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luchiaTitle: That One Time Fiction And Truth Were Both Strange And Each Other
Rating: PG
Pairing: GEN FOR NOW. Except for the UST between DeMilo/Donna's Hair. It's obviously gonna be Glitch/Cain though.
Warnings: Crossover! Also, this fic contains DeMilo and Donna. BE AWARE!
Summary: "Reverse Pulsing" goes in reverse, meaning it goes from blow -> suck. And it sucked up some pretty interesting stuff.
THIS PART: Things/people/clones/meteors/etc show up, DeMilo hates Slippers, the Doctor has to protect Donna's hair's virtue, Donna thinks everyone's gay, Cain disagrees, and Glitch wants his closet.
That One Time Fiction And Truth Were Both Strange And Each Other
(Part the first, since it's kinda long and you're bored)
“Um…your majesty?”
Glitch’s voice (or was it Ambrose?) fractured the peace and happiness that surrounded the peak of Azkadellia’s Tower. Raw had moved to the side to look out the balcony, and it took Cain a moment to realize he was using Glitch as a crutch because of his shoulder. “Ambrose?” Cain asked, frowning, and only received a nervous look from the Royal Advisor.
“Your majesty, we need to destroy the tower, and we need to do it fast,” Glitch finally said, words finally loud enough that the hugging royal family turned towards him.
“Glitch? What do you mean, what’s wrong?” DG asked immediately, and when Glitch moved towards her with wide, scared eyes, Cain nearly fell off of him, barely catching himself on the striped shirt. “Cain! What happened?”
“Shot,” Raw said simply, eyes moving from the restored O.Z. to Glitch and then back. The Viewer wasn’t smiling, either. At all. “You sense it too.”
Glitch winced at the sentence and shook his head. “No, I invented it. I know what reverse pulsing does.”
“It…it melted the Witch. It stopped the eternal eclipse,” DG said cautiously, weighing her words as she looked at him. Glitch didn’t look happy. At all. “Glitch, what does reverse pulsing do?”
“You know what a vacuum is? You know, carpet cleaning and stuff?” DG nodded. “Well, vacuums suck up the dirt. The original Sun Seeder would have been kind of…ejecting the equivalent of really thin dirt. We’re talking really, really thin. The Anti-Sun Seeder, however, was pushing out nothing but power and magic.”
The Queen finally stepped forward, looking at Glitch as he spoke. “Ambrose, skip the technical information and go for the part that makes you look like the world’s going to end.”
Glitch let out a short, nervous laugh at that. “Politely blunt as ever, your majesty! I remember when-”
“Ambrose.”
“I turned it to suck. It’s sucking in the most powerful things it can find on the Otherside,” Glitch said quickly.
While there was a resounding chorus of “WHAT?!”, Cain just stared at him. Which was why Glitch said “What” too.
“Why didn’t you just tell me the code to turn it off, Glitch.”
He looked practically scandalized. “Wouldn’t have sucked up the Witch! You know how much magic the Anti-Sun Seeder’s got stored up from absorbing that hag? A ton of magic. She was practically evil turned corporeal, which means we have pure evil in the middle of the thing! If that isn’t powerful I don’t know what is.”
DG’s eyebrows rose very, very high. “So you sucked pure evil into a machine, and now it’s sucking more stuff up from Earth.”
Every single pair of eyes turned to look at her with that statement, looking a bit stunned.
“…DG, our Otherside, it’s.” Ahamo hesitated. “The Otherside we both know is Earth. But that’s only the closest Otherside world to the O.Z., that’s the one most connected to us, easiest to access.”
“So when you say Outer Zone, you mean-”
“Outside of everything!” Glitch beamed at her. “An external all-consuming pocket dimension in the multiverse! If it slips out of everything, it ends up here, the pan-dimensional catch-all.” He paused. “Well that used to be how it went until this puppy snapped into reverse. Now it’s gonna just be sucking up power stuff all…willy-nilly, so we need to destroy it.”
“Could it have possibly already pulled something in?” the Queen asked, eyes wide with worry.
“Probably a few things. I’m thinking Jeb’s still got some explosives, right?” Glitch looked over at Cain, who nodded back. “Great! We rig the tower, run for it, and…deal with. Things.”
“Things,” Cain repeated.
Glitch glared at him. “What, you think I know what a dimension’s most powerful person place or thing is gonna be? For all I know it could come smashing down on us-”
Which was when a very big something shot down through the sky, twisting and shedding fiery layer after layer, and smashed into the lake next to Central City. A wave crashed over the city like a massive rainstorm, and it looked like half the lake had been drained. Whatever had landed there was glowing a blue-green color, and it looked very, very pokey.
“Like that,” Glitch said a bit feebly.
DG swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “So we blow up the tower. Sounds good.”
With a unanimous decision, they evacuated as quickly as they could. Jeb set to rigging explosives, Cain set to griping about his injuries not needing that much treatment until Raw cleaned him up while teaching Kalm how to do the same during the process, Ahamo and DG slowly helped Azkadellia creep out of the emotional shell she’d formed, and the Queen and her ex-Advisor chatted away about apocalyptic capabilities as if the only thing they were missing was a good tea service.
That was the start of life in the O.Z. in the new days, though. Weird and weirder.
They didn’t know it then, but it was also about to start involving an awful lot of running, too.
---
“Oh come on Donna!”
She gaped at him. “That wasn’t fun! We were chased by sand pirates from the minute we stepped out of this stupid box! How the bloody hell is that fun?!”
He was still grinning. “Aww, don’t be shy now. I saw that smile.”
“It was…it was endorphins or something!” Donna defended. “I go off adventuring with you and I barely escape death every time, and if that doesn’t get your adrenaline pumping I don’t know what would!”
“You liked it,” the Doctor said, still rocking back and forth on his trainers with a wide smile, the tip of his tongue trapped behind his bottom row of teeth as he started speaking in a sing-songy tone of voice. “Donna likes adventure-”
“Adventure yes, mortal peril? No!” She stomped her foot down and immediately felt like a child for it, but the Doctor was acting like he was six already, so she didn’t pay it much mind for very long. “You! You are going to take me somewhere nice and tropical and full of people that don’t want to kill us.”
He paused, side of his mouth scrunching up as he thought. “…well, they wouldn’t recognize me anymore on Jatolcarix so I suppose the bounty would be off my head. New head, after all-” The Doctor cut himself off, face freezing as he started looking around the TARDIS, from the…pump-thing to the console, even going far enough to get the hammer thing and start bashing on the…other thing. “What?! No no no no no this isn’t possible!” He looked down at the console. “STOP!”
“Doctor?” Donna asked, wondering if he’d gone mad. When he just kept turning cranks and slamming things and cranking other things, she cleared her throat. “DOCTOR!”
“DONNA!” The Doctor mimicked, dropping to the grating and sliding under the console.
“What the bloody hell is going on?!” She spread her arms wide. “We’re not even doing anything!”
