InsaneJournal

Who: Clara Oswald, Dick Grayson, Donna Troy, Raven & Winn Schott
What: Bringing Donna back into existence after the Dreams erase her from it
When: 2 March 2021
Where: Winn’s apartment/Donna’s Condo/TARDIS
Warnings: References to abuse, loss of child
Status: Log | Complete

Donna had known it was coming. There were too many parallels to her life in the waking world, her real life, that it was impossible to pretend otherwise. But was it so wrong that Donna had hoped that Robbie wouldn’t die in her Dreams? That she’d at least get to watch him grow up there since that had been taken away from her? Even the stress of the divorce - new ways for Terry to paint her as unfit and apparently dangerous - was worth it to see her son alive in them.

But it had happened. She had gotten the call and it was as if her world had stopped. Except that it couldn’t. Because while investigating the car accident and feeling the death there, she’d been called away. A fight and destruction. Diana in the hospital. It wasn’t as if Donna was ever allowed to properly grieve or deal with things. There were always five hundred different things pulling her attention that needed to be dealt with. Her private grief didn’t matter. Not when there was so much going on that needed her immediate attention.

Jay Garrick had been telling her about Hippolyta, who was now going around as Wonder Woman when a call interrupted and that was it. ID had come through on the victims of the car crash. Any lingering attempts to grasp at hope were gone. Just the cold and hollow truth. A woman appeared and there was nothing.

Suddenly she was an abused wife, about to be killed by her husband, battered and bruised and at her lowest point. Then it was gone, death, and she was a runaway teen at the mercy of cops who didn’t care. There was nothing. Taking care of her mother only to see her shot in front of her. And once more...nothing.

A woman. The same woman was always there though.

Dark Angel.

She remembered each life. Each tragedy. The hollow and cold feeling of her lowest point. Only for it to start all over again. A thousand lives and torments and she remembered them all. But she wouldn’t let that stop her. She would stop Dark Angel. Even at the risk of her own existence.

In the waking world, it was as though Donna Troy never existed. Her body remained there, hollow and empty, her image gone, the memory of her gone. No images existed, no records.

Raven always did enjoy a trip back to New York. Usually she went alone, but with almost all of her friends being from New York, it wasn’t uncommon that she went with one of them. Or anywhere they wanted to go. Travel by portal had its benefits after all. There was no sign though as she and Winn returned that something had happened. Not right away at least. So when the portal opened to Winn’s apartment, Raven could sense something was off but she couldn’t tell exactly what it was. A general uneasiness that was Orange County? Perhaps. It wasn’t like they could prepare for the next drama so it was always possible they had shown up just in time for some county wide thing and that was what was wrong…

Whatever it was though, it left the empath annoyed and concerned.

There really was nothing quite like travelling with new people. Clara enjoyed them getting to see the truth of the TARDIS once she decided to reveal that fact about her diner - something that never had any rhyme or reason to it, just whenever the mood struck really. Getting to ask them where they wanted to go. Some knew exactly where they wanted, others were left flummoxed - that problem of knowing where and when you’d go until you were asked and then suddenly your mind became blank. Just like when asked what your favorite song or book is and suddenly you have no idea.

The Doctor-like tendencies probably had always been there, but it was when she got to travel with others that it really felt like she was the Doctor. Especially now. So when Dick had said he wanted to go see the samurai, well...Edo Period of Japan it was. Also a miracle of the TARDIS that despite it looking like a diner, it didn’t stick out. That would have been hard to explain and yet it always seemed to be the case and she wasn’t going to question it.

Still, all trips came to an end and soon it was back to Orange County, the TARDIS materializing into whatever location it had chosen, completely unaware that there had been a change while they’d been in the temporal zone

“So, enjoy yourself then?”

Dick was sporting a handful of ninja stars, how could he not be pleased with their adventure? He looked down at one of them that had stayed in his hand as they landed back in Orange County. He looked up at her with a grin. “Probably too much.” He’d gotten to use the Japanese he knew, he’d gotten traditional Japanese food. What was there not to be happy with?

