Death (beseeingyou) wrote in colligo_threads, @ 2009-08-07 16:13:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, #complete |
WHO: Death and Donna Noble.
WHAT: Death is fixing Donna so her brain doesn't explode.
WHEN: Backdated to after this.
WHERE: Donna's flat.
RATING: PG.
STATUS: Complete.
As soon as Donna agreed to let her help, Death checked to see that Tom was occupied and disappeared from the flat, reappearing in Donna's flat. There was no floppy hat or air of mischief this time. Death was calm and serene, but serious too. She had something she needed to do, and she needed to focus on doing that. There would be time for humour later, when Donna's brain wasn't threatening to overload. In fact, she was looking forward to seeing the redhead give Theta Sigma a piece of her mind. Donna had always been an entertaining companion, to say the least. Walking into the dark room the woman was staying in, she gave Donna a small, reassuring smile and sat next to her. "Hello, Donna," she said. "Let's get right to it, then."
This time Donna was expecting the woman to just appear out of nowhere. Of course even though she was still expecting it, when it happened she gave a small squeak of surprise. Though honestly she still had no idea what was going on, and it was all quite overwhelming, she was tired of all the games. People were pulling her strings now, and she didn't like it. Not one bit. And if getting her memories back and letting Death do her thing was the only thing to fix it so that she was right again, well then she'd take it. Plus she just wanted the pain to stop, and she most certainly didn't want to die thanks to all of these new (or old really, she supposed) memories that were lurking somewhere in her brain. Donna looked up at Death and gave a small smile back. "Hello," she greeted back, gesturing for her to take a seat when she did. "Right, is this...is it going to hurt?"
Death did her best to project calm and safety, the way she did whenever she was around her youngest sibling. Not that Donna was anything like Del, but they both needed reassurance. She had no reason to lie to the woman, because she wasn't the Doctor and she didn't have any vested stake in this. Not to mention she'd never seen much reason to lie. "It will," she said, "a bit, but not nearly as much as it would hurt for your brain to overload. It helps if you clear your mind and relax. Just lay back, and close your eyes." She gave another small smile and encouraged Donna to lay down on the bed. "Just relax and breathe deeply. Like you're meditating." It would help keep Donna calm and make the entire process easier. "Don't think about anything, just focus on your breathing." She placed her hands so she was touching Donna's temples, waiting until the woman was relaxed to continue. "It really won't be so bad." She just needed to remove the bits of Time Lord from Donna, before she could take down the blocks on her memories. She worked in a way the Chameleon Arch couldn't. She could remove the essence, without removing the related memories. Then Donna could fully be Donna again "Just relax, dear."
In fact she did feel better in Death's presence. She wasn't flying off at the handle like she probably would be in this situation. Because she'd been lied to and a bunch of other stuff, and the first thing she would be doing would be yelling and screaming about dumb aliens or something. But no, she was calm and relaxed, at least a bit. Great, this was going to hurt. Suddenly Donna wasn't quite sure that she wanted to go through with the whole thing. Maybe the pain wouldn't be so bad, it was never as bad as they thought it would be. Or maybe it would be worse. Slowly she just nodded, swallowing down any semblance of fear. Okay so it wouldn't be as bad as it would be if she was just going to have her brain dribble out her ears. That helped her relax. Getting up, she went and laid down on the bed like Death told her to and shut her eyes. Focusing on her breathing. Right she could do that. Maybe. Breathe in. Breathe out. Slow and easy. Eventually she started to relax some, though there was always that apprehension about letting someone into her brain. And above all, she started waiting for the pain to start.
Death waited until Donna seemed relax, then pressed gently against her temples, closing her eyes. She focused on Donna's mind, seeking out the Time Lord essance that was there. It stood out like splashes of bright paint in an otherwise white room, and slowly but surely, she pulled out the traces of that foreign mind from the woman. It would hurt, but only in the way a really bad migraine did, which wasn't all that worse than what the Time Lord mind was making her feel. Nothing that would overwhelm Donna, in any case. She worked until all of it was out of the woman's brain, leaving behind a fully human mind. Now she could repair the damage, and take down the walls the Doctor had put up...rather slipshod to be honest. How had they been expected to hold up long-term? She soothed the damage that had been done to Donna's brain by the presence of an awareness humans were never supposed to possess, closing up cracks and fixing tears until there was nothing but a healthy mind. Now, hopefully, the pain would be gone, or at the very least fading, and she could work on those walls. "How does that feel?" she asked.
