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seriousficTitle: Whatever Happened To Donna Noble?
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,204
Characters/Pairings: Donna Noble, The Doctor
Summary: Journey's End AU. The Doctor's left behind many people. It's who he comes back to that's more important.
Donna hated waiting on benches. That and handsy vagrants were why she couldn't at all ride the bus. At least waiting in queue let her know she was getting somewhere. But the Doctor had told her to stay there, and come on, he was a time traveler. How long could he keep someone waiting?
Vworp, vworp…
Donna sprang up, sure the bench had left a Venetian pattern on her backside, which got enough attention as it was. She had just blown up a Dalek invasion, even if she might have to give it halfsies to the Doctor since she seemed to have a lot of his memories floating around (sometimes she was just surprised at lacking a chod, it was doubly disturbing). It left her so energized that she started talking right through the door, almost before it turned solid. Well, if the Doctor thought she was loud (she seemed to have a lot of memories of herself talking to herself, and why had no one told her she had such great cleavage?), then he could probably bloody well hear her over the parking brake, which she really had to teach him to turn off before some blooming alien took advantage of it to blow up the TARDIS and end the universe.
"Doctor!" she fairly shouted. "Where've you been? One moment we've got Daleks coming out our bottoms, the next there's two of you—oh, and you've got a girlfriend now, about time too, a man your age—then you're shoving me out the door so you and her and him can be alone, and Jack only knows what you've been up to." A saying from her (his) time pledging the Pheta Pheta Gamma frat in the 90s swam up. "Bros before hoes, Doctor!"
The Doctor popped out the door like a mouse out of its hole, mouth so open he seemed determined to outshout her. He linked arms with her and faintly spun her around as he dragged her, then tried to grab her other arm so they were side by side, catching the strap of her purse instead and pulling her by that like she was a dog on a leash. She followed mainly so he wouldn't break it. She'd bought the damn thing in Athens while the Doctor had met with Zeus, and she wasn't going back there again. With all the men fiddling each other, it was no wonder their civilization had gone under. You'd think someone would’ve invented adoption…
"Donna, Donna, Donna!" the Doctor chimed, realized he was holding her purse, dropped it, and took her hand. "We need to chat! Over tea? Fish and chips? Something chocolate? I don't care for chocolate, did you get that from me?, I'd hate to think I ruined chocolate for you."
"The guy's selling falafels," Donna said, using their conjoined hand to jerk the Doctor over to the stand. "I almost didn't notice. Is this why you're such a spaz, all this stuff boiling around your brain? It's like I've just watched a hundred years of quiz shows."
The falafel man, who'd gotten his business back up and running in impressive time considering the apocalypse, stared at them. Donna wondered what it was. Her hair? Her skirt? Her celery? Weren't they all in fashion? Donna tossed him some quid. "Oy! Your finest whatevers. Chop chop." He ducked under his stand. Donna turned to the Doctor. "So where'd Rose go? And your ginger twin?"
"Alternate dimension." The Doctor sighed quickly before taking a falafel and swallowing his angst, along with some falafel.
"Bummer, bro," Donna replied, seeming to be stuck on the Pheta Pheta Gamma time period. One of the frat brothers had had a MILF fetish. Christ, had the wee git been planning to hook them up? Leave her stranded in the 90s? With Blair? Crivvens, did he have plans on where to abandon every Companion? There was something in her mind now about Captain Jack and the home world of the Gravavoids, who had evolved to look exactly like dildos.
"Yes, but I really wanted to talk more about you."
"Talk about your deflection!"
"Oh, now you want me to cry?"
"We could go listen to Adele!" Donna said, once more drawing on the Doctor's memories. "Oh. Oh, I'm going to love her!"
"Listen to me!" the Doctor said, shoving his falafel into her hands. "This is very important!" He took the other falafel from the guy. "Maybe you should sit down, brace yourself for a shock."
Donna took a bite of falafel. "I'm braced."