What he really wanted to do was actually throw that ninja star at some object in the TARDIS, but he was pretty sure neither their host nor the actual TARDIS would enjoy that. He was itching to try them out in real time though. He’d spooked a ninja, his day had been made. Dick was just as silent as them when he’d wanted to be, and he needed to test this out on someone who didn’t have super powers just to make sure it was a thing. It was. He’d been amused by it nearly the entire way back home.

It was nice to be able to travel back to New York so easily thanks to Raven. Although he was perfectly happy with his new life in Orange County, especially the part where not many knew who his father was, he did still miss New York sometimes. After all it was where he had spent the past decade.

However when they got back Raven wasn’t the only one that felt something was off. Granted Winn didn’t feel it as strongly as her, but there was definitely something different about his apartment. He glanced around trying to place it, that was when he noticed the few photos he had framed of himself and Donna, back at the foster home and as adults too, now only had him in them. “What the hell?” Winn muttered to himself his eyebrow furrowed as he walked over to a picture on one of his shelves. He picked it up, examining it further.

Throwing ninja stars in the TARDIS would definitely be frowned upon and would likely lead to the TARDIS refusing Dick entry. The TARDIS could be a cow like that sometimes. True that was more the Doctor’s TARDIS but Clara had a feeling that would be the same for hers if someone did something like that.

“Always glad to hear.”

Grinning, the brunette stretched her arms above her head, she’d change back into modern clothing in a bit.

Winn might not feel it the same as Raven, but he was definitely the one who placed it quicker. The empath was still trying to place just what was off about the energy when she heard Winn’s comment and felt his confusion.

Moving over, she looked between him and the picture and….something was definitely off about it but it wasn’t as if she had paid too much attention to the pictures in his place to be able to tell what it should have been.

“What is it?”

Dick didn’t want to change, he was enjoying the ninja gear the TARDIS provided him with. But all the same it would be probably pretty weird to walk around in all black in broad daylight anyway. He wasn’t exactly itching to stand out that much.

This was exactly the change of pace he’d needed. It helped shake some of the cobwebs out of his brainspace and let him see something new. “Definitely need to do that again.” He was pretty happy with their adventure. “Where to next?” After all it wasn’t as though one could only time travel once without getting a taste for it.

“Donna,” Winn replied, his brow still furrowed. “She’s supposed to be in this photo.” Winn frowned, setting it back down. Wordlessly he walked into his office where he had a few more photos. He picked up one from his desk from when he was young, of him, his foster parents and Donna. Only it was just him and the foster parents.

What the hell?

“She’s missing in this one too!” He called out his tone starting to sound stressed. He grabbed his phone out of his pocket, scrolling through his photos. Sure enough all of the ones that were supposed to have Donna… didn’t.

Winn’s comment triggered...something in her memories. It was hard to say what exactly. There was a lot she had missed. But Donna erased from pictures? It was familiar… or she had been told about it as it could have been something that happened while she’d been a spirit without a body.

Right. Something was clicking into place and it made the empath agitated.

“Look up her files online. I’m going to test a theory.”

A theory she really hoped was wrong. But in her game of portal roulette, anyone who should know who Donna was just...didn’t. As if she had never been in their life. Or anywhere. There was one more person though, Dick. By the time she got a lock on him, Raven was frazzled.

No preamble (not that there had been for anyone she had appeared before without warning before disappearing again), Raven just looked at Dick.

“Do you know who Donna Troy is?”

She really hoped he did because if she and Winn were the only ones who did…

It really would be hard to explain why Dick was wandering around 2021 Orange County in Edo Period appropriate clothing. Though with all the weirdness that was Orange County, would people actually wonder? That was the question.

Still, it was why she loved to travel. Some might say she ran away from her problems, and they might be right. But a proper trip was amazing at clearing the mind and refocusing a person.

“That can easily be arranged.”

Before Clara could answer the next question though, Raven had suddenly managed to breach the TARDIS and was in front of Dick asking a question. Well...that was odd. On a hunch, the brunette went to the console, not really paying attention to what Dick answered and decided to look up information on Donna Troy.

