log: donna noble(s) + eddie WHO: Donna Noble, Donna Noble, and Eddie Carmichael WHEN: A few days ago, after Donna had everyone in her room examining her Trouble. WHERE: Donna's room! WHAT: Eddie has some alone time with Donna One and Donna Two, and they try to figure out precisely what to do — but unfortunately, there are no easy answers. WARNINGS: N/A
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Donna watched Eddie expectantly from her spot on the bed. "So now what?"
Donna also watched Eddie from her spot leaning against the wall, her arms folded across her chest.
There were two of her, and as of now, it was impossible to tell which one of her was the real Donna, the original. As far as anyone could tell, both women were Donna Noble, both women claimed to be the real Donna, both women were fully functional people. They'd do blood tests and scans, but as of now all preliminary tests couldn't differentiate between one Donna and the next. The only difference between the two was that they were in different outfits, and the Donna on the bed had been tied to the footboard until half an hour ago, and she was sporting a fresh bruise on her face where the other Donna had hit her with a book.
And as far as she was concerned, she'd been ambushed in her room by a copy of herself and tied to the bed and assaulted when she screamed for help.
They'd been told to play nice, but they were on opposite sides of the room, warily casting one another long, curious glances.
Inappropriate jokes abounded, every single one of them guaranteed to get Eddie not one, but two shiny new black eyes were he to give them voice. It was lucky, then, that he was disinclined to even talk; he wasn’t even sure what to say. The entire time when Donna’s quarters had been filled with other people, he’d kept himself off to a corner, watching. The thing was, they were both Donna. They both sent him that same relieved smile when he’d walked in the door, they both eyed him the same way, they both had that same laugh that made Eddie grin just to hear it. The headache that had been ever-present since his first transformation pounded now, just over his left temple, and all he really wanted to do was hold his girlfriend.
Both of them, in this case.
He couldn’t. Eddie couldn’t make himself move in one direction or the other, and so he simply remained where he was, looking from one to the other. His life had taken several turns since the end of August, and this one was, perhaps, the strangest. At least at home there had been some percentage of a chance that he would be turned into a werewolf. But the only way that he knew of that there could be two Donnas at home was with a Time-Turner -- a possibility that was crossed off the list with the very fact that Donna was Troubled.
So Eddie shrugged. “Now what? Not a fucking clue. I’m as lost as you are.”
"Dunno," said Donna -- the one on the bed. She had a packet of ice and she was using it on her face. Her anger had deflated by then, and she was simply left with her other self and her boyfriend. She'd needed the space, needed some time to clear everyone out and stop listening to everyone talking. Every time she looked over to the corner, she was seeing herself, and she couldn't even get angry that the other Donna had hit her in the face. She would have done the same thing.
"If I'm not the copy, and she says she's not the copy, how do we know? What am I supposed to do?" she asked.
Donna (the other one) sighed heavily from her place leaning against the wall. "The last few weeks make a lot more sense, I'll tell you that much."
"How I could be there, but not there, how I knew I was in one place---"
"I mean, questions are answered, that's good."
"Except there's two of us."
They both glanced at Eddie and the standing Donna smirked. "You're welcome."
Eddie grinned, encompassing both of them. “I’d wondered why you were so… well, frisky, lately. But I don’t know what to do. After everything it’s just…” He paused, gesturing vaguely to encompass everything. “Overwhelming.”
And hilarious. Jesus, so hilarious.
Sitting Donna started to scowl -- and then Standing Donna started to scowl, too. "Are you laughing?" Standing Donna demanded. "Are you laughing at this? It's not flipping funny, Eddie! Stop it, look at you, you're starting to smirk like … stop!"
All things considered, this could have been worse. The existential crisis was a bit of a mess, sure, but no one was dead, no one was trying to hurt anyone, and it all just seemed like a bizarre misunderstanding. There were two of her. Donna just wasn't willing to tackle which one of her deserved to claim her life as the real one.
Eddie wasn’t really laughing, only grinning a little more than was probably appropriate and gearing up for a bit of a laugh. “Yeah, I’m laughing at it, because I haven’t had much to laugh at lately, it feels like.”
Finally he moved, pushing himself away from the wall he was leaning against with a stifled groan. “I literally don’t know what else to do, all right? My girlfriend’s got a double, and based on what they’re saying, it’s stress that’s caused this, yeah? You get stressed, and you split. And what’s been the most stressful thing in your life lately?”
God, this stung. He dragged in a breath, his chest tight, and looked at them both. “Me. I have. I’m the reason this has happened to you, and I can’t fucking fix it, Donna. So yeah, I’m going to laugh about it, because otherwise I might tear this fucking mountain apart.”
Sitting Donna frowned, scooting forward just enough to lean over and take his hand. He wasn't wrong. If stress was causing it, Eddie's situation was a massive part of it. He was a werewolf, he was miserable, but none of that was his fault. "You haven't done anything," she insisted. "Eddie, you haven't done anything. Something terrible happened to you, and that's not on you." She squeezed his hand and brought it to her mouth to kiss his knuckles.
"Oi!," Standing Donna snapped. Even seeing herself, she felt a wave of jealousy at another woman getting a bit too cozy with her boyfriend. ---Then again, she was looking at herself.
Bloody hell.