He slid back out with the sonic screwdriver between his teeth. “Thaph’s the prophlem!” The Doctor grabbed it with his left, diving back under. “We’re moving, and we’re doing it very, very fast, Donna. And the TARDIS isn’t doing it.”
“So something’s…towing us.”
“Well, sort of. Good enough for now. I just-”
The TARDIS hit something, and Donna went sprawling against the (thankfully) padded portion of the railing, shrieking just a bit as it didn’t stop. It was almost like they were rolling-
“Got it!” The Doctor shouted, and they screeched to a halt.
Donna grimaced, a hand going to her stomach as her eyes widened. Oh god, she was going to vomit. Throwing up wasn’t something she was going to do in the TARDIS. Definitely not something she’d do in there, so she trotted down to the doors, flinging them open and taking the required five steps to the right to vomit, only to stop, staring.
“Oh. My. God.”
“Donna!” The Doctor was out the door right behind her, eyes wide and cautious. “Donna, what…we don’t know what’s going on! We don’t even know where we are – the only clue I have is the binary star system with two moons-”
“We’re in Oz,” Donna said, nausea gone and replaced with awe, shock, and a bit of fear.
“Oz?” The Doctor frowned, eyebrows scrunching together. “Wicked Witch of The West, Yellow Brick…Road.”
Donna simply stretched her arms out on either side, the dull yellow bricks behind her making her hair look even more red than normal. “Oz.”
The Doctor continued to stare at the road, finally following it further onwards to where a city sat next to a lake that currently had a smoking something-or-other that was green and pokey sitting in it. “Do you want to say the cliché or should I do the honors?” The Doctor asked, voice a bit higher than usual.
“But I’ve never even been to Kansas,” Donna frowned.
“It’s why you say London, or England, or Earth or something instead.” Donna gave him a bland look. “Oh come on! You’re a human, you should love this stuff! It’s Oz! I thought everyone wanted to go over the rainbow.”
“Has a different meaning now, over the rainbow,” Donna said, only rolling her eyes a little. “Well.” She looked up at the Doctor, who grinned and held out his arm. With a smile, she linked up with him. “Off to see the wizard it is.”
“Mind if we ignore the singing and skipping bit?”
“Can’t skip for the life of me,” Donna sighed. “And I don’t want to even try to hear you sing-” The Doctor had stopped, head twisting towards something that looked like a wrecked black tower. “Doctor?”
“I thought…” He paused, and then smiled. “Never mind. Come on then, Donna Noble, off to venture into fiction.”
“Not so fictitious anymore.” Donna smiled back at him, and just for the hell of it managed to get a few skips in before stumbling and nearly falling onto her face. The Doctor had an awfully good time laughing at her, but when she looked back at the yellow bricks behind her, she decided it had been completely worth it.
---
There, and then not.
Gold flitted from her fingertips, out of her nails and into the air of the piece of emptiness that was full. He wasn’t there, but she was. She knew where he was. Knew where all of him were, and would be, and wouldn’t be when. Part of her just like everything else was.
The forest didn’t burn. It had more life to go through. Everything had more life to go through, even the dead. Everything.
It hurt, but it only hurt then, and there was so much more to feel, so much more to achieve before return and completion and the end of her beginning.
She stepped out of the trees, eyes golden, and moved towards where she was supposed to be with each passing second. Her feet went where they went at that time, and she felt her own existence as it tainted everything she could feel.
---
Donna stared at the outside of what should have been the Emerald City. They’d followed a yellow brick road, they’d seen a landscape that could pass for Oz, but this… “This is not Oz.”
“The place recently had a meteor crash next to it. A very strange and mostly harmless meteor that makes me wonder if it’s actually a meteor at all, but that’d make any city look…less green. And wet.”
Donna stared at him, and finally gestured at the city in question. It had impressive architecture, sure, but it also had water dripping off dirty walls and pooled in city streets, nearly flooding the place. A sign calling it ‘Central City’ were big, stone, and standing boldly in front of the gates.
“Why is it that everywhere you end up taking me, we end up at the wrong time with the wrong people and nothing but trouble?” Donna sighed.
The Doctor paused, raising an eyebrow. “…more interesting that way?”
And really, she couldn’t argue with that.
“Besides! Oz isn’t supposed to exist, and since I didn’t even think it did this has to be worth the trip. Even if it’s just for the novelty of being somewhere that isn’t real.”
“Maybe the movie was based off of here, but changed for children,” Donna suggested, nodding to the landscape. Even with a huge pokey not-meteor in the lake and the city flooding, it was breathtaking. “Before that thing crashed, I bet it was beautiful.”
The Doctor nodded. “It just makes me wonder how someone could get from a place I’ve never heard of and back to Earth to make a movie.”
Donna rolled her eyes. “You can’t be the only time traveler in the universe.”
“I never said I was!” The Doctor protested, turning away from the non-emerald city at the sound of a hissing, struggling steam engine making its way down another path. “I think we know where all the color went,” he quipped, and Donna simply nodded as the truck putted its way towards them, lurching until it finally broke down in front of them.
An older woman hopped out of the driver’s seat, makeup caked onto her face as she scowled at the engine. She looked at it for only a few seconds without letting out an angry hiss and kicking the thing.
“Don’t even start, Ma, you know this thing-” a man sighed, stepping out of the back of the truck, dressed just as brightly as his truck.
“You let them steal it! We had to go all the way to the Northern Island to get your stupid-”
“I said don’t start!” the man snapped. “It’s my place of business, as you know, and I ain’t getting another one when people know this wagon for being my wagon-”
“I’m sorry but where are we?” Donna finally snapped, earning a surprised blink from everyone, including the Doctor. She frowned at him. “If there’s someone to ask, I’m going to. Hasn’t been anything like this since you put the TARDIS on random-”
The man gave her one of the sleaziest grins Donna had ever seen, which was saying quite a bit. “Name’s Antoine DeMilo, purveyor of-”
“Yes, that’s all well and good and I’m very happy for you and your wagon, but where are we?” Donna snapped, and DeMilo glared at her.
“You outta your mind, lady? It’s the O.Z. Always has been, always will be.” The woman grumbled some more, and climbed back into the driver’s seat of the wagon while DeMilo walked over towards them. “Don’t tell me we got some more Slippers. If you’re Slippers, I don’t want no part in whatever quests you may have or sneaking you may be doing, ait?”
Donna glanced over at the Doctor, who looked just about as confused as she was. “You think I know what a slipper is? I barely understand ‘ait,’ let alone slipper, aside from the shoes of course but I doubt he’s saying we’re shoes.”
“Naah, really?” Donna scowled at him. “Could have sworn you were a stiletto.”
“Technically not a slipper-”
“I ain’t dealing with this again,” DeMilo snapped out, and pointed straight at them. “You leave me alone, I don’t get none of this trouble again.” The finger went straight towards the still-crumbling-apart black tower. “Go over there, and you’ll find people that can deal with you types. Just look for either the people with freakish accents like you have or a really nasty son-of-a-bitch named Wyatt Cain. Man seems fond enough of Slippers he might not shoot you.” He rubbed at his earlobes almost protectively, muttering under his breath.
