Friends or Strangers Part II - Chapter 12
Title: Friends or Strangers Part II - 12/12
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Characters: Donna, the Doctor
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 10
“You see?” he says even before removing his hands from her face. “Not what you thought at all.”
He’s intrigued by the expression of deep thought she’s wearing and concerned by her lack of response.
“Donna?” he prompts gently. “What is it?”
For a moment she stares at the bed between them before sighing, her eyes still fixed on the sheets as she speaks.
“Which Donna do you want?” she asks anxiously. “The one you used to travel with, or me as I am now?”
He feels himself melt inside and suddenly understands the struggle Donna’s having with what she’s facing at this moment. He hadn’t fully realised before how difficult this must be for her, seeing things of which she has no memory, watching herself as if she's a stranger and sensing the way the Doctor felt about her as she was then. She’s always been a little uncertain, but, rather than helping in the way he’d hoped, this is, in fact, only making things harder for her.
He entwines her fingers with his, feeling as she clings to him.
“Donna,” he says softly, “I need you to believe what I’m about to tell you. I loved that version of you, the one I’m showing you. She was - is - the best friend I’ve ever had. But the things I loved about Donna Noble as she was then haven’t changed in the person you are now. Your curiosity, your enthusiasm, and the fact that you’re always interested in every single person you meet. The fact that you always seem to know what to say and what to do. The way you always know what I need and want, just like I do with you. Those things didn’t disappear along with your memories. They’re the strongest parts of you, and the things I love best about you. Please try to believe me when I say that.”
He isn’t surprised to see a tear slip out of her eye and begin the slow trek down her cheek, nor that she can’t meet his gaze.
“I loved that version of Donna,” he says softly. “But I’m in love with you.”
When she finally looks up at him, her eyes are swimming with tears. “You mean it?” she asks almost desperately. “Really?”
“Really,” he promises, pulling her into his arms and holding her against him. “Every single word.”
She sighs and her arms work their way up around his neck. He feels her relax against him and knows that the last of her anxieties have faded.
“You’re always protecting me,” she murmurs against his chest.
He smiles, leaning down to kiss her hair. “You saved me, Donna. Saved me over and over again. All I tried to do was return the favour.” He tightens his hold around her and can’t help chuckling as a thought strikes him. “Well, that and I could never bear the thought of having to tell your mother I’d let something happen to you.”
“Gramps would be worse,” she says, and he can tell from her tone that she’s smiling.
“Yes,” he agrees, remembering that day when he returned Donna to her family with no memory of him, “he was.”
“When?”
“At the end.” He pulls back slightly to look down at her. “We’ll get there. But for now, I want to show you our visit to the Library.”
“My bookworm Doctor would have been happy there,” she teases. “Unless, of course, the books attacked you or something.”
“You’re closer to the truth than you know,” he admits, letting go of her so that she can sit opposite him again. “But I can’t show you everything you went through here - only what you told me about later.”
And he opens his mind to share their time at the Library, revealing as much as he can of what she went through, but only able to give hints about what he believes happened to her there. It doesn’t help that his views are coloured by his own experiences in that place with River Song and the Vashta Nerada.
So when he releases himself from their linked minds and relaxes his hands, he’s not surprised to see an expression of confusion on her face.
“I’m sorry,” he tells her. “Sorry I don’t know more.”
She sits silent for a moment, clearly deep in thought, but he certainly isn’t expecting the words that come out of her mouth.
“There’s something…” Her voice trails off for a moment and then she looks up, a light in her eyes. “I remember.”
“You can’t,” he says at once, a sudden rush of anxiety hitting him again.
“No, I do.” She stares at the middle of his chest for a moment before looking up to meet his gaze. “Joshua and Ella. I remember. Those moments with Lee. Fishing - and coming home after our wedding. Miss Evangelista in the park. All those strange, short, sharp moments.”
“Donna….”
