Ending of the Hours (Book Four of the Bad Wolf Chronicles)

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"Is this what you were looking for?" the Bad Wolf called.

The Doctor tugged Donna over, seeing that she was trying to carry three mugs of foaming drinks in her hands. "That's it!" he cheered. "Oh, ho, ho!"

"I'd rather have a water," Donna said, eyeing the drinks distastefully.

"If I'm trying it, you are," the Bad Wolf teased.

"One, two, three," the Doctor counted off, and the three of them drank in unison.

The Bad Wolf blinked, looking down at her drink as she wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand. "That's actually good!"

"Lovely!" Donna laughed.

The three of them split up into groups, Donna on her own as the Time Lords went on their own. "You want to buy shukina?" a saleswoman asked her. "Or peshmoni? Most beautiful peshmoni in all of Shan Shen?"

"Er, no thanks," Donna replied, walking past.

"Tell your fortune, lady," a black young woman called from a tent nearby. "The future predicted. Your life foretold."

"Oh, no thanks," Donna replied, turning to go.

"Don't you want to know if you're going to be happy?"

"I'm happy right now, thanks."

"You got red hair. The reading's free for red hair."

Donna sighed. Did the woman really want to tell her fortune? "All right, then," she conceded, entering behind her.

***

Donna sat down, letting the fortune teller look at her hands. "Oh, you fascinating," the fortune teller breathed. "No, but you good. I can see a man. The most remarkable man. And with him a woman. The gold and silver goddess. How did you meet them?"

"You're supposed to tell me," Donna told her.

"I see the future. Tell me the past. When did your lives cross?"

"It's sort of complicated," Donna admitted. "I ended up in a spaceship on my wedding day. Long story."

"But what led you to that meeting?"

"All sorts of things. But my job, I suppose. It was on Earth, this planet called Earth, miles away. But I had this job as a temp. I was a secretary at a place called HC Clements - " An image flashed through her head, and she swayed a little. "Oh. Sorry."

"It's the incense. Just breathe deep. This job of yours. What choices led you there?"

"There was a choice, six months before, because the agency offered me this contract with HC Clements, but there was this other job. My mum knew this man."

***

"Jival, he's called," Sylvia tried to convince Donna as they got into the car. "Jival Chowdry? He runs that little photocopy business, and he needs a secretary."

"I've got a job!" Donna argued.

"As a temp! This is permanent. It's twenty thousand a year, Donna!"

"HC Clements is in the city," Donna retorted. "It's nice, it's posh, so stop it."

***

"Your life could have gone one way or the other," the fortune teller said. "What made you decide?"

"I just did," Donna shrugged.

"But when was the moment? When did you choose?"

***