“It’d be faster if you drove us,” Donna pointed out, and got a scathing laugh for it.
“Listen, sweet-cheeks, the engine’s barely gonna make it into Sin District, I doubt it’s gonna make it to what’s left of the Sorceress’ Tower.” DeMilo leaned back, looking at her. “Like your hair. You ever thought about-”
“I can fix up the engine if you’ll drive us and stop that right now,” the Doctor said lightly, already heading for the hood and pulling out the screwdriver. DeMilo blinked at him, but finally nodded. He beamed at DeMilo. “Good! Now, can you try to explain where we are again?”
---
It seemed like ever since Glitch and Ambrose had been reunited, Glitch was a lot more Ambrose than Glitch. Cain and Raw silently watched him as he trotted around the dusty laboratory, fiddling with this, twisting that, scribbling away on one of the twenty papers strewn about. The lab was dusty, but the counters weren’t any more - Glitch’s running around had taken care of that. It had turned the air almost foggy.
For the fourth time since this whole disaster had started, Glitch froze mid-scribble on a piece of paper, looking at the pencil, and then twisting around with a frown, looking around the lab before he caught sight of Raw and Cain.
“I…what?” Glitch blurted, looking absolutely helpless.
Just like the three times before, Raw stepped forward first, Cain following. While Raw put a hand on the side of Glitch’s head, Cain watched Glitch’s blurring eyes. He’d passed out the second time while muttering something about oranges in the sky, and Cain wasn’t too keen on seeing that happen again. “Glitch?”
“Cain,” Glitch said a bit blurrily as Raw dove down a bit further, reaching the Ambrose in there and carefully attaching it to where they needed it. “You seen a locked closet around?” His words were slurred, and Raw frowned slightly, obviously having a bit more trouble.
“No, I haven’t,” Cain said patiently. At least it wasn’t a sky of oranges. “You’re working on finding a way to reverse the trouble with the anti-Sun Seeder going into reverse. Finding all the power it sucked in and sending it back without anything bad happening.”
“Sure y’ haven’t seen a locked c-c-c-closet?” Glitch said, voice even worse this time. Cain looked at Raw, who looked like he was wrestling a bear, all things considered. Teeth clenched together, brow furrowed, a bit of sweat on his forehead. “Want m’closet.”
Cain stepped forward just in time to try and at least cushion the two as they fell, Raw completely unconscious while Glitch looked dangerously pale and absolutely heartbroken, leaning against Cain while his eyes fluttered. Cain put a hand to the other man’s forehead, and blinked. Glitch was freezing.
“I’m getting…closer to fixin’ it. ‘S another power that’s slowing…slowing ev-v-eryth-th-th-thing,” he said, barely finishing his sentence before his eyes rolled up into his skull, Cain shaking him. It didn’t look like either of them would be waking up anytime soon, making Cain groan. His legs were trapped under Raw, and Glitch was clinging to him and still looking like he’d had the worst day of his life.
Which of course reminded Cain of the ache in his shoulder where he’d been shot. He’d been doing a good job of ignoring it, really, ignoring the bandage that Raw had made sure Cain kept on for just in case. It hurt and he didn’t have time to hurt, even if his current mission happened to be collapsed around him completely drained. Having Raw reconnect Ambrose every couple hours had to be taxing, and so did being reconnected, let alone the flurry of activity that came after-
“What the bloody hell am I doing here?!” a woman shrieked, and Cain jerked violently enough that Glitch snapped awake with a shout of “I was going to pay!”
Raw was still out of it, but that left Cain and Glitch staring at a redheaded woman in a white dress and veil, a bouquet of flowers in one hand, the other pointing at them vindictively. “Send me back! Now!”
Glitch gaped at her. “What?”
Cain groaned. “Glitch, you were working on-”
“Send me back, damn it!” the woman roared, smacking the bouquet into one of the lab tables.
Glitch continued to stare. Rose petals flew through the air, some catching on the brim of Cain’s hat, others sticking into Glitch’s hair. “What?”
“In the middle of the aisle! I was walking down the bloody AISLE and you decided to…to abduct me!” She crossed her arms, glaring at them. “If you think I’ll pay some sort of ransom, boy are you in for a surprise. I’m not going to just sit around while being kidnapped either!”
“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” Glitch finally shouted back at her, loud enough that Raw twitched.
“Glitch!” Cain smacked him on the back, sending rose petals flying onto the ground. “Anti-Sun Seeder! Reverse pulsing!”
Glitch’s eyes widened. “Oh.”
That taken care of, he turned to the woman, clearing his throat. “Ma’am, I’m sorry for what happened, and we’ll be trying to get you right back to your aisle as soon as we can. We aren’t kidnappers. You’ve been caught in a…a scientific error that we’re fixing. You look lovely and I’m sure the groom is desperate with worry, but we’ll have you back in no time.”
She blinked at that, clearly not expecting logic, let alone a compliment. “I…well you’d better get me back there. Or else.”
Glitch tilted his head to the side. “Or else what?” he asked, pure curiosity, and the woman reddened, grip tightening on the flowers. Glitch grinned. “Hi! The name’s Glitch, on account of-”
“This is Glitch, my name is Wyatt Cain, and the Viewer is Raw,” Cain interrupted. Telling someone that their best hope for getting back to their wedding was a man with half (well, more three quarters right now) a brain wasn’t a good idea, as far as Cain could tell. “Glitch also goes by Ambrose.”
“And he’s your boyfriend,” the woman nodded, arms crossed as she eyed Raw critically.
They both blinked at her, having no idea where she’d gotten that idea from until Glitch made a triumphant noise, motioned at the fact they were still somewhat curled up together, and Cain made an amused, slightly surprised noise, which Glitch followed with an amused breath, and Cain frowned, and Glitch-
Cain gaped, realizing they could actually talk without talking to each other. A whole conversation, really, in less time than it took to get a long sentence out. He turned a bit too quickly to look up at the bride, wincing at the weight of Glitch and his shoulder. “We’re not dating. We’re just good friends and he fainted.”
“I did not faint,” Glitch grumbled, standing up and moving over to his scribbling before pausing and looking at the bride. “Who are you?”
She raised her chin up. “Donna Noble until I’d reached the end of that bloody carpet-”
“Should have had it cleaned before a wedding,” Glitch nodded sympathetically, already moving towards one of the other gadgets in the room.
Cain blinked, looking at where she was standing – right in front of a tall footlocker that could probably be considered a...“Closet.”
Donna rolled her eyes. “Yeah, what of it? You and your boyfriend need to go climb in?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” they said at almost the exact same time, Cain’s voice steady and patient (being around Glitch for so long had made him even more patient than he’d been when Jeb had been going through the Terrible Twos) while Glitch’s was almost sing-songy, probably proud he even remembered the fact.
Donna simply raised her arms, shaking her head. “Fine, fine, whatever. What’s so important about a closet?”