"I just want you to know, before I begin, that I'll always appreciate your friendship and you're fantastic and I never said this because I thought you'd slap me, but… cor blimey, woman, your boobs…"
Donna slapped him.
"Right, yes, just needed to be said."
"With a cor blimey in front of it? What were you expecting me to have in front, a pair of croissants?"
The Doctor started to walk, physically moving on from the topic. Donna walked alongside him. It was a nice day out, aside from all the smoking Dalek stumps. The anti-tobacco lot were probably getting hives.
"I'll always appreciate our time together and… wellll, it's not you, it's me. Well, it's you, but it's my fault, it's always my fault. I'm awful. You're great. You deserve a Time Lord better than me. They're all dead, but if I run across Romana, I'll give her your number, you'd be so great together..."
"Are you dumping me?" Donna asked.
"No! Yes. Not dumping, more of a… gentle nudge back to…" The Doctor took a bite of falafel and talked with his mouth full. "Mmph mmf mmm."
Donna waited patiently. "These are good, aren't they? Probably hell on my thighs. Not that you've got that problem. Your belly's probably bigger on the inside, all the food I've seen you packing away and you've still got less hip than a chav."
The Doctor swallowed. "I thought this'd be easier. I a little wanted to just never come back. I'm pretty good at that. Getting worse with age. Seems I'm always returning to the scene of the crime."
"Maybe you're growing up." Donna held her fingers apart a finite degree. "Just a tidge."
"Thing is, I owe you an explanation. And the fact is, you can't come along. I wish you could, you're—"
"Wonderful, I know. Think I need you telling me that?"
"Well… yeah."
"Maybe you could pepper it into everyday conversation instead of saving it up for when you're leaving. This makes me feel like I've got cancer or some such. Like I'll never see you… hell." Donna turned and threw the falafel to some pigeons. "Just get it out before I'm all crying and rubbish. Adele hasn't been invented yet, I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I needed a good cry."
"Watch Beaches? Oh, the heartache."
"I love that you were serious just then." Donna wiped her eyes. "C'mon. Out with it."
"You're half Time Lord. Your mind will slowly reject my thoughts, you'll return to normal, maybe with higher marks on any given history exam, but I won't tell if you won't. The thing is, the way a Gallifreyan sees time… sees the ins and outs, what can and can't be, all the complexities, all the alternatives, all the details and all the big picture and all the things you people can't see, shouldn't have to see… I've been trained to do it. For you, just stepping into the TARDIS would be like staring into the schism. You remember the Master. How can you not? You'd know what it would do to you."
"So train me," Donna said, not crying. Not being rubbish about this. "It's possible. I know you've done it."
"That knowledge was lost with Gallifrey. You'd have to be changed on a fundamental level. If I tried, you wouldn't be Donna anymore. Wouldn't be my friend anymore."
"So I'm stuck here." Donna said down on the curb, her purse in her lap. She really couldn't get another one now. She wasn't sure if that made her want to clutch it to her chest or throw it in the bin. "Traveling through time the old-fashioned way."
"Is it that bad? Your family's here—"
"Oy! Have you met my mother?"
The Doctor sat down beside her. He put a hand on her shoulder, then his whole arm, slung around her like a rope, his thumb dangling by her arm, petting the downy hair of her skin.
"I'll come visit," the Doctor said, after a minute spent just sitting. Traveling through time the old-fashioned way. "I've gotten good at that. I don't abandon people anymore."
"No. They abandon you."
"You're not—"
"I know that, you… goose." Donna was too choked up to come up with a better insult. Everything else she thought up was genuinely mean instead of playfully so. "I just worry, alright? You do get into trouble. A man like you needs a temp watching his back. So you'll find someone else and bring her back here too and we'll see each other. And I'll pretend I don't envy her and she'll pretend she doesn’t worry about becoming me."
"I don't know if I should take on someone else," the Doctor muttered. His thumbnail scraped her arm. "Usually, when someone keeps hurting hapless young people, I stop him. I don't see him in the mirror."
