An Officer and the Noble Woman, Part 42

[dtstrainers]

An Officer and the Noble Woman, Part 42
Author: dtstrainers
Paring: Donna Noble/Peter Carlisle
Co-Captain of this Ship: WhosInTheAttic, for getting me started on this, but all errors are mine alone.
First Mate: The lovely serenityslady has officially joined the crew.  Thanks for the support and suggestions, especially this time around.
Rating: PG for

Comments

[dm12]

Ooh, Jack hit the nail on the head, didn't he? Wow! That was perfectly said, and I loved his theory as to why he actually chose that face for his Tenth; not Rose, but Donna in her future. That may put his Twelfth in context, too, since that was another face Donna would know.

Poor Doctor, I really feel for him. It seems he's confronting his true motivations here ("I want her back."), yet finally realizes that it can't ever happen. At last, he's looking out for the safety and happiness of his best friend....

It's never easy to lose someone you love.

Well done!

[dtstrainers]

Our Doctor is terrible with loss. He can save the Universe time and again, but he loses those he holds dear too frequently. And again, he keeps trying to set things right until someone steps in to stop him when he goes too far. Luckily Jack was up to the task- I'm thinking immortality gets a bit dull without a hobby, so we'll see if the inimitable Captain Harkness decides to show his face in this epic soap opera again. When he takes over, I'm usually relegated to the back seat in this saga, where I might make the occasional suggestion, but otherwise I leave the driving to him.

As always, thanks for reading and for commenting.

[saaammie]

Since I love Jack getting a bit back against the Doctor, I can't complain about that!

[dm12]

Yes, he is terrible with loss, but I think this one hit him even harder, precisely because he loved her, never told her, and he only found out that she loved him as he was blocking her memories. Also because this was by his own hand.

I could hear the Doctor in Ten's persona here, actually, as he was being a bit wistful and emotional about Donna. Eleven sort of pushed it to the rear with his surface whimsical behavior. There was a very sad and regretful Time Lord under that facade.

Jack made a very important point about choice; the Doctor treats his companions like children. Their decisions don't matter if he thinks otherwise. Donna was a mature adult, and he violated her wishes, violated her mind. While she might have made good in the end, it's all about choices; she wasn't allowed, the one time she couldn't stop him.

Oh, Jack's comment about the "cradle" below was a good tension breaker. Quite amusing, and maybe a bit true.

[dtstrainers]

^^^^^All This

[dm12]

Both of those scenes had me in tears, I know. I was thinking of Donna when Adelaide said that, and we all know he needed her, but to have him so blatantly say it himself just really shows how utterly broken and desolate he was. You are right about how Donna had to leave. She would never have gone willingly, would have tried to find him if she remembered, so that left two ways. The second one really shattered him, and that was what we needed to see. How he spiraled out of control without someone to stop him. Dramatically, it was the only way, and of course we don't like it.

I did like it, it wouldn't be Jack without at least one innuendo to break the tension a bit.

[dtstrainers]

And in Planet of the Dead, when Ten said "I had this friend, once. She called me Spaceman," I cried. He missed her more than he was comfortable showing. There are many different kinds of love, and I'm so sure they both loved each other but were afraid to express it for fear of damaging their relationship. I've said it before, and I am positive, given the glimpses we had onscreen- Ten and Donna could have traveled forever as friends and nothing would have ever happened between them. But I'm also painfully aware that 'would never' isn't the same as 'could never'. And to paraphrase the amazing Serenity's Lady (from Donna? It's Me- http://serenityslady.livejournal.com/25028.html ), the two of them have enough baggage between them to fill a carousel at Heathrow.

[dm12]

He did miss her, very much, and her influence on him was much more than she ever would have known. His actions after her absence proved how much he really did need her. She was the only one who could stop him cold.

The bit Jack mentioned, about the look of desolation on his face as he was pleading to the Daleks to put him in Donna's place, even as Rose was standing right next to him said it all about how he felt towards Donna.

As for Donna, she begged so hard herself to stay with him, even if she died, rather than forget him and everything they did together. She promised him her forever, whatever it would be, and that's what she wanted to give. She knew she wouldn't survive longer than him, but she would never willingly leave him and break her promise. That was heartrending, especially when he did it anyway. He looked so dead afterwards, so completely gone. He couldn't even cry himself, but the whole universe was crying on his behalf (that's how I see the rain), and Donna's.