“No, it makes sense.” She places her hands on his, her expression calm as she looks up at him. “You didn’t know what to look for when you were taking it all away and you missed those. Perhaps, because they were more like dreams than memories, they weren’t where you were looking, but I remember.” She smiles. “And I’m glad I do.”
He sits back on his heels, staring at her in concerned confusion. “You can’t remember,” he bursts out. “It’s not possible. It shouldn’t be possible. It’s too dangerous…”
“No,” she warns, tightening her hold on his hands again. “Don’t take this away. It’s not something you would ever know because you weren’t there. But I need to have it. It lets me believes I was really here - that everything you’ve shown me actually happened. It’s strange because it wasn’t real, but it feels more real than all those things that I’ll never be able to remember.” She sighs. “You can’t deny me that.”
“No,” he agrees softly, letting his hands relax, knowing that she’s right. “I can’t.”
There’s a tiny, sad smile on her face when she looks up at him. “Thank you,” she whispers, and reaches up to kiss him.
“Thank you, Donna Noble,” he replies softly. “I’d almost forgotten some of the little things, but going through it with you like this gives me the chance to remember, too. To remember all the things you did for me.”
“Then show me more,” she tells him. “So I can appreciate it, too.”
He nods, but can feel his own reluctance to relive the events of Midnight, and perhaps Donna feels it, too, because she covers his hands with hers so that he can feel the warmth of her touch. He sighs, meets her gaze one final time and then closes his eyes, expanding his thoughts into hers so that she can share his memories of that terrible planet.
Her blue eyes are swimming with tears when he focuses on her face and she wraps her arms around him, holding him so close to her that he can feel her heart racing, just as she did at that resort.
“I nearly lost you,” she murmurs.
“Oh, it takes more than that to get rid of me,” he says lightly, but he can see from her eyes that she doesn't believe him.
He hesitates, not wanting to go on and show her what happened later. Not that he can do much about the alternate universe, of course, because he knows she won’t remember that and he can only show her what she told him. And not because of those incredible moments when she showed how amazing she was.
But because of what happened afterwards.
“Doctor?” she says gently, drawing her attention out of himself and back to her. “Is there more?”
“A little,” he replies with a sigh, but it’s an effort for him to show her what happened on Shan Shen. “And I don't know everything again,” he's forced to admit. “Alternate universe, like with the Library. So I only know what I could work out from what you said later.”
But as he shows her what she told him, he realises how little he actually does know about what she saw in that alternate world. He knows that's his own fault, that he was so distracted by the harbinger of doom, that terrible 'bad wolf', that he never bothered to find out about the nightmare that the Trickster inflicted on Donna.
“I don't understand.”
Donna's voice breaks across his reverie and he breaks out of his thoughts, opening his eyes to find her watching him, a confused expression evident in the blue depths of her gaze.
“What is it?” he wants to know, grateful to have something other than his own guilt to consider.
There's a teasing expression on her face, but her eyes remain uncertain.
“Why does everything in the Universe hate you so much?” she asks.
He chuckles somewhat tiredly. “Part of being a Time Lord, I suppose. And I'm usually trying to stop them taking over whatever planet they’ve got their hearts set on. Probably a good reason to hate me.” He smoothes his thumb down her cheek. “Us. You've made a few enemies during your time with me, too, you know. Pyroviles. Sontarans. The Trickster. Oh, and the Daleks - if there are any left of them, that is.”
“Daleks?” Donna gently removes his hand from her cheek and squeezes his fingers. She looks up into his face as if reading his expression and then frowns a little as she goes on to say, “You're afraid of them.”
He has to nod, albeit reluctantly. “They've been enemies of mine for a long time,” he tells her. “I've come close to dying at their hands so many times. But you...”
His voice breaks and for a moment he stares at her in silence, unable to speak. She looks up into his face and he can tell that she sees the pain he's feeling.
“What is it?” she asks softly.