"Oy! What did I just say? You need someone or your head's gonna get permanently lodged up the wrong end, hair and all. Tell you what, I don't care who you bring back. I'll tell her—let's face it, it's gonna be a woman—the same as I'm telling you. I wouldn't take back a single second. What else would you have me do? Build my resume? Watch the Beeb? I lived. I'll keep doing that, TARDIS or no. But don't make her a ginger, please, that's my thing. Now go on, get out of here. I need some time. Come back when… just come back."
***
The Doctor showed up soon. Two weeks later, in fact, with a woman named Lady Christina de Souza. The name was a bigger mouthful than she was, little hipless wisp of a thing. Donna was still moving into her new place. As it turned out, some of the Doctor's accrued knowledge included lotto numbers. They'd been in Brazil, though, so that had taken some doing. But Donna had returned, hale and healthy, right in time for a housewarming party to her own apartment.
"Surprise!" the Doctor said animatedly, while Lady Christina waved awkwardly. Donna waved back, accepted the Doctor's hug, and let him shove a cup of punch into her hands to toast with. "Never imagine where we've been, Donna! Just up and down and all over!"
It went on like that for two hours, the Doctor showing her everything on a camcorder he'd been having Lady Christina carrying around. LC, as Donna mentally dubbed her because there was no way she was a lady, excused herself to get some air. Then, two hours into the Doctor Attenboroughing his way through a fight with the Cybermen, sirens split the air. Donna was drawn to the window, even while the Doctor tried to reclaim her attention to him defeating the Cybermen with the power of love.
"Didn't know this was that bad a neighborhood," Donna observed, watching a paddywagon roll by.
The Doctor's phone rang. Reluctantly abandoning the home videos and guacamole, he answered it, said "uh-huh" a bunch, and finally hung up. "Lady Christina de Souza requires me to post her bail," he announced, patting his pockets.
"Yeah…" Donna calmly sat. "She seems kind of awful."
"No, no, she's… plucky."
"She steals things!"
"Oh, I came up with a great way to wean her off that! We take her to the Super-supermarket, where if she shoplifts, we'll have to go on an amazing adventure to make restitution. Also, I had better be on hand anyway, just in case. It's a convenience store the size of a planet. Could get dilly on Black Friday."
"You," Donna said.
"What?"
"Not we. You."
"Oh…" His hands in his pockets, the Doctor flapped the hem of his coat about before tapping his foot once on the floor. "Hasn't been that long, has it?"
Donna looked at him. Her fingers were locked on her knees, bunching up her leggings so hard that if they were glass, they'd crack. "I can't do this. Hear about all the… great things you're doing without me. I know about the Brig, I know about Sarah Jane, but I'm not that strong. I can't be the person you talk to."
The Doctor had been circling the room, examining her furnishings as if he were interested in them. He paused at Sarah Jane's name, his elbow on the fireplace mantel, letting it hold him up. "And I can't leave you."
"I'm not traveling with you. She is. Go have fun, poke something weird, run away really fast. I'll still be here. Next time you're in London. Just don't make me an obligation."
"I'm the Doctor. I don't have obligations. I have friends."
"Think I won't be your friend just because I can't see how stupid your hair gets each morning? Daft old git."
The Doctor ran his hand over the smoothly varnished wood of the mantel like he was memorizing it. Donna understood the gesture. The next time he came, it might be pitted and worn. "You know what I think?" He drifted over to her, kneeling down in front of her with the stiffness of an old, old man. "I think someday you won't want to come with me, even if you could. I used to think that was such a horrible fate to befall a person… not wanting to share in all the fun. But I don't think it'd be so bad at all, now. If you have a home, you don't want to leave it."
"This isn't a home."
"Not yet. Next time I'm here, we'll see." He stood, kissing her forehead on the way up. "I'd tell you to be amazing, but you don't need me to."