Except there was nothing there. No birth records, school records, no digital footprint, or photos. As far as she could tell? Donna Troy did not and had never existed. Yet it was clear that she should…


“Huh. Well that’s odd…”

Dick raised an eyebrow as Raven appeared. He’d felt something twitchy about her but he wasn’t as in tune with the feelings as she was sometimes. And especially not when his mind was fresh off of time travel and buzzing contently. “Uh..Yes? Why wouldn’t I know who Donna is?” He looked at her with a suspicious glance and decided to put the throwing stars in the small pouch that he’d brought. He figured anything sharp he brought home from ancient Japan would be better suited for a kevlar pouch rather than a pocket made of easily destroyed cotton pants.

He waited for her answer, giving a confused glance back at Clara. Had they done something to the timeline or was this an Orange County thing? He didn’t think just freaking out some actual ninjas would be grounds for change in the timeline itself though..But he wasn’t the Flash. He didn’t exactly know how timeline alterations worked either.

Before Winn could even reply, Raven disappeared. He wished she had at least told him where she was going first but there was no time to focus on that now. He had more pressing concerns. Like why the hell Donna was missing from all his photos.

He did as Raven suggested, or well told him to really, and looked up Donna’s information online. Only there was none. No record of her anywhere. Even with his tech skills he couldn’t find anything. No matter how much hacking he did. That was beyond concerning.

What the hell had happened to his sister?

Raven didn’t know the specifics about time travel, that was a Flash thing and she was usually good with blaming anything that goes wrong with the timeline on a Flash. This though, well… She had a theory.

“Orange County.”

That was usually the answer.

“I need to check something. I’ll be back.”

With that, the empath vanished, first to Winn’s to check on his progress.

“Anything?”

As for Clara, she just blinked. She dealt with Raven sometimes when she was needed by the Agency. And yet?

“Is she always like that?”

Normally Dick could just kind of chalk it up to Raven being Raven, but Donna's name got dragged into things? That was the part that was concerning. He glanced over at Clara with a shrug. "Usually yeah. But this is… Different ." He was used to her just appearing when she wanted to, but something wacky was happening and he didn’t like it.

"Mind if we head back to my house for a minute?" Detective’s intuition was scratching at his brain. Normally he'd ask to be dropped off at Clark's, but what he wanted to check on was at his home.

“No,” Winn said his brows furrowed in concern, a frown on his face. He had no idea what was going on but he was beginning to get the sinking feeling that something was seriously wrong.

“Where did you go?” Winn asked. “Did you find anything?” Because he had to assume that was the purpose of her disappearance.

Clara gave a small nod at the comment that there was something different about what had just happened. So when Dick asked if they could head back to his house?

“Yeah, of course.”

Still at the console, Clara put in the desired address and just like that, the two were at Dick’s. She wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but clearly something was going on. She couldn’t think of any reason why their trip would have led to someone being erased from existence… Time was in flux so she supposed anything was possible and yet?

Winn wasn’t wrong. Something was definitely wrong. Raven didn’t know the specifics. She was fairly certain that she’d been a spirit during all of this but she could be wrong about that - things blended together after a while. But she did remember some points about it, or more so the aftermath.

“To people who should know Donna.” The phrase alone and how she said it would alert Winn to the fact that most of the answers she got had been negative. “Dick’s the only one besides us who remembers her…” Kory, Clark, Kate...anyone who should know who Donna was besides the two of them and Dick? Nothing. “C’mon. Need to check one more thing.”

Because if she remembered what she’d been told, if what was happening was what she thought was happening…. Donna’s body should still be wherever it was she’d fallen asleep. Without waiting for Winn to respond - she had never been known for her people skills and this was an emergency - the empath grabbed his hand and portaled the two of them to Donna’s condo. Everything was still in place and it felt eerie.

She didn’t like it. But there was nothing to show it belonged to someone else. Which meant her hunch was probably correct.

His house was where all the photos were. It was part of the reason he hadn't wanted to sell it when he basically moved in with Clark. The host itself had never really been home, but there were some important things he'd never let go of.

