Disclaimer: I own a few pockets. And a wedding dress.

A/N: a little Runaway Bride AU that was especially written to wish tardis_mole a very happy birthday! (I know you hate it when a story isn't finished, but at least you are getting something for now)

Within The Pocket

Part 1

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The Doctor turned from the console, heartbroken. It had taken days to find a suitable dying star to send his message, and then even longer for Rose to turn up on that Norwegian beach to deliver it. But it was done; he had closure on their relationship. He could lock away his emotions and live on now. That's what he told himself.

At that precise moment, a vision occurred on the far side of the console to him. A humanoid figure clad in long white clothing shimmered in the low light of the TARDIS, and then just as quickly, it was gone.

"What!" he blurted out.

"Where am I?" a distinctly female, angry and frightened voice demanded to know.

"What?!" he cried in surprise, whirling around and seeing no one there.

"What the hell is this place?!" the same adult female voice queried.

It was then obvious to him where exactly she was. She was inside his head. "What are you doing in there? Get out of my mind," he ordered the voice.

"Is that where this is? Inside your mind," the voice tried to reason out. "Did Nerys set you up to drug me? This has Nerys written all over it. I knew she'd get me back; but to send me on this bad trip is pretty sick."

Now confused, the Doctor inevitably asked, "Who is Nerys?"

"Your new best friend," the voice snapped. "She must have paid you to kidnap me."

"Kidnap! I don't even know a Nerys, let alone followed her instructions," he retorted. "Where would you have been kidnapped from?"

"I was going ten pin bowling," she sarcastically replied. "I was getting married! I was halfway up the aisle and you grabbed me."

"Ah. That wouldn't have been me," he confessed. "It was the TARDIS."

The TARDIS immediately confirmed this state of affairs in his mind via their link and a low hum.

"Who said that?" the voice warily asked. "And what's a 'TARDIS'. It isn't even a word."

Wanting to calm the voice down, the Doctor explained, "TARDIS stands for 'Time And Relative Dimensions In Space'. It's the name of my space ship."

"No," the voice drawled in disbelief. "I can't be in a spaceship; I was in church."

So the Doctor walked over to the TARDIS doors and opened them, revealing the swirl of a nebula outside. "See. Space. Lots of it."

"I'm in space. Inside a head in space. This is bonkers!" the voice exclaimed. "It will take some getting used to. Unless I'm high and tripping. You hear of such things happening."

"No, you are not in a drug induced trip." At least the person inside his head was considerably calmer now and wasn't moving about so much. His next concern was identifying them and then getting them out. "I'm the Doctor. And you are…?"

"Donna," the voice supplied.

"Human?" he wondered. Since the probability of it being human was higher than any other species. It felt human-like inside his head. Although there were other beings with similar thought processes.

"Yeah," she answered. "Is that normally optional?"

"It is for me." To his relief, she seemed to easily accept that rather than freaked out. "But why are you inside my mind?"

She didn't have an answer to that, and fortunately he didn't seem to expect one.

Instead, he ran to find the nearest mirror. It happened to be over the sink in his bedroom en suite bathroom. Once there, he gazed at his reflection with renewed interest; peering intensely into his own eyes, turning his head to examine his ears, sticking out his tongue, and lifting his head to examine the inside of his nose.

"Ew! Gross!" the voice commented when he held up his arms to sniff his armpits. "Do you have to do all this in front of me?"

"There's no way around it," he griped back, "unless you decide to come out of there."

"I wish I could," she replied. "It's not exactly a picnic having to look up your nose and gawp at your orifices."

It was on the tip of his tongue to point out that he hadn't forced her to examine his behind; but felt it was best to keep that to himself. For now.

"And no, I do not want to see your bum, thank you very much!"

Okay, maybe thinking it had been a bad idea too. She could hear his thoughts. Hopefully it wasn't all of them. Perhaps he ought to try something obscure, like the Cryoptic Lakes of Napalasocomica.

"The what?" she questioned. "Is that a place in America?"

"No, a planet. You are very Earth-centric, Donna."

"Just get on with it, Martian. You'd spend all day looking at yourself in the mirror if you could. And stop bleeping me!" she loudly huffed when he waved his sonic screwdriver over his head.

"But I need to find out how you got there," he whined. He liked using his sonic screwdriver, and nobody had ever dissed it before. "There has to be a reason why."

Did she have an audible heartbeat? Or a visible presence beyond his iris at the back of his eye. This would need his stethoscope and ophthalmic mirror. Before he could do little more than turn to find his medical instruments there was an almighty "BAM!" to the side of his head, knocking him flying; with his face ending up hitting the side of the shower door.

"What was that for?!" he cried, rubbing his cheek.

The fury from her swelled up again. "Stop mucking about and get me to the church!"

"Okay, I'll do that," he acquiesced, wanting to desperately get rid of her.

After all, he didn't want to receive another blow like that again. He'd be a fool to encourage it. Or even goad her, just a little bit. Not that he intended to; you know, in the grand scheme of things.

"You're weird," she mumbled.

"How about I go to this church you were getting married in and see what could have caused you to disappear?" he offered. His sense of adventure was returning, and he wanted to make the most of it.