“They killed you, Donna.” He tightens his grasp on her hand, staring down at their interlinked fingers, filled with echoes of the overwhelming panic he had felt at the moment when he saw the TARDIS, with Donna inside, disappear into the bowels of the Crucible. “They tried to. They wanted to. They didn't care...”
She slides the index finger of her free hand beneath his chin and lifts his face so that he meets her eyes. Something in the steadiness of her gaze acts to calm him.
“Show me,” she tells him softly. “Show me what happened.”
He can only nod, speechless at the painful memory of what is to come. Yet somehow he knows that reliving the memory this time won’t be as agonising as it once was. Perhaps because Donna is there with him, her fingers against his, her warmth melting the icy core inside him.
“I love you so much,” he whispers, finally saying those words he's come close to telling others, and meaning them now with every fibre of his being.
She smiles, leaning forward to kiss him again. “Don't think you're getting out of it,” she teases, murmuring the words against his lips.
“I wouldn't dare,” he agrees. “I know Donna Noble better than that.”
There's a soft chuckle from deep within Donna's chest. “Are you afraid of me, Doctor?”
A faint smile works its way across his face and his eyebrow flickers. “We-ell, maybe sometimes.”
“I'm beginning to understand why.” She brushes her lips across his and then sits back. “I want to see the rest.”
He nods, feeling able to show it to her now when he can feel her so close to him. His fingers come to rest on her temples and then he's within his most recent nightmares, but with the feeling of her warmth against his skin and the knowledge that, this time, there will be a happy ending.
And he can't help smiling at the bewildered expression on Donna's face when he looks at her again.
“I did it,” she breathes. “I saved the Universe.”
“You were brilliant, Donna.” He kisses her again. “You've never been anything but brilliant.”
She grins, the first proper, happy grin, without a shadow of any other emotion, that he's seen on her face for such a long time. There's even the cheeky, teasing look that he loves best in her eyes.
And he thinks he knows what she's about to say even as she opens her mouth, a mirror of her happiness creeping across his features as she exclaims, in tones that echo,
“You’d better believe it - Spaceman!”
* * *
Teaser for the next part
'Well, aren't you on the ball?'
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Characters: Donna, the Doctor
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 10
“You see?” he says even before removing his hands from her face. “Not what you thought at all.”
He’s intrigued by the expression of deep thought she’s wearing and concerned by her lack of response.
“Donna?” he prompts gently. “What is it?”
For a moment she stares at the bed between them before sighing, her eyes still fixed on the sheets as she speaks.
“Which Donna do you want?” she asks anxiously. “The one you used to travel with, or me as I am now?”
He feels himself melt inside and suddenly understands the struggle Donna’s having with what she’s facing at this moment. He hadn’t fully realised before how difficult this must be for her, seeing things of which she has no memory, watching herself as if she's a stranger and sensing the way the Doctor felt about her as she was then. She’s always been a little uncertain, but, rather than helping in the way he’d hoped, this is, in fact, only making things harder for her.
He entwines her fingers with his, feeling as she clings to him.
“Donna,” he says softly, “I need you to believe what I’m about to tell you. I loved that version of you, the one I’m showing you. She was - is - the best friend I’ve ever had. But the things I loved about Donna Noble as she was then haven’t changed in the person you are now. Your curiosity, your enthusiasm, and the fact that you’re always interested in every single person you meet. The fact that you always seem to know what to say and what to do. The way you always know what I need and want, just like I do with you. Those things didn’t disappear along with your memories. They’re the strongest parts of you, and the things I love best about you. Please try to believe me when I say that.”
He isn’t surprised to see a tear slip out of her eye and begin the slow trek down her cheek, nor that she can’t meet his gaze.
“I loved that version of Donna,” he says softly. “But I’m in love with you.”
When she finally looks up at him, her eyes are swimming with tears. “You mean it?” she asks almost desperately. “Really?”
“Really,” he promises, pulling her into his arms and holding her against him. “Every single word.”
She sighs and her arms work their way up around his neck. He feels her relax against him and knows that the last of her anxieties have faded.
