Dona nobis beatitas Part II Chapter 9/11
Title: Dona nobis beatitas Part II
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Summary: The Doctor still has a lot to learn.
Chapter 9
It's different now, holding hands with the Doctor.
Donna is musing on this as they leave the living room and head into the hallway. The Doctor guides them away from the console room, down passageways that Donna has never seen before, his fingers gradually tightening around hers as they go.
Side by side, rather than him rushing ahead and her lagging behind.
His shoulder brushes hers as they walk, his eyes fixed on their destination, but after a moment he seems to realise she's watching him and turns his head in her direction.
A smile - one that combines relief and deep thought and thankfulness and joy and just a hint of bittersweet sadness - crosses his face and his pace slows a little before he seems to remember his purpose and turns his face back in the direction they are going, speeding up again, his determination clear.
She knows better than to speak, to ask where they’re going, or to tease him by asking if he thinks the TARDIS is planning to leave them behind and whether that’s the reason they’re going so fast.
The Doctor turns a corner, and, as his steps slow once more, Donna knows that he’s close to the destination he’s chosen for them. She looks down the length of the hallway, seeing closed doors on either side, but that otherwise it looks little different from many of the other hallways she’s stumbled across during her time on board the TARDIS.
Then, as the Doctor steps towards the first door, his breath hitches and he briefly closes his eyes. His fingers tighten around hers until it’s almost painful and then he pushes open the door and gestures for her to go inside.
The first thing Donna realises as she steps of the threshold is the absolute silence of the room. A thin film of dust lies on everything. This surprises Donna, as the TARDIS is usually scrupulous in keeping things clean. Then again, she can’t feel the gentle sweep of air through the room that is part of the places in this ship where she usually spends her time. It's as if this part of the TARDIS is shut off from everything else.
Curious, she turns to the Doctor, who has closed the door behind them. In such almost claustrophobic silence, she can hear the fabric of his suit brushing as he moves across the carpet to where she is standing. The sense of oppression is such that Donna actually has to remind herself to breathe.
“I don’t come here often,” the Doctor admits, his voice sounding unnervingly loud in the room. He glances at her, taking a firmer hold of her fingers. “Usually only when I’m alone.”
Donna wants to ask if this is where he’s been spending the time since losing her, but somehow, here, in another companion’s space, when it’s so clear that she isn’t the only person he’s ever lost, she can’t bring herself to say the words.
Although she shares his memories of all the people who have spent time with him in this incredible machine, Donna’s human limitations mean that it’s all but impossible for her to truly understand how he must feel as, one after another, they all leave him. Even those he chooses to let go or forces away for whatever reason. No matter how often it happens, the pain never diminishes with each new departure. Only the passage of time eases the ache of loneliness. And each new person allows him to forget a little bit more.
“I don’t want to forget that,” the Doctor murmurs as if he’s reading her thoughts. “Their faces,” he adds by way of explanation. “How they looked. But sometimes...”
He slides his fingers through his hair, and Donna glimpses the lost, old look that she usually only sees in his eyes when he’s confronting death - the look she hates.
“Sometimes you worry you will,” she finishes for him.
He nods, brow furrowed, and Donna has the impression that he is only just keeping control of himself. He gives another, almost distracted, nod, his eyes travelling around the room, finally coming to rest on a holographically projected image of a young version of the face Donna is currently drawing. It has the swirly letters of Gallifreyan along the base and Donna can make out the word ‘Grandfather.’
His brown eyes dart back to her face, as if the space around them is too painful for him to contemplate. He releases his hold on her hands, moving his fingers instead to rest on her upper arms so that she has to face him, almost as if, by doing so, he can block out the pain surrounding them.
Her heart bleeds for him, just as his hearts bleed for the lost occupant of this room and all of the others along this forlorn, dusty, deserted but never forgotten hallway.
“Help me,” he begs in a hoarse voice, his tone more lost than she’s ever heard it before, even after their time on Midnight. “Help me,” he repeats, “not to forget them.”
She can’t help it. He looks so weak, so vulnerable, and she gives in to the urge to wrap him in her arms, his double heart-beat, throbbing more quickly than usual, echoing through her body as he presses himself against her. She can almost feel the pain, the fear he suffers, and for a moment she understands just what living for as long as he does really means.