“Oh, hey Cain, can you go get her Majesty for me?” Glitch said absently from the corner he was tinkering away in. “I’ll be good while you’re gone, don’t worry.”
“You can’t exactly promise that, Glitch,” Cain noted, earning a thoughtful nod. He turned towards Donna with a dazzling smile, and Donna looked like she’d been appropriately dazzled. Even with a zipper in his head, Glitch could turn on the charm, even if Cain didn’t think the man knew it.
“Noble, would you mind reminding me I’m trying to send you and everyone and everything else home?”
She was blushing slightly, but managed to look both angry and sad. “Only Donna Noble for another couple minutes before you grabbed me.”
“Oh, we didn’t grab you. A gigantic machine we blew up did,” Glitch said, so chipper it was almost annoying. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you home, gigantic machine or not.”
Cain figured that was good enough for now, and after propping the rather poor-looking Raw up against one of the walls, headed out to find the Queen for Glitch.
“So!” Glitch smiled at her over his shoulder, twisting another knob on a cone-shaped something-or-other. “What makes you the most powerful thing in your universe?”
Donna gaped at him. “What?”
He waved a hand over his shoulder. “You know, that whole getting sucked up to provide as much power as possible thing. You have to have something up your…” Glitch paused, realizing her wedding dress didn’t have sleeves, and changed to “skirt.”
Which, when a rolled up sheet of paper smacked him in the back of the head, he realized probably hadn’t been the wisest substitution of the day. And then he wondered why he’d drawn something that made absolutely no sense to him on the piece of paper she’d thrown at him.
“The only things up my skirt are what you’d expect, thank you VERY much,” Donna said airily, voice creaking slightly when Glitch attached the cone something-or-other to a cylinder of something-or-other, fiddling with the two. It kind of looked like a rocket or something. Glitch paused, looking it over. Who knew, maybe it was a rocket or something.
“Well you’re the most powerful thing in your universe whether you want to be or not,” Glitch said with a smile. “Congratulations.” Donna gave him a very bland look, making Glitch frown, even more befuddled than before. “What, don’t you want to be the most powerful thing in your universe? I thought everyone wanted to be special, and you’re as special as anyone can get-”
“I just want to be back at my wedding,” Donna said, and slumped onto a lab stool, finally taking the veil off.
He tried to smile reassuringly, but it looked like the woman was intent on sulking, anger spent. “We’ll get you home.”
“You’d better,” Donna muttered, and apparently that was the end of the conversation, the bride fiddling with her engagement ring. Glitch went back to fiddling with whatever he was supposed to be fiddling with.
Surprisingly enough, there wasn’t much of anything uncomfortable about the silence.
---
“And there were thousands of them, all walking down the streets and-”
“Seriously, you think I care or even believe about any this?” DeMilo interrupted, moving easily with the jerking of the truck as he stared at the Doctor and Donna. “This is the O.Z., slippers. We don’t take none of that fantasy stuff for granted, don’t tell stories about it, don’t even touch it if we can help it. Magic does one thing and only one thing, and that’s mess stuff up.”
“Oh right, because there’s so much magic in the truck to judge from-” Donna began, only to stop at the dark look she was getting from DeMilo. The Doctor was sitting next to her, watching DeMilo intently.
“You know something.” The Doctor leaned forward. “What’s been messed up, DeMilo?”
The man shook his head and rose onto his knees, heading for the side of the wagon. “Slippers. I swear, the lot of you slide in just to ruin my life.” He opened one of the side flaps, showing off the barren landscape, and pointed to what was nothing more than a little black bit of earth a few miles away. “See that? Ten years ago that was a town. Wanna guess what turned it into nothin’ but a stretch of ash on what used to be farmland?”
“So magic’s this powerful,” the Doctor mused, and Donna just stared at the patch. “Who’s responsible for all this?”
DeMilo groaned, slapping a hand in front of his eyes. “Gods I hate slippers. I’m not exposition man, I’m not here to hold your hand and go prancing through the Papay with you, not your damn tour guide. Our agreement was you fix the truck, I take you to the Tower and leave the topic of sexy red hair alone.”
“And you were doing a great job with that one until now,” Donna grumbled, only to get a wink. She threw a pillow at him, and the thing went flying out the side of the truck.
DeMilo didn’t even try to catch it, just watched the pillow go and then turned back to her, eyes all over her hair. “And now we might need to talk some compensation, cupcake. Maybe some-”
“So since you’re not exposition man, can you just give us the quick and easy of it and then we can all enjoy the blighted scenery rolling by?” The Doctor said cheerfully.
“That is exposition, noodle arms,” DeMilo grumbled, and before they could say another word he’d started talking. “So we had a Queen, right? Queen had these two little girls, royal princesses and all that, and fifteen annuals ago Azkadellia kills her little sister. Only one princess now. Time goes on, she raises herself an army and takes out her mom too. Doesn’t crown herself Queen though, oh no, goes by Sorceress. She didn’t take the throne for power or control or nothing like we’d thought, she took it to get her ma out of the way so she could start destroying the O.Z. Time goes on again, another obnoxious slipper – although not as lovely as you, Red – shows up with her friends, they steal my truck and leave it at the Northern Island and me and my ma gotta go trekkin’ all the way out there to get my baby back-”
“The other slipper?” The Doctor prompted, and with a groan, DeMilo nodded.
“Yeah, alright, other slipper’s the youngest princess, only apparently not so dead as we all thought. They took down the Sorceress last night, the pile of black rubble we’re heading towards is what’s left of the Tower, and that’s the end of the story.”
“Except we’re here now, so there’s obviously going to be more.”
“You wanted exposition, I gave you your damn exposition, now-”
The truck screeched to a stop, the older woman shouting out “Antoine!” as the three jerked in the back, the flap shutting.
“WHAT, Ma?” DeMilo snapped.
“We’re here. Or as close as I’m getting, with how that thing’s been falling down more and more every twenty seconds.”
She had a point. The tower was a looming mass of black rubble, a slapdash affair of a tent city built nearby, people in black coats and people in drab colors and horses roaming around it. Even as they looked at the thing, yet another portion cracked off and slammed onto the pile of debris that probably stretched a mile wide.
“Nice knowing you,” DeMilo said, standing up and opening the door for them, a sleazy grin on his lips.
Donna put on a smile. “Sorry to see you go. Bye, then!”
Before the Doctor could even try and call her back, she was out the door and heading for the tents. He barely had time to say a quick thanks to DeMilo before running after her. Her walk was more of a trying-not-to-run, but he finally caught up, frowning at her.
“What’s got you so-”
“I just…I got this feeling when I saw the rubble,” she said, and shook her head. “The rubble and the suns. I just…I don’t know. It’s just bothering me.”
He frowned. “What sort of feeling?” Donna just gave him a bland look. “Okay, fine, it’s just that I have some sort of…” The Doctor paused, trying to find the right word for it. “Some sort of feeling like I know something here, but it refuses to be known. That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
“You never make sense,” she grumbled, and really all he could do was shrug and head on towards the tents, the itching sensation he had from the northeast bothering him more and more as they walked over the wasteland.