“You’re always protecting me,” she murmurs against his chest.
He smiles, leaning down to kiss her hair. “You saved me, Donna. Saved me over and over again. All I tried to do was return the favour.” He tightens his hold around her and can’t help chuckling as a thought strikes him. “Well, that and I could never bear the thought of having to tell your mother I’d let something happen to you.”
“Gramps would be worse,” she says, and he can tell from her tone that she’s smiling.
“Yes,” he agrees, remembering that day when he returned Donna to her family with no memory of him, “he was.”
“When?”
“At the end.” He pulls back slightly to look down at her. “We’ll get there. But for now, I want to show you our visit to the Library.”
“My bookworm Doctor would have been happy there,” she teases. “Unless, of course, the books attacked you or something.”
“You’re closer to the truth than you know,” he admits, letting go of her so that she can sit opposite him again. “But I can’t show you everything you went through here - only what you told me about later.”
And he opens his mind to share their time at the Library, revealing as much as he can of what she went through, but only able to give hints about what he believes happened to her there. It doesn’t help that his views are coloured by his own experiences in that place with River Song and the Vashta Nerada.
So when he releases himself from their linked minds and relaxes his hands, he’s not surprised to see an expression of confusion on her face.
“I’m sorry,” he tells her. “Sorry I don’t know more.”
She sits silent for a moment, clearly deep in thought, but he certainly isn’t expecting the words that come out of her mouth.
“There’s something…” Her voice trails off for a moment and then she looks up, a light in her eyes. “I remember.”
“You can’t,” he says at once, a sudden rush of anxiety hitting him again.
“No, I do.” She stares at the middle of his chest for a moment before looking up to meet his gaze. “Joshua and Ella. I remember. Those moments with Lee. Fishing - and coming home after our wedding. Miss Evangelista in the park. All those strange, short, sharp moments.”
“Donna….”
“No, it makes sense.” She places her hands on his, her expression calm as she looks up at him. “You didn’t know what to look for when you were taking it all away and you missed those. Perhaps, because they were more like dreams than memories, they weren’t where you were looking, but I remember.” She smiles. “And I’m glad I do.”
He sits back on his heels, staring at her in concerned confusion. “You can’t remember,” he bursts out. “It’s not possible. It shouldn’t be possible. It’s too dangerous…”
“No,” she warns, tightening her hold on his hands again. “Don’t take this away. It’s not something you would ever know because you weren’t there. But I need to have it. It lets me believes I was really here - that everything you’ve shown me actually happened. It’s strange because it wasn’t real, but it feels more real than all those things that I’ll never be able to remember.” She sighs. “You can’t deny me that.”
“No,” he agrees softly, letting his hands relax, knowing that she’s right. “I can’t.”
There’s a tiny, sad smile on her face when she looks up at him. “Thank you,” she whispers, and reaches up to kiss him.
“Thank you, Donna Noble,” he replies softly. “I’d almost forgotten some of the little things, but going through it with you like this gives me the chance to remember, too. To remember all the things you did for me.”
“Then show me more,” she tells him. “So I can appreciate it, too.”
He nods, but can feel his own reluctance to relive the events of Midnight, and perhaps Donna feels it, too, because she covers his hands with hers so that he can feel the warmth of her touch. He sighs, meets her gaze one final time and then closes his eyes, expanding his thoughts into hers so that she can share his memories of that terrible planet.
Her blue eyes are swimming with tears when he focuses on her face and she wraps her arms around him, holding him so close to her that he can feel her heart racing, just as she did at that resort.
“I nearly lost you,” she murmurs.
“Oh, it takes more than that to get rid of me,” he says lightly, but he can see from her eyes that she doesn't believe him.
He hesitates, not wanting to go on and show her what happened later. Not that he can do much about the alternate universe, of course, because he knows she won’t remember that and he can only show her what she told him. And not because of those incredible moments when she showed how amazing she was.
But because of what happened afterwards.
