Crossover | Search Engine

[eponymous_rose]

Title: Search Engine
Author: eponymous_rose
Word Count: 3894
Rating: PG
Characters: Donna Noble, Tenth Doctor, various and sundry characters from my Other Fandoms, much loved but so oft-neglected that they have attained mythical status. Guess 'em all and you get a cookie. I'll fix the tags up at some point.
Author's Note: Part April Fools' fic, part gift to the flist for putting up with me, part flaily anticipation of series four of Doctor Who. Mostly crack.



"Oh," said the Doctor, in a small voice. "That's probably not good."

Donna took a deep breath when he didn't elaborate, and carefully listed to herself the reasons why yelling at him, in this type of situation, would probably not be beneficial. By the time she'd managed to alphabetise said list, and he was still staring down at the TARDIS console without explaining further, she yelled anyway.

"Listen," she told him, with excellent pitch and volume control. "If we're in trouble, would you mind appraising me of the situation this time?"

He stared at her, wide-eyed; she'd probably been a bit on the loud side, then. "Ah," he said at last, with the good grace to look sheepish. "Well, it's just that the TARDIS seems to be-" And with that helpful bit of information, he trailed off, staring at the console again.

This time it only took a throat-clearing to catch his attention again. "No, wait!" he said, and waved his hands - definitely a bit loud, then; she'd have to work on that. "It's like somebody's controlling the TARDIS."

"Well, I should hope so," said Donna.

"What?"

"I said," said Donna, raising her voice, "that I should hope somebody's controlling the TARDIS. You, for instance."

He waved his hands again - she wondered whether he thought it made him look more impressive than it did. "No, I mean somebody else - some external and probably malevolent influence."

"Might have better steering," Donna said, and he shot her a hurt look. "All right," she said. "Bad situation; I get it. Where's it taking us?"

"The scanner's on the blink," the Doctor said, looking perfectly miserable. "But it's probably not good."

"I don't know," said Donna, forcing a smile. "Maybe there's some all-powerful nice sort of alien that would really like us to come for tea."

"Donna," the Doctor said, "I'll tell you this once and once only: as a general rule, all-powerful aliens with this sort of technology are never, ever nice."

"With some exceptions," said Donna, casting him a shrewd glance.

The Doctor sighed. "With some exceptions," he conceded.

Donna shrugged. "Well, then! I don't see what you're making such a fuss about - it's not like we can do anything about it yet, anyway. Have to find out where they're taking us, don't we?"

The Doctor gave another dramatic sigh, but she could see the smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. He glanced up, and it became a broad grin. "We'll make a traveller of you yet, Donna Noble."

"Thanks," said Donna, and rolled her eyes.

At that precise moment, the TARDIS rocked with the force of dematerialisation, and Donna found herself regretting the eye-rolling, as it set her completely off-balance when the floor shook itself out from beneath her. Eventually she realised that it must have stopped at some point, but she still had the round-and-round feeling, like she'd rolled down a hill, and the Doctor's face was swimming into sight, with a smile attached.

Donna felt she should say something clever, under the circumstances, but could only come out with: "One word, Martian Boy, and I'll do something nasty."

"Wouldn't dream of it," he said, and pulled her to her feet. "We seem to have landed."

"Got that, thanks," said Donna. "Is this the part where we find out where?"

The Doctor smiled, tight-lipped, and she resolved to soften her tone; he actually looked a bit shaken by the whole thing. "Well," he said, "we can either stay in here and hope we go elsewhere, or take a peek outside."

"It'd be sensible to stay in here," Donna pointed out. "I mean, it's like a fortress - we've enough supplies to last a very long siege. And whoever it is that's been pulling us around would just have to wait, then, wouldn't they?"

"That makes perfect sense," the Doctor said. "Siege is sensible."

"Good," said Donna, and they reached for the controls to the door at the same time.

They both kept well enough away as the doors slid open, and they both held their breath, waiting for whatever was waiting for them to stop waiting. After a few moments, Donna took a step forward.

"Er," called a female voice from outside, with an American accent, "I hope you've got security passes for this thing."

Donna and the Doctor exchanged glances. "Do you have guns?" she called back, figuring it was as safe a way to find out as any. The Doctor shot her a disapproving glance, and she shrugged, feeling vaguely as though she must have violated some intergalactic courtesy.

"Not personally," said the voice without missing a beat, "but I've got the FBI on speed-dial if you're feeling in need of having stern men in suits stare you down. What is this thing, anyway?"

The voice was getting louder; with a panicked glance at Donna, the Doctor grabbed her hand and dragged her to the entrance. They stepped out into an office building, and he locked the door behind him, already grinning in an appeasing sort of way as he turned to face the speaker.

