Hello, readers. I've decided to start cross-posting some of my fics from AO3 and tumblr over to FFN, so if you recognize this story most likely you've read it on either of my accounts there (Ray_Writes and raywritesthings, respectively). If you haven't read it before, I hope you enjoy!

-RayWritesThings

A Touch Out of Sync

The Doctor was walking out to meet the Daleks on their Crucible, and Donna didn't know what to do.

This was it. No clever tricks, no last minute plan. She could see it in his eyes. He was convinced this was the end for them.

Donna wanted to help, even if just by standing with him to the end, but something held her back. There was a sound, she kept hearing it and no one else did. It sounded like a heartbeat, but how was that possible? She looked back at the darkened, empty TARDIS.

It was the Doctor's voice that snapped her out of it again. "Donna! You're no safer in there!"

He was right, of course. Whatever she thought she kept hearing she needed to focus. Donna took a step towards the door—

And blinked, suddenly finding herself in an entirely different room. There was something squishy and a little bit slimy in her hand. The something was wriggling. Donna looked down.

It looked like an ugly, overgrown maggot.

"Oh my God!"

Donna dropped it with a shriek and stumbled backward several steps. It hit the floor with a wet squelch.

"Donna! Donna, don't panic!" said the Doctor, who was standing just in front of her and the creature.

"Don't panic? Don't panic? " She echoed. "What the hell is that thing?"

"It's alright, it won't hurt you! Just don't touch it again."

"Why was I touching it in the first place?" She demanded.

The Doctor didn't answer. Instead he bent down and scooped the thing up in his own hands, which were covered by a pair of large gauntlets.

"There we go. I'm pretty sure it took. We'll just put you away for now," he was saying to the thing. "Good work!"

"What took?"

He turned away from her. Donna frowned, looking about for someone else to hopefully answer her. What had happened to Jack or Rose, or the Crucible for that matter? She highly doubted wherever they were was part of it!

They were in a large and high-ceilinged room, containing large glass cases every twenty feet or so. The contents of each case was different. In fact, each was designed like a habitat in a zoo — although the habitats and creatures she could see were like nothing on Earth!

"Where are we? What just happened?" She was holding the hand that the creature had been in slightly away from herself. There wasn't any slime left on it but to her it still just seemed so dirty.

"We're in the TARDIS."

Donna blinked. "What? This looks nothing like it."

"You think you've seen everywhere on the TARDIS?" Spaceman scoffed. "The Old Girl's practically limitless. Even I haven't seen it all."

He crouched in front of one of the cases closest to her and opened a small hatch, reaching in to place the thing inside.

"What happened to the others? The Daleks? And what the hell is that thing?"

He'd set it down now, allowing Donna to get another look at the ugly, vaguely slimy sort of creature. It had fangs. She watched it wriggle on the floor of its habitat in disgust.

"It's called a memory worm."

"A what?"

"A memory worm."

"Why is it called that?"

The Doctor shut the hatch and stripped off his gauntlets. He dropped them in a bin sitting to the side of the case, then turned to her and seized her by the shoulders.

"What do you remember last?"

Donna blinked under the intense stare he was fixing her with, but answered, "We were on the TARDIS. The Daleks had brought it up to the Crucible and they wanted us to come out. I was just leaving — and then I was here."

"That's it? That's all you remember?" He checked.

"Yeah. What's going on?"

"How's your head?" He asked instead.

"You mean apart from bloody confused?"

"No, but — it's not hurting?"

"No. Why would it be?"

For some reason her answer caused the Doctor to smile, the soft, warm kind that seemed to lift the heavy burdens of his past away for a moment. He pulled her into a hug, which Donna didn't exactly object to, even if she didn't understand why he was doing it or why he was holding her so tightly.

"No reason," he murmured into her hair. "No reason at all."

Was he crying?

"Doctor, what is going on?" She demanded again. "What are we doing in here? And how'd we get here?"

"We walked."

"Oi, don't get cheeky," she snapped, pulling out of his arms. That at least got him grinning. "I don't even remember getting here so when the hell did that happen?"

"Donna…" the Doctor scrubbed a hand over his cheek, seeming very reluctant to continue. "Maybe you should sit down."

She tensed. "Why? What happened? Where are the others? Are Jack and Rose okay?"

"They're fine," he quickly assured, already leading her away from the case with its slimy overgrown maggot. He'd taken her left hand in his and placed his other hand at the small of her back to guide her over to a bench set back against the wall. Donna was too confused to complain about him getting touchy.

"But where are they?"

"Back home. Everyone's back home, even the Earth. All the other planets, too."

"What, seriously?"

The Doctor nodded.

"But they can't have. That doesn't make any sense. I — how did I miss this one?" Donna was at a total loss.

"You didn't." Now his expression was solemn even as he tried to keep smiling for her. "You were right there for all of it, Donna, and I wish more than anything you could remember how brilliant you were. You saved us all." He spoke so earnestly, practically beaming at her as he held her hands despite what he said making absolutely no sense at all. Even if she had managed to do something to get them out of that mess, how could she not know about it? "But you've had about the last hour of your memories erased."

Donna gaped. "How?"

"The memory worm. An invertebrate with a very unique survival mechanism," he rattled off, in lecture mode apparently. "The substance it produces to cover its body causes whoever it comes into contact with to forget a portion of their most immediate memories. Just removes them completely."