***
After that—him leaving, vworp-vworp-vworp--Donna didn't know what to do with the rest of the night. She was weary, yet not tired. No energy to do anything, yet her bed didn't hold any appeal. She tidied up a little, taking down the banner that the Doctor had put up, putting away the dinner he'd prepared—Indian food and a cake and lemonade and spinach dip with crackers. It got her a little misty, actually, remembering the breakfast service he'd brought her on her first morning in the TARDIS. A tray teetering with chalupas, "scientifically the most nutritious meal Earth has ever produced."
Ridiculous. She wasn't going to cry. Adele still hadn't hit the big time. She was going to unpack another of her boxes, have a glass of wine, call it a night, and consider this a day well-spent, as she had learned a few things about the time the Doctor liberated Pisces IVI. It was in 1881, so technically it was history, even if the Earth didn't know about it yet. Self-improvement.
She had just settled into bed, her nightgown somehow irritatingly silky against her body, waiting out the long gray interval until insomnia switched over to sleep, when she heard it. Distantly, though, so she just caught something like an echo. Vworp. Vworp. Still, she sat bolt upright, like a character in a horror movie waking up from a nightmare. "Doctor!" she rasped.
She fidgeted out of bed, put on her slippers, and grabbed her torch from the nightstand. She kept it there both because she knew how much monsters loved tinkering with the lights and because it was a bulky thing that would put a crimp in any home invader's hair. Switching it on, she gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the new light (and checked her room for Daleks), then headed to the front door. There was a knock before she was within five steps of it.
"Of all the nerve—big time traveler like you, yet he can't come at a reasonable hour, noooo--" She flung the door open and froze. Either the Doctor had had one hell of a regeneration or she had one hell of a house guest. "You!"
"H-h-hello," Lee said. He was grinning like a bigger fool than the Doctor.
Donna was honestly speechless. That'd never happened before. To distract from her distinctly slack-jawed expression, she pulled Lee into a hug and spotted the Doctor over his shoulder, doing his little 'well-done do-gooder' routine with himself, practically blowing smoke off the barrel of his sonic screwdriver. She ushered Lee inside—"One moment, love"—before closing the door behind her and running over to him. "Spaceman…" she started, her anger not getting anywhere near her voice.
"I know, I know, but give me a break. From my perspective, it's been six months. And you seemed lonely."
"So you shanghaied me a future boy toy? What's he going to do in the 21st century? Not any holograms to repair around here!"
"He volunteered," the Doctor said, "when I told him this was where you were. Besides, you can tell him everything he needs to know. I can't think of a better teacher. And honestly, what else was I supposed to do, just let you get into trouble?"
"Oy, you think he's gonna keep me out of trouble?"
"No, I think he's gonna be right there with you. Just go easy on the poor boy, will ya? He already almost got eaten by bugs. Maybe ease him back into your life of derring-do and doing dares…"
"Thank you," Donna said, giving him a firm handshake and, when that wasn't enough, an exuberant hug. "Now promise to stop worrying about me."
"Make a promise I don't intend to keep? Couldn't do that. It'd make me a bad role model, set a precedent. People would go around saying 'The Doctor lies'. Can't have that."
"You never lied to me." Donna broke the embrace, stepping away from him. "You just hoped it would last. We both did."
For all his boisterousness, the Doctor could be very quick to hide his emotions. It was a trait Donna understood. Better, one she shared. So they said neither 'thank you' nor 'you're welcome.' Just "I have to get back. Christina stole the Crown Prince's heart. He can only stay alive on a respirator for so long."
"I think she's a kleptomaniac," Donna chirped quickly.
"Possible."
And she went back inside and Lee was there, a bit perturbed that the computer wouldn't answer him when he asked it just what year it was. He couldn't take her on madcap adventures or show her things humans weren't meant to see for another thousand years, but he could hold her hand and fix her hot chocolate and wrap his arms around her at night instead of dragging her off somewhere new. He could make where she was someplace new. It wasn't quite what she wanted, but just what she needed.
