Journey's End reaction fic Gen, G
Jack sees her in Edinburgh, Scotland, of all places. He’s there with Ianto, Gwen and Martha, looking for evidence that a host of mysterious deaths are the fault of aliens rather than whatever nonsensical theory the local police have come up with. Torchwood Three has its own medic now, but Martha and Tom were here for a medical conference and the beautiful former companion had decided to meet up with the Torchwood team for old time’s sake.
But she’s definitely not there for work. She has a ridiculously large suitcase and hatbox next to her, and is wearing something brightly-colored and nonfunctional as she makes the transition from car to hotel. They can hear her from across the street, and she looks happy to be there as she snipes at her friends, all women similarly attired for a holiday, and the beleaguered young man trying to take their bags. “Oy!” She shouts a warning for him to watch her hatbox, and Jack has to hide his smile.
“Oh my God,” Martha whispers, but she isn’t smiling. Her tears, however, are understandable. She had the chance to get to know the Doctor’s latest companion, and from what she told him, the older woman was quite amazing about not being jealous and acknowledging Martha’s position in the Doctor’s life.
Ianto and Gwen look a little confused, but eventually recognition dawns. After all, they barely saw her for a few seconds on a computer screen, hardly the basis for instant recall, and though Jack told them much of the story, he didn’t expand on her fate aside from asking Ianto to put her on a “Do not contact” list. “Shouldn’t we say hello?” Gwen asks tentatively.
Martha and Jack stare at each other wryly. They both know how the Doctor changed their lives, and they’re fully cognizant of what had been taken from the woman. After all, Jack became a conman and broke laws across space and time when something similar happened to him. But they’re not ready to kill her by reminding her.
“No,” Jack says patiently. “And if you see her in the city, you’re not to let on that you know her. Or show your surprise that she doesn’t know you or Torchwood or anything that happened last year.”
Martha nods. “Saving the world- it sounds glorious, but it comes at such a price. Whether it’s the loss of someone you loved, or the pain you face or the people you love face- you can’t get away without wondering over and over again if it was worth it.”
“Was it?” Ianto asks, with a grimace as he thinks of beautiful Lisa and the occasionally noble motives of people at Torchwood One. “Is it ever?”
Jack laughs, but it isn’t a pleasant sound. And those listening to him know that he’s thinking of the end of worlds they haven’t been on and the battles they’re too young to have seen. “That’s up to us, isn’t it? It’s up to us and what we make of this world.”
Gwen smiles. “Well then, let’s go save a few people from whatever is killing them and make it worth it, shall we?”
They all stand there a little longer and watch the loud red-haired woman who is gathering a few annoyed glares. And for one second, they all wonder how no one, including Donna herself, sees what an extraordinary person she really is.
*
It’s Mickey next. The young man has his arm around a beautiful blonde girl that Rose would have hated on sight when he sees her walking along a regular old street in London. She’s talking on the phone and her only reaction on coming across the man she once saved is to huff her annoyance that she has to walk around him and his girl.
“Donna!” He says, before he can stop himself. The Doctor contacted them all- Jack, Martha, Mickey and Sarah Jane, warning them about what had happened to Donna, but for a second he had forgotten.
But before he can come up with an excuse, some place they might have met, he realizes she couldn’t hear him over her conversation.
“Who is she?” the girl he’s with asks, her lips pursed as if she’s not sure to be offended on Mickey’s behalf or relieved that he’s not chatting up some old ex.
Not sure what to say, he gives the easy answer. “No one.” Then he winces, hearing himself and remembering a time when he compared himself to a tin dog. “No,” he amends his remarks, “she’s someone quite extraordinary, but I doubt she’d remember the likes of me.”
*
Sarah Jane, Luke, Maria and Clyde are at a museum when they see her. Or rather, it’s only Sarah Jane and Luke that matter because they’re the only ones who’ve seen her before. While his mother actually got to meet her, one of the gifts Luke has is that he has a hard time forgetting something even when he’s been asked to do so. So he looks hard at her, and then at his mother, whose lip is trembling as she battles fierce emotions.
“Sarah Jane, what is it?” Maria asks, unsettled by her mentor’s loss of composure. “Are you all right?”
Clyde follows Sarah Jane’s gaze. “Who is she? Is she an alien?” He’s entirely too loud, and people nearby start looking around in fear. Aliens haven’t been a good thing for a while now.
Luke says no firmly, but doesn’t take his eyes off his Mum. She turns and looks back at him before leaning closer. His friends gather around to hear as well.
“Sometimes I wonder,” Sarah Jane whispers, “whether I should tell you to go home, and stop looking for aliens. Sometimes I ask myself if I should be warning you to run as fast as you can in the opposite direction if you ever see a blue box coming. And then I remember that I wouldn’t change those years for the world, and isn’t that the point?”
“One day,” she goes on, “You’re going to learn how difficult the really big decisions are, how difficult it is to bear the consequences even -especially- if you make the right choices, the only choices.”
Maria and Clyde don’t really understand, but Luke does. He looks at Donna Noble, at her red hair and the way she shows her greater interest in the man she’s holding on to than the art on the walls. He doesn’t see that strong core in her, that indefinable something that tells observers like him that this person has seen things, faced things, that he can’t possibly understand. His Mum has that something, but Donna doesn’t appear to have it.
Except she apparently does have it, only it’s buried so deep it may kill her to find it.
But as Luke stares at her, she feels his eyes and turns around. He has this small problem with staring at things or people he’s interested in, and while Maria and Clyde usually warn him, this time they haven’t been quick enough and he’s been caught. She inhales, ready to say something cutting, but Sarah Jane is faster.
“Oh hullo,” the older woman says with a smile. “I’m Sarah Jane Smith, a reporter, and these children are my son Luke and his friends, Clyde and Maria. I hope you don’t mind, but we’re looking for people we can question about the new exhibit.” Luke notes that she doesn’t mention the Mummy in the next room that they’re certain is coming to life at night.
Donna smiles, pleased to be quoted, and says something that makes it painfully obvious she’s not been looking around much yet. Luke isn’t so impressed by her, but doesn’t say anything.
There are marble steps leading down into the particular room they’re touring, and it’s begun to rain outside, so it isn’t very surprising that someone eventually slips. There’s an awful silence for a second as people vacillate between wanting to laugh and feeling embarrassed for the young girl in three-inch heels and stockings that now have a run in them.
Before anyone has had a chance to move, Donna is there. She has the young woman on her feet and is loudly talking about similar falls she has had. Before long, everyone has followed her lead and the young woman, a museum employee, is not quite as red-faced anymore. Still later, Luke catches the two women exiting the bathroom at the same time, and now Donna is not wearing stockings but the employee is wearing ones without a hole in them.
It’s then that he realizes heroism can take many forms, and some of them don’t need aliens or weapons. And that people can sometimes be the most amazing creatures in the universe.