No wonder it hurts so much.
And how could she possibly refuse him anything he asked?
“Of course I will.”
* * *
It takes Donna some time to get the pictures done. There have been so many people who travelled with the Doctor and she doesn’t want to miss anyone out.
And then it’s not as if she and the Doctor are simply sitting in the TARDIS all day, every day. Donna suspects the Doctor would probably spontaneously combust if she so much as suggested it, and while the expression on his face would be amusing, she would like to finish the first ten portraits of his current and previous faces before having to turn her hand to another. However life returning to what it was before means there are plenty of narrow escapes and moments that really get the blood pumping, all of which only make her even more appreciative of the quiet times on board the blue box.
During those hours, to pre-empt his comments and criticisms, Donna works in the armchair in the corner rather than on the couch, the bookcase pressing her in on one side and a handy lamp blocking the other side. This means the Doctor can’t lean over her shoulder and comment, which is something of a relief. However it’s clear that, at least for the first few days, as a result of her efforts, he is at something of a loose end.
She refuses to admit to herself just how much she misses the feeling of him against her on the couch.
The Doctor spends a long time pacing the carpet, poking the fire or making minute adjustments to the ornaments on the shelves. He fiddles with the books on the shelves, rearranging them all several times. She knows he’s really struggling when he actually produces a feather duster - Donna can’t even begin to imagine where he got it, although she has a sneaky suspicion it may have come from one of his pockets - and begins to dust the shelves and the mantelpiece. Then she knows he’s bored!
After several days of this, she admits to being astonished when, instead of trying to find ways to kill time, he sits down at the table on the far side of the room, takes two or three notebooks off a shelf and begins leafing through them. Her surprise increases when he settles in his chair and begins writing, the quill scratching on the paper making a soft accompaniment to the crackling and popping of the fire.
Pleased that he’s found something to occupy himself and let her work in peace and quiet, Donna turns back to her drawing of Romana’s two faces. Over the next few hours, she manages to get quite a lot done, in spite of the frequent disturbances from the other side of the room.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” she says at last, throwing down her pencil and glaring at him in mild frustration.
Actually, it’s been the swearing (which she suspects he’s forgotten she can understand) and the flinging away of numerous scrunched-up sheets of parchment which have particularly caught her attention, and she’s now particularly keen to know what he’s up to.
“What are you doing?” she demands.
He looks up and grins - smirks actually.
“None of your business!”
“Oi!”
“Well,” he arches an eyebrow, “you won’t show me yours. Work, I mean,” he adds hurriedly as her eyes widen.
“Oh.” Donna can’t help seeing the fairness of this, although she wonders just how long it will be before the Doctor tells her because he can’t help himself. “Fair enough then,” she admits, and he chuckles.
“I’ll get to see them eventually, right?” he demands, nodding at the notebook where she has sketched out her images of Susan and Adric and Rose and Sarah Jane and all of the others.
“Of course,” she agrees. “Eventually.”
“And you’ll know what this is at about the same time,” he assures her, turning back to his work with a determined air that makes her smile as she returns to her own task at hand.
* * *
Susan’s picture is finished first, perhaps because, no matter how much the Doctor loves all of the people who have travelled with him, his family is understandably more dear to him than anyone else. Their memories are more tender and thus easier for her access in her version of his mind.
One evening, when the Doctor is busy making dinner, Donna sneaks out of the living room and fetches the finished picture, mentally begging the TARDIS for help so she won't get lost as she makes her way through the labyrinthine passages towards that sad series of doors.
The room that had been Susan’s is already waiting, door ajar, when she arrives. The dust is gone, she sees at once as she peeps inside to make sure she's in the right place. A gilt-edged frame hangs on the door, the perfect size and shape for the portrait Donna has made. A concealed catch springs the frame open and Donna can slide her picture into place.
There is a satisfied click as the lock snaps shut, and then the mechanism that allowed Donna to insert the picture fades away. She strokes her fingers down the carved edges of the golden frame and smiles back at the youthful beauty in the face she has created, and also at the TARDIS showing her clear approval of what has been done.