He was quiet until they arrived at his place, nerves a bit worried as he nodded if Clara wanted to follow him. When they got inside, he opened the door. The place had gotten a bit dusty, but overall was intact. Dick opened up a closet where a few moving boxes from New York still lie and pulled out an old photo album out of a dusty old box he hadn't looked at since arriving. "Here it is.." photos from his childhood, most of them minus any real parents or friends to be seen, until he stopped at once in particular that Donna should have been in. "She's missing." He stated as he looked over at Clara and touched a photo idly. "We didn't cause this did we?"

What? How were people just forgetting Donna? It made no sense. But then when did things in Orange County ever make sense? Still this was a little too much. Winn was beyond worried. But before he even had a chance to question it Raven was transporting them somewhere else. It took Winn a bit by surprise but he was all for figuring this out as soon as possible. Because yes it was definitely an emergency.

He recognized where they were immediately. “Donna?” he called walking the condo. He made his way to her room, not caring about the correct social pretenses right now, continuing to call her name as he went.

Clara bit her lower lip worriedly. There was always that risk and yet? “I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I can’t know for certain.” Not yet at any rate. Which meant she started to pace in thought, running over possible scenarios, the information they had at hand. It wasn’t much, but it was something. “I lean towards no because shouldn’t Raven also have forgotten her otherwise?” There was that question on how the empath didn’t. Yes, it could be related to her abilities but something told her it wasn’t that. “She did say she wanted to check on something which makes me think she has a theory.”

Orange County never made sense. No matter how long you were there. This though was one of the few times Raven was grateful for the numerous versions of Dreams she’d dealt with. It meant she at least had a working theory on what was going. True it was because of the fact Donna was in her Dreams but right now? That really didn’t matter.

Social pretenses didn’t matter in situations like that. Heading to Donna’s room, Raven found her on the bed, staring at nothing.

“Winn! In here!”

It was unsettling. Raven of course had known something had happened but she hadn’t been there in the Dreams, hadn’t seen it. It was like she was empty. Looking around quickly, the empath spotted the lasso. Hadn’t that played a role in helping her? She knew Donna had dealt with questions on her identity after being brought back but it was a blueprint on what to do.

“Help me with her.”

They needed to get to Dick. She could use the blueprint. Dick and Winn were the best suited for what was needed as they both remembered her. She could use the lasso, use her soul self. They could fix this.

They had to fix this.

Or was all worrying. Raven often just showed up, but not usually quite like that. And now Donna was not in any pictures at all? Dick didn't ever look at those boxes, they reminded him of times that were a bit too difficult. There were photos of Ruby, memories he'd once thought he'd rather bury but now considering literal memories had faded maybe not.

He glanced over at Clara with a bit of a frown. "I haven't even looked at these since I moved back here." now they were all messed up, Donna was supposed to be a part of them. He didn't know how to fix this.

Winn came running the second Raven called. The tone of her voice scared him. But not as much as seeing the state Donna was in. What the hell had happened to his sister.

“Donna?” he asked, kneeling by her side. “Donna?” he said again before he looked over at Raven wide eyed. “Wh- what - do you know?” he asked, unable to form a complete sentence, or question rather.

Clara nodded some. She wasn’t sure either, it wasn’t like they knew what caused this and going back on your own timeline was bad, as in it created paradoxes. And because they didn’t know what caused this, attempts to fix it could make things worse.

“Do you want me to?”

Even if there was a good chance that Donna would be missing from them as well.

That was the question. She also didn’t want to deal with explaining what was going on twice. Now that they had proof that Donna’s body was there, it meant her theory was right. So instead of answering right then, Raven just moved closer with the lasso in hand, then used her Soul Self to transport the three to where Dick and Clara were.

Or suddenly Raven could be there with someone else and what looked to be a body, whom Clara was guessing was Donna. Sure. Why not.

“Is she okay?”

“No.” But at least she could explain, “In the Dreams, something.. I’m not sure on the specifics, anyway, Donna gets erased from reality. Diana and Wallace were the only ones to remember her because of their location at the time and were able to use their memories to write her back into existence.”

He looked up at Clara with a frown as she asked to do something that made him raise an eyebrow. "Do I want you to what, fix them?.. Can you?" Could they do something with the time line to fix whatever this was? It was a time machine she had. There were gears turning in his head. Likley none of them good. Donna was practically his sister and he wanted her back.

