THE ELEVEN DOCTORS

Chapter 3

"No Donna, not in there!" Mrs. Noble shouted from the kitchen. "In the bedroom! Honestly! You'd think you'd been raised by someone else. The way you behave, sometimes." She muttered muttered crossly. Loud enough for Donna to hear.

Sharing a good-natured eye roll with Wilf, Donna caved in and took their coats from where she'd left them on the arm of the sofa. Heaving a martyred sigh she carted them into her bedroom, and threw them on the bed like a petulant child.

The two of them had just been 'up the hill' to do some star-gazing. In reality, they were using it as an excuse for Donna to tell her granddad all about her life since she began travelling with the Doctor.

"It's nearly tea time. Go and wash you two. And then you can help me set the table." Ordered Sylvia, Donna's mum.

"Sometimes I think your mum could pass as one'a them aliens you've been tellin' me about, Donna." Wilf whispered to her, as they took turns washing their hands in the loo sink. "What were they called? Sontarans? She's always shoutin' and orderin' me about. Had a sergeant like her, durin' the war. Only he was a whole lot quieter."

"I have to shout, the way you two disappear off on your own all the time." Sylvia said, poking her head in the door. "The roast will get cold if you don't get a move on. What's a Sontaran? That a new kind of Japanese car or something?"

"Er—yeah. New car model. Right. The Sontaran. Very energy efficient. Gets twenty-one kilometers to the liter. You'll love it." Donna quickly agreed. She made it her policy not to tell her mum about what she really did with the Doctor.

Just then the doorbell rang. Breathing a sigh of relief, Donna bolted past her mum and Wilf. "I'll get it!"

"Whoever that is Donna, you tell them they can come back after tea time!" Her mum told her.

"I'll just go and remind her, shall I?" Said Wilf, quickly inching his way past his daughter, trying to make a quick getaway before Sylvia could find something else to scold him over.

Throwing open the front door, Donna breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hallo, Donna! Good to see you again, Wilf." The Doctor said, a smile lighting up his face.

"A pleasure to see you again as well, sir!" Wilf saluted. Not knowing that he was the only one the Doctor had ever accepted a salute from in over nine hundred years. Looking back over his shoulder, Wilf said in a whisper, "Better keep it down, you two. Don't want you-know-who to know you're here, Doctor."

"Very good advice, Wilf." The Doctor nodded sagely.

"Donna?" Came her mum's voice. It was coming towards them. "Who is it?"

Donna and Wilf saw the Doctor visibly wince. He mumbled something under his breath about never landing on a Sunday.

"We've gotta' go, Donna. Sorry she has to leave you so soon, Wilf." The Doctor aplogized hurriedly.

"Why? What's going on?" Donna asked, puzzled. She'd only just arrived back home for a visit a couple of hours ago. Now he wanted her to leave again?

"Donna? Your dinner is getting cold!" Sylvia called out, closer this time. "Whoever it is, they can come back later."

"Distress call. From the past. In a bit of a rush. Parked the TARDIS on the meter. Don't want to get her towed." He rattled off to her. He'd already turned away and was trotting down the pavement, his long coat tails flaring out behind him.

"You go on, Sweetheart." Wilf told Donna with an understanding smile. "I'll make your excuses to your mum."

After giving her granddad a grateful hug, Donna ran off to catch up with the Doctor. She found him in the next street, unlocking the TARDIS door.

"Distress call? From who?" Donna asked him.

"From me." The Doctor answered.

Meanwhile, inside another TARDIS, another Doctor was frowning as he leaned over the console. He was reading a message scrolling across a tiny screen set into a small control panel. The clear perspex covering over the short central column showed no movement. The TARDIS was parked in damp, foggy scrap yard in London.

This Doctor was an old man with mid-length swept back gray hair. He was dressed in an old-fashioned black frock coat. He straightened up and scowled. "No, no, no! Impossible! I'm not going to do it! I have better things to do than to visit with myself. And what would Susan think? Me leaving her here on her own, amongst these primitive people? No, It won't do. Won't do at all, I say."

Despite his grumblings to the contrary, the Doctor read a further message. He shook his head and tutted. "Oh alright, I suppose I must." He scolded the screen, as if the other Doctor was there in front of him, "But you had better be right. I won't have myself traipsing about on some wild goose chase."

Having decided what to do, the Doctor didn't waste any time. He threw a switch on the console and the central column began to heave and grown, churning up and down.

Hands grasping the lapels of his suit, the Doctor watched the departure with pride in his ship. She was a fine old machine, even if her chameleon circuit had gotten stuck recently. The TARDIS could no longer change its appearance to blend in with its surroundings. It was stuck in the shape of a London police phone box. Oh well, he could always fix that later.

Right now though, one of his future selves had made a mess of things, and he was needed to set it right. The rings of the Space-Time Vortex glowed red as the original version of the Doctor sped off into the future to help save the universe.

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