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,204
Characters/Pairings: Donna Noble, The Doctor
Summary: Journey's End AU. The Doctor's left behind many people. It's who he comes back to that's more important.
Donna hated waiting on benches. That and handsy vagrants were why she couldn't at all ride the bus. At least waiting in queue let her know she was getting somewhere. But the Doctor had told her to stay there, and come on, he was a time traveler. How long could he keep someone waiting?
Vworp, vworp…
Donna sprang up, sure the bench had left a Venetian pattern on her backside, which got enough attention as it was. She had just blown up a Dalek invasion, even if she might have to give it halfsies to the Doctor since she seemed to have a lot of his memories floating around (sometimes she was just surprised at lacking a chod, it was doubly disturbing). It left her so energized that she started talking right through the door, almost before it turned solid. Well, if the Doctor thought she was loud (she seemed to have a lot of memories of herself talking to herself, and why had no one told her she had such great cleavage?), then he could probably bloody well hear her over the parking brake, which she really had to teach him to turn off before some blooming alien took advantage of it to blow up the TARDIS and end the universe.
"Doctor!" she fairly shouted. "Where've you been? One moment we've got Daleks coming out our bottoms, the next there's two of you—oh, and you've got a girlfriend now, about time too, a man your age—then you're shoving me out the door so you and her and him can be alone, and Jack only knows what you've been up to." A saying from her (his) time pledging the Pheta Pheta Gamma frat in the 90s swam up. "Bros before hoes, Doctor!"
The Doctor popped out the door like a mouse out of its hole, mouth so open he seemed determined to outshout her. He linked arms with her and faintly spun her around as he dragged her, then tried to grab her other arm so they were side by side, catching the strap of her purse instead and pulling her by that like she was a dog on a leash. She followed mainly so he wouldn't break it. She'd bought the damn thing in Athens while the Doctor had met with Zeus, and she wasn't going back there again. With all the men fiddling each other, it was no wonder their civilization had gone under. You'd think someone would’ve invented adoption…
"Donna, Donna, Donna!" the Doctor chimed, realized he was holding her purse, dropped it, and took her hand. "We need to chat! Over tea? Fish and chips? Something chocolate? I don't care for chocolate, did you get that from me?, I'd hate to think I ruined chocolate for you."
"The guy's selling falafels," Donna said, using their conjoined hand to jerk the Doctor over to the stand. "I almost didn't notice. Is this why you're such a spaz, all this stuff boiling around your brain? It's like I've just watched a hundred years of quiz shows."
The falafel man, who'd gotten his business back up and running in impressive time considering the apocalypse, stared at them. Donna wondered what it was. Her hair? Her skirt? Her celery? Weren't they all in fashion? Donna tossed him some quid. "Oy! Your finest whatevers. Chop chop." He ducked under his stand. Donna turned to the Doctor. "So where'd Rose go? And your ginger twin?"
"Alternate dimension." The Doctor sighed quickly before taking a falafel and swallowing his angst, along with some falafel.
"Bummer, bro," Donna replied, seeming to be stuck on the Pheta Pheta Gamma time period. One of the frat brothers had had a MILF fetish. Christ, had the wee git been planning to hook them up? Leave her stranded in the 90s? With Blair? Crivvens, did he have plans on where to abandon every Companion? There was something in her mind now about Captain Jack and the home world of the Gravavoids, who had evolved to look exactly like dildos.
"Yes, but I really wanted to talk more about you."
"Talk about your deflection!"
"Oh, now you want me to cry?"
"We could go listen to Adele!" Donna said, once more drawing on the Doctor's memories. "Oh. Oh, I'm going to love her!"
"Listen to me!" the Doctor said, shoving his falafel into her hands. "This is very important!" He took the other falafel from the guy. "Maybe you should sit down, brace yourself for a shock."
Donna took a bite of falafel. "I'm braced."
