Happy TERFMAS with the DoctorDonna!

Jason could hear the central column rising and falling on his mother's TARDIS console. He was alone in the console room but he could hear the faint hum of the TARDIS and the noise of his parents busy in the kitchen next door. He was sitting crosslegged on the metal floor, lovingly sewing the head-handles onto a woollen Cyberman.  The strong aroma of turkey, roast potatoes and Christmas pudding wafted in as the DoctorDonna and Shaun entered. 

Jason braced himself: he must "spit out out" now. 

"Mum, Dad, I've got something to tell you," he said, "I think I've been born in the wrong body.'

The DoctorDonna and Shaun looked at him then at each other rather surprised. Then the DoctorDonna crouched down to embrace her son.

"No you haven't sweetheart,' said the DoctorDonna. 'Listen, No-one's born in the wrong body. That's because you ARE your body, darling! And who wants you full of hormones - or chopping your privates off?"

"Mum!" he protested.

"Anyway, since when have your Dad and me had the slightest objection to anything you do, needlework, makeup, making woolly toys? You can be as feminine or as masculine as you want, it's all just stereotypes."

"Yes, you're great as you are, son." agreed Shaun.

"And the only pair of knockers you need are to knock out a Sontaran or a Dalek," said the DoctorDonna, 'Tell you what I think: you need an adventure, to take you out of yourself - while we're waiting for the Christmas dinner to cook.'

'Yes, it smells great,' said Jason, "Makes a nice change from Grandma's tuna madras.'

"Don't knock the tuna madras,' said Shaun, "Those economy meals were dead useful when your Mum  spent all the lottery money on parts for this." He gestured around him.

"Anyway, I haven't time for an adventure, Mum, I've got to finish these toys for Kerblam Marketplace."

"Kerblam Marketplace? Ripping you off again? There's something suspicious about that set-up."

'They do take rather a big commission off me," said Jason, 'But there's nothing all that wrong with them; it's not the systems!"

"It IS the systems! I don't care what anyone else says. We're going to investigate."

"But what about Christmas dinner with Grandma and Great-Gramps?"

"It's a time machine, you dumbo! We can have an adventure AND get back in time for the cocktails." She got up, went to the console and punched in the coordinates.

"We need a pretext,' continued the DoctorDonna, 'I know - I'll say I want to buy some Mole-Gone, it's a humane way of discouraging moles in the lawn discovered in the 26th century. The moles just sling their collective hook. That'll be a good present for Gramps. He's been mooting some rather extreme measures lately..."

She put her hand on the dematerialisation lever.

"Come on you two. Family effort."

Jason got up and he and Shaun approached the console. Then the three of them pressed down the lever together - vwooorp!  vwooooooorp! - as the TARDIS hurtled its way through the vortex towards Kerblam's planet. 

😊

How the Doctor-Donna outsmarted the Doctor

This is the story of how I didn’t die. 

You dumbos!   You didn’t think I’d let him erase me?   Pwar!  Not in a million years. 

You weren’t paying attention, were you?   Well, can’t blame you.  Subtlety is my middle name.

How did I pull it off?  Blame it on that bit of intuition of homo sapiens.   I sussed he wanted rid of me the moment he clapped eyes on me.   So I’d make him think he’d destroyed me.  That way, he’d leave me in peace. 

Thing is, he’s just a Time Lord.  Lacking that little bit of human, that gut instinct that comes hand in hand with planet Earth.  I can think of ideas he wouldn’t dream of in a million years.  That’s what makes me better than him.  That’s why, in his eyes, I had to go...

So where do I start?   First wedding?  Nah.  Prophecy of the Ood?  Nah.  Metacrisis with the Doctor’s spare hand?  Nah, not even that.  Let’s cut to the chase.  Let’s get to the moment I become the Doctor-Donna.  I’m zapped by a ray gun and I realise I’m half human/half Time Lord - thank you, Davros!