She was an exceptionally tall woman, staring at them with arms crossed and a bemused - and faintly amused - expression. "All right," she said. "This is a new one on me. Police public call box?"

"Ah," said the Doctor, and his smile wavered. "Routine inspection?"

The woman shook her head, a glint of humour in her eyes that Donna expected wasn't entirely devoid of malicious intent.

"Special delivery," the Doctor hazarded.

"Has it been vetted?" the woman said, in the sort of tone that answers a question all on its own.

"Probably not," the Doctor conceded.

"Donna!"

Donna started at the sound of her name, spun round to see a dishevelled-looking man in a suit stomping up the hallway. "Donna!" He paused, and his gaze flicked over Donna quickly enough that she figured he must be calling somebody else. And then he caught sight of the TARDIS, and he blinked. "What the hell, C.J.?"

"It's a routine inspection of a special delivery," the woman intoned solemnly.

The man stared at it for a long moment, cocking his head to the side as though pondering something utterly imponderable, and said, "Oh." Before the Doctor could start in with another excuse, the man spoke up again. "Look, have you seen Donna? She has the notes about the thing with Hoynes, and I'm already half an hour late."

"They cancelled the thing with Hoynes last week," said the woman. "There's a new thing."

The man's voice was despairing. "A new thing?"

"Sort of," said the woman, and grabbed his arm. "Look, call security on these two for me, will you? I don't know how the hell they managed to get this into the building, but-"

"I'm on it," the man said. "And tell Sam I said no about the senator's dog." With that, he dashed off.

Donna and the Doctor exchanged glances; she felt rather like she'd just witnessed the only conversation to pass beyond the speed of sound. "Er," said the Doctor, "if we could just-"

"Is it some sort of magic act?" the woman said, grinning faintly. "Do you both just pop in and pop out again?"

"That's right!" said Donna, before the Doctor could answer. "Watch." And she grabbed the Doctor by the arm and shuffled him into the TARDIS, where he bounded to the door controls.

"Well," said Donna, watching the doors close. "That was weird. Seemed like Earth, anyway."

"Looked suspiciously like the White House," the Doctor mused, and Donna gaped at him. "Anyway, we're dematerialising again!"

"We are?" she said, just as the sound of the ancient engines started roaring again. "So those people aren't the ones controlling the TARDIS?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I doubt it, somehow," he said.

And, just like that, the TARDIS was roaring all over again, a bit less shaky this time as it came in for a landing. "Looks like they're getting better at it," Donna noted.

The Doctor cast her a long-suffering look. "Donna, I'd much rather they didn't have the chance to get more practise." He hit the door controls with more force than was strictly necessary, and together they stepped up to the doorway.

It took Donna a moment to make sense of what they were seeing; it was dark and dusty in the room beyond, and, to top things off, there were two young men hanging by their wrists from a pipe running along the ceiling, feet dangling a good half-metre above the ground. Both were gaping incredulously at the new apparition in their midst.

The dark-haired one recovered first, with a shaky but charming smile. Adaptable, then, Donna noted with approval; always a good habit to cultivate. Wasn't bad-looking, either, come to that.

"Hello," he said - another American, but with a cultured accent that seemed as out-of-date and glamourised as his neat suit; very James Bond. His companion on the other hand - fair-haired and, now that he'd recovered from the shock, glowering - was wearing clothes that screamed '1960s'; Donna found herself grinning at his Beatles-esque hairstyle. The dark-haired one shifted uncomfortably, rattling what sounded like handcuffs against the pipe, and smiled again. "You'll excuse us if we don't shake hands."

"How did you-" the other one muttered, with the hint of an accent, and shut his mouth again at the Doctor's grin.

"Er," said Donna. "Do you need some help?"

"Oh," said the dark-haired one, and stared up at his hands. "I expect they'll be back to cut us loose at some point."

"Good," said the Doctor, with an awkward sort of smile. There was a long silence.

"In about thirty years," the blond one muttered at last, and his companion rolled his eyes.

"Sunshine here's been like this all day," he said. "And most of the night. What he's trying to say is that we'd be very grateful if you could give us a hand."

"Oh," said the Doctor, and jumped forward as though galvanised. "Give us a second, then."

This dramatic proclamation was somewhat undermined by the fact that it took him a good five minutes to dig the sonic screwdriver from his pocket, but matters progressed considerably faster from that point on.

"Thanks," the dark-haired man said, rubbing at his wrists with another toothpaste-advert smile; together with the suit, it made him look like some comic book hero, the type of bloke with a name like Hazard Extraneously or Tread Lightly. Donna was somewhat startled to find that he'd shifted the blinding grin to her. "Gets a bit uncomfortable."