“Well,” she sighs to herself as she turns to look down the long hallway lined by doors, although none of the others yet have frames on them, “one down, only a heck of a lot more to go!”
Smiling, she turns away, fishing her notebook out of her pocket and flipping through the numerous pages as she heads back to the living room.
“Oh, there you are!” the Doctor announces and she looks up to find him at the head of the hallway.
The lingering concern in his eyes makes her berate herself for at least not telling him that she was going somewhere. He’s become far more wary of being separated from her since her return to the TARDIS, almost as if he’s afraid that, without his eyes on her, she will disappear again.
“Yup!” she says as cheerfully as she can in order to banish that fear. “Safe and sound - as ever.”
An understanding grin crosses his features and he takes her hand as soon as she’s within touching distance, but for once he doesn’t give in to her teasing.
“Doctor,” she points out as they make their way back to the more familiar rooms, “even if, by some miracle, something dangerous got me here, don’t you think the TARDIS would tell you?”
He nods a little, but rather to her surprise, lets go of her hand. That only lasts an instant, however, before his arm is around her shoulders. Her own hand slides around his waist without her thinking too much about it and he stops to look down at her.
“It’s not the same,” he says softly, “as seeing you with my own eyes.”
“I suppose not,” she agrees, unable to help feeling that he’s not just talking about her and the here and now.
Back in the kitchen, she finds the table laid for dinner and teases him about the quality of his cooking, trying not to notice how much she misses the light pressure of his arm around her shoulders when he lets her go and moves to the stove.
After the meal, they settle in the living room, the Doctor flicking on the television and finding a sporting match of a game that Donna has never quite understood. Perhaps because of the fact that he's so close to her and she doesn't want him interrupting her work with comments - and also because she would like to surprise him with the finished paintings - she decides not to continue with the companion pictures for the moment.
Instead, prompted by the portrait of Susan she has just finished, she picks up her half-finished picture of the girl’s grandfather, sharpening one of her charcoal pencils and adding some shading to the man’s features.
As she works, and while the Doctor gets caught up in the game, she casts occasional glances at him out of the corner of her eye, wondering how it will feel to paint this face that she knows best when his turn in the series comes.
Next Part
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Summary: The Doctor still has a lot to learn.
Chapter 9
It's different now, holding hands with the Doctor.
Donna is musing on this as they leave the living room and head into the hallway. The Doctor guides them away from the console room, down passageways that Donna has never seen before, his fingers gradually tightening around hers as they go.
Side by side, rather than him rushing ahead and her lagging behind.
His shoulder brushes hers as they walk, his eyes fixed on their destination, but after a moment he seems to realise she's watching him and turns his head in her direction.
A smile - one that combines relief and deep thought and thankfulness and joy and just a hint of bittersweet sadness - crosses his face and his pace slows a little before he seems to remember his purpose and turns his face back in the direction they are going, speeding up again, his determination clear.
She knows better than to speak, to ask where they’re going, or to tease him by asking if he thinks the TARDIS is planning to leave them behind and whether that’s the reason they’re going so fast.
The Doctor turns a corner, and, as his steps slow once more, Donna knows that he’s close to the destination he’s chosen for them. She looks down the length of the hallway, seeing closed doors on either side, but that otherwise it looks little different from many of the other hallways she’s stumbled across during her time on board the TARDIS.
Then, as the Doctor steps towards the first door, his breath hitches and he briefly closes his eyes. His fingers tighten around hers until it’s almost painful and then he pushes open the door and gestures for her to go inside.
The first thing Donna realises as she steps of the threshold is the absolute silence of the room. A thin film of dust lies on everything. This surprises Donna, as the TARDIS is usually scrupulous in keeping things clean. Then again, she can’t feel the gentle sweep of air through the room that is part of the places in this ship where she usually spends her time. It's as if this part of the TARDIS is shut off from everything else.
Curious, she turns to the Doctor, who has closed the door behind them. In such almost claustrophobic silence, she can hear the fabric of his suit brushing as he moves across the carpet to where she is standing. The sense of oppression is such that Donna actually has to remind herself to breathe.
“I don’t come here often,” the Doctor admits, his voice sounding unnervingly loud in the room. He glances at her, taking a firmer hold of her fingers. “Usually only when I’m alone.”
