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Screams filled the air as the citizens ran through the streets of the city, diving behind the sky high tower blocks in a vain attempt to hide from what was coming. Metallic footsteps rang through the area, joined by the exclamation to 'delete' anyone who was in the giant Cyberman's way as it attempted to take over the world and convert every suitable human into a new member of it's army.
Or, that's what it was in 5 year old Alfie's mind. The Cyberman was, in fact, a toy Transformer rip off, and the city was just Lego towers of varying sizes. The citizens living there were all Lego people, and some plastic animals that his father, Craig Owens, was in control of.
"Who will save us?" He cried, faking a high-pitched tone as he held a small cow in his hand.
"There is no one!" Alfie cried, cackling as he deepened his tone. He smiled widely at his dad, who took his queue and picked up a completely blue Lego block and started making wheezing noises.
"Doctor detected, Doctor detected." Alfie made the 'Cyberman' cry out, although he could barely say detected. He reached over and picked up a small Lego man dressed as Indiana Jones.
"No!" He exclaimed loudly, "It's the Doctor and his Danni-Girl!" Craig placed the 'TARDIS' in the middle of the mass of toys and reached over, grabbing the two figures that had been designated the two time travellers and brought them out.
"Let me at him!" He made the Doctor say, Alfie snatching the 'Danni-Girl' from his other hand.
"Calm down, Doctor." He had her say, "Don't anger the Cyberman."
"I'm not scared." 'The Doctor' replied, "I'm a Time Lord. He should be scared of me."
The sound of the doorbell ringing interrupted the little moment and Craig paused, glancing behind him to see if Sophie was going to get it. The chances were it was her mother anyway, since she'd retired she had been visiting them a lot more.
"Craig, can you get that?" Sophie's voice called from the kitchen and he shared a look with his son before standing up and ruffling his hair.
"Make sure Danni keeps an eye on the Doctor." He warned lightly before heading for his front door.
They had started out as bedtime stories when Craig couldn't stand reading the Mr Men series another time. Sophie had been a bit wary of him sharing the memories from the Doctor's past he still had from the 'head butting incident', but after hearing the edited versions Craig told their son, she decided it was okay after all. Their son lapped it up, especially the ones involving 'Danni-Girl', which was probably a throwback from when he'd met her as a baby.
Craig had a fond smile on his face as he thought back on the couple who had blown into his and Sophie's lives, leaving it much better each time they had left it again. They'd been overjoyed to be invited to their wedding, just relieved that both had them had survived whatever they were about to face they had been facing when the Cybermen had tried to invade the department store.
"Hello?" He asked, opening the door and his mouth dropped at the red-head who was stood there, smiling widely at him.
"Hello, Craig!" Danni cried, "Guess who?"
~0~0~0~
Sophie placed a lovely cup of tea in front of Danni, who sat around their dining table. She'd been travelling a lot lately, the Eleven she'd seen last teaching her how to use the Manipulator and helping her get the dates and places to visit some of the people who had helped her along the way.
"There you go." Sophie said with a smile, sitting down across from her, "Is the Doctor coming soon?" Danni shook her head.
"No, I'm sorta travelling on my own at the moment." She explained, pausing with the cup just by her lips, "I mean, I can call him, if you'd prefer." Sophie shook his head, hoping she'd not offended the other woman.
"No, it's okay. I guess we're just not used to seeing you without him by your side. I'm always surprised he'd let you go anywhere that's not with him. He adores you, it's so cute!" Sophie replied and they both laughed, Danni nodding.
"Oh, he can be quite adorable." She agreed as Craig joined them from the living room.
"Who can?" He asked, sliding into the chair next to Sophie.
"The Doctor." Sophie replied, "And you, of course." She smiled and placed a kiss on his lips, Craig grinning and trying to make it into something more than a peck. Sophie batted him away as the pair laughed and Danni watched them fondly, loving how their story was turning out. That's all she wanted, to know that she'd made a different in people's lives.
"Is he coming?" Craig asked her and she shook her head.
"No, you're stuck with just me." She replied and Craig sighed, slouching in his chair in relief.
"Oh thank God." He said, "I can handle you, but I really don't want to deal with another alien invasion." Danni laughed, feeling like she should be offended on behalf of her husband, but she couldn't fault his logic, "Why are you here?" Sophie nudged him hard.
"Craig!" She exclaimed in embarrassment, "We're very happy to have her here." He rolled his eyes.
"I mean why is she here and not travelling with the Doctor?" He turned back to her, "Why come somewhere so boring?"