Raven was involved, she probably had some idea of what was going on but she wasn't back yet with answers. He was becoming increasingly frustrated. Not with her, but the helpless feeling at the situation at hand. Times like this would have been great to have powers. Then just as the frustration built, it dissipated as Raven appeared again. The soul version, he was more than familiar with her.

"What do we do?"

Instead of answering his question, Raven was suddenly transporting them somewhere else. He really should be used to that by now but it still took him by surprise. And then he was in front of two people he didn’t know. They looked about as clueless as him so clearly she hadn’t taken him somewhere that had answers.

“I really hope you know what to do now,” he said briefly glancing at Raven before his eyes were back on Donna.

Clara had more meant look through the photos Dick had been unable to but she was willing to try and fix the photos Donna should have been in. At least until Raven showed up again with Winn and Donna and her theory.

That was the question, wasn’t it? Raven knew the general way this had been fixed in the Dreams. And she had to account for the differences between here and the Dreams. But she was mostly certain she knew what to do. And that it would work.

“Diana used the Lasso of Truth. Given Donna’s lasso is different, I’ll infuse my soul self into it while you two think of all of your memories of her while the lasso is holding all three of you together…Since the three of us have memories spanning most of her life here and the Dreams, it should hopefully work.”

“If you want to use the Zero Room in the TARDIS, you’re more than welcome to. It’s for healing and if we’re in the TARDIS, we can be in the temporal zone.” It made sense to Clara anyway. If Donna was currently erased from existence throughout time. And it seemed the agitated empath agreed as she gave a small nod at the idea.

“That should work.” Different world, different rules. All that mattered was getting Donna back.

He glanced over at Winn and nodded a slight greeting as they appeared. But other than that was unphased by all the appearing and reappearing. He was used to it. The thing that was the most unnerving was seeing Donna the way she was.

“Whatever needs to be done.” He agreed. Obviously there was very little he wouldn’t do for her. She’d made sure he hadn’t just gone insane from loneliness as a foster kid and had friends. For that he owed her the world. He’d move it for her if need be. Wherever they led he’d go.

So Winn was going to be tied to Donna with a lasso that Raven’s soul self was infused into it. Yeah this was definitely the oddest thing that had happened to it yet. But he could do it. He had plenty of memories of growing up with Donna. Hopefully they would help.

“Okay,” Winn agreed. “Let’s go.” He didn’t want to waste any time. He wanted his sister back like now.

With that resolved, not like it wouldn’t be as everyone there wanted to help Donna, Raven closed her eyes and let her soul self leave her body, the seeming black wings wrapping around everyone in the room to bring them to the Zero Room that Clara had mentioned, as well as where she needed them positioned. It was just easier that way.

Soul self returning to her body, Raven then wrapped the lasso around Dick, Donna’s limp body, and Winn.

“Okay. Just...focus on your memories of Donna.”

As she spoke, the lasso seemed to glow a purple tinged black as the empath infused her Soul Self into it.

With nothing for her to do in the Zero Room, Clara moved to the control room to make sure they were in the temporal zone. All she could do was that and hope that this would work.

Oddly, this wasn't the strangest thing Dick had ever been through. This was like, strange - light. Raven knew he'd follow her, or her soul self wherever if it helped. There was no question there. The fact that Clara had a healing room was mentally noted for later. He gave her a faint smile of gratitude as he followed quietly.

The lasso being in the hands of someone who wasn't Donna was the stranger part. But it was Raven, so the trust was there. "Right." he didn't want to bring her back with sad memories, of course there were some but he tried to focus on the ones that had brought them together. The ones that made them family and had cured his loneliness when he'd needed a friend the most after his parents died as a kid. Donna had stepped in and become his family. That force of stability he'd needed not to go off the deep end.

Winn thought about when she was eight and came to live with him and his foster parents. The next three years they had spent together. How sad he had been when she was eleven and was placed elsewhere. He thought about how they kept in touch after she left, and then when he was at MIT. How they met up on occasion when they were both in New York. Their reunion when she came to live in Orange County. Basically every single thing about his life with Donna he could remember he thought about.

