kore_logs | IDK my BFF Donna?

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IDK my BFF Donna?

Who: Castiel, Donna, the Doctor, Mina
Where: Donna's house
When: night of day 53
What: The Doctor asks for his friends to bring back his best mate.

The Doctor was anxious, wondering if what he's asking would singly be the worst decision he's ever made. Really, this was utterly ridiculous as he had no access to the TARDIS or anything familiar to him if something were to go wrong. If all else failed, at least he would've had the chameleon arch to rewrite her memories.... Or he'd just have to go hiding them again himself, which he really wasn't sure if he could do that again.

He was so lost in his thoughts, he didn't realize he was causing his knuckles to show white as he squeezed his thermos to death as he sat on the front steps to Donna's house. It was filled with tea, of course, as if that would make matters any more pleasant.

Let's have some friends over, yeah? You, me, Castiel, Dr. Barrett... Donna had seemed fine with the idea at the time he mentioned it in passing to her one afternoon. He just hoped this worked or else he would feel even worse than he had just a couple nights ago after an unfortunate meeting with the Hulk.

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The nod was all she needed.

Mina dipped her head, forcing Donna to make eye contact with her. That accomplished, she reached out with her willpower, allowing a part of herself to flow into Donna's mind. Some Kindred thought of Dominate as a bulldozer. Mina preferred to think of it as a paintbrush, lightly touching the target.

After all, the mind was a delicate thing.

"You're completely at ease," she told Donna in a hypnotic tone. "You trust the three of us completely. And you want to tell us about your dreams."

Castiel hesitated. Touch wasn't something that he was loose or easy with, but Donna was clearly in need of comfort and hadn't been skittish about touch so far. He rested his hand on Donna's arm, hoping that it was more comforting than awkward.

He was a little concerned about this. He didn't think that Mina would hurt Donna on purpose, but what the Doctor had told him did worry him. It was too much like Sam and his wall, though Castiel was pretty confident that if he could tear one down, he could build one that held back what could hurt Donna without holding back everything.

Part of him wondered if Sam's wall would have done this eventually, though, especially given how hard he scratched at it himself.

The Doctor stood just out of the way, but close enough that he could intervene when needed. It was so tempting to tell Mina to make sure not to delve too deep into the dormant Time Lord in Donna, in fears of what it'd do to her as well; but he was smart enough to know that she knew of that and wouldn't take too many risks.

He just didn't need two friends burning up to crisps.

Donna had been so prepared to brush her dreams under the carpet. After all, they were just as the Doctor had said - silly dreams. But suddenly she found herself compelled to talk about them.

"It's wonderful and terrifying all at once. I travel with him," she pointed in the Doctor's direction. "We travel through space and time in a little blue box that's bigger on the inside - how mad is that? A box that is bigger on the inside!"

The edges of her irises started to take on a golden hue, her headache beginning to kick in. "We save people. And sometimes it feels so real, hardly like a dream at all... more like a distant memory..."

The change in Donna did not escape Mina's attention. Nor did the fact that she had never seen anything quite like it. Which, of course, wasn't going to deter her, but it did put her on her guard somewhat.

"Pick a single dream," she instructed Donna. "A specific instance. And tell me about it in as much detail as you can remember."

Keeping his hand on Donna's arm, Castiel glanced at the Doctor again to see if this was an expected reaction. If needed, he could delve into her mind and try to put a stop to any damage if it started to go wrong, but he didn't want to interfere if Mina and Donna were both alright.

Unfortunately, the Doctor wouldn't know what would be expected or not. What he had anticipated was for Donna not to have any trouble whatsoever, and he would be forgotten. All those silly moments, the laughter, the humanity Donna reinforced upon the Doctor, all erased. To only be remembered by her grandfather when he looked upon the stars as the Doctor stood that cold night soaking in the rain.

I walk in eternity, he once said and it was something he lived with. Accepted, even.

Rubbing the back of his neck, he takes a step back, watching Donna intensely. Hopefully it would be one of their happier moments together, such as the dinner party with Agatha Christie, and not one of his Oncoming Storm.

Unfortunately for the Doctor, the 'dream' Donna decided to focus on was not one of the happier ones. The one about Agatha Christie was definitely one of her favourites, yet she wasn't ready to tell a roomful of people that she dreamed of snogging him on a regular basis - even if said snog was to save his life.