Rating: PG
Pairing: GEN FOR NOW. Except for the UST between DeMilo/Donna's Hair. It's obviously gonna be Glitch/Cain though.
Warnings: Crossover! Also, this fic contains DeMilo and Donna. BE AWARE!
Summary: "Reverse Pulsing" goes in reverse, meaning it goes from blow -> suck. And it sucked up some pretty interesting stuff.
THIS PART: Things/people/clones/meteors/etc show up, DeMilo hates Slippers, the Doctor has to protect Donna's hair's virtue, Donna thinks everyone's gay, Cain disagrees, and Glitch wants his closet.
“Um…your majesty?”
Glitch’s voice (or was it Ambrose?) fractured the peace and happiness that surrounded the peak of Azkadellia’s Tower. Raw had moved to the side to look out the balcony, and it took Cain a moment to realize he was using Glitch as a crutch because of his shoulder. “Ambrose?” Cain asked, frowning, and only received a nervous look from the Royal Advisor.
“Your majesty, we need to destroy the tower, and we need to do it fast,” Glitch finally said, words finally loud enough that the hugging royal family turned towards him.
“Glitch? What do you mean, what’s wrong?” DG asked immediately, and when Glitch moved towards her with wide, scared eyes, Cain nearly fell off of him, barely catching himself on the striped shirt. “Cain! What happened?”
“Shot,” Raw said simply, eyes moving from the restored O.Z. to Glitch and then back. The Viewer wasn’t smiling, either. At all. “You sense it too.”
Glitch winced at the sentence and shook his head. “No, I invented it. I know what reverse pulsing does.”
“It…it melted the Witch. It stopped the eternal eclipse,” DG said cautiously, weighing her words as she looked at him. Glitch didn’t look happy. At all. “Glitch, what does reverse pulsing do?”
“You know what a vacuum is? You know, carpet cleaning and stuff?” DG nodded. “Well, vacuums suck up the dirt. The original Sun Seeder would have been kind of…ejecting the equivalent of really thin dirt. We’re talking really, really thin. The Anti-Sun Seeder, however, was pushing out nothing but power and magic.”
The Queen finally stepped forward, looking at Glitch as he spoke. “Ambrose, skip the technical information and go for the part that makes you look like the world’s going to end.”
Glitch let out a short, nervous laugh at that. “Politely blunt as ever, your majesty! I remember when-”
“Ambrose.”
“I turned it to suck. It’s sucking in the most powerful things it can find on the Otherside,” Glitch said quickly.
While there was a resounding chorus of “WHAT?!”, Cain just stared at him. Which was why Glitch said “What” too.
“Why didn’t you just tell me the code to turn it off, Glitch.”
He looked practically scandalized. “Wouldn’t have sucked up the Witch! You know how much magic the Anti-Sun Seeder’s got stored up from absorbing that hag? A ton of magic. She was practically evil turned corporeal, which means we have pure evil in the middle of the thing! If that isn’t powerful I don’t know what is.”
DG’s eyebrows rose very, very high. “So you sucked pure evil into a machine, and now it’s sucking more stuff up from Earth.”
Every single pair of eyes turned to look at her with that statement, looking a bit stunned.
“…DG, our Otherside, it’s.” Ahamo hesitated. “The Otherside we both know is Earth. But that’s only the closest Otherside world to the O.Z., that’s the one most connected to us, easiest to access.”
“So when you say Outer Zone, you mean-”
“Outside of everything!” Glitch beamed at her. “An external all-consuming pocket dimension in the multiverse! If it slips out of everything, it ends up here, the pan-dimensional catch-all.” He paused. “Well that used to be how it went until this puppy snapped into reverse. Now it’s gonna just be sucking up power stuff all…willy-nilly, so we need to destroy it.”
“Could it have possibly already pulled something in?” the Queen asked, eyes wide with worry.
“Probably a few things. I’m thinking Jeb’s still got some explosives, right?” Glitch looked over at Cain, who nodded back. “Great! We rig the tower, run for it, and…deal with. Things.”
“Things,” Cain repeated.
Glitch glared at him. “What, you think I know what a dimension’s most powerful person place or thing is gonna be? For all I know it could come smashing down on us-”
Which was when a very big something shot down through the sky, twisting and shedding fiery layer after layer, and smashed into the lake next to Central City. A wave crashed over the city like a massive rainstorm, and it looked like half the lake had been drained. Whatever had landed there was glowing a blue-green color, and it looked very, very pokey.
“Like that,” Glitch said a bit feebly.
DG swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “So we blow up the tower. Sounds good.”
With a unanimous decision, they evacuated as quickly as they could. Jeb set to rigging explosives, Cain set to griping about his injuries not needing that much treatment until Raw cleaned him up while teaching Kalm how to do the same during the process, Ahamo and DG slowly helped Azkadellia creep out of the emotional shell she’d formed, and the Queen and her ex-Advisor chatted away about apocalyptic capabilities as if the only thing they were missing was a good tea service.
That was the start of life in the O.Z. in the new days, though. Weird and weirder.
They didn’t know it then, but it was also about to start involving an awful lot of running, too.
---
“Oh come on Donna!”
She gaped at him. “That wasn’t fun! We were chased by sand pirates from the minute we stepped out of this stupid box! How the bloody hell is that fun?!”
He was still grinning. “Aww, don’t be shy now. I saw that smile.”
“It was…it was endorphins or something!” Donna defended. “I go off adventuring with you and I barely escape death every time, and if that doesn’t get your adrenaline pumping I don’t know what would!”
“You liked it,” the Doctor said, still rocking back and forth on his trainers with a wide smile, the tip of his tongue trapped behind his bottom row of teeth as he started speaking in a sing-songy tone of voice. “Donna likes adventure-”
“Adventure yes, mortal peril? No!” She stomped her foot down and immediately felt like a child for it, but the Doctor was acting like he was six already, so she didn’t pay it much mind for very long. “You! You are going to take me somewhere nice and tropical and full of people that don’t want to kill us.”
He paused, side of his mouth scrunching up as he thought. “…well, they wouldn’t recognize me anymore on Jatolcarix so I suppose the bounty would be off my head. New head, after all-” The Doctor cut himself off, face freezing as he started looking around the TARDIS, from the…pump-thing to the console, even going far enough to get the hammer thing and start bashing on the…other thing. “What?! No no no no no this isn’t possible!” He looked down at the console. “STOP!”
“Doctor?” Donna asked, wondering if he’d gone mad. When he just kept turning cranks and slamming things and cranking other things, she cleared her throat. “DOCTOR!”
“DONNA!” The Doctor mimicked, dropping to the grating and sliding under the console.
“What the bloody hell is going on?!” She spread her arms wide. “We’re not even doing anything!”
He slid back out with the sonic screwdriver between his teeth. “Thaph’s the prophlem!” The Doctor grabbed it with his left, diving back under. “We’re moving, and we’re doing it very, very fast, Donna. And the TARDIS isn’t doing it.”