Donna wants to ask if this is where he’s been spending the time since losing her, but somehow, here, in another companion’s space, when it’s so clear that she isn’t the only person he’s ever lost, she can’t bring herself to say the words.
Although she shares his memories of all the people who have spent time with him in this incredible machine, Donna’s human limitations mean that it’s all but impossible for her to truly understand how he must feel as, one after another, they all leave him. Even those he chooses to let go or forces away for whatever reason. No matter how often it happens, the pain never diminishes with each new departure. Only the passage of time eases the ache of loneliness. And each new person allows him to forget a little bit more.
“I don’t want to forget that,” the Doctor murmurs as if he’s reading her thoughts. “Their faces,” he adds by way of explanation. “How they looked. But sometimes...”
He slides his fingers through his hair, and Donna glimpses the lost, old look that she usually only sees in his eyes when he’s confronting death - the look she hates.
“Sometimes you worry you will,” she finishes for him.
He nods, brow furrowed, and Donna has the impression that he is only just keeping control of himself. He gives another, almost distracted, nod, his eyes travelling around the room, finally coming to rest on a holographically projected image of a young version of the face Donna is currently drawing. It has the swirly letters of Gallifreyan along the base and Donna can make out the word ‘Grandfather.’
His brown eyes dart back to her face, as if the space around them is too painful for him to contemplate. He releases his hold on her hands, moving his fingers instead to rest on her upper arms so that she has to face him, almost as if, by doing so, he can block out the pain surrounding them.
Her heart bleeds for him, just as his hearts bleed for the lost occupant of this room and all of the others along this forlorn, dusty, deserted but never forgotten hallway.
“Help me,” he begs in a hoarse voice, his tone more lost than she’s ever heard it before, even after their time on Midnight. “Help me,” he repeats, “not to forget them.”
She can’t help it. He looks so weak, so vulnerable, and she gives in to the urge to wrap him in her arms, his double heart-beat, throbbing more quickly than usual, echoing through her body as he presses himself against her. She can almost feel the pain, the fear he suffers, and for a moment she understands just what living for as long as he does really means.
No wonder it hurts so much.
And how could she possibly refuse him anything he asked?
“Of course I will.”
* * *
It takes Donna some time to get the pictures done. There have been so many people who travelled with the Doctor and she doesn’t want to miss anyone out.
And then it’s not as if she and the Doctor are simply sitting in the TARDIS all day, every day. Donna suspects the Doctor would probably spontaneously combust if she so much as suggested it, and while the expression on his face would be amusing, she would like to finish the first ten portraits of his current and previous faces before having to turn her hand to another. However life returning to what it was before means there are plenty of narrow escapes and moments that really get the blood pumping, all of which only make her even more appreciative of the quiet times on board the blue box.
During those hours, to pre-empt his comments and criticisms, Donna works in the armchair in the corner rather than on the couch, the bookcase pressing her in on one side and a handy lamp blocking the other side. This means the Doctor can’t lean over her shoulder and comment, which is something of a relief. However it’s clear that, at least for the first few days, as a result of her efforts, he is at something of a loose end.
She refuses to admit to herself just how much she misses the feeling of him against her on the couch.
The Doctor spends a long time pacing the carpet, poking the fire or making minute adjustments to the ornaments on the shelves. He fiddles with the books on the shelves, rearranging them all several times. She knows he’s really struggling when he actually produces a feather duster - Donna can’t even begin to imagine where he got it, although she has a sneaky suspicion it may have come from one of his pockets - and begins to dust the shelves and the mantelpiece. Then she knows he’s bored!
After several days of this, she admits to being astonished when, instead of trying to find ways to kill time, he sits down at the table on the far side of the room, takes two or three notebooks off a shelf and begins leafing through them. Her surprise increases when he settles in his chair and begins writing, the quill scratching on the paper making a soft accompaniment to the crackling and popping of the fire.
Pleased that he’s found something to occupy himself and let her work in peace and quiet, Donna turns back to her drawing of Romana’s two faces. Over the next few hours, she manages to get quite a lot done, in spite of the frequent disturbances from the other side of the room.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” she says at last, throwing down her pencil and glaring at him in mild frustration.
