Friends or Strangers Part II - Chapter 5
Title: Friends or Strangers Part II - 5/12
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Characters: Donna, the Doctor (John Smith)
Disclaimer: If the Doctor and Donna were really mine, this story wouldn’t even need to exist!
Spoilers: Up to and including Planet of the Dead
Summary: The Doctor is feeling lonely.
Chapter 4
The Doctor really does try to pay attention to the film playing on the screen in front of them, but he can't. His fingers are entwined in Donna's hand and he can feel her tense during the more exciting moments of the film.
However there are also other moments when he finds her nails digging into his skin and wonders what she's thinking about.
“Hey, fingers!” he murmurs at last. “I’ve only got ten and you can’t keep one as a souvenir.”
He mentally kicks himself as the words escape from his mouth, inevitably reminded of the fact that it was his hand that caused him to eventually have to wipe her mind. However Donna doesn't appear to have found his remark to be strange. Instead she smiles and relaxes her hold. “Sorry.”
“Maybe this will be better,” he suggests, gently releasing his fingers so that he can slide his arm around her shoulders, drawing her slightly closer to him.
He momentarily forgets to breathe as she lowers her head to rest against his shoulder, and doesn't even hear his own response to her words. He can feel that his hearts are beating faster than usual and he waits for Donna's inevitable question about the sounds she's hearing in his chest.
When it doesn't come, he relaxes a little, before realising that she also never asked about the fact that his skin is colder than hers. Maybe she's just accepted that as part of him.
And at that moment he suddenly realises that he wants her to accept everything about him.
Looking down, he studies the profile of her face, lying against his shoulder.
He's always known there was something different about her, but it's only now that he's starting to understand the affect she's having on him.
He knows it hasn't always been this way.
Donna Noble in the TARDIS would have slapped him silly for even thinking about it. And he certainly didn't feel like this about her then. In fact, when she first appeared, he was appalled. All he wanted was time to grieve for Rose, but she interrupted that so thoroughly that he was bitterly resentful - at least until he realised how much danger she was really in.
However he knows what really changed his feelings and made him respect her was the moment she put herself between him and the Empress of the Racnoss.
He can't remember the last time anyone did that for him.
And yet, as he lightly strokes her upper arm, he knows that the Donna against his shoulder isn't the same as that woman he first met in the TARDIS. She has no memory of the things she's seen and done that made her the most important woman in the universe.
But she's rapidly becoming the most important woman in the universe to him on a completely different level.
The credits roll as he allows himself to realise this at last and his smile is warm as he walks out of the cinema with her. He wishes he could tell her, but he's not sure she's reached the same stage in their relationship, particularly considering that her memory of him is so more shorter than his is of her.
So, with more self-control than he knew he could demonstrate, he says nothing about his feelings, instead responding to her teasing about his fingers.
“Was it really as bad as you thought it was going to be?” she asks, and he can't help smiling again at the anxiety in her voice.
“There are other ways of getting out of dangerous situations than shooting people.” He sighs ruefully, running his free hand through his hair as the smile fades, thinking of all the times that he's stared down the barrel of a gun. “Of course,” he has to admit, “it doesn’t make for such a good movie if you have to spend time talking, rather than taking the quick and easy way out.”
“I suppose I can’t blame you for not liking guns. I’m not that keen on them myself. Well, not unless they’re there for comedic value - filled with water or something like that.”
He chuckles, but it's an effort. He knows just how much danger Donna has really faced, and he wishes that her comment about the water pistol had been more than just a flip comment. “Oh, they can have their uses, too,” he admits, adding curiously, “But tell me - what prompted you to want to see Star Trek of all things? I’ve never picked you as the type who’d watch that sort of film.”
She smiles. “Well, it’s your fault.”
“What? Mine?” He looks down at her with a mixture of confusion and indignation. “How can it be?”
Donna chuckles. “Well, you were the one who told me I should be curious and try new things. And Gramps said much the same thing. So I did.”
“Well, I can hardly argue with the combined wisdom of myself and your grandfather, can I?” the Doctor jokes, unable to hide his delight. “I do think it’s a sensible idea, though. You should always make up your own mind about things, rather than just let yourself get told what to think by other people.”