"She's right, though," said Standing Donna. "So until we find a way to combine again, we're just … split. And that's not your fault. I've had plenty of other reasons to be stressed lately, this whole place is … Stress City."
Gently, Eddie extracted himself from Sitting Donna’s hand, squeezing it so that she would know that he was doing it in the interests of keeping peace between the two versions of his girlfriend. He huffed, leaning his head back in an effort to stretch his neck. He didn’t seem to fit together as well as he used to, and he was still trying to settle into himself. “Was there any suggestions on how to combine you? I stopped paying attention after awhile.”
That he’d been looking from one Donna to another, comparing how they spoke, the quirks of their head movements, even the shape and curve of their bodies -- well, they didn’t need to know that, especially when he’d found himself daydreaming about two Donnas, and had to stop. It was just too strange, and made him feel funny.
"So far? No," said Standing Donna. "They think there might be some way to absorb her back into me---"
"Excuse you, sunshine, but you mean you absorbing into me," said Sitting Donna with a scowl. "I'm not a copy of you."
"I'm not a copy of you." Standing Donna frowned and rubbed at her temples. "This is the problem. Neither of us thinks we're a copy. I'm Donna, but she insists she is, and I'm inclined to believe her. Right now, there's no way of telling. We're both equally real. We're both equally Donna. That's all anyone has to say about it. And it makes me sorry that I hit you with a book."
Sitting Donna smiled faintly. "I'd've done the same thing."
“Jesus Christ, I love you,” Eddie said, out of nowhere and on a laugh. “I really do. I mean it. I love you.”
He rubbed his face with both hands and found his fingers covered in wet -- somehow tears had found themselves leaking out of his eyes. “How do I -- we -- How do we do this. There’s two of you, and one of me.”
Oh. Well. Both Donnas glanced uncomfortably at one another. Their expressions were the same -- an uncomfortable frown, then a defiant lifting of the chin. Standing Donna glanced at Eddie and huffed, because she wasn't sure what else to do. She didn't want to lose her boyfriend over this. She adored him. She'd stayed with him through being bitten by a bloody werewolf, he wasn't allowed to leave her because this happened.
"What are you crying for, sunshine?" she asked, her voice dripping with the sort of sarcasm that came from being frightened and defensive. "This is like a birthday gift to you, isn't it?" Honestly, she had no idea what to do. She didn't want to lose Eddie, but she also didn't know if she wanted her other self to have time with him in private, either. It felt a bit like letting Eddie get on with other women, and yet he wasn't, not really.
Sitting Donna was a little quieter, looking down at her hands and picking at her blue nail polish. "How do you want to do this?" she asked Eddie.
Eddie looked sharply at Standing Donna. “No. It’s not. Because it’s actually a form of hell. I don’t want to hurt either of you, and I don’t know how to avoid that. I look at one, the other gets pissed off, I do the same with the other… I just want my Donna back, because having a dozen wouldn’t make this easier.”
Eddie stood and paced, stomping back and forth until he stopped in front of the door. “I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.”
"I am your Donna," both Donnas insisted, somewhere between pleading and insulted. They were both Donna. They were both Eddie's girlfriend, and the only difference was that over the last couple of weeks they'd been with him on separate occasions, living separate lives and somehow not running into one another.
"We're going to need a way to tell us apart, anyway," said Standing Donna with a little sigh. "So you know which one of us you're talking to." If there was any differentiation between the two, any place where they'd split and they weren't entirely identical, Standing Donna seemed to be a little more assertive than Sitting Donna. "I'll be Donna One, you be Donna Two."
Sitting Donna — Donna Two — made a face. "I'm not being Donna Two."
“So you’re both telling me that if I make love with one of you, the other won’t be jealous or angry?” Eddie asked, turning and looking at them both. “I’ve got the full moon coming up. What’s going to happen to you two? Will there be more when I come back?”
It was hard to put into words: Eddie wanted one Donna, like he’d started out with. He didn’t want to feel that he had to watch what he said or did, out of fear that one or both of him would be angry with him over something that he couldn’t control.
"I don't know," said Donna Two (who didn't want to be called Donna Two). She looked down at her feet, frowning in thought. What if there were more of her? What if the full moon really did stress her out that much? What if the next battle caused her to split again, and she became four? Clara Oswald was apparently used to being split into hundreds of selves, hundreds of pieces, but Donna wasn't. There was just one Donna, and the Doctor always said that was the beauty of her.
It was an existential crisis, to be sure.
Donna One waited for Donna Two to say something else. "The two of us are going to need a little chat," she said before turning her attention to Eddie. "I can't be jealous of myself. And it's not right to say she can't be near you. Just don't go liking her more than me." Her smile was a bit shaky, but she wasn't sure what else to do. It was that or split off from Eddie entirely, and no one in this room wanted that.
Eddie nodded, and gave a little grin. “I’ll try not.”
He padded to her, and stopped in front of her and peered into her face. Cupping her face in his hands he leaned down to kiss her. “I meant it. I love you.”
Next was the other Donna, and he did the same, looking at her intently before taking her face in his hands gently and kissing her. “I love you. Nothing changes that.”
But now he needed time to collect his thoughts, to figure out his head. As overwhelming as it was for him, Eddie couldn’t imagine how it was for Donna, and she needed time to sort herself out. It was time he intended to give her.