"You're not boring." Danni corrected, "You are wonderfully extraordinary, and I loved every minute I spent with you two." She sipped her cup of tea, "I guess, I'm on a sort of farewell tour. Dropping in to see some old faces, say my goodbyes."
"Your goodbyes?" Sophie asked, her brows furrowed as she shared a concerned look with Craig.
"Yeah, well..." She ran a hand through her hair, "You know the Doctor survived his last visit, and I did too because you came to the wedding. But, well..." She shrugged, "I'm supposed to die soon, and as I've met a Doctor from after that point and I am still very much dead, so it seems to be permanent this time. I didn't want to leave without seeing the people who had touched my life. Your little family helped show me that my life is extraordinary, but it isn't anything unless it's with the person I love."
"That can't be right." Craig replied with a nervous laugh, "The Doctor wouldn't let you just die. You don't even seem bothered."
"I die with him." She replied simply, with a smile on her face that confused the pair of them, "He'll be there to the end, what more could I ask for?"
"Who else have you gone to see?" Sophie asked, not liking to talk about her friend's untimely death anymore. Danni reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, unfolding it and smiling.
"Well, first there was Lynda." She read, looking up at them, "With a 'Y', not an 'I'. Very sweet girl, I saved her from the Dalek in the Fourth Human Empire. Dropped her in the 31st century, she has a wife and four lovely little girls. You'd like her." She ran her finger down the page, "Next was Elliot. I met him as a kid, but went back when he'd gone to university. Clever kid, he was in the first adventure I had with Eleven. I got dissected."
"You got dissected?" Craig asked, alarmed and she nodded.
"Yeah, that was an odd day. Rory got wiped out of existence, but he came back as a plastic Centurion." Both of them stared at her, perplexed but she didn't notice as her finger ran down the list. Rose, Lisa, Donna, Martha and Mickey. Jack, obviously, and Lisa as well. Sarah Jane Smith and her son, and Jenny who was having a ball saving the universe like her dad. Even Nancy and her son, Jamie.
"Oh, and Wilf!" She exclaimed as she reached his name, smiling softly to herself. Good old Wilfred Mott.
~0~0~0~
Wilfred Mott stepped out of his front door, immediately tightening his coat around him to fight against the cold air the clear night brought. Autumn was the best time of year to do this, the sky was almost always clear and it while it wasn't too cold, it still was cold enough for his daughter to make him a Thermos of tea so he'd keep warm as he sat up on his hill and watched the stars go by. Hoping that he'd see that blue box again that would let him know the Doctor was okay.
Donna didn't join him as much as she used to, but seeing as she lived further away these days in that huge house she and Shaun had bought with their lottery winnings, he couldn't blame her. She had her new life ahead of her, why would she waste it with her old Gramps? She'd offered to buy him and her mother a new house, but he was too old to move now, he was happy where he was and didn't see himself moving anywhere until he passed on. Donna had told him to 'stop being so bloody morbid', but she'd given him a tight hug and preceded to tell him he wasn't allowed to go anywhere. Made a man feel loved.
Still, sometimes she'd join him, a thoughtful look on her face that reminded him of the Donna he'd lost, the confident, happier version of herself that he'd lost because of her own selflessness. She'd search the sky herself, looking for a blue box she had no recollection of and a man and woman who she'd adored, once.
With his telescope slung over his shoulder, he set off down the street, determined not to feel as sad as he did over Donna. She was still wonderful, still the most important woman in the universe to him, along with his daughter of course. She always had been, even before she'd met the Doctor, and would be long after even he began to forget about the man.
The figure he spotted at the end of the street worried him for a moment, but he was a tough old man and he wasn't about to let some punk kid scare him from his own street. The closer he got, the less intimidating they seemed to be and the more sad the figure became. Until he saw it, the bright red hair sticking out underneath the bobble hat and he stopped, the breath in his lungs leaving him as he realised who it was.
"Danielle?" He asked and she turned, her smile illuminated under the yellow lamplight.
"Hello, Mr Motts." She replied softly. He started jogging towards her, well, as much as his knees would allow him these days, the telescope bouncing painfully off his spine as she joined him, letting him pull her in for a hug.
"Oh, my, you wonderful little thing." He exclaimed, holding her out at arms length, "You are a sight for sore eyes, you are." She blushed slightly.
"Not as much as you are." She retorted, "Fancy a cup of tea?"
~0~0~0~
It had been a bit late for them to go to a café, so they found themselves at the chip shop, sat around a plastic table as he drank a mug of tea and she slowly made her way through the portion of chips he'd insisted on buying her.
"You look older than the last time I saw you." He told her and she nodded.
"Must be about a year, now." She replied, "I'm nearing 28, that's very old." He shook his head.