With the two focusing, Raven did the same. There were a lot of memories, waking world and Dream world, that her Sou Self was able to access for a fuller sense of Donna from all three of them. The problem was she wouldn’t be able to tell if it worked until Donna gave some sort of response. Until because it would work.

In the depths of nothingness, something began to stir. Images. Sensations. Confusion. In the darkness, she saw people she didn’t know but was supposed to. A passing of the suit. A new beginning. And a new beginning in Orange County as well. As Donna’s memories started to reform, come in and out of focus, she winced and would have reached up to press her hand to her head if she wasn’t currently lassoed against…. It took a moment for the name to come, Dick and Winn.

Something was off about the lasso as she opened her eyes and looked at it. A purple black glow instead of gold.

Raven.

“What…”

Her voice was raw, weak. It felt like she’d been hit by a freight train as she worked to shake off whatever it was that had happened.

When Raven heard the voice, she loosened her grip on the lasso so that the three would better be able to move. It seemed like it worked. Donna at least was awake. The question remained though if she was written back into existence or not.

When he heard her voice he looked down. "Welcome back." things were not the same without her. He gave her a small smile but didn't move full from where he was just yet. He didn't want to risk the process not being completely done as much as he just wanted to hug her. He would wait for the okay to do anything else.

Relief washed over Winn when Donna spoke. Thank god she wasn’t that lifeless body anymore. He resisted the urge to hug her though. Because while she had come to life in a way, there was no way to know what state she was in exactly. “Missed you sis,” he muttered while continuing to focus on all the memories he could of her, he wasn’t going to stop until he knew she was back.

There it was. A shift in the energy. Miniscule but it was enough for Raven to know that whatever had happened was now back to normal. Or as normal as it could be for Orange County. Even so, the lasso returned to its normal color as she let it drop completely from holding the three together. She’d just...stand in the back for now. She was good at that.

As for Donna? She was still confused.

“Welcome back, what are you talking about…?” Wincing, she held her head as she tried to get her bearings straight. “It feels like I was torn apart and pieced back together again…. What happened?”

Flashes of images were coming back. Pieces falling into place. But everything was still a haze that she couldn’t make much sense of it.

Dick wasn’t exactly sure he wanted to straight up bombard her with the information that she was erased from the timeline? He raised an eyebrow and glanced over at Raven before looking back to her. “What do you remember?” He didn’t feel like shocking her back into reality, that just seemed sort of cruel in his eyes.

Better to ease her into things. If it’d been him, he wasn’t sure he’d want to know that he didn’t exist for a while straight up. He didn’t want to force her to lay down if she wanted to sit up, but he worried when she winced like that.

No matter how relieved Winn was that Donna was no longer a shell of herself he still frowned at her words. It was worrisome that she had no idea what had happened to her or what had caused it in the first place. Mostly the what had caused it because he’d very much not like to relive that again.

“How are you feeling?” Winn asked adding on to Dick’s question. “Is your head okay?” And well the rest of her.

And this was why Dick or Donna got to lead the teams. Because Raven had very nearly replied that Donna wasn’t wrong about what had happened to her based on how she felt. So instead she just slipped out of the Zero Room to head to the control room to see if Clara could tell if Donna was officially back in existence in regards to records and the like.

“My head is pounding….” Because that was an easier question to answer at the moment. But right. What did she remember… “Um, I closed up the studio. Got some take out.. Regular end of the day things. Then I went to bed.”

Closing her eyes, though if it were from the headache and how awful she still felt, or what she remembered from her Dreams, it was hard to say.

“I got a call I knew was coming but still wanted to avoid and then this woman… then it was like I was living all of these different lives and she was always there. Always at the worst possible moment when I was at my absolute lowest.”

No need to expand on what would have been the lowest possible point for her in the Dreams. That was self explanatory.

“She called herself Dark Angel….. I challenged her and defeated her and erased her and then there was….nothing.”

Rubbing her head, Donna sighed.

“And then suddenly….I was waking up and Diana and Wally were there? But I had to be reintroduced to them and Cassie, who I gave my old Wonder Girl costume to and then I woke up tied up with you two in..wherever it is we are.”