"I just want you to know, before I begin, that I'll always appreciate your friendship and you're fantastic and I never said this because I thought you'd slap me, but… cor blimey, woman, your boobs…"
Donna slapped him.
"Right, yes, just needed to be said."
"With a cor blimey in front of it? What were you expecting me to have in front, a pair of croissants?"
The Doctor started to walk, physically moving on from the topic. Donna walked alongside him. It was a nice day out, aside from all the smoking Dalek stumps. The anti-tobacco lot were probably getting hives.
"I'll always appreciate our time together and… wellll, it's not you, it's me. Well, it's you, but it's my fault, it's always my fault. I'm awful. You're great. You deserve a Time Lord better than me. They're all dead, but if I run across Romana, I'll give her your number, you'd be so great together..."
"Are you dumping me?" Donna asked.
"No! Yes. Not dumping, more of a… gentle nudge back to…" The Doctor took a bite of falafel and talked with his mouth full. "Mmph mmf mmm."
Donna waited patiently. "These are good, aren't they? Probably hell on my thighs. Not that you've got that problem. Your belly's probably bigger on the inside, all the food I've seen you packing away and you've still got less hip than a chav."
The Doctor swallowed. "I thought this'd be easier. I a little wanted to just never come back. I'm pretty good at that. Getting worse with age. Seems I'm always returning to the scene of the crime."
"Maybe you're growing up." Donna held her fingers apart a finite degree. "Just a tidge."
"Thing is, I owe you an explanation. And the fact is, you can't come along. I wish you could, you're—"
"Wonderful, I know. Think I need you telling me that?"
"Well… yeah."
"Maybe you could pepper it into everyday conversation instead of saving it up for when you're leaving. This makes me feel like I've got cancer or some such. Like I'll never see you… hell." Donna turned and threw the falafel to some pigeons. "Just get it out before I'm all crying and rubbish. Adele hasn't been invented yet, I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I needed a good cry."
"Watch Beaches? Oh, the heartache."
"I love that you were serious just then." Donna wiped her eyes. "C'mon. Out with it."
"You're half Time Lord. Your mind will slowly reject my thoughts, you'll return to normal, maybe with higher marks on any given history exam, but I won't tell if you won't. The thing is, the way a Gallifreyan sees time… sees the ins and outs, what can and can't be, all the complexities, all the alternatives, all the details and all the big picture and all the things you people can't see, shouldn't have to see… I've been trained to do it. For you, just stepping into the TARDIS would be like staring into the schism. You remember the Master. How can you not? You'd know what it would do to you."
"So train me," Donna said, not crying. Not being rubbish about this. "It's possible. I know you've done it."
"That knowledge was lost with Gallifrey. You'd have to be changed on a fundamental level. If I tried, you wouldn't be Donna anymore. Wouldn't be my friend anymore."
"So I'm stuck here." Donna said down on the curb, her purse in her lap. She really couldn't get another one now. She wasn't sure if that made her want to clutch it to her chest or throw it in the bin. "Traveling through time the old-fashioned way."
"Is it that bad? Your family's here—"
"Oy! Have you met my mother?"
The Doctor sat down beside her. He put a hand on her shoulder, then his whole arm, slung around her like a rope, his thumb dangling by her arm, petting the downy hair of her skin.
"I'll come visit," the Doctor said, after a minute spent just sitting. Traveling through time the old-fashioned way. "I've gotten good at that. I don't abandon people anymore."
"No. They abandon you."
"You're not—"
"I know that, you… goose." Donna was too choked up to come up with a better insult. Everything else she thought up was genuinely mean instead of playfully so. "I just worry, alright? You do get into trouble. A man like you needs a temp watching his back. So you'll find someone else and bring her back here too and we'll see each other. And I'll pretend I don't envy her and she'll pretend she doesn’t worry about becoming me."
"I don't know if I should take on someone else," the Doctor muttered. His thumbnail scraped her arm. "Usually, when someone keeps hurting hapless young people, I stop him. I don't see him in the mirror."