“So something’s…towing us.”
“Well, sort of. Good enough for now. I just-”
The TARDIS hit something, and Donna went sprawling against the (thankfully) padded portion of the railing, shrieking just a bit as it didn’t stop. It was almost like they were rolling-
“Got it!” The Doctor shouted, and they screeched to a halt.
Donna grimaced, a hand going to her stomach as her eyes widened. Oh god, she was going to vomit. Throwing up wasn’t something she was going to do in the TARDIS. Definitely not something she’d do in there, so she trotted down to the doors, flinging them open and taking the required five steps to the right to vomit, only to stop, staring.
“Oh. My. God.”
“Donna!” The Doctor was out the door right behind her, eyes wide and cautious. “Donna, what…we don’t know what’s going on! We don’t even know where we are – the only clue I have is the binary star system with two moons-”
“We’re in Oz,” Donna said, nausea gone and replaced with awe, shock, and a bit of fear.
“Oz?” The Doctor frowned, eyebrows scrunching together. “Wicked Witch of The West, Yellow Brick…Road.”
Donna simply stretched her arms out on either side, the dull yellow bricks behind her making her hair look even more red than normal. “Oz.”
The Doctor continued to stare at the road, finally following it further onwards to where a city sat next to a lake that currently had a smoking something-or-other that was green and pokey sitting in it. “Do you want to say the cliché or should I do the honors?” The Doctor asked, voice a bit higher than usual.
“But I’ve never even been to Kansas,” Donna frowned.
“It’s why you say London, or England, or Earth or something instead.” Donna gave him a bland look. “Oh come on! You’re a human, you should love this stuff! It’s Oz! I thought everyone wanted to go over the rainbow.”
“Has a different meaning now, over the rainbow,” Donna said, only rolling her eyes a little. “Well.” She looked up at the Doctor, who grinned and held out his arm. With a smile, she linked up with him. “Off to see the wizard it is.”
“Mind if we ignore the singing and skipping bit?”
“Can’t skip for the life of me,” Donna sighed. “And I don’t want to even try to hear you sing-” The Doctor had stopped, head twisting towards something that looked like a wrecked black tower. “Doctor?”
“I thought…” He paused, and then smiled. “Never mind. Come on then, Donna Noble, off to venture into fiction.”
“Not so fictitious anymore.” Donna smiled back at him, and just for the hell of it managed to get a few skips in before stumbling and nearly falling onto her face. The Doctor had an awfully good time laughing at her, but when she looked back at the yellow bricks behind her, she decided it had been completely worth it.
---
There, and then not.
Gold flitted from her fingertips, out of her nails and into the air of the piece of emptiness that was full. He wasn’t there, but she was. She knew where he was. Knew where all of him were, and would be, and wouldn’t be when. Part of her just like everything else was.
The forest didn’t burn. It had more life to go through. Everything had more life to go through, even the dead. Everything.
It hurt, but it only hurt then, and there was so much more to feel, so much more to achieve before return and completion and the end of her beginning.
She stepped out of the trees, eyes golden, and moved towards where she was supposed to be with each passing second. Her feet went where they went at that time, and she felt her own existence as it tainted everything she could feel.
---
Donna stared at the outside of what should have been the Emerald City. They’d followed a yellow brick road, they’d seen a landscape that could pass for Oz, but this… “This is not Oz.”
“The place recently had a meteor crash next to it. A very strange and mostly harmless meteor that makes me wonder if it’s actually a meteor at all, but that’d make any city look…less green. And wet.”
Donna stared at him, and finally gestured at the city in question. It had impressive architecture, sure, but it also had water dripping off dirty walls and pooled in city streets, nearly flooding the place. A sign calling it ‘Central City’ were big, stone, and standing boldly in front of the gates.
“Why is it that everywhere you end up taking me, we end up at the wrong time with the wrong people and nothing but trouble?” Donna sighed.
The Doctor paused, raising an eyebrow. “…more interesting that way?”
And really, she couldn’t argue with that.
“Besides! Oz isn’t supposed to exist, and since I didn’t even think it did this has to be worth the trip. Even if it’s just for the novelty of being somewhere that isn’t real.”
“Maybe the movie was based off of here, but changed for children,” Donna suggested, nodding to the landscape. Even with a huge pokey not-meteor in the lake and the city flooding, it was breathtaking. “Before that thing crashed, I bet it was beautiful.”
The Doctor nodded. “It just makes me wonder how someone could get from a place I’ve never heard of and back to Earth to make a movie.”
Donna rolled her eyes. “You can’t be the only time traveler in the universe.”
“I never said I was!” The Doctor protested, turning away from the non-emerald city at the sound of a hissing, struggling steam engine making its way down another path. “I think we know where all the color went,” he quipped, and Donna simply nodded as the truck putted its way towards them, lurching until it finally broke down in front of them.
An older woman hopped out of the driver’s seat, makeup caked onto her face as she scowled at the engine. She looked at it for only a few seconds without letting out an angry hiss and kicking the thing.
“Don’t even start, Ma, you know this thing-” a man sighed, stepping out of the back of the truck, dressed just as brightly as his truck.
“You let them steal it! We had to go all the way to the Northern Island to get your stupid-”
“I said don’t start!” the man snapped. “It’s my place of business, as you know, and I ain’t getting another one when people know this wagon for being my wagon-”
“I’m sorry but where are we?” Donna finally snapped, earning a surprised blink from everyone, including the Doctor. She frowned at him. “If there’s someone to ask, I’m going to. Hasn’t been anything like this since you put the TARDIS on random-”
The man gave her one of the sleaziest grins Donna had ever seen, which was saying quite a bit. “Name’s Antoine DeMilo, purveyor of-”
“Yes, that’s all well and good and I’m very happy for you and your wagon, but where are we?” Donna snapped, and DeMilo glared at her.
“You outta your mind, lady? It’s the O.Z. Always has been, always will be.” The woman grumbled some more, and climbed back into the driver’s seat of the wagon while DeMilo walked over towards them. “Don’t tell me we got some more Slippers. If you’re Slippers, I don’t want no part in whatever quests you may have or sneaking you may be doing, ait?”
Donna glanced over at the Doctor, who looked just about as confused as she was. “You think I know what a slipper is? I barely understand ‘ait,’ let alone slipper, aside from the shoes of course but I doubt he’s saying we’re shoes.”
“Naah, really?” Donna scowled at him. “Could have sworn you were a stiletto.”
“Technically not a slipper-”
“I ain’t dealing with this again,” DeMilo snapped out, and pointed straight at them. “You leave me alone, I don’t get none of this trouble again.” The finger went straight towards the still-crumbling-apart black tower. “Go over there, and you’ll find people that can deal with you types. Just look for either the people with freakish accents like you have or a really nasty son-of-a-bitch named Wyatt Cain. Man seems fond enough of Slippers he might not shoot you.” He rubbed at his earlobes almost protectively, muttering under his breath.