"No, your eyes seemed older." He explained sadly, "Something has happened, hasn't it?"
"Something's about to happen." She said before pointing at him with her chip, "However, you don't look a day over 60, what's your secret?" She asked cheekily and he batted the chip away.
"Give over." He scolded lightly before pausing, looking anxious.
"You want to know if the Doctor's here, don't you?" She asked knowingly, because everyone else had before him. Not that she minded, in fact it made her heart swell to know so many people were looking out for him, hoping on some level to see him again. Another sign he wouldn't be alone unless he wanted to be.
"The last time I saw him, he wasn't going to make it." Wilf explained, "I just want to know what happened to him."
"He regenerated." She told him with a smile, "You'll meet him soon, he'll come pick you up to bring you to our wedding in a few months." Wilf looked surprised.
"You two got married?" He asked and she waved her fingers, showing him the ring and he cheered, rubbing his hands together joyfully, "Wahay, that's wonderful." She couldn't help but beam along with him, "Donna wil..." He stopped himself, going sombre for a moment, "Donna would have been so happy, she was always rooting for you two."
"She was." Danni agreed, "And I told her, and she was so happy for us." She looked down at her plate, "She's my biggest regret, you know? I still haven't been able to figure out a way to save the universe without her, Donna Noble is just too important and I'm not smart enough." Her shoulders slumped slightly under the guilt of how she'd failed to save her friend.
"Donna wouldn't have thanked you for saving her over the universe." Wilf offered and she nodded.
"Oh, I know." She retorted, "Doesn't make it any easier thought." No, it never did. He reached out and took her head, squeezing it like he would do for Donna and the gratefulness on her face told him everything. He eventually let go and leant back in the chair.
"Last time I was in a café with your husband," he smiled at her, so proud of the pair of them, "He told me he was dying. A bundle of laughs, that one." She chuckled for a moment.
"That's why I'm here." She replied, "Perhaps I should have chosen a better venue."
"Nah..." He brushed off but she didn't look like she was joking, "No, you're too young!" He protested and she shrugged.
"Perhaps." She offered, "But we all must go, I suppose. Just making my way through my farewell tour, seeing all the people who mean the most to me before I go." Wilfred looked around, panicked because the Doctor didn't seem to be anywhere and he would stop it, wouldn't it? But the Time Lord didn't appear, and she didn't seem worried.
"Did you come to see Donna?" He asked, "Because she lives out of town now, with Shaun. I can take you, if you like." She shook her head.
"No, I came to see you." She replied, "I came to say thank you."
"But I haven't done anything!" He protested, modest as always.
"Yes you have." She insisted, "You did the best thing anyone could have done. You loved the Doctor, readily and without judgement. You gave him the friend he needed, and then, at the end, you gave me my husband." She took his hand back, "Thank you, Mr Motts. I can't begin to tell you what you've done for us. And we will always be grateful." The tears in her eyes brought on his own, but as she didn't start crying he tried to hold it back as well. They carried on in silence for a few moments, him drinking his tea and her eating her chips.
"So," He asked slowly, "What's he like?" She frowned slightly, "Is he still, you know," he made a stretching motion, "all gangly?" She laughed and nodded.
"Oh, even more so." She told him and he grimaced slightly, "And he wears a bow tie, and tweed."
"Tweed?" He asked sceptically.
"Yeah, and he went younger. But I think that was my fault."
"But he was already a baby!" He insisted, "How could he go younger?"
"He did." She promised.
"And in tweed?" He continued and she laughed, "He sounds like the teachers I used to have at school."
"We decided it was a geography teacher." She explained, "The jacket had patches on the elbows."
"Good Lord, and he stood out before!" He exclaimed, "Did you not think to stop him?" She shrugged, blushing slightly.
"I like it." She admitted like a kid admitting their crush to their parent, "He wouldn't look like him without it."
"He's going to be broken without you." Wilfred told her, "He's going to miss you for the rest of his life."
"I hope so." She whispered.
~0~0~0~
He took her up to his little spot on the hill, setting up his telescope and started pointing out all the stars and constellations he knew. She listened attentively, crouching down by his chair so she could have a look through the lens whenever he had something to show her. For all of her time jumping through time and space, the Doctor had only ever told her about the space around every planet but the Earth. So she was attentive because she actually was learning something, and Wilf had a new audience to share his wisdom to.
"You know, I went to see everyone else after the wedding." She stated slowly as he showing her something called 'Cassiopeia', "But with you, I didn't want this me to be your last memory of me. How strange, eh?"
"It's not." He reassured her as she knelt on the ground next to him.