Actually, it’s been the swearing (which she suspects he’s forgotten she can understand) and the flinging away of numerous scrunched-up sheets of parchment which have particularly caught her attention, and she’s now particularly keen to know what he’s up to.
“What are you doing?” she demands.
He looks up and grins - smirks actually.
“None of your business!”
“Oi!”
“Well,” he arches an eyebrow, “you won’t show me yours. Work, I mean,” he adds hurriedly as her eyes widen.
“Oh.” Donna can’t help seeing the fairness of this, although she wonders just how long it will be before the Doctor tells her because he can’t help himself. “Fair enough then,” she admits, and he chuckles.
“I’ll get to see them eventually, right?” he demands, nodding at the notebook where she has sketched out her images of Susan and Adric and Rose and Sarah Jane and all of the others.
“Of course,” she agrees. “Eventually.”
“And you’ll know what this is at about the same time,” he assures her, turning back to his work with a determined air that makes her smile as she returns to her own task at hand.
* * *
Susan’s picture is finished first, perhaps because, no matter how much the Doctor loves all of the people who have travelled with him, his family is understandably more dear to him than anyone else. Their memories are more tender and thus easier for her access in her version of his mind.
One evening, when the Doctor is busy making dinner, Donna sneaks out of the living room and fetches the finished picture, mentally begging the TARDIS for help so she won't get lost as she makes her way through the labyrinthine passages towards that sad series of doors.
The room that had been Susan’s is already waiting, door ajar, when she arrives. The dust is gone, she sees at once as she peeps inside to make sure she's in the right place. A gilt-edged frame hangs on the door, the perfect size and shape for the portrait Donna has made. A concealed catch springs the frame open and Donna can slide her picture into place.
There is a satisfied click as the lock snaps shut, and then the mechanism that allowed Donna to insert the picture fades away. She strokes her fingers down the carved edges of the golden frame and smiles back at the youthful beauty in the face she has created, and also at the TARDIS showing her clear approval of what has been done.
“Well,” she sighs to herself as she turns to look down the long hallway lined by doors, although none of the others yet have frames on them, “one down, only a heck of a lot more to go!”
Smiling, she turns away, fishing her notebook out of her pocket and flipping through the numerous pages as she heads back to the living room.
“Oh, there you are!” the Doctor announces and she looks up to find him at the head of the hallway.
The lingering concern in his eyes makes her berate herself for at least not telling him that she was going somewhere. He’s become far more wary of being separated from her since her return to the TARDIS, almost as if he’s afraid that, without his eyes on her, she will disappear again.
“Yup!” she says as cheerfully as she can in order to banish that fear. “Safe and sound - as ever.”
An understanding grin crosses his features and he takes her hand as soon as she’s within touching distance, but for once he doesn’t give in to her teasing.
“Doctor,” she points out as they make their way back to the more familiar rooms, “even if, by some miracle, something dangerous got me here, don’t you think the TARDIS would tell you?”
He nods a little, but rather to her surprise, lets go of her hand. That only lasts an instant, however, before his arm is around her shoulders. Her own hand slides around his waist without her thinking too much about it and he stops to look down at her.
“It’s not the same,” he says softly, “as seeing you with my own eyes.”
“I suppose not,” she agrees, unable to help feeling that he’s not just talking about her and the here and now.
Back in the kitchen, she finds the table laid for dinner and teases him about the quality of his cooking, trying not to notice how much she misses the light pressure of his arm around her shoulders when he lets her go and moves to the stove.
After the meal, they settle in the living room, the Doctor flicking on the television and finding a sporting match of a game that Donna has never quite understood. Perhaps because of the fact that he's so close to her and she doesn't want him interrupting her work with comments - and also because she would like to surprise him with the finished paintings - she decides not to continue with the companion pictures for the moment.
Instead, prompted by the portrait of Susan she has just finished, she picks up her half-finished picture of the girl’s grandfather, sharpening one of her charcoal pencils and adding some shading to the man’s features.
As she works, and while the Doctor gets caught up in the game, she casts occasional glances at him out of the corner of her eye, wondering how it will feel to paint this face that she knows best when his turn in the series comes.
Next Part