“It’d be faster if you drove us,” Donna pointed out, and got a scathing laugh for it.
“Listen, sweet-cheeks, the engine’s barely gonna make it into Sin District, I doubt it’s gonna make it to what’s left of the Sorceress’ Tower.” DeMilo leaned back, looking at her. “Like your hair. You ever thought about-”
“I can fix up the engine if you’ll drive us and stop that right now,” the Doctor said lightly, already heading for the hood and pulling out the screwdriver. DeMilo blinked at him, but finally nodded. He beamed at DeMilo. “Good! Now, can you try to explain where we are again?”
---
It seemed like ever since Glitch and Ambrose had been reunited, Glitch was a lot more Ambrose than Glitch. Cain and Raw silently watched him as he trotted around the dusty laboratory, fiddling with this, twisting that, scribbling away on one of the twenty papers strewn about. The lab was dusty, but the counters weren’t any more - Glitch’s running around had taken care of that. It had turned the air almost foggy.
For the fourth time since this whole disaster had started, Glitch froze mid-scribble on a piece of paper, looking at the pencil, and then twisting around with a frown, looking around the lab before he caught sight of Raw and Cain.
“I…what?” Glitch blurted, looking absolutely helpless.
Just like the three times before, Raw stepped forward first, Cain following. While Raw put a hand on the side of Glitch’s head, Cain watched Glitch’s blurring eyes. He’d passed out the second time while muttering something about oranges in the sky, and Cain wasn’t too keen on seeing that happen again. “Glitch?”
“Cain,” Glitch said a bit blurrily as Raw dove down a bit further, reaching the Ambrose in there and carefully attaching it to where they needed it. “You seen a locked closet around?” His words were slurred, and Raw frowned slightly, obviously having a bit more trouble.
“No, I haven’t,” Cain said patiently. At least it wasn’t a sky of oranges. “You’re working on finding a way to reverse the trouble with the anti-Sun Seeder going into reverse. Finding all the power it sucked in and sending it back without anything bad happening.”
“Sure y’ haven’t seen a locked c-c-c-closet?” Glitch said, voice even worse this time. Cain looked at Raw, who looked like he was wrestling a bear, all things considered. Teeth clenched together, brow furrowed, a bit of sweat on his forehead. “Want m’closet.”
Cain stepped forward just in time to try and at least cushion the two as they fell, Raw completely unconscious while Glitch looked dangerously pale and absolutely heartbroken, leaning against Cain while his eyes fluttered. Cain put a hand to the other man’s forehead, and blinked. Glitch was freezing.
“I’m getting…closer to fixin’ it. ‘S another power that’s slowing…slowing ev-v-eryth-th-th-thing,” he said, barely finishing his sentence before his eyes rolled up into his skull, Cain shaking him. It didn’t look like either of them would be waking up anytime soon, making Cain groan. His legs were trapped under Raw, and Glitch was clinging to him and still looking like he’d had the worst day of his life.
Which of course reminded Cain of the ache in his shoulder where he’d been shot. He’d been doing a good job of ignoring it, really, ignoring the bandage that Raw had made sure Cain kept on for just in case. It hurt and he didn’t have time to hurt, even if his current mission happened to be collapsed around him completely drained. Having Raw reconnect Ambrose every couple hours had to be taxing, and so did being reconnected, let alone the flurry of activity that came after-
“What the bloody hell am I doing here?!” a woman shrieked, and Cain jerked violently enough that Glitch snapped awake with a shout of “I was going to pay!”
Raw was still out of it, but that left Cain and Glitch staring at a redheaded woman in a white dress and veil, a bouquet of flowers in one hand, the other pointing at them vindictively. “Send me back! Now!”
Glitch gaped at her. “What?”
Cain groaned. “Glitch, you were working on-”
“Send me back, damn it!” the woman roared, smacking the bouquet into one of the lab tables.
Glitch continued to stare. Rose petals flew through the air, some catching on the brim of Cain’s hat, others sticking into Glitch’s hair. “What?”
“In the middle of the aisle! I was walking down the bloody AISLE and you decided to…to abduct me!” She crossed her arms, glaring at them. “If you think I’ll pay some sort of ransom, boy are you in for a surprise. I’m not going to just sit around while being kidnapped either!”
“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” Glitch finally shouted back at her, loud enough that Raw twitched.
“Glitch!” Cain smacked him on the back, sending rose petals flying onto the ground. “Anti-Sun Seeder! Reverse pulsing!”
Glitch’s eyes widened. “Oh.”
That taken care of, he turned to the woman, clearing his throat. “Ma’am, I’m sorry for what happened, and we’ll be trying to get you right back to your aisle as soon as we can. We aren’t kidnappers. You’ve been caught in a…a scientific error that we’re fixing. You look lovely and I’m sure the groom is desperate with worry, but we’ll have you back in no time.”
She blinked at that, clearly not expecting logic, let alone a compliment. “I…well you’d better get me back there. Or else.”
Glitch tilted his head to the side. “Or else what?” he asked, pure curiosity, and the woman reddened, grip tightening on the flowers. Glitch grinned. “Hi! The name’s Glitch, on account of-”
“This is Glitch, my name is Wyatt Cain, and the Viewer is Raw,” Cain interrupted. Telling someone that their best hope for getting back to their wedding was a man with half (well, more three quarters right now) a brain wasn’t a good idea, as far as Cain could tell. “Glitch also goes by Ambrose.”
“And he’s your boyfriend,” the woman nodded, arms crossed as she eyed Raw critically.
They both blinked at her, having no idea where she’d gotten that idea from until Glitch made a triumphant noise, motioned at the fact they were still somewhat curled up together, and Cain made an amused, slightly surprised noise, which Glitch followed with an amused breath, and Cain frowned, and Glitch-
Cain gaped, realizing they could actually talk without talking to each other. A whole conversation, really, in less time than it took to get a long sentence out. He turned a bit too quickly to look up at the bride, wincing at the weight of Glitch and his shoulder. “We’re not dating. We’re just good friends and he fainted.”
“I did not faint,” Glitch grumbled, standing up and moving over to his scribbling before pausing and looking at the bride. “Who are you?”
She raised her chin up. “Donna Noble until I’d reached the end of that bloody carpet-”
“Should have had it cleaned before a wedding,” Glitch nodded sympathetically, already moving towards one of the other gadgets in the room.
Cain blinked, looking at where she was standing – right in front of a tall footlocker that could probably be considered a...“Closet.”
Donna rolled her eyes. “Yeah, what of it? You and your boyfriend need to go climb in?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” they said at almost the exact same time, Cain’s voice steady and patient (being around Glitch for so long had made him even more patient than he’d been when Jeb had been going through the Terrible Twos) while Glitch’s was almost sing-songy, probably proud he even remembered the fact.
Donna simply raised her arms, shaking her head. “Fine, fine, whatever. What’s so important about a closet?”
“Oh, hey Cain, can you go get her Majesty for me?” Glitch said absently from the corner he was tinkering away in. “I’ll be good while you’re gone, don’t worry.”