"I can imagine," she said, and carefully broke eye contact to stare around the room; it looked like some sort of storage, a basement or a cellar. "Do you make a habit of it?"

"Yes," the fair-haired one said with a hint of disgust, but his eyes were fixed on the sonic screwdriver that the Doctor was using to detach his handcuffs. "Ultrasonics?" he said.

The Doctor glanced up at the genuine-sounding interest in the question. "Something like that," he said, and grinned as the lock came undone. "Bit more complicated."

"Are you with Thrush?" the blond said without missing a beat; the accent was Russian or something similar, Donna noted, determined to make a start at guessing where they'd wound up this time. An American and a Russian working together during the height of the Cold War, then - she wondered whether the TARDIS might have been transported into an elaborate costume party or an alternate universe of some sort.

"Er," said the Doctor. "I don't think so, no."

"Believe it or not," said the dark-haired man, "He's not always this ungrateful. We've had a bit of a tough day." The blond rolled his eyes, and his companion elbowed him in the ribs. "It's always good to be rescued," he said, and he and the Doctor exchanged smiles.

"Now, what I'd like to know," the blond started, and the Doctor snagged Donna's hand.

"Sorry!" he said, and pulled her back to the TARDIS. "Love to stay and chat but, well, you know how it is." And he tapped the side of his nose. The two men exchanged knowing glances, and Donna rolled her eyes.

"Are you done playing at spies, or can anyone join in?" she said.

The Doctor cleared his throat and bustled her into the TARDIS. Behind her, she heard the Russian say, with a touch of humour, "I won't tell Waverly if you don't." The doors closed, apparently of their own accord, and the sound of dematerialisation accompanied them.

"Okay," said Donna. "What was that all about, then?"

The Doctor was staring at the console, looking distracted, and it wasn't until she cleared her throat meaningfully that he glanced up again. "I really have no idea," he said, and she softened her glare slightly at the baffled expression on his face. "I can't even begin to figure out who might- well, it looks like we're landing again, in any case."

Donna sighed as the noise of rematerialisation filled the room again, eerie against the still-dying echoes. "Are you sure it's not just some sort of internal fault? Wouldn't be the first time-"

With a smirk, the Doctor reached past her to half-heartedly toggle a lever; he seemed unsurprised when nothing happened. "No, I checked that first. We're on a very specific trajectory; something's pulling us precisely where it wants us to go."

"A nefarious plot to get us to pop in at the White House, and then unchain dishy men from basement piping," Donna said, deadpan.

The Doctor winced, and glanced up at her. "Well," he said, "it's entirely possible the two things are related. Or whatever this is has just been playing with us, pulling us around to prove it can."

"All right," said Donna. "But we won't get anywhere unless we go outside and take a look at what's happening."

With a sigh, the Doctor drummed his fingers on the console. "It's a stalemate."

"Not really," Donna pointed out. "I mean, we're the only ones being forced to act, if you think about it. Hardly seems fair."

The Doctor stared at her like she'd spontaneously professed her undying love for pepperpot-shaped aliens. "Yes," he said, "and thank you for that helpful information, Donna."

Scowling, Donna crossed her arms. "I was only-"

He held up a hand that looked suspiciously like it was about to engage in acts of shushing. "Just-"

"Look," she snapped, and he froze, "we're not in charge here - whatever's controlling the TARDIS is obviously in charge here - so why don't we just go along with it for now? Just go outside and take a look around and come straight back in if it's not safe?"

"That's what I was about to suggest!" he said.

Donna flung her arms in the air. "Then why are we standing here arguing?"

"Why?" The Doctor pointed at her - Donna resolved to break him of that particular obnoxious habit. "You were the one who-"

Thoroughly fed up, Donna reached past him and activated the door control. "Meet you outside, Martian Boy," she said, and stomped out the doors.

He came rushing up behind her, and together they stared out at a messy sitting-room, lit by gas, cluttered with all manner of newspapers and correspondences. The whole room had a sense of arrested motion about it, as though a storm had swept through and left just as abruptly.

The sitting-room, in fact, would have been totally still, like something out of a museum, save for the blinking figures of two men, dressed in the Victorian style, sitting in armchairs directly across from them.

"Ah," said the Doctor. "I don't suppose you know why we're here?"

"Impossible," murmured the one with the moustache, and glanced to his companion, who was squinting at them as though trying to process and categorise the impossibility of the TARDIS, like some human computer. Best reboot and try again later, mate, Donna reflected.