Donna appreciated the comfort Cas offered. She knew from the few times she had tried hugging him that physical contact was hardly his strong point.

"Pompeii. Volcano day. We were there. It was so real. The heat and the ash and the smoke and when I think about it, it's like I can feel it choking me, filling my lungs. And the crying and the panic and the chaos. It feels so real, like I could reach out and touch it."

Tears started to roll down her cheeks as she recalled the vivid dream.

Mina turned, briefly, to glance at the Doctor. "Tell me how you want her to remember it," she said quietly. It really didn't matter too much if Donna overheard. Mina fully intended to erase both her presence and Castiel's presence when they were done.

Assuming any of this worked at all.

It fascinated Castiel how fragile the human mind was that even a creature like Mina could control it so easily. Of course, he could do a great deal to a human's body or mind, but he'd been made for that sort of power. He wasn't entirely sure what vampires were created for, but he didn't think it was this.

He frowned. "You intend to do this for every memory?"

His gaze darted to Castiel's, "No." Because that would take far too long and overkill.

And crouching down between Mina and Donna, "The way she remembers it is exactly what happens." He wasn't going to hide the fact he didn't want to help the people, was willing to let them all die without blinking an eye, that Donna's pleas were the ones to push him into actually doing something and investigating things a bit further.

Speaking softly, "How much access to the memories do you need?" He could guide Mina to the locked memories, but from there he wasn't entirely sure how to separate the good from the bad.

"What are you lot on about?! They're just flippin' dreams! It's just in my head. All of it!" So why was she so defensive about them? Because they were her dreams and she didn't want people poking and prodding at them. Thank you very much.

She wanted to run. Run and hide and pretend everything was a okay and she was fine.

"I'm sorry, but I think I want you all to go now..."

Bloody hell.

Mina regained eye contact with Donna. "Sleep," she said.

Once Donna was out, she turned to look over at the Doctor and Castiel, her expression half perplexed, half irritated. "What I can do requires some very specific information," she said. "Right now, Donna's still in control. In order for me to take over, I have to know what I'm looking for. The precise moment between what memories you want restored and what memories you want buried."

Castiel leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. "I have experience with walls holding back damaging memories, though I'm not sure how permanent anything like that can ever be. The more likely the person is to go looking for the thoughts, the more likely they are to break it faster. I wonder if she wouldn't be better off simply having them removed, if that's possible."

It wasn't the most ethical, perhaps, but after what had happened to Sam, he couldn't let Donna go through the same thing.

His eyes dart back and forth between Castiel and Mina, mulling over what they were saying. Castiel was right, the walls could never be permanent, just as what the Doctor was hoping for the walls he had set up were falling themselves. However, if he could find the specific moment to replace the barriers...

It meant she could never remember about meeting Rose and creating the metacrisis. For now, it would do, but if some strange way they come, they might have to rebuild said walls.

He takes Mina's hand in his own, and placed it on Donna's temple. Keeping his hand over hers, he moves to where his fingers touched Donna. Glancing over to Castiel, "Three minutes, if we don't do this in the next three minutes, we're going to need you."

And he looked back to Mina, "I'm going to expose you to the memories, but don't go further than what I'm going to show you, don't pry, don't get cocky, because I don't know what will happen if I expose you and re-expose Donna." He wasn't trying to be chiding or mistrustful of her abilities, just this was alot of responsibility on his shoulders.

And in they went, watching like a video tape fast forwarding - their meeting, the volcano Donna had talked about, meeting Martha and going to Donna's house, laughing in the 1920s where Donna manages to surprise snog him in the kitchen of Agatha Christie's dinner party, running around in a library and meeting a strange woman from the Doctor's future... The memories slow down to where the Doctor finds Donna talking to that strange fortune teller.

Here, he tells Mina, Go no further than here.

There would be no Rose, no meta-crisis, no meeting of Jack or Davros, no memories of saying goodbye on the beach. And if that's all the Doctor had to remind himself from exposing Donna to, then all the better.

Edited 2013-03-25 20:58 (UTC)

Mina willingly went with the Doctor. Which was, perhaps, the most out of control she'd ever allowed herself to be. And it was tempting, horridly tempting, to press further. She wanted to see more. All of it, really. Their marvelous adventures were beyond anything in her own life.

