Fic: Close Encounters of the Invisible Kind (part 3)
Close Encounters of the Invisible Kind (Part 3)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Donna, Doctors, Rose
Rating: PG
By: Lilac Summers (lilsum4)
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Several days pass before it occurs to the Doctor that he hasn’t felt Donna’s fingers poking his ears. When he realizes this, he casts a suspicious glance around his room, as if he expects her to pop out and shout “Boo!” now that he’s noticed she’s missing.
The TARDIS grumbles at him, mad at him for some reason, but he decides to worry about that later, after he’s checked that Donna hasn’t been off haunting Rose, instead.
Several long hallways later he knocks on Rose’s door.
The door is opened very quickly, a breathless, smiling Rose on the threshold. “Doctor! What are you doing here? You’ve never come to visit at my room be-”
"Is Donna here?" the Doctor cuts her off, sticking his head inside Rose’s room and taking a look around.
"I-" Rose stumbles, caught off guard. "I don’t know. Is she supposed to be? How could I tell?" Although she told the Doctor having a ghost might be "fun", she isn’t too happy to think she’s had an invisible guest all this time. She edges closer to the Doctor.
"Donna," the Doctor calls out. "If you’re in here come out this instant. I don’t want you bothering Rose!"
There is no sense of some other presence, no rush of displaced air or the feeling of being watched.
"Huh," says the Doctor, pulling on an earlobe. "Guess she isn’t here."
"Why would she be?" asks Rose.
"Well she’s not in my room, which is where she usually stays. Spies on me in the shower."
"WHAT?!"
"But I haven’t felt her in days, not since the kitchen incident," he muses, soundly unaware of Rose sputtering behind him at the revelation he’s been sharing his quarters (and showers!) with the female ghost.
The TARDIS, which had been grumbling quietly in the background, increases in volume. A harsh, scolding hiss escapes in a rush of steam from a pipe near his head.
"Oi, watch it!" the Doctor yelps, ducking. "What’s your problem!"
Pipes bang in the distance while the Doctor's face twists in insult. "And that's my fault?" he demands, as Rose looks on, baffled.
The vents cough up frigid air, and then rumble to a stop.
"Why should I apologize? She’s the one that came on-board without an invitation, and she pushed me!”
Rose scratches her head in confusion at the one-sided conversation.
The TARDIS veers sharply to the right, throwing them against one wall, before hurling them left. Rose ends up on her backside on the floor, the Doctor barely catching his balance before he knocks into her.
"Fine!" barks the Doctor, and then reaches down to haul Rose off the floor by the hand. "C’mon Rose, we have to go apologize."
Rose rubs her backside as she stands. “I’m really confused.” She follows along gamely, anyway. “Wait, what did I do that I have to apologize?!”
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Led by the TARDIS’ scolding, the Doctor and Rose find themselves in a long-forgotten attic. It is appropriately creepy, with unknown forms covered in sheets, chipped mirrors leaning drunkenly on walls, and a grand assortment of detritus the Doctor had collected and then promptly forgotten.
The TARDIS has let dust settle thickly on the surfaces - which made no sense, since dust settled in no other room, no matter how disused - but the Doctor thinks the sometimes TARDIS likes to play with what she considered the proper ambiance.
Even the lighting is dim and shadowy, artificial sunlight filtering down