As the Doctor started prattling on in the way of excuses, she caught sight of something still more interesting than the bewildered gazes of the men - a set of bullet holes pocked the wall behind them, forming a rather patriotic if crude "V.R.", and quite suddenly a whole torrent of childhood memories came flooding back.

"So you see-" the Doctor was saying.

"You're Sherlock bleedin' Holmes!" Donna blurted, and found herself being scrutinised by the man with a profile that was becoming more familiar by the moment.

"Most people tend to leave off the epithet," his companion - Dr. Watson, it had to be! - noted, with a twitch of a smile. His eyes were still flickering to Donna, and she found herself quite aware of the fact that her trousers probably weren't what the well-dressed Victorian lady was wearing this year.

"I thought you were fictional," Donna said, and at the Doctor's sharp glance began to wonder if that was the sort of thing most people would find insulting. "Sorry," she said, just to be sure.

"Would you care for some tea?" said Holmes, with a tight-lipped smile. Watson turned to him as though in protest, but Holmes shot him a quick glance. "Whatever remains, however improbable, Watson."

"Sorry?" said the Doctor, who had been peering with some interest at the stack of papers jackknifed to the mantlepiece. "What was that?"

"It's practically his motto," Donna said. "When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." At the Doctor's incredulous stare, she shrugged. "I'm a bit of a mystery buff."

"I think we've been going about this all wrong," he said, moving on to contemplate a persian slipper. "We've been so busy looking for new possibilities that we've forgotten to mark off the ones we've got available to us in the first place."

"We have possibilities?" Donna said.

"Oh," said the Doctor, and grinned, "we have definite possibilities."

And with a hurried goodbye to the bemused duo, they disappeared back into the TARDIS, which, true to form, began dematerialising nearly as soon as they stepped through the doors.

"Wait," said Donna, though it seemed like a bit of a useless thing to say, considering they could be halfway to the Big Bang by now. "I mean, what are they going to think-"

"Oh, Holmes and Watson?" The Doctor glanced up, and Donna hardly wanted to admit the relief that flooded her when she saw the confident grin. He had things well in hand once more - long may it last, anyway. "Holmes'll come up with a perfectly valid and plausible explanation - utterly wrong, of course, but a good shot nonetheless." And the Doctor paused. "Well," he said. "Possibly not. You know, I've always rather wondered if Holmes could have benefited from a-"

"We're not picking up historical figures as passengers," Donna said flatly. "Doesn't that sort of muck about with the fabric of time?"

"If it did," said the Doctor, flipping a whole row of switches and buttons, and smirked, "then we won't have done it, will we?"

Before Donna could begin to wonder whether that even made sense, the TARDIS rematerialised - this time with something of a bumpy jerk before it landed, nearly enough to knock her off her feet again. She caught hold of the console just in case.

"Giving them a little bit of a fight?" she hazarded, and the Doctor beamed.

"We've nearly broken free," he said. "We don't even need to stop here; we can just keep going. Give me five seconds to realign the probability coils-"

Donna felt a prickling at the back of her neck, and knew by the Doctor's furtive grin that he was just waiting for her to suggest-

Oh, she couldn't win them all. "Doctor," she said. "Why don't we just poke our heads out, see what's going on outside."

"What an excellent idea, Donna!" the Doctor said, and she smacked him on the arm, prompting one of his patented hurt expressions. "I was agreeing with you!"

"And you'll stop that if you know what's good for you," Donna warned, and opened the doors.

The effect on the Doctor was instantaneous; Donna only had time to catch a quick glimpse of two figures beyond the door - one all in greys and blacks, one in what looked like a blue evening gown of some sort - before he slammed the door control. His frantic motion was somewhat attenuated by the fact that the doors themselves took a good ten seconds to close, but once they did, he heaved an audible sigh of relief.

"Are they the ones responsible, then?" Donna said, when she trusted her voice to come out without squeaking.

"Them? Oh, no. They just don't much like me." The Doctor combed a hand through his hair, then grinned. "They think I'm a vehicle for Time."

"Ah," said Donna. "Are you?"

The Doctor was already distracted, rewiring and pulling bits and bobs from under the console as the dematerialisation started up again. "I think we all are," he muttered, then gave a victorious cry. "That's done it!"

"What's done what?"

Straightening, the Doctor dusted off the knees of his trousers, affecting a smug look. "I," he said, "have broken us free."

"Fifty quid says you're the one got us into this in the first place," Donna offered, and he sighed theatrically.

"Oh ye of little faith," he said, and beckoned her over. "Last time we were on Earth, I decided to try and get us online."

"Online?"

