Dr. Who - BBC New Series 28 by Beautiful Chaos # Gary Russell

forward, so the driver wouldn’t hear him. ‘Yeah, but you? You get to visit ’em, don’t you?
    You get to go up there.’ He turned to Donna and nudged
    her playfully. ‘You make the most of it, my girl.’
    ‘Oh, I am, don’t you worry,’ she said.
    The Doctor nodded. ‘Oh, she is, don’t you worry at all.’
    ‘I mean, I’ve seen and done some things in my time, Doctor, but nothing can compare to what you’re showing my little girl, eh?’
    ‘Hey, I’m not just a passenger, you know,’ Donna smiled. ‘I get to make a lot of the decisions about where we go, who we see, how quickly we have to leave again, cos he’s gone and upset someone in charge. With an army.
    And a big axe. And twelve legs.’
    ‘Ten legs,’ the Doctor automatically corrected her.
    ‘Oooh, all right then. Ten legs, and two arms that hung down to the ground. If you’re being pedantic. Which you clearly are. Tonight.’
    The Doctor grinned at them both. ‘Maybe we should take you with us on a jaunt one day, Wilf.’
    ‘No!’
    Both Donna and Wilf had said that together, then looked at each other.
    ‘It’s dangerous, Granddad.’
    ‘You go!’
    ‘I’m… I can look after myself. If anything happened to you, what’d Mum do?’
    ‘Kill you?’
    ‘Well, she’d kill him,’ Donna nodded at the Doctor. ‘I’d get away with being skinned alive. Probably.’
    ‘You said “no” too, Wilf,’ the Doctor said.
    Wilf looked up at the stars as they drove into South
    London, crossing Vauxhall Bridge. ‘I like to look, Doctor.
    I like to look, and imagine and dream. But the reality? All them monsters and guns and stuff? Nah. I prefer my ideas.’
    The Doctor nodded. ‘Very wise. Mind you, you’d be a calming influence on her.’
    ‘Oh I know. She does go on, doesn’t she?’
    ‘I am sitting here. Right here,’ Donna said.
    The Doctor was still talking to Wilf. ‘And there’s obviously something in her childhood about centipedes, but she won’t say what. Cos we went to this one place—’
    ‘Oi!’
    Wilf laughed. ‘Oh I gotta tell you about that. When she was about eight, her dad and I took her up Norfolk way.
    To the Broads? Anyway, she was paddling about when—’
    ‘ OI!! ’
    They both looked at Donna. She was pointing to herself. One finger on each hand. At her head.
    ‘As I said. Sat here. Listening. Not liking.’ The two men grinned at each other.
    ‘Later,’ the Doctor said.
    ‘Later,’ Wilf confirmed.
    Donna broke them up. ‘We’re here.’
    The cab pulled up outside the Society, a huge red-brick building built in early Victorian times, just off the main circus by Vauxhall station.
    Donna paid the driver (‘You’re coughing up on the way home,’ she told the Doctor). As the taxi roared away, she straightened her dress, checked her heels and nudged the Doctor, who was staring up at the night sky at the stars.
     
    At the new star Wilf had shown him last night. Which was now brighter than before. And there seemed to be another couple of stars that he didn’t think should be there…
    Donna nudged him again.
    ‘What?’
    She indicated with her head towards Wilf, who was gripping a lamppost, trying to take off his trainers and hold onto his carrier bag at the same time.
    ‘I can’t bend in this thing,’ she hissed. ‘If I tear it, Veena will knock me into next week. She does the whole martial arts thing.’
    The Doctor took the bag from Wilf and let the old man lean on him as he slipped his trainers off and replaced them with the dress shoes.
    ‘Sylvia bought these,’ he said to the Doctor. ‘Bloody things are three sizes too small.’
    ‘No they’re not,’ Donna said automatically. ‘You’re not trying.’
    ‘Blimey, when did you turn into your mum?’ said Wilf.
    Donna opened her mouth to retort, but the Doctor, sensing retreat was the better part of valour, grabbed both their arms and placed himself between them.
    ‘Someone’s dinner awaits,’ he said and they marched up to the