"Mr Motts?" She asked quietly and he watched her, concerned as she looked down at her hands.
"Yes, sweetheart?" He asked.
"You would have been a wonderful father-in-law." She replied and he blinked, his mind recalling being on the spaceship above the Earth, and the Doctor telling him he would have been proud to call him his dad. He wiped his face, shaking his head at the emotional response that hit him.
"You're both so bloody sentimental." He scolded to hide his heartache and she laughed, nodding and pushed the end of the telescope towards him.
"Show me something else." She commanded.
~0~0~0~
"Who's Wilf?" Sophie asked as Danni seemed to stop, staring at the paper with a fond, faraway look on her face. She blinked herself out of whatever memory she had fallen into and looked back up at them.
"He's the grandfather of the most important woman in the universe." She replied, "And the best human I have ever met."
"Hey, I thought that was supposed to me be." Craig protested jokingly and she rolled her eyes.
"I promise you're in the top five." She retorted and his mouth fell open in mock outrage.
"Top five?" He exclaimed, turning to his wife, "Did you hear that?"
"I know!" She replied, "I can't believe you scored so high." He chucked his arms up in the air as Sophie and Danni giggled.
"Daddy?" In the doorway to the front room a small boy stood, looking slightly confused, "Are you going to be long?"
"Hey, champ!" Craig called, "Come here for a moment." The little boy walked up to the doorway into the kitchen, holding onto the wood nervously as he spotted Danni. He looked her over a moment, his gaze falling down her body until he gasped unabashedly.
"Danni-Girl!" He cried, running over to her and putting his hands on her knees. He pushed up, climbing onto her lap and looking up at her with big, blue eyes, "Hello, my name's Alfie." He told her factually, "I met you when I was a baby, and then again when I was a bigger baby. You probably don't 'member me." Danni faked a confused look, putting a finger on her lips.
"Hmm, that sounds very familiar." She agreed, "You do look a lot bigger than I remember you, though." She squinted, moving closer to his face, "Are you sure you're not an alien?"
"I'm not!" He protested loudly, much to the amusement of his parents, "I promise." She continued to look suspiciously at him for a moment before nodding.
"Okay, if you promise." She conceded, "Did I interrupt you and your daddy playing?"
"Yeah, but I don't want to play with him anymore." Alfie declared. Sophie had to lift up her own cup of tea to her lips to hide the laughter that came with Craig's dumbstruck face at this new declaration, "I wanna play with you and the Doctor!"
"Well, the Doctor's not here at the moment." Danni explained, "But I can play better than him anyway. He's so boring, he just takes toys apart and never fixes them again."
"Daddy does that when he's building new things for the front room." Alfie replied with a knowing tone a child his age probably shouldn't have had.
"That makes sense." She replied, "The Doctor's a daddy too, it's probably a daddy thing."
"The Doctor's has a kid?" Alfie asked in amazement at this new piece of information.
"She's called Jenny." Danni explained, "The Doctor's both her daddy and her mummy, because she was made out of a cloning machine." Alfie stared up at her, enraptured so she stood up, scooping the boy up and heading into the front room without another word to Sophie and Craig, telling the young boy the story of The Doctor's Daughter.
~0~0~0~
"... and when he realised how bad he'd been, the not-so-bad Kazran opened the cloud barrier and all the sky fish came down, letting Amelia Pond and Rory Williams land safely." Danni continued in a hushed tone, stroking Alfie's hair as he laid in his bed, exhausted but attentive to her story, "So all the children got the best Christmas present ever, the play with the fish that were finally free. And it was the first snow in 100 years." Okay, so she'd embellished the story slightly, and didn't mention the dying girlfriend, but it was overall such a lovely story that she had to tell him. Alfie had been asking for stories about the Doctor all day, and as that was all she had anyway, she couldn't say no.
"Were there really fish in the sky?" He asked her hopefully and she nodded.
"There were." She promised, "They live off the clouds instead of the water like out fish, and they shine in the sunlight." She leant down and placed a kiss on his head, "Now, it's time to go to sleep. You be good for your mum and dad, okay?"
"I will." He promised and she stood off the bed, "Will the Doctor come back and see me again?" She frowned sadly to herself before sitting back down again.
"The Doctor doesn't really ever come back." She explained as gently as she could to the boy, who looked crushed at this news, "Because he doesn't have the time. He's too busy saving planets and people who really need his help because they're in danger. If he went back to see all the people he met, imagine all the people he couldn't save." She tucked Alfie in a bit tighter, "But I will tell you something. When I see him next and I tell him I came to see you and your parents, he'll be super jealous. He always talks about the time he got to meet you."