The Doctor blinked at her. "You know. World wide web, Google, people with an aversion to natural light, that sort of thing?"

"Oh," said Donna. "I thought you meant something more-"

"Metaphorical?"

"Impressive," Donna finished. "Technologically speaking, I mean."

"The internet's fairly impressive," the Doctor sniffed, "all things considered."

"Thanks," said Donna, and rolled her eyes. "We quite like it, too."

"Anyway, I wired our connection to the drive system for power, and it looks like it managed to get itself muddled with the remnants of the old Randomiser." His eyes took on a glassy, nostalgic air, and Donna resolved to storm out of the room, explanations or no, if he started reminiscing. "Looks like we wound up following some website's set of links to whatever the TARDIS judged as the nearest logical coordinates."

Donna grinned. "We've been surfing the internet in a time machine?"

"Something like that." And the Doctor smiled back, patting the console fondly. "The old girl managed to find us approximations for each website."

"Pretty good browser, then," Donna conceded. "But the tech support probably leaves a bit to be desired."

The Doctor scowled at her, and she had to fight down a juvenile urge to stick her tongue out at him in reply. "Anyway," he said, "we've fixed our problem. We're free as air now, to go where we like."

Donna grinned, leaned back against the console. "You know, it's really lucky we found the website we did. I mean, imagine if the TARDIS had come across a porn site-"

Clearing his throat, the Doctor set the TARDIS into motion. "Some things are best not pondered," he said.

Comments

Hungry for cookies. :D

[wheresmycow.livejournal.com]

Oh, Ilya! *hearts*

(Also, that first bit sounds like The West Wing. Never really watched that show, though.)

[meddow.livejournal.com]

OMG a West Wing/Doctor Who crossover, complete with Josh yelling 'Donna'! (I have this thing, every time I read the name 'Donna' I always hear Josh Lyman yelling it in my head). I adore you!

Forgive my fannish ignorance, but what are the two blokes tied up from?

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Teehee !!

So guessing games. Don't know the first Fandom, but I guess West Wing from the context; The Man From U.N.C.L.E.; Sherlock Holmes; Sapphire and Steel ?

[magicallaw.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what the other fandoms are, but you've made me rather excited about Ten 'n' Donna this evening. :)

[amaresu]

I got West Wing, Sherlock Holmes, and Sapphire and Steel. I could hazard a guess at the other one, but it'd probably be wrong.

This was fun. Very nice.

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

I love this. It's hilarious and yet completely plausible as a Who scenario. I'm a bit sad that we didn't get to see the Doctor and Steel have a chat, though.

some comic book hero, the type of bloke with a name like Hazard Extraneously or Tread Lightly

Heeee!

"We've been surfing the internet in a time machine?"

*grins*

[scarletsherlock.livejournal.com]

OH. MY. GOD. This was complete and total WIN. Surfing the internet in the TArdis!! This has got me so excited for tonight...YAY.

Holmes, as a companion?? *dies at the very thought of how awesome that would be*

[settiai]

Hee! This was brilliant.

Though it probably says a bit about my multi-fannish ways that I recognized all of the fandoms. :-P

[wiccagirl24.livejournal.com]

CJ! Donna and the Doctor meeting CJ! You win at life!

Josh just shrugging and asking about Donna, that's perfect. I can see it. (plus I laugh ever harder, knowing what a WW geek David is. Have you seen the WW challenge show?)

fair-haired and, now that he'd recovered from the shock, glowering

Oh! Oh! My Illya!!!!!

"You'll excuse us if we don't shake hands."

That is one hundred percent perfect Napoleon!

"A nefarious plot to get us to pop in at the White House, and then unchain dishy men from basement piping,"

Can that be my life? Because CJ and Illya are the loves of my life.

"Holmes'll come up with a perfectly valid and plausible explanation - utterly wrong, of course, but a good shot nonetheless."

Ha!

"Them? Oh, no. They just don't much like me." The Doctor combed a hand through his hair, then grinned. "They think I'm a vehicle for Time."

I'm dying with the squeeing here.

Brilliant!

And oddly, much what a travel through my web browser would look like.

[seularen.livejournal.com]

ZOMG west wing crossover! holmes crossover! this was seriously less cracktastic than I originally thought it was going to be. plus, brilliant one-liners in there.

[eers.livejournal.com]

This. Was. Utter. Brilliance.

I don't know half the fandoms you put in, or maybe I do, but blame it either on the late hour or on the fact that I read it in a very short span of time, being in a hurry and all that... Oh, you don't want to know all that.

Fact is, you're brilliant. :D

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Hi! I just wanted to tell you that I thought this was totally cute. Particularly the part with Napoleon and Illya.