"Oy! What did I just say? You need someone or your head's gonna get permanently lodged up the wrong end, hair and all. Tell you what, I don't care who you bring back. I'll tell her—let's face it, it's gonna be a woman—the same as I'm telling you. I wouldn't take back a single second. What else would you have me do? Build my resume? Watch the Beeb? I lived. I'll keep doing that, TARDIS or no. But don't make her a ginger, please, that's my thing. Now go on, get out of here. I need some time. Come back when… just come back."
***
The Doctor showed up soon. Two weeks later, in fact, with a woman named Lady Christina de Souza. The name was a bigger mouthful than she was, little hipless wisp of a thing. Donna was still moving into her new place. As it turned out, some of the Doctor's accrued knowledge included lotto numbers. They'd been in Brazil, though, so that had taken some doing. But Donna had returned, hale and healthy, right in time for a housewarming party to her own apartment.
"Surprise!" the Doctor said animatedly, while Lady Christina waved awkwardly. Donna waved back, accepted the Doctor's hug, and let him shove a cup of punch into her hands to toast with. "Never imagine where we've been, Donna! Just up and down and all over!"
It went on like that for two hours, the Doctor showing her everything on a camcorder he'd been having Lady Christina carrying around. LC, as Donna mentally dubbed her because there was no way she was a lady, excused herself to get some air. Then, two hours into the Doctor Attenboroughing his way through a fight with the Cybermen, sirens split the air. Donna was drawn to the window, even while the Doctor tried to reclaim her attention to him defeating the Cybermen with the power of love.
"Didn't know this was that bad a neighborhood," Donna observed, watching a paddywagon roll by.
The Doctor's phone rang. Reluctantly abandoning the home videos and guacamole, he answered it, said "uh-huh" a bunch, and finally hung up. "Lady Christina de Souza requires me to post her bail," he announced, patting his pockets.
"Yeah…" Donna calmly sat. "She seems kind of awful."
"No, no, she's… plucky."
"She steals things!"
"Oh, I came up with a great way to wean her off that! We take her to the Super-supermarket, where if she shoplifts, we'll have to go on an amazing adventure to make restitution. Also, I had better be on hand anyway, just in case. It's a convenience store the size of a planet. Could get dilly on Black Friday."
"You," Donna said.
"What?"
"Not we. You."
"Oh…" His hands in his pockets, the Doctor flapped the hem of his coat about before tapping his foot once on the floor. "Hasn't been that long, has it?"
Donna looked at him. Her fingers were locked on her knees, bunching up her leggings so hard that if they were glass, they'd crack. "I can't do this. Hear about all the… great things you're doing without me. I know about the Brig, I know about Sarah Jane, but I'm not that strong. I can't be the person you talk to."
The Doctor had been circling the room, examining her furnishings as if he were interested in them. He paused at Sarah Jane's name, his elbow on the fireplace mantel, letting it hold him up. "And I can't leave you."
"I'm not traveling with you. She is. Go have fun, poke something weird, run away really fast. I'll still be here. Next time you're in London. Just don't make me an obligation."
"I'm the Doctor. I don't have obligations. I have friends."
"Think I won't be your friend just because I can't see how stupid your hair gets each morning? Daft old git."
The Doctor ran his hand over the smoothly varnished wood of the mantel like he was memorizing it. Donna understood the gesture. The next time he came, it might be pitted and worn. "You know what I think?" He drifted over to her, kneeling down in front of her with the stiffness of an old, old man. "I think someday you won't want to come with me, even if you could. I used to think that was such a horrible fate to befall a person… not wanting to share in all the fun. But I don't think it'd be so bad at all, now. If you have a home, you don't want to leave it."
"This isn't a home."
"Not yet. Next time I'm here, we'll see." He stood, kissing her forehead on the way up. "I'd tell you to be amazing, but you don't need me to."