"Really?" Alfie asked and she crossed over her chest twice in promise, having given up trying to keep it to one heart.
"I promise. Goodnight, Alfie." She stood back up again and left the little boy to dream about the madman in a blue box.
~0~0~0~
"Are you sure you can't stay a little longer?" Sophie asked as she let go of Danni, giving her a large hug in the middle of their kitchen.
"I can't." She replied sadly, "I still have to finish my list." She patted her pocket.
"How many have you got?" Craig asked sombrely, his question actually being 'how long have you got let?'
"Just the one." She replied and his face fell, "Well, it's been an honour to know you." She told the pair, "Grow old together, have more babies. Enjoy your human life."
"We will." Craig promised, pulling his wife to his side, "Take care of yourself." She shot him a bitter-sweet smile, because there wasn't much she could do about it anymore.
"I will." She promised back before lifting her arm and flipping open River's Manipulator. She typed the information in from memory, having read it over and over again the last week or so, ingraining it into her memory. In a flash, she left the couple in the kitchen to mourn their loss as she reappeared in front of a metal archway in a grand room with a patterned floor.
She'd said all her goodbyes, saw faces she hadn't even considered she'd see again and met the new lives she'd helped create by saving the lives of others. She'd truly made a difference, if only on a minute scale compared to the Doctor. She was content with her mark, but there was still one person she had to say her farewells to, someone she knew she couldn't even say it to their face. So she'd come to Naismith's mansion only moments after Ten and Wilf had left the place abandoned to get as close as she could get. She walked over and sat in front of the place where the Time Lords had come through the connection, where he'd gone back into the Time War with them, in the shards of glass that littered the floor and crossed her legs.
"Hello." She said into the empty room, "I know you can't hear me, so this is mainly for my benefit. But I just wanted to say thanks, I suppose." She sighed, looking around again. So much had gone on in that night when she'd met up with him again, "You saved my life, and the Doctor's and I never will get to say thank you for that." She ran her hand through her hair, "I can't even begin to tell you how much I miss you. Apart from the Doctor, you're the one thing I'll miss above all else." She pointed up to the sky, "Don't you dare tell Jack that. I'll know if you do." She warned before laughing at herself.
"This is ridiculous, I have no idea why I thought that was a good idea. I'm just talking to an empty room. I thought I'd gotten past the crazy, but I guess you never really do." She paused again, just sitting for a moment as her thoughts ran through her head, fumbling with the way she wanted to word it, "I love you too, you know?" She whispered, "Not half as much as I love the Doctor, obviously." She narrowed her eyes, she could just imagine him scoffing at her, "No, I mean it. But what we had was..." She sucked in a breath through her teeth, "intense. And I'm... I'm so glad I met you, Koschei. And I'm glad you got to see that there was still hope for you, even if it was at the end." She smiled softly, "Goodbye, Koschei."
"Danni?" She looked behind her and saw Ten stood in the doorway, looking mildly confused and she smiled at him, waving him in.
"Spaceman, what are you doing back here?" She asked, "You should be on your own little farewell tour too."
"I am." He replied, sitting in the glass next to her, "I've just come to collect something I forgot." Her hand fell to her hand, remembering how Eleven said he'd come back for the diamond that sat on her ring. That must be what this was, but she didn't say a word, "Wait, 'too'?" She shrugged at his look.
"It's a bit like River, I suppose." She explained in reply, "You have so much more to come, all those adventures together. I've just reached the end of my run with you, but you've got a whole lot of Danni left yet."
"That can't be right." He protested weakly and she leant against his arm, the feeling of Ten against her warming her up and she was suddenly eternally grateful that he was there one last time.
"I wouldn't change it, not one line." She promised him, "Just promise me you'll make your Danni feel as loved as I was." She looked up at him, "Because I was, you know?" Tears sprang into her eyes as she smiled, the final realisation making her simultaneously devastated and elated, "I was loved, he loved me so much. For a while, I loved the Doctor and he loved me." He shifted next to her, swivelling around so they were face to face. He reached out and cupped her face, his trademark grin on his face.
"I love you, Danielle." He told her.
"I love you too, Theta." She replied and he reached over, only managing to place a quick kiss on her forehead before grimacing in pain, "And I think that's our cue to leave, don't you?"
"I don't want to go." He almost begged and she nodded, standing up. He followed, towering over her once again.
"She'll be waiting for you." She stated, "Don't keep her waiting any longer, okay?" He nodded and she lifted her arm, took a deep breath, and went back to Manhattan, satisfied that while her story was about to end, it had been a bloody good one.