Feeling that weird pain sliding through her head, it came with all of these sparks that came out of nowhere. First flashes of a tall man with wild hair, and then a blue tall box. There were other things, like aliens and these pepper pot looking things but all of that was burning in her mind. That's what it felt like, a hot white burn as the memories came back to her. And by the end of it all, she could remember everything that had happened to her. The Doctor, and the TARDIS and the DoctorDonna and him telling her that he had to take out all of her memories forever. She remembered how he was so sorry. When the pain began to fade, she blinked open her eyes to find Death still there with her hands on her head. "I.. I remember, but the pain.. the pain is gone too." At least she really hoped it wasn't going to come back. "The Doctor took out all of my memories so that ... so that my brain wouldn't melt, I remember that now. Because of what I did.." she shook her head a little.
It took very little work to remove the walls the Doctor had put up, but that was hardly surprising. Time Lords may have been powerful and long-lived, but they were tiny compared to Endless. After all, they were as advertised. They had no end, Death especially. The others could be destroyed and replaced, like Sister Despair and Brother Dream, but Death would go on until the last thing in existence died. She smiled warmly as Donna said she remembered and pulled her hands away, helping the woman to sit up. "The pain was from the damage that having a Time Lord mind had done to your brain," she said, "combined with the memories trying to push themselves back into your mind. It really would have burned you up. But now, you don't have to worry any more. The Time Lord part isn't there, so it's safe to remember." She smiled fondly at Donna. "I told you that you were brilliant," she said. "You saved everything, Donna Noble. You became an impossible thing and for that moment you were the most important woman to ever exist. And you deserve to remember that." She tilted her head to the side and grinned. "Now, you probably have a certain Time Lord you want to go and yell at, and I have a seven-year-old future Dark Lord to look after, so I should probably go. Keep the sigil, and if you ever need me, just focus on that. You're too interesting not to keep an eye on."
Sitting up in the bed, she nodded a bit. "Yeah.. I, well that makes sense I guess. I can .. remember that I knew all of those things, but I don't remember all of that.. knowledge I guess." She wasn't quite sure how to explain it. If she'd still been the DoctorDonna maybe she would have been able to explain, but then this was Death she was talking to. She probably didn't need to explain it at all. "I'm just.. back to being.. me." Somehow the thought wasn't as comforting as she thought it was going to be, but then she knew how brilliant she'd been and now she was just back to being plain old normal Donna. And Donna never thought she was anything special. "Thank you.. for fixing me," she said a little. There should have been some part of her that was really looking forward to getting angry at the Doctor, but for now she still felt relatively peaceful. Maybe it was because Death was still around. "Oh right, yeah.. yelling at the Doctor. I'm sure I'll do that .. soon." She wasn't quite sure she wanted to know about the Dark Lord thing. The sigil, right, she'd keep that by her bed or something. "Thank you.. again. Interesting.. right." She gave another small smile.
Death looked at Donna with concern and put a gentle hand on her arm. "Donna," she said softly, "you're not part Time Lord any more, and you're not the DoctorDonna, but that doesn't mean you're not still brilliant and amazing. All those things you did with the Doctor, all those moments...those were you. Not a half-Time Lord. Just fantastically human Donna Noble. Do you think any other human could have done what you did. It wasn't the Time Lord bit that made you so special and amazing. It was you. Your creativity and ingenuity and compassion...and that stubbornness and refusal to just let Thete get away with everything." She looked at Donna seriously. "You are still amazing, Donna. And I don't just say things like that." She smiled brightly and got to her feet. "Now, go and see your Doctor. I have it on good authority that he's missed you rather a lot." And with that, Death disappeared again, back to her flat and Tom and Slim and Wandsworth and her floppy hats.
Donna was used to people telling her things like that, that she was brilliant and amazing and everything but she just didn't see it in herself. Not until she was that way, until she actually was brilliant. Her head just nodded a bit, trying to look grateful for the pep talk but it was all a little much. "Guess you're right.." her shoulders shrugged a bit. There was the fact that it was the human part of her that allowed her to defeat the dalek's sure, and she was going to keep that in mind when she felt down about herself. No one else had done what she did, no. But none of that would have happened unless someone hadn't pulled and twisted on their timelines and everything else. "I'm sure he's missed me, but he's going to get a wollop the next time I go see him. Of course he's probably going to hide from me." If he knew what was good for him he'd hide and never come out of his stupid bloody TARDIS. She gave a small wave but it was too late. Death was gone, and she was back to being alone. Now she had a Time Lord to go see.