BOVVERED

A/N: If you haven't seen "Journey's End" or "Comic Relief" this story will make no sense.

Summary: The Tenth Doctor wipes out Donna's memories of what happened, but with some interesting results.

Disclaimer: As usual, I don't own anything. If I did, "Journey's End" might have gone a little differently, especially for Donna Noble.

"Oh, Donna Noble…I am so sorry, but we had the best of times" the Doctor was saying, holding her in his arms, as he added, "the best."

He touched her temple, regressing her memories of him. As he set the TARDIS for Earth in the old universe Rose had been in, the Doctor looked at the unconscious companion and his eyes were sad.

When they reached Earth in Present Day London, Donna woke up.

"You shouldn't be awake…" the Doctor muttered.

"Really?" Donna queried. "Why d'you say that, eh, space man?"

"Space man?" the Doctor asked. He knew Donna could be cheeky, but his instincts told him something had gone wrong.

"Yeah," Donna said, "we're in outer space, or at least we were, an' you are alien boy, an' that means you are a space man, and…" she paused a moment and asked, "are you bovvered? Cause I know I'm bovvered." The Doctor stared at her, wondering what madness was gripping her as her words were even faster and more strung together than when she had the Time Lord's constant memories.

"I'm taking you home," the Doctor declared.

"Home?" Donna echoed. "I am home. I mean, this is my home, don't you know an' I don't understandwhyyou'dbetakin'mehomewhenthisismyhomewhichisratherredundant isn't it, redundant boy?"

"'Redundant boy?'" the Doctor asked. "What's gotten into you?"

"Well one might say recursion or some other such nonsense, but not me, no, not me," Donna replied, smiling cheekily at the Doctor. Before he could respond, she asked, "May I ask a question?"

"What?" the Doctor wondered aloud.

"You're a Time Lord, right?" Donna queried, jerking her head from side to side.

The Doctor fixed her with a penetrating stare as he said, "You're not supposed to remember that."

Donna went on, oblivious to the Doctor's worried expression. "If you're a Lord of Time, an' you control it and all that, how come you didn't see this coming? I mean, come on, this metacrisis thing and the clone thing and leaving the love of your life for the second time and all of that. I mean, you can't see the future, an' why not? Seems like every bein' that can see the future can't see the future! Kinda like sayin' that the TARDIS here is gonna hit a black hole next Tuesday, but you can't tell the exact hour, or the exact minute, or how it's gonna hit it, or whether it's gonna be sucked inside, or whether you an' your girlfriend du jour are gonna escape, so you're just sayin' you're your ship is gonna hit something and it's in danger which, from traveling with you, any moron could tell. How lame is that…?"

"Donna…" the Doctor was saying warningly.

"Or my personal favorite: you leave the love of your life with a facsimile of you in another universe but you don't leave them with any defenses against the aliens who are probably gonna invade every other shag…" Donna said.

"Donna…" the Doctor emphasized more urgently, growing annoyed.

"…I mean, it's a wonder you didn't put good ole' monkey boy in with only his undies. And you could have wiped his memories, too, rather than have him probably reminisce forever to Rose and company about the 'good old days' traveling around time and space…." Donna went on, crossing her arms.

"DONNA…!" the Doctor was saying as he rapidly shifted from annoyed to exasperated. He then became angry as he echoed, "'Monkey boy?'"

"Yeah," Donna replied, adding, "I saw you naked remember? Your arms have more hair than two huge apes put together."

The Doctor was sputtering, then he recovered, saying, "I have never had a companion who was more insolent than you, Donna Noble! I was going to say how wonderful it was, being with you, but now I'm not so sure."

He opened the TARDIS door as he approached Donna's mother's house, saying, "Next stop: Grandpa's house. Don't hit the door on your way out."

"Oh, someone's bovvered, are they?" Donna challenged. "Well, I'm not going! You really need someone to look after you, and I'm not just taking off without so much as a by your leave, especially since, although you may have gotten rid of the Daleks in Rose's universe, they're probably like cockroaches in this one where you never quite see the last of them, so you need help getting rid of them. By the way, ever think of building a huge Dalek motel so that you can…"

"Stop! Stop! STOP!!" the Doctor was saying, jumping up and down. Now I know what my companions meant about my endless prattling! He thought.

"Don't get your pinstriped undies in a knot," Donna told him. Before she could say another word, she lost consciousness via a jab to her neck by the Doctor.

XXXXXXXX

Donna's grandfather Wilf had been looking at the stars when he heard the TARDIS. He opened the door just in time to see the Doctor looking frantic, an unconscious Donna in his arms.

"HELP me!" he cried. Wilf needed no further urging as he helped the Doctor and Donna inside. He called for his daughter, and the two of them put Donna to bed.

The Doctor went into the living room and sat down, his face in his hands, saying, "I don't know what went wrong. She had absorbed a Time Lord's thoughts in a human brain. No human is meant to do that. I had to wipe her memories, but something went wrong! She started nattering on about being 'bovvered'. Do you know what that's about?"

Donna mother thought a moment, then said accusingly, "I know! There was this classmate she went to school with. Her name was Lauren Cooper. Dead ringer for my daughter in the looks department. They spent time together fooling the teachers all the time. Sometimes, Donna would be in school, and sometimes Lauren would be. I'm not surprised, given the time they were together, that she'd act like Lauren."

"Oh, that explains it!" the Doctor said, breathing a sigh of relief.

"So, what are we going to do about this?" Wilf asked, glaring at the Time Lord.

"I really don't know. She may come out of this on her own," the Doctor replied optimistically. I really hope she comes out of this! He thought. On the other hand….

The Time Lord touched Donna's temples again, commanding that Lauren's characteristics be removed. When he emerged into the living room moments later, he instructed the relatives not to tell Donna about her life with him, pronouncing the dangers of her mind being extinguished if they did. Both the mother and grandfather promised not to say anything and if the memories resurfaced, to treat them like fiction rather than fact.

XXXXXXXXXX

About an hour later, the Doctor was programming his next destination before taking off. He switched on the viewing screen, making sure that this time there hadn't been a relapse in Donna's original personality. He heard her talking to a friend of hers about temping and the like, and he smiled as the TARDIS took him to new adventures.

XXXXXXXX

"Yeah, yeah…" Donna was saying into the phone, "he left me, the idiot! Thought he could hypnotize me into forgetting stuff, but I outsmarted him! Reprogrammed everything before I left so that I would remember but my brain wouldn't be short circuited…it's dirty pool, I know, Rose, but…no, he doesn't know I also fixed the cell so that we could at least talk to each other. Oh, your lover boy is coming? Yeah, well, I'm sure we'll cross paths again, him an' me, and we'll be traveling….In the meantime, I could always do a sitcom with that Scottish actor that plays him, maybe take the show on the road….Yeah, take care of yourself. Bye!"

She hung up, a smile forming on her lips.

THE END