Donna arches an eyebrow as she turns to him. “You’re talking about my mother?”
“A bit, yes,” he's forced to admit. “She does seem to find it difficult to be flexible in her way of thinking, or to accept that other people can think differently.”
“Considering you’re too afraid to go near her, I don’t know how you understand her that well,” Donna teases. “But actually I’ve been doing exactly what you’re suggesting.”
“I’m very glad to hear it!” he says enthusiastically. “What have you been researching then?”
“I’ve been looking into the adventures of someone who seems to be called ‘the Doctor’.”
The use of his name being spoken by her in that tone stops him dead. He stares at her, a mixture of emotions fighting within him. He can see the curiosity and the confusion in her eyes and her next question is completely predictable.
“Do you know the Doctor?”
He thinks hard before replying, trying to decide just how much to tell her. “I know him as well as anyone does,” he says in the end, starting to walk again, hoping it will end the conversation.
“Well, I know what I’d do if I ever met him - run for the hills,” Donna declares, apparently ignoring the hesitation. “I’d be absolutely terrified!”
He has so many emotions swirling inside him right now that he can only manage a breathy laugh in response. “You wouldn’t, you know,” he says. “You’ve got too much courage for that.”
“I would!” she insists. “I’m always frightened of dangerous people.”
Dangerous.
That word makes him feel suddenly ill.
How can she possibly think that about him?
It's so hard to get the words out, and even more difficult to refer to himself in the third person. The only way he gets through it is to think even more than usual about every word he says, and even then it's an effort not to reveal his feelings.
“Why do you think he’s dangerous?” he asks faintly.
“I told you, I’ve been reading about him,” she says, her impatience obvious. “About how he destroys people’s lives! So many people have died when he’s around.”
“I suppose that sometimes happens,” the Doctor admits slowly, unable to help thinking of all of the people who have died because or instead of him.
It's a struggle not to shudder.
“…but that’s never his intention,” he continues, brutally interrupting her almost triumphant exclamation. “He tries to help people. He only ever wants to save them.”
It takes more control than he thought he had to continue to argue calmly and coolly with her, while at the same time feeling as if his hearts are breaking as she pulls out of his hold.
“Personally, I think it’s pretty strange how, whenever there’s something alien happening, he turns up.”
“He can travel in time, Donna,” he exclaims in exasperation. “Of course he - hey, hold on!” He stops as the realisation of what she means finally hits, turning to face her, his eyes narrowing. “You’re suggesting that he’s involved somehow!”
“Well, it’s all pretty suspicious, don’t you think?”
“No!” He can hear the suppressed anger in his voice and realises that he's trembling with fury. “Of course not!”
He's terrified that, in his rage, he will strike out at her so he keeps his hands jammed in the pockets of his pants and he can hear his voice taking on that deathly still tone that he knows he uses when confronting his enemies.
At the same time, there's a growing sense of disbelief inside him.
This can't be happening.
They can't be fighting like this.
“Why would an alien be interested in defending our planet?” Donna demands. “It’s ridiculous! It doesn’t make sense!”
No, it doesn't, he thinks miserably, but contradicts her instead. “He just likes it! He’s fond of Earth - and why shouldn’t he be? Most people here are lovely!”
“That’s meant for me, I suppose,” Donna snaps back. “Thanks a lot!”
“Of course not, Donna, don’t be so sensitive!” He rolls his eyes. “Not everything is about you, you know. I was talking about…”
“Oh, I know exactly what you were talking about!” Donna props her hands on her hips. “I suppose you think I’m too dumb to have worked all that out for myself? People are always saying that about me, but I never thought you’d be one of them, John Smith!”
His mind is full of the statements Lance made about Donna, and although he knows that she can't remember those moments - he took them away to save her more pain - it nearly kills him that other people must have made similar accusations about her, and possibly to her, in the past. He flinches as she accuses him of being one of the people who think she can't point to Germany on the map, disgusted that Lance knew exactly what Donna's weak spots for his poisonous accusations were.
“Can you prove that the Doctor’s as good a person as you claim?” she demands.
“Can you prove that he isn’t?” he retorts almost before the question is out of her mouth.