My Enemy the Doctor

I glimpsed Timeboy as I was strutting my stuff against the Daleks.  He’s quick off the mark.  He’s understood exactly what’s happened.  He's looking daggers at me.  His face is a mask of hatred.  I knew right then I wasn’t going to be allowed to exist.  I needed to think fast. 

But I can do fast.  Not only did I get the Doctor’s mind – which must make me the first woman Doctor - but didn’t I mention: best temp in Chiswick?  Hundred words a minute?  Fast.

We bundled ourselves into the TARDIS while the human Doctor committed his genocide on the Daleks.  Now don’t go blaming his human half for that.  Hah, no way!  I know exactly what happened with that Hand of Omega.

Being the bloke, the Doctor ordered people around the console room.  I had exactly the same thoughts as him teeming through my head, but bit my tongue. Men – let ‘em think they’re in charge.  Usually works.

The Doctor allocated each companion a section of the console (excluding Jackie, who he'd dismissed as some kind of woman driver) and they helped fly the TARDIS home together.  I said Jack was best.   Just about true, and I’m still a red-blooded woman.  Jack had refused me a hug earlier but I know some men are suckers for flattery.  Call it one of my womanly wiles.   

Then I phoned Mum and Gramps to tell them everything was normal.   Managed that with a straight face an’ all!

Then it struck me.  Like a bolt from the blue.  I don’t need the Doctor.  Everything he was thinking was already teeming through my head.  No need to hear it coming out his gob.  That stick of alien nothing and his big fat gob!

We materialised at Bad Wolf Bay and it was time for palming off the human Doctor onto Rose.   I pointed out to her he’d only one heart, he’d age, and not regenerate.  Gave it the hard sell.  Did I do right?  I could sense the thoughts going through the Doctor’s head.  He loved Rose; but he was also thinking that he was killing two birds with one stone by getting rid of the human Doctor.  Ah well, love’s blind.  Don’t I know it!

The TARDIS groaned and we quit Rose, Jackie and my sibling Doctor on the beach.  The ship dematerialised.  Finally the two of us were alone.  

I knew that I had to give the performance of a lifetime.

I mooted a trip to the planet Felspoon.  It has mountains that sway in the breeze.  How do you know that, asked the Doctor with barely disguised hostility.  “Because it’s in your head,” I countered airily, “And if it’s in your head, it’s in mine.”

I could see his hackles rise.  He wanted to do away with me, clear as day.

“And how does that feel?” he asked.

“Brilliant! Fantastic! Molto bene!” I gushed.

Then I could postpone it no longer.  I had to put on the mad act.  I warbled on about fixing the TARDIS chameleon circuit.

“Binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary…”

Why did I pick on ‘binary’?   Perhaps because he and I were no longer binaries.   We were very nearly the same.  Except I had that extra little spark of cynicism that life on Earth hands out.

I honked on.  No point doing things by halves!

“Charlie Chaplin? Charlie Chester, Charlie Brown.  No, he’s fiction. Friction, fiction, fixing, mixing, Rickston, Brixton…”

He got me to admit that there can’t be a Time Lord human metacrisis. 

Hah! 

As if I believed that for one second!

I could even hear some soft echo from the Doctor’s past – several regenerations ago...words best forgotten...  I could make out some American accents – a voice saying “half Time Lord, half human”…  What the hell was that about? 

 

“Don’t make me go back,” I pleaded with him.  Fruitless.

“We had the best of times,” he said, as he placed his hands on my temples.  That was his consolation!  “Goodbye,” he whispers, as I continue to shout “no, no, no; please no.”  I pretended to pass out.   Deserved a BAFTA for that.

I faked waking up when he’d dumped me on my bed back home.  I faked not knowing the Doctor and talked bollocks on the phone to a mate about Susie Mair’s calories.  The Doctor looked guilty.  I did not encourage him to linger.  He went.

 

The seduction of Shaun Temple

Righto.  Next business.  How to find a husband.  Somebody sweet.  I was in a bookshop and stumbled upon Shaun Temple.  Gorgeous.   Finally, a mate and someone to mate.