“Doctor?” she says gently, drawing her attention out of himself and back to her. “Is there more?”
“A little,” he replies with a sigh, but it’s an effort for him to show her what happened on Shan Shen. “And I don't know everything again,” he's forced to admit. “Alternate universe, like with the Library. So I only know what I could work out from what you said later.”
But as he shows her what she told him, he realises how little he actually does know about what she saw in that alternate world. He knows that's his own fault, that he was so distracted by the harbinger of doom, that terrible 'bad wolf', that he never bothered to find out about the nightmare that the Trickster inflicted on Donna.
“I don't understand.”
Donna's voice breaks across his reverie and he breaks out of his thoughts, opening his eyes to find her watching him, a confused expression evident in the blue depths of her gaze.
“What is it?” he wants to know, grateful to have something other than his own guilt to consider.
There's a teasing expression on her face, but her eyes remain uncertain.
“Why does everything in the Universe hate you so much?” she asks.
He chuckles somewhat tiredly. “Part of being a Time Lord, I suppose. And I'm usually trying to stop them taking over whatever planet they’ve got their hearts set on. Probably a good reason to hate me.” He smoothes his thumb down her cheek. “Us. You've made a few enemies during your time with me, too, you know. Pyroviles. Sontarans. The Trickster. Oh, and the Daleks - if there are any left of them, that is.”
“Daleks?” Donna gently removes his hand from her cheek and squeezes his fingers. She looks up into his face as if reading his expression and then frowns a little as she goes on to say, “You're afraid of them.”
He has to nod, albeit reluctantly. “They've been enemies of mine for a long time,” he tells her. “I've come close to dying at their hands so many times. But you...”
His voice breaks and for a moment he stares at her in silence, unable to speak. She looks up into his face and he can tell that she sees the pain he's feeling.
“What is it?” she asks softly.
“They killed you, Donna.” He tightens his grasp on her hand, staring down at their interlinked fingers, filled with echoes of the overwhelming panic he had felt at the moment when he saw the TARDIS, with Donna inside, disappear into the bowels of the Crucible. “They tried to. They wanted to. They didn't care...”
She slides the index finger of her free hand beneath his chin and lifts his face so that he meets her eyes. Something in the steadiness of her gaze acts to calm him.
“Show me,” she tells him softly. “Show me what happened.”
He can only nod, speechless at the painful memory of what is to come. Yet somehow he knows that reliving the memory this time won’t be as agonising as it once was. Perhaps because Donna is there with him, her fingers against his, her warmth melting the icy core inside him.
“I love you so much,” he whispers, finally saying those words he's come close to telling others, and meaning them now with every fibre of his being.
She smiles, leaning forward to kiss him again. “Don't think you're getting out of it,” she teases, murmuring the words against his lips.
“I wouldn't dare,” he agrees. “I know Donna Noble better than that.”
There's a soft chuckle from deep within Donna's chest. “Are you afraid of me, Doctor?”
A faint smile works its way across his face and his eyebrow flickers. “We-ell, maybe sometimes.”
“I'm beginning to understand why.” She brushes her lips across his and then sits back. “I want to see the rest.”
He nods, feeling able to show it to her now when he can feel her so close to him. His fingers come to rest on her temples and then he's within his most recent nightmares, but with the feeling of her warmth against his skin and the knowledge that, this time, there will be a happy ending.
And he can't help smiling at the bewildered expression on Donna's face when he looks at her again.
“I did it,” she breathes. “I saved the Universe.”
“You were brilliant, Donna.” He kisses her again. “You've never been anything but brilliant.”
She grins, the first proper, happy grin, without a shadow of any other emotion, that he's seen on her face for such a long time. There's even the cheeky, teasing look that he loves best in her eyes.
And he thinks he knows what she's about to say even as she opens her mouth, a mirror of her happiness creeping across his features as she exclaims, in tones that echo,
“You’d better believe it - Spaceman!”
* * *
Teaser for the next part
'Well, aren't you on the ball?'