“Plenty of people think he’s not!” Donna waves her hands in a gesture of demonstration.
“Name one,” he demands, wondering exactly how much she knows.
“Mickey,” comes the unexpected and immediate reply.
The Doctor inhales sharply between clenched teeth at that name, and now he knows exactly how Donna found out about ‘the Doctor’. He can only be thankful that there were no photos of his current face on that site. Removing his hands from his pockets, he can't help folding his arms across his chest as if to ward off her accusations.
“I found a website he made and he hated the Doctor like anything,” Donna goes on, oblivious to his thoughts. “Thought he was responsible for every alien sighting out there. Blamed him for everything.”
“Mickey had reason to be unhappy with the Doctor,” he says slowly, unable to help thinking that that is probably an understatement. “But he did change his mind.”
“And I suppose he’s dead, is he?” Donna demands. “Considering that website hadn’t been updated for a couple of years. He did die in the Battle of Canary Wharf?”
That name.
He'd been expecting it, of course. As soon as he knew she was investigating both himself and Mickey, it was inevitable. But he still hasn't got over what happened there, and the fact that it was Donna who helped him heal at first. Now that they're arguing, he feels as if those wounds are tearing open again.
“He could be by now, but he actually survived the war on Canary Wharf,” the Doctor says, thinking of the last time he saw Mickey after leaving him at the park with Jack and Martha. “Last I heard, he’d found a new job,” he goes on. “That might be keeping him too busy to update the website you found.” He returns his hands into the pockets of his pants. “The Doctor’s not perfect by any measure, but he does try.”
“And I suppose I’ve just got to take your word for it?”
“It might be nice,” he can't help retorting.
“Yeah, well, you can bloody well keep hoping, mate,” she shouts, before turning on her heel and storming off.
He opens his mouth to call after her, but the sound won't come. His voice has been decreasing in volume over the past few minutes and now it seems to have deserted him entirely.
Instead, his eyes burning with unshed tears, he watches Donna disappear around the corner in the direction of her house.
* * *
Teaser for the next part
He momentarily forgets to breathe as she lowers her head to rest against his shoulder.
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Characters: Donna, the Doctor (John Smith)
Disclaimer: If the Doctor and Donna were really mine, this story wouldn’t even need to exist!
Spoilers: Up to and including Planet of the Dead
Summary: The Doctor is feeling lonely.
Chapter 4
The Doctor really does try to pay attention to the film playing on the screen in front of them, but he can't. His fingers are entwined in Donna's hand and he can feel her tense during the more exciting moments of the film.
However there are also other moments when he finds her nails digging into his skin and wonders what she's thinking about.
“Hey, fingers!” he murmurs at last. “I’ve only got ten and you can’t keep one as a souvenir.”
He mentally kicks himself as the words escape from his mouth, inevitably reminded of the fact that it was his hand that caused him to eventually have to wipe her mind. However Donna doesn't appear to have found his remark to be strange. Instead she smiles and relaxes her hold. “Sorry.”
“Maybe this will be better,” he suggests, gently releasing his fingers so that he can slide his arm around her shoulders, drawing her slightly closer to him.
He momentarily forgets to breathe as she lowers her head to rest against his shoulder, and doesn't even hear his own response to her words. He can feel that his hearts are beating faster than usual and he waits for Donna's inevitable question about the sounds she's hearing in his chest.
When it doesn't come, he relaxes a little, before realising that she also never asked about the fact that his skin is colder than hers. Maybe she's just accepted that as part of him.
And at that moment he suddenly realises that he wants her to accept everything about him.
Looking down, he studies the profile of her face, lying against his shoulder.
He's always known there was something different about her, but it's only now that he's starting to understand the affect she's having on him.
He knows it hasn't always been this way.
Donna Noble in the TARDIS would have slapped him silly for even thinking about it. And he certainly didn't feel like this about her then. In fact, when she first appeared, he was appalled. All he wanted was time to grieve for Rose, but she interrupted that so thoroughly that he was bitterly resentful - at least until he realised how much danger she was really in.
However he knows what really changed his feelings and made him respect her was the moment she put herself between him and the Empress of the Racnoss.