There were some advantages to just being blunt and telling her everything, but Dick knew how jarring that could be. Internal struggles were the most obnoxious thing. "The zero room, on the TARDIS." He responded. It was the easiest part to answer. Hopefully she didn't have too many more questions about that bit. He didn't have all the answers. "You have us a scare." He admitted with a small smile. She sounded like she was ahead of him in the dreams if she was mentioning new team members like Cassie. He had no idea about who that was. That could wait though.

"You were sort of.. Erased." which might explain the "nothing". She described. Dick didn't want to tell her. But Donna had a way of knowing when he was holding back. Even if it wasn't a flat out lie. He wasn't good at it when it came to her after all.

The fact that she had to be reintroduced to Diana and Wally was worrisome. Even though Winn wasn’t entirely sure the relationship between Dream!Donna and them. Here, Donna hadn’t said his name or Dick’s, only referred to them as ‘you two.’ Though she was acting like she knew who they were at least. Still, best to be sure.

“Do you uh, know who we are?” Winn asked, brow furrowed. He wasn’t sure about the whole being erased thing. He was refusing to believe that was what happened, even though he hadn’t been able to find her anywhere online.

Oh, Donna had questions. Way too many questions and the Zero Room on the TARDIS was at the bottom of that list. She was more concerned about why she was there, why she’d been tied up to the two and about the nothingness.

“Obviously the last thing I wanted.”

At least until Dick mentioned her being erased.

“I….what? How….” Closing her eyes, Donna tried to focus on what she remembered from the Dreams. Something about Dark Angel and erasing her had led to her being erased. She felt like she knew what it was but before she could really put it together, Winn was asking if she knew who they were. Which of course she did. She would have asked who they were otherwise. Though, she supposed it made sense given she had mentioned having to be introduced to Diana and Wally.

“Yes, I know who you both are.” Normally she would joke and say she didn’t but this was way too stressful and it was clearly stressful for them as well.

“So….why were we tied together with my lasso?”

And enter Raven which….made sense.

“It was how you were brought back into existence. In the Dreams, Diana and Wally used the Lasso of Truth and focused their memories of you to bring you back. We did the same with your lasso and utilized my Soul Self.”

At that, Donna could only nod slowly.

“Sure. Why not. That makes about as much sense as being erased…. Wait. I’m not erased now, am I?”

“Nope, the TARDIS shows that all records of your existence are back in place where they belong.”

And a brunette that Donna wasn’t sure if she had met before or not but honestly this was a lot and she’d want to sit down if she weren’t already.

“....Explains the welcome back comment then.” Rubbing her temples, Donna let out a slow breath. There was a lot to unpack and she wasn’t sure she was in a place to do that right then. Right. Focus on the immediate situation. Worry about all the philosophical questions and worries that were pushing at the back of her mind later. So instead she just opened her eyes and looked at the group there.

“Thank you. Not like it can cover what you did for me. But. Thank you.”

Dick hated that he had to tell her, but he also knew Donna didn’t like not knowing things. If she sniffed even an ounce of him holding back, it would come out in the worst way. That was even worse than just being up front. He glanced awkwardly over at Raven and then the lasso before stepping out. It was safe to just go offer to hold her hand for a minute now that she knew who they were. “We love you, we weren’t going to let you be lost to us. There’s nothing we wouldn’t have done.” He didn’t quite know how to offer much more comfort than that, so he’d just be there. Be around for anything she decided she needed or wanted. She’d get it.

“It was nothing,” Winn replied, shrugging his shoulders slightly. All he had to do really was think of all his memories with Donna. It was pretty easy actually, other than the whole being insanely scared and worried part. “But I seriously hope I never have to do that again,” he added, giving Donna a half smile.

“You’re not the only one.”

Donna could definitely do without that happening again. So instead? Instead she just pulled the three (grabbing Raven before she could disappear from the situation) into a hug. Because she had a feeling it was needed all around after what had happened. Donna certainly needed it. It was grounding and after being erased? Whatever that meant? She needed the grounding for the moment before even attempting to really think about what it all meant.

No, what mattered was that they were all okay and that it had been resolved. Everything else was just noise.