"And I touched it."

"Yep," he confirmed unnecessarily.

"Oh my God. Why did I do that? Why would I ever do that?"

"Well, you weren't too keen," he admitted, and Donna yanked her hands out of his grasp.

"You. You had me touch it?"

"On the bright side, touching it was enough. I was really hoping we could avoid the fangs," he told her.

She glared at him. "You erased my memory."

The Doctor sobered. "Donna, I had to. You can't ever remember what happened for the last hour. It would kill you."

What? "I don't understand," she stammered.

"I know. I'm sorry. So sorry, Donna." He looked nearly about to cry again to her alarm. "It was all my fault."

"Spaceman." Donna reached out for one of his hands again, waiting for him to meet her eyes. "Just tell me what happened."

"You saved us," he repeated. "Stopped the Reality Bomb, stopped the Daleks. Put the planets back. There'd be nothing left out there, nothing in all of creation, if it hadn't been for you."

"Are you sure you didn't lose your memory?" She nearly laughed. He wasn't making any sense! "How'd I manage that?"

"A biological human-Time Lord metacrisis," he rattled off, like those words in that order were supposed to mean anything. "You got trapped in the TARDIS. None of us knew why or how, but I suppose it just had to happen. Everything since the day we first met had been leading up to it, the timelines converging on each other."

"What do you mean?" Rose had said something like that, just a few minutes — or an hour, she supposed — ago. "You're talking, like, destiny."

"I'm talking exactly like destiny," said the Doctor. "I'm serious, Donna," he insisted when she scoffed. "The universe needed you there right in that very moment, so it made it happen. When you were in the TARDIS, you said you could hear a heartbeat coming from my hand, the one that I siphoned the excess regeneration energy off into. So you touched it and it created the metacrisis. Half-human, half-Time Lord."

It sounded ridiculous, but she had heard that heartbeat. It was one of the last things she could remember before being in this room with Spaceman.

"So what did that do?"

"Well, a lot of stuff, but the important thing was that it gave you access to my memories." Her eyes widened. She'd had the Doctor's mind in her head? "You used what you saw there to shut down the Reality Bomb, disable the Daleks, and free the rest of us. Plus putting all the planets back. You — Donna?"

She didn't answer him. She was looking out across the room, struggling to remember anything remotely like what he said. But it just wasn't there.

"Donna, are you okay?" It was only the urgency in his tone that caused her to turn back to him.

"Yeah, I suppose. Why did I forget?" She frowned, remembering the worm again. "Why'd you use that thing?"

"The knowledge you received from the metacrisis was too much for your mind to hold onto," he told her. "It was killing you all the while you were using it to save everyone."

"I was gonna die?"

"Yes." She'd never seen him look so grave. "The memory worm was the only way to remove the metacrisis while leaving the majority of your memories intact. You're still you, still here, still safe. Just lost an hour." He seemed relieved, even pleased with himself.

"The most important hour of my life, apparently," she said bitterly, looking away again.

"Donna?" He sounded so lost and confused. She glanced back at him.

"It's just, I did all that...and I can't even remember it for myself?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No. But I promise you, Donna, no one else will ever forget it. There are worlds out there, safe in the sky because of you. People living in the light and singing songs of Donna Noble, a thousand million light years away."

It all sounded so unbelievable. People across the universe knowing her name? She was nobody.

"That's not really the same though, is it?" She asked glumly. "It's just a story."

"Everything becomes a story eventually," he consoled her. "And yours is the best."

"But it's not really about me. I mean, anyone could have touched that hand and made a metacrisis or whatever, couldn't they?"

"No," he shook his head. "Not just anyone. It needed you, Donna. Your mind, your human ingenuity, your brilliance. I would've never thought of half the things you did, not in nine-hundred years."

"Sure." She shook her head.

"You don't believe me." He was pouting.

"Well, I've only got your word to go on! Forgive me for being a little skeptical," she remarked.

He perked up. "Oh, well, if that's the problem that's easily solved! Loads of witnesses. Martha, Sarah Jane, Jack, Mickey — they'll tell you!" The Doctor leapt up from the couch and pulled her onto her feet with both hands.

"What, right now?" She asked with a laugh. "Who even is Mickey?"

He paused. "Oh, right. You met."

"Oh. There's really no way of me getting those memories back?" She couldn't help checking once more.

"No." He did at least look appropriately regretful now. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright. Suppose it's better than dying." She tried to make her tone sound lighter than she felt, but the Doctor didn't seem to buy it.

"Did you want to wait a bit before seeing the others?"

She felt herself smile a little at his consideration. "Yeah. Actually, can we check on my family?"

He smiled back. "Whatever you ask."

The Doctor led her by the hand out into the TARDIS corridor. Donna was glad to leave the room and the memory worm behind. She didn't like the idea of it being on board much at all, even if it had saved her life apparently. But she couldn't help the resentment she felt towards what it had taken from her. A whole hour of her life she'd never get back, where so many amazing things had happened, where she'd finally meant something to the universe. Maybe she could believe Spaceman whenever he called her brilliant if she could still be like she was with the metacrisis.

Donna Noble, always missing stuff. At least she had someone to catch her up on everything this time.