Sometimes, she was a bit more pirate than she cared to admit.

But she obeyed. And didn't press further. Instead, she started to work backwards on Donna's memories, bringing the good ones, the valid ones back to the surface. "As soon as I finish," she murmured, "have Castiel put the wall up there. For double protection. Then I'll get rid of this night."

Lying to a friend wasn't something Castiel would do lightly, even if he thought it was for the greater good. It brought up too much guilt and too many questions, but this was Donna's life and if it meant they could keep her alive, it was a line that he was finding easy to cross in this instance.

He sat patiently, watching and waiting for the three minute mark.

Donna's mind was a maze of memories and chaos. It was as though someone had taken a box of wires and cables and rammed them all in together rather than taken the time to fold them neatly. Her time with the Doctor, her childhood, her sense of self-loathing from years of being put down by her mother, the love of her dad and her grandad, her failed wedding to Lance.

The Time Lord consciousness was awakening, threatening to take over and burn out all the parts that were Donna and Donna alone. It was too much for any one human mind to contain, already she was beginning to burn.

Stop it... He speaks mostly to himself as he pushes forward, grasping at the feelings and knowledge that were so familiar, so him. He couldn't have them leaking out.

"You're going to have to work faster..." He mutters softly to Mina, becoming more nervous that this endeavor wasn't going to work and they'd be back to square one. "I'll hold it back as best as I can. Castiel, we're going to need you."

Her memories were so disorganized and so bloody loud that finding the leaked out Time Lord knowledge was difficult, but he was going as fast as he could to control it. To put stops in the damn as quickly as possible.

Even if she couldn't understand it, Mina could feel it. She wondered if her sense of time came from the Fae or from her Kindred abilities or from something far older. From Tom. From what he'd once been to her.

There wasn't time to meditate on it now, but in the nights to come, she would wonder.

For now, she worked faster, talking quietly under her breath to keep herself, and Donna, focused. But with one bejeweled hand, she gestured Castiel over. No bloody reason she could think of why they couldn't both poke around in there.

Castiel placed two fingers against Donna's temple and closed his eyes to concentrate. He could feel the thing that was threatening her mind and he pushed it back gently.

He thought back to the wall Death had built inside Sam's head and he knew his wouldn't be nearly as elegant, but he could do more than most other angels, because he knew what it should look like and what it looked like as it came down.

Slowly, he built it up around all the harmful things in Donna's mind, reverse engineering from what he'd seen in Sam.

There, that was it! The Doctor could tell things were coming together as everyone worked together to throw up the barriers to keep the Time Lord back. Under extreme circumstances, they could be let lose and she'll still burn, but with so many walls up, it'll be quite difficult for that to happen.

There'll be just a blank space in her memories of how she and the Doctor parted ways, and he'll think of something related to that later. But this? This was do-able.

Mina seemed to be reading the Doctor's mind. Perhaps she even was? Who knew? She'd never had a Time Lord in her head (or any other part of her thank you very much) before. "I'm going to rewrite her memories of inviting us to come here," she said. "Make her think that she was inviting Castiel and myself over, and I asked to bring along a friend. And I'll make her forget that we were here already. So when she wakes up, we'll just be arriving."

She glanced over at the Doctor. "Anything else that you want written in?"

"No, that's plenty." He'll manage his own damage control later. The quicker they could secure the barriers and return her as undamaged as possible, the better.

He hadn't used his touch-telepathic ability like this, and for this length, in a long time. Not since the eradication of the Time Lords, at least, so it felt strange and almost overwhelming. If Castiel and Mina are unscathed, then he'd consider it a success and not worry.

Finally, he removed his hand and cracked open his eyes where he found himself still crouched down on the floor between Mina and Donna. "OK?"

Mina quietly whispered her final instructions to Donna. It ended with, "And when you wake up, you'll think you just dozed for a few moments. And you'll be quite pleased that your guests were running a little bit late." Although, judging from what she knew of Donna, they might still get reamed out for it.

Her work complete, she sank down onto her heels. Her head was hurting a little bit. She'd never done such a long stretch of Dominating before. It was surprisingly taxing.

At last, she turned to the Doctor, nodding.

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