***
After that—him leaving, vworp-vworp-vworp--Donna didn't know what to do with the rest of the night. She was weary, yet not tired. No energy to do anything, yet her bed didn't hold any appeal. She tidied up a little, taking down the banner that the Doctor had put up, putting away the dinner he'd prepared—Indian food and a cake and lemonade and spinach dip with crackers. It got her a little misty, actually, remembering the breakfast service he'd brought her on her first morning in the TARDIS. A tray teetering with chalupas, "scientifically the most nutritious meal Earth has ever produced."
Ridiculous. She wasn't going to cry. Adele still hadn't hit the big time. She was going to unpack another of her boxes, have a glass of wine, call it a night, and consider this a day well-spent, as she had learned a few things about the time the Doctor liberated Pisces IVI. It was in 1881, so technically it was history, even if the Earth didn't know about it yet. Self-improvement.
She had just settled into bed, her nightgown somehow irritatingly silky against her body, waiting out the long gray interval until insomnia switched over to sleep, when she heard it. Distantly, though, so she just caught something like an echo. Vworp. Vworp. Still, she sat bolt upright, like a character in a horror movie waking up from a nightmare. "Doctor!" she rasped.
She fidgeted out of bed, put on her slippers, and grabbed her torch from the nightstand. She kept it there both because she knew how much monsters loved tinkering with the lights and because it was a bulky thing that would put a crimp in any home invader's hair. Switching it on, she gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the new light (and checked her room for Daleks), then headed to the front door. There was a knock before she was within five steps of it.
"Of all the nerve—big time traveler like you, yet he can't come at a reasonable hour, noooo--" She flung the door open and froze. Either the Doctor had had one hell of a regeneration or she had one hell of a house guest. "You!"
"H-h-hello," Lee said. He was grinning like a bigger fool than the Doctor.
Donna was honestly speechless. That'd never happened before. To distract from her distinctly slack-jawed expression, she pulled Lee into a hug and spotted the Doctor over his shoulder, doing his little 'well-done do-gooder' routine with himself, practically blowing smoke off the barrel of his sonic screwdriver. She ushered Lee inside—"One moment, love"—before closing the door behind her and running over to him. "Spaceman…" she started, her anger not getting anywhere near her voice.
"I know, I know, but give me a break. From my perspective, it's been six months. And you seemed lonely."
"So you shanghaied me a future boy toy? What's he going to do in the 21st century? Not any holograms to repair around here!"
"He volunteered," the Doctor said, "when I told him this was where you were. Besides, you can tell him everything he needs to know. I can't think of a better teacher. And honestly, what else was I supposed to do, just let you get into trouble?"
"Oy, you think he's gonna keep me out of trouble?"
"No, I think he's gonna be right there with you. Just go easy on the poor boy, will ya? He already almost got eaten by bugs. Maybe ease him back into your life of derring-do and doing dares…"
"Thank you," Donna said, giving him a firm handshake and, when that wasn't enough, an exuberant hug. "Now promise to stop worrying about me."
"Make a promise I don't intend to keep? Couldn't do that. It'd make me a bad role model, set a precedent. People would go around saying 'The Doctor lies'. Can't have that."
"You never lied to me." Donna broke the embrace, stepping away from him. "You just hoped it would last. We both did."
For all his boisterousness, the Doctor could be very quick to hide his emotions. It was a trait Donna understood. Better, one she shared. So they said neither 'thank you' nor 'you're welcome.' Just "I have to get back. Christina stole the Crown Prince's heart. He can only stay alive on a respirator for so long."
"I think she's a kleptomaniac," Donna chirped quickly.
"Possible."
And she went back inside and Lee was there, a bit perturbed that the computer wouldn't answer him when he asked it just what year it was. He couldn't take her on madcap adventures or show her things humans weren't meant to see for another thousand years, but he could hold her hand and fix her hot chocolate and wrap his arms around her at night instead of dragging her off somewhere new. He could make where she was someplace new. It wasn't quite what she wanted, but just what she needed.