He can't remember the last time anyone did that for him.
And yet, as he lightly strokes her upper arm, he knows that the Donna against his shoulder isn't the same as that woman he first met in the TARDIS. She has no memory of the things she's seen and done that made her the most important woman in the universe.
But she's rapidly becoming the most important woman in the universe to him on a completely different level.
The credits roll as he allows himself to realise this at last and his smile is warm as he walks out of the cinema with her. He wishes he could tell her, but he's not sure she's reached the same stage in their relationship, particularly considering that her memory of him is so more shorter than his is of her.
So, with more self-control than he knew he could demonstrate, he says nothing about his feelings, instead responding to her teasing about his fingers.
“Was it really as bad as you thought it was going to be?” she asks, and he can't help smiling again at the anxiety in her voice.
“There are other ways of getting out of dangerous situations than shooting people.” He sighs ruefully, running his free hand through his hair as the smile fades, thinking of all the times that he's stared down the barrel of a gun. “Of course,” he has to admit, “it doesn’t make for such a good movie if you have to spend time talking, rather than taking the quick and easy way out.”
“I suppose I can’t blame you for not liking guns. I’m not that keen on them myself. Well, not unless they’re there for comedic value - filled with water or something like that.”
He chuckles, but it's an effort. He knows just how much danger Donna has really faced, and he wishes that her comment about the water pistol had been more than just a flip comment. “Oh, they can have their uses, too,” he admits, adding curiously, “But tell me - what prompted you to want to see Star Trek of all things? I’ve never picked you as the type who’d watch that sort of film.”
She smiles. “Well, it’s your fault.”
“What? Mine?” He looks down at her with a mixture of confusion and indignation. “How can it be?”
Donna chuckles. “Well, you were the one who told me I should be curious and try new things. And Gramps said much the same thing. So I did.”
“Well, I can hardly argue with the combined wisdom of myself and your grandfather, can I?” the Doctor jokes, unable to hide his delight. “I do think it’s a sensible idea, though. You should always make up your own mind about things, rather than just let yourself get told what to think by other people.”
Donna arches an eyebrow as she turns to him. “You’re talking about my mother?”
“A bit, yes,” he's forced to admit. “She does seem to find it difficult to be flexible in her way of thinking, or to accept that other people can think differently.”
“Considering you’re too afraid to go near her, I don’t know how you understand her that well,” Donna teases. “But actually I’ve been doing exactly what you’re suggesting.”
“I’m very glad to hear it!” he says enthusiastically. “What have you been researching then?”
“I’ve been looking into the adventures of someone who seems to be called ‘the Doctor’.”
The use of his name being spoken by her in that tone stops him dead. He stares at her, a mixture of emotions fighting within him. He can see the curiosity and the confusion in her eyes and her next question is completely predictable.
“Do you know the Doctor?”
He thinks hard before replying, trying to decide just how much to tell her. “I know him as well as anyone does,” he says in the end, starting to walk again, hoping it will end the conversation.
“Well, I know what I’d do if I ever met him - run for the hills,” Donna declares, apparently ignoring the hesitation. “I’d be absolutely terrified!”
He has so many emotions swirling inside him right now that he can only manage a breathy laugh in response. “You wouldn’t, you know,” he says. “You’ve got too much courage for that.”
“I would!” she insists. “I’m always frightened of dangerous people.”
Dangerous.
That word makes him feel suddenly ill.
How can she possibly think that about him?
It's so hard to get the words out, and even more difficult to refer to himself in the third person. The only way he gets through it is to think even more than usual about every word he says, and even then it's an effort not to reveal his feelings.
“Why do you think he’s dangerous?” he asks faintly.
“I told you, I’ve been reading about him,” she says, her impatience obvious. “About how he destroys people’s lives! So many people have died when he’s around.”
“I suppose that sometimes happens,” the Doctor admits slowly, unable to help thinking of all of the people who have died because or instead of him.
It's a struggle not to shudder.
“…but that’s never his intention,” he continues, brutally interrupting her almost triumphant exclamation. “He tries to help people. He only ever wants to save them.”
