
“What?” She exclaimed as she looked around at the familiar park with its swings and climbing frames. “What?!” She echoed again.
“Donna!” A familiar voice stated, sounding as surprised as she was by her presence.
Donna stood up and found herself facing an ethereal looking River Song.
“River!” Donna gasped and stared around at the park again. “Oh… I’m in The Library! What am I doing in The Library?”
“Well my best guess would be that if you’re in here,” River intoned ominously. “Then it means that something’s happened to the TARDIS.”
Donna paused, thinking.
“We’d landed on a junkyard planet.” She said. “There was something off… Then there was pain… I don’t… compression?”
“She sent you here.” River stated, understanding at least a little. “To keep you safe… from whatever it was.”
Donna instinctively started to move. “I have to get back!”
River put her hand on her arm, stopping her.
“She’ll come for you when it’s safe.” She said.
“But I have to…” Donna insisted, pulling away.
“Donna.” River stated firmly enough to get her attention and Donna turned back with a desperate look on her face. “You can’t go back unless the TARDIS is, somehow, linking into The Library computer. If something’s happened to her, then a link won’t exist right now. She’ll have made sure that it doesn’t.”
Donna slumped on a park bench and put her head in her hands as she acknowledged that bit of truth. River smiled softly.
“It’s not so bad in here.” She told her, trying to sound cheerful.
“Really?” Donna asked on a sigh, looking up at her through her fingers. “I’ve felt what it’s like be a part of time itself. This feels like a tiny, little box.” Donna slumped again.
River sighed audibly enough for Donna to hear and that caused her pull herself together sharpish. She got up and went over to her.
“I’m sorry.” She said sincerely.
“It’s not your fault.” River replied just as sincerely, but there were tears in her eyes. “You found a way to stay with him.” She turned away. “I didn’t. You got let into the big box, and I got put into a little one.”
“River…”
“It’s okay. Really.” She said firmly, turning back. “I had a good run. I married The Doctor! In all of time and space, there are only four of us that can say we did that.” She grinned. “Technically, we’re sequential but does that make him a bigamist as he criss-crosses through our timelines?”
Donna laughed.
“Come on.” River stated cheerfully. “Let’s make you at home for now.” She put a comforting hand on Donna’s arm. “It’s the Doctor and the TARDIS. We fall, but they survive. She knows what it means to you and to him. She’ll come back for you.”
SOMETIME LATER…
Donna sat on the park bench, watching the children play on the climbing frame. Oh those children, who weren’t real and who, for a time, she’d believed to be her own. It was an odd feeling to be back here and to have even this much of a human form again. So much time had gone by since then. She’d experienced so much as part of the TARDIS. She’d seen the universe from whole other angle: from every angle.
It was impossible to know how much time had passed in the real world since she’d been dumped back here – saved again – but it was long enough that Donna was starting to worry that River was wrong. The TARDIS wasn’t going to come back for her.
River watched Donna from the other side of the park. She knew exactly how it felt to be left behind when the Doctor moved on. She had no words left to comfort Donna -or herself – that they’d hadn’t been shelved and consigned to the past.
Lost as they were in their different reveries, it was therefore a surprise to both women when a new woman suddenly popped into their virtual world.
This woman was dressed in a sort of green Victorian-ish, mish mash of an outfit and had gloriously wild swept up hair. She looked around her in obviously exuberant anticipation.
She spotted River first, and then Donna, and began grinning and gesticulating wildly at them to come over to her. Which they did, of course.
“River!” She exclaimed, enthusiastically hugging her before turning to do the same to Donna. “Donna!”
The two women took the hugs with a shared look of “what the heck?” as the woman bounced back, still grinning broadly (and slightly maniacally).
“Who are you?” Donna beat River to forming the question because River already had a suspicion forming.
The woman’s mouth worked as if she wasn’t sure how to use it to form words.
“I’m…” She began, her mouth rounding out the sound. She grinned again. “I’m the TARDIS!”
“What?” Donna demanded.
“Of course.” River smiled fondly.
The woman’s mouth worked again.
“I was… pulled… from my box… and put into this, human, form.” She said, reaching for the words. The grin returned yet again. “I spoke to him!” She clutched at Donna’s arm with her right hand. “I bit him as well, but I SPOKE TO HIM!” She clutched at River’s arm with her other hand. “With a mouth! With a human mouth… and with words!”
River laughed merrily and genuinely at the TARDIS!woman’s infectious happiness at getting to speak to her Doctor at last. There was the tiniest, momentary, flash of jealousy – coming from the fact that she, River, wouldn’t get to do that again – but it was very quickly come and gone. They both knew that they had no need to compete with each other for his affections. River was conceived in her, in love and joy, and – looking at each other – they shared a bond in this moment, as they always had. They simply grinned at each other.
“This was the danger?” Donna asked seriously. “Why you sent me here? Something attacked you?”
“Yes!” She grinned happily, but then less good memories of the encounter obviously hit her. Her face grew painfully sad. “Yes.” She repeated sombrely. “It was a creature who lived on TARDIS energy.” She sighed, remembering. “The junkyard was a graveyard… for my kind.” The words tailed away in pain and with immense sorrow.
River couldn’t help herself but reach out and pull the manifestation of a woman into a hug intended to comfort. Donna felt her throat constrict and tears well behind the eyes that should have been nothing but code. None of them were real and here in these bodies, but they all felt the pain of loss.
“But it’s safe now.” The TARDIS!woman said, pulling back. “He’s gone.” Her lips pursed and narrowed. “Forever.”
There was a note of steel in the last word that spoke volumes about final judgements and dark deeds resulting from terrible, impossible choices. The other two women knew about that too. They felt that too.
“It’s time to come home Donna.” The TARDIS!woman said to her warmly – shooing the chill out of the air – and taking her hand as an old friend.
River tried not to react visibly but the TARDIS knew everything. She saw everything in the code. She also knew River better than almost anyone else.
“River,” She began, turning to her. “Do you fancy a holiday?” She said brightly.
River’s expression was utter incredulity.
“You see…” Her mouth worked, rounding the words. “I didn’t realise I could connect into here… not like this… not until I needed a place to send Donna and did a quick search for possible connections.” She smiled and bounced a little. “But now that I’ve been properly in and looked around a bit in here… well… I just found out who built this place!” The smile turned back into a grin, before disappearing again into a momentary frown. “Not entirely happy about it, but I can see why…” The grin reappeared.
“Felman Lux..?” River questioned, ignoring the odd moment that she didn’t understand and focusing on what she knew of history instead.
“He commissioned it, and paid for it, but he didn’t actually design it. Not the code itself. He employed someone else to do that. But beyond that I’m afraid…” The TARDIS!woman’s voice turned naughty. “Spoilers.”
She glanced briefly at a point just past River – over her shoulder – but neither of the other women noticed her little look.
Donna laughed.
“How about it then, River?” She asked with a smile. “Do you wanna escape this box for bigger one?”
“Oh yes!” River exclaimed happily.
The TARDIS!woman took River’s hand too and the three of them immediately popped out of the virtual world of The Library.
They left behind a curious silence and a sign – which had been behind River – that read: “Oswald Memorial Park”.