Partly to satisfy her curiosity, and partially to appease him since he obviously needed to be distracted from some very sad thoughts, she readily agreed. From what his mind was telling her, he'd been morose for quite a while, having recently lost a dear friend. Well, she could easily understand that. Hadn't her grandmother died fairly recently? She knew what grief was and how awful it was to deal with. "St Mary's, Hayden Road, Chiswick, London, England, Britain, North Europe, the Earth," she petulantly trotted out.

"That's very precise." Now energised, the Doctor rushed to punch in the coordinates into the console. "And off we go," he gleefully announced as he pushed and pulled the appropriate buttons and lever. The whole TARDIS shook, and he could easily feel Donna's fear. "It's okay. We 're flying through space to Earth. Nothing to worry about."

"If we manage to stay in one piece," she remarked.

He allowed himself a smug grin in reply. It wouldn't do to be too distracted as he materialised the TARDIS.

"Oi! Earthgirl here. What time is it?" she wondered.

Glancing at the monitor, he noted, "Five thirty outside. And she seems really reluctant to actually land anywhere near the church. Strange."

"Poor thing. She doesn't sound well at all. We've missed the wedding, by the way," she supplied. "They'll be at the reception. Oh dear! They'll be so upset that I'm not there."

"In that case, I'd better go and tell them you're safe." He quickly amended, "Well, safe for now."

"What do you mean?"

"Whatever it is that brought you to me, it wants you alive," he explained, "and that probably isn't good."

There was a pause, and then she suggested, "Then you'd better hurry up and investigate this. You'd better steer us towards the church hall next to St Mary's."

~O~O~

It was quite dark outside when the Doctor left the TARDIS and entered the church hall. Loud music blared out and several people were dancing. Everyone looked as though they were enjoying themselves. The person who wasn't soon made it evident to the Doctor.

"They had the reception without me," Donna griped. "I cannot believe they had the reception without me!"

"So I see," he murmured. His gaze took in the scene and was appalled on her behalf.

"Who are you?" one lone person eventually asked him.

"That's my mum. Sylvia Noble," Donna supplied.

The Doctor silently thanked her before answering the question. "Hello, I'm the Doctor. I'm looking for Donna. She invited me to the wedding. Is she here?"

"No, she disappeared at the church; did a little party trick," Sylvia bitterly remarked. "We've no idea where she is hiding herself."

"Oh." He couldn't think of an appropriate question to ask for a second. "Why are you still celebrating, then?"

A sour faced blonde woman stopped dancing with a man who was presumably the groom, judging by the way he was dressed, in order to add her two-pennyworth. "It was all bought and paid for, so why not?"

"Nerys!" Donna seethed in his mind. "Trust her to grab Lance when I'm out of the way. I bet she is loving this."

"Nerys, is it?" the Doctor tried to pleasantly ascertain. "Do you know how Donna disappeared."

"She was there one minute, walking up the aisle, and the next she just disappeared," Nerys answered. "We were expecting her to turn up at any minute dressed as a magician's assistant, but you turned up instead."

Was it caused by a hidden transmat? "Was there anything different about the flooring in the church?" he asked both women.

"Probably a secret trapdoor leading down to the catacombs," Sylvia retorted, "judging by how Donna disappeared. Rhodri caught it all on camera."

Deeply intrigued, the Doctor requested, "Can I have a look?"

Minutes later he had seen the footage several times. Donna holding on to her dad's arm, there was a golden glow, and then she teleported out of the church. The glow pointed to something other than a transmat. Instead, it suggested a substance of alien origin within her body.

"Okay, Spaceman. Tell me what you think it is," Donna ordered.

"Trouble. Deep trouble, and I can't understand why you have been targeted" he replied. "You're not important, you're not special, so why single you out? What sort of work do you do?"

"I'm a secretary. I work as a temp at HC Clements. They're a type of fancy locksmith. That's where I met Lance; he brought me coffee. I mean, they never bring temps coffee, but he did, every day."

The Doctor stared at Lance who had returned to dancing with Nerys. The man certainly didn't seem to be all that concerned about his fiancée. And judging by the quiet in his head, Donna was aware of that fact too. Anyway, if it wasn't Donna 'they' wanted, it must be something to do with where she worked, so the Doctor borrowed a phone from a man at the bar, and secretly used his sonic to scroll through information about the background of HC Clements as fast as possible. Within nanoseconds it revealed that the company was owned by Torchwood. Definitely alien involvement then.

"Who are they?" Donna asked when she saw the parent company name.

"An organisation to hunt down aliens; set up by Queen Victoria."

"She must have really hated aliens," Donna commented. "You don't just decide that sort of thing out of the blue. Especially when you consider all the scientific societies she encouraged."

"Yes," he mumbled.

"It was you! You're the reason why she hated aliens!" she proclaimed. "My, you get around."

He had to concede that that was true. "Nevertheless, we need to investigate HC Clements further."

"Don't forget to take Lance with you," she demanded. "He'll be able to help you find my body or discover its whereabouts."

"Do I have to?"

"If you want me to help you steer this body of yours then yes. Otherwise I'll do this…" And she immediately relinquished her hold on one half of his body, and he staggered sideways, almost colliding with the buffet table.

"Sorry. Been a while since I ate," he apologised to the woman who glared at him for nearly demolishing a load of food. "Might take some with me." With that, he grabbed up a handful of sandwiches and stuffed them into his pockets. "Now where's Lance? He can give me a lift."

~O~O~