It takes more control than he thought he had to continue to argue calmly and coolly with her, while at the same time feeling as if his hearts are breaking as she pulls out of his hold.
“Personally, I think it’s pretty strange how, whenever there’s something alien happening, he turns up.”
“He can travel in time, Donna,” he exclaims in exasperation. “Of course he - hey, hold on!” He stops as the realisation of what she means finally hits, turning to face her, his eyes narrowing. “You’re suggesting that he’s involved somehow!”
“Well, it’s all pretty suspicious, don’t you think?”
“No!” He can hear the suppressed anger in his voice and realises that he's trembling with fury. “Of course not!”
He's terrified that, in his rage, he will strike out at her so he keeps his hands jammed in the pockets of his pants and he can hear his voice taking on that deathly still tone that he knows he uses when confronting his enemies.
At the same time, there's a growing sense of disbelief inside him.
This can't be happening.
They can't be fighting like this.
“Why would an alien be interested in defending our planet?” Donna demands. “It’s ridiculous! It doesn’t make sense!”
No, it doesn't, he thinks miserably, but contradicts her instead. “He just likes it! He’s fond of Earth - and why shouldn’t he be? Most people here are lovely!”
“That’s meant for me, I suppose,” Donna snaps back. “Thanks a lot!”
“Of course not, Donna, don’t be so sensitive!” He rolls his eyes. “Not everything is about you, you know. I was talking about…”
“Oh, I know exactly what you were talking about!” Donna props her hands on her hips. “I suppose you think I’m too dumb to have worked all that out for myself? People are always saying that about me, but I never thought you’d be one of them, John Smith!”
His mind is full of the statements Lance made about Donna, and although he knows that she can't remember those moments - he took them away to save her more pain - it nearly kills him that other people must have made similar accusations about her, and possibly to her, in the past. He flinches as she accuses him of being one of the people who think she can't point to Germany on the map, disgusted that Lance knew exactly what Donna's weak spots for his poisonous accusations were.
“Can you prove that the Doctor’s as good a person as you claim?” she demands.
“Can you prove that he isn’t?” he retorts almost before the question is out of her mouth.
“Plenty of people think he’s not!” Donna waves her hands in a gesture of demonstration.
“Name one,” he demands, wondering exactly how much she knows.
“Mickey,” comes the unexpected and immediate reply.
The Doctor inhales sharply between clenched teeth at that name, and now he knows exactly how Donna found out about ‘the Doctor’. He can only be thankful that there were no photos of his current face on that site. Removing his hands from his pockets, he can't help folding his arms across his chest as if to ward off her accusations.
“I found a website he made and he hated the Doctor like anything,” Donna goes on, oblivious to his thoughts. “Thought he was responsible for every alien sighting out there. Blamed him for everything.”
“Mickey had reason to be unhappy with the Doctor,” he says slowly, unable to help thinking that that is probably an understatement. “But he did change his mind.”
“And I suppose he’s dead, is he?” Donna demands. “Considering that website hadn’t been updated for a couple of years. He did die in the Battle of Canary Wharf?”
That name.
He'd been expecting it, of course. As soon as he knew she was investigating both himself and Mickey, it was inevitable. But he still hasn't got over what happened there, and the fact that it was Donna who helped him heal at first. Now that they're arguing, he feels as if those wounds are tearing open again.
“He could be by now, but he actually survived the war on Canary Wharf,” the Doctor says, thinking of the last time he saw Mickey after leaving him at the park with Jack and Martha. “Last I heard, he’d found a new job,” he goes on. “That might be keeping him too busy to update the website you found.” He returns his hands into the pockets of his pants. “The Doctor’s not perfect by any measure, but he does try.”
“And I suppose I’ve just got to take your word for it?”
“It might be nice,” he can't help retorting.
“Yeah, well, you can bloody well keep hoping, mate,” she shouts, before turning on her heel and storming off.
He opens his mouth to call after her, but the sound won't come. His voice has been decreasing in volume over the past few minutes and now it seems to have deserted him entirely.
Instead, his eyes burning with unshed tears, he watches Donna disappear around the corner in the direction of her house.
* * *
Teaser for the next part
He momentarily forgets to breathe as she lowers her head to rest against his shoulder.