“You can’t exactly promise that, Glitch,” Cain noted, earning a thoughtful nod. He turned towards Donna with a dazzling smile, and Donna looked like she’d been appropriately dazzled. Even with a zipper in his head, Glitch could turn on the charm, even if Cain didn’t think the man knew it.
“Noble, would you mind reminding me I’m trying to send you and everyone and everything else home?”
She was blushing slightly, but managed to look both angry and sad. “Only Donna Noble for another couple minutes before you grabbed me.”
“Oh, we didn’t grab you. A gigantic machine we blew up did,” Glitch said, so chipper it was almost annoying. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you home, gigantic machine or not.”
Cain figured that was good enough for now, and after propping the rather poor-looking Raw up against one of the walls, headed out to find the Queen for Glitch.
“So!” Glitch smiled at her over his shoulder, twisting another knob on a cone-shaped something-or-other. “What makes you the most powerful thing in your universe?”
Donna gaped at him. “What?”
He waved a hand over his shoulder. “You know, that whole getting sucked up to provide as much power as possible thing. You have to have something up your…” Glitch paused, realizing her wedding dress didn’t have sleeves, and changed to “skirt.”
Which, when a rolled up sheet of paper smacked him in the back of the head, he realized probably hadn’t been the wisest substitution of the day. And then he wondered why he’d drawn something that made absolutely no sense to him on the piece of paper she’d thrown at him.
“The only things up my skirt are what you’d expect, thank you VERY much,” Donna said airily, voice creaking slightly when Glitch attached the cone something-or-other to a cylinder of something-or-other, fiddling with the two. It kind of looked like a rocket or something. Glitch paused, looking it over. Who knew, maybe it was a rocket or something.
“Well you’re the most powerful thing in your universe whether you want to be or not,” Glitch said with a smile. “Congratulations.” Donna gave him a very bland look, making Glitch frown, even more befuddled than before. “What, don’t you want to be the most powerful thing in your universe? I thought everyone wanted to be special, and you’re as special as anyone can get-”
“I just want to be back at my wedding,” Donna said, and slumped onto a lab stool, finally taking the veil off.
He tried to smile reassuringly, but it looked like the woman was intent on sulking, anger spent. “We’ll get you home.”
“You’d better,” Donna muttered, and apparently that was the end of the conversation, the bride fiddling with her engagement ring. Glitch went back to fiddling with whatever he was supposed to be fiddling with.
Surprisingly enough, there wasn’t much of anything uncomfortable about the silence.
---
“And there were thousands of them, all walking down the streets and-”
“Seriously, you think I care or even believe about any this?” DeMilo interrupted, moving easily with the jerking of the truck as he stared at the Doctor and Donna. “This is the O.Z., slippers. We don’t take none of that fantasy stuff for granted, don’t tell stories about it, don’t even touch it if we can help it. Magic does one thing and only one thing, and that’s mess stuff up.”
“Oh right, because there’s so much magic in the truck to judge from-” Donna began, only to stop at the dark look she was getting from DeMilo. The Doctor was sitting next to her, watching DeMilo intently.
“You know something.” The Doctor leaned forward. “What’s been messed up, DeMilo?”
The man shook his head and rose onto his knees, heading for the side of the wagon. “Slippers. I swear, the lot of you slide in just to ruin my life.” He opened one of the side flaps, showing off the barren landscape, and pointed to what was nothing more than a little black bit of earth a few miles away. “See that? Ten years ago that was a town. Wanna guess what turned it into nothin’ but a stretch of ash on what used to be farmland?”
“So magic’s this powerful,” the Doctor mused, and Donna just stared at the patch. “Who’s responsible for all this?”
DeMilo groaned, slapping a hand in front of his eyes. “Gods I hate slippers. I’m not exposition man, I’m not here to hold your hand and go prancing through the Papay with you, not your damn tour guide. Our agreement was you fix the truck, I take you to the Tower and leave the topic of sexy red hair alone.”
“And you were doing a great job with that one until now,” Donna grumbled, only to get a wink. She threw a pillow at him, and the thing went flying out the side of the truck.
DeMilo didn’t even try to catch it, just watched the pillow go and then turned back to her, eyes all over her hair. “And now we might need to talk some compensation, cupcake. Maybe some-”
“So since you’re not exposition man, can you just give us the quick and easy of it and then we can all enjoy the blighted scenery rolling by?” The Doctor said cheerfully.
“That is exposition, noodle arms,” DeMilo grumbled, and before they could say another word he’d started talking. “So we had a Queen, right? Queen had these two little girls, royal princesses and all that, and fifteen annuals ago Azkadellia kills her little sister. Only one princess now. Time goes on, she raises herself an army and takes out her mom too. Doesn’t crown herself Queen though, oh no, goes by Sorceress. She didn’t take the throne for power or control or nothing like we’d thought, she took it to get her ma out of the way so she could start destroying the O.Z. Time goes on again, another obnoxious slipper – although not as lovely as you, Red – shows up with her friends, they steal my truck and leave it at the Northern Island and me and my ma gotta go trekkin’ all the way out there to get my baby back-”
“The other slipper?” The Doctor prompted, and with a groan, DeMilo nodded.
“Yeah, alright, other slipper’s the youngest princess, only apparently not so dead as we all thought. They took down the Sorceress last night, the pile of black rubble we’re heading towards is what’s left of the Tower, and that’s the end of the story.”
“Except we’re here now, so there’s obviously going to be more.”
“You wanted exposition, I gave you your damn exposition, now-”
The truck screeched to a stop, the older woman shouting out “Antoine!” as the three jerked in the back, the flap shutting.
“WHAT, Ma?” DeMilo snapped.
“We’re here. Or as close as I’m getting, with how that thing’s been falling down more and more every twenty seconds.”
She had a point. The tower was a looming mass of black rubble, a slapdash affair of a tent city built nearby, people in black coats and people in drab colors and horses roaming around it. Even as they looked at the thing, yet another portion cracked off and slammed onto the pile of debris that probably stretched a mile wide.
“Nice knowing you,” DeMilo said, standing up and opening the door for them, a sleazy grin on his lips.
Donna put on a smile. “Sorry to see you go. Bye, then!”
Before the Doctor could even try and call her back, she was out the door and heading for the tents. He barely had time to say a quick thanks to DeMilo before running after her. Her walk was more of a trying-not-to-run, but he finally caught up, frowning at her.
“What’s got you so-”
“I just…I got this feeling when I saw the rubble,” she said, and shook her head. “The rubble and the suns. I just…I don’t know. It’s just bothering me.”
He frowned. “What sort of feeling?” Donna just gave him a bland look. “Okay, fine, it’s just that I have some sort of…” The Doctor paused, trying to find the right word for it. “Some sort of feeling like I know something here, but it refuses to be known. That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
“You never make sense,” she grumbled, and really all he could do was shrug and head on towards the tents, the itching sensation he had from the northeast bothering him more and more as they walked over the wasteland.