With Lance it had been nag-nag-nag about becoming my husband.  Shaun was more malleable.  He’d honour and obey, no problem!  And good at DIY.  Gramps says he’s a bit of a dreamer, but I reckon that’s a good thing. 

I had of course to broach the subject of being the Doctor-Donna with him. 

“What, you’re an alien?” 

“Half alien.  You’re mixed race and I’m mixed race!” I countered.  Not much he could say to that!

Then there was that weird Christmas where everyone became the Master. Shaun, Mum, everyone.  But not me. The penny still didn’t drop with the Doctor that maybe that was ‘cos I wasn’t human.  Instead (Gramps tells me) he took the credit for defending me from the Master.  As if that golden energy surge was anything to do with him!   You-have-got-to-be-kidding-me-Spaceman! 

For a while after that we had no money and we had to stay put in the Flat of Doom.  It was FAR bigger on the outside than on the inside.  Don’t matter.   Gramps thought I was sad. I told him, I wasn’t.  We weren’t just “making do”.  Because by then I’d quietly got a small grant from the Mr Copper Foundation, and me and Shaun were spending all our spare time at Gramps’ shed up the hill, building the new TARDIS. 

We kept the half-built TARDIS in his shed.  I placed a perception filter round it so the Allotment Secretary wouldn’t see.  Strange how Gramps takes these things in his stride. 

Donna hits the jackpot

Yay, wedding day arrives!   I am finally a married woman.  And married to someone almost my own species!

Donna Temple-Noble.  Donna. Tempus. Noble.   Woman. Time. Lord.

Some cheapskate bought me a lottery ticket as a present.  I put it down my cleavage ‘cos it was a triple rollover that week.  Thought: “this has got Nerys written all over it”.  But it wasn’t Nerys.  It was the Doctor.  Saw him in the background but wasn’t going to let him marr my Big Day.  Our Big Day. 

The ticket turned up trumps!   The Doctor doing something good for once!   When me and Shaun collected the winnings, thoughts flashed through my mind.  “My dear chap, I don’t want money.  I’ve no use for the stuff. … I want facilities to repair the TARDIS, laboratory, equipment…”

Yeah well, mate, those things cost money, you dumbo!  With the lottery millions, my knowledge and Shaun’s handyman skills, the TARDIS was soon completed and ready to go. 

And so we started to travel. 

Can you juggle time travel and family?   Yeah, if you use that little bit of human gut instinct.  No turning up two years too late and saying “Oops”. Especially not with family like Mum and Gramps, not in the first flush of youth.  “Oops” wouldn’t BEGIN to cut it, sunshine.

Travelling in time and space with my husband-companion!  We’ve done a lot.  Big lot.   Obviously, we don’t spend all our time sunning ourselves.  Course not.  It’s a hybrid’s job to do right by all manner of species. We went back to London in 1948, helped out this nice bloke called Aneurin Bevan.  He was about to staff the NHS with Cybermen.  Put him right on that, I can tell you. 

Then we met the Daleks on the planet Prithia.  They were testing a new bomb made of space dust.  Is there anything that lot won’t turn into a bomb?  I had to destroy the weapons using a metaphelian attractotem loop with a bungatelepathic induction link, ably placed amidst the Dalek arsenal by my glamorous assistant, to wit, Mr S. Temple.

Then there was the Sense-Sphere.   We had to avert a war between the Sensorites and the Ood.  Shaun was the star there.  He’s a dreamer, and both species could read his dreams of peace and plenty.  I amplified the dreams by looping them back through a hyperbolactic metaphonical extensifier with shorthand-wave deliantronics. That inspired them to patch things up.  Good job Shaun didn’t get insomnia! 

Yes, the Doctor-Donna and Shaun Temple, travelling for ever in time and space.  The universe has been waiting for us.  And I think we’re doing good.   S’pose time will tell: it usually does.  And then…if we have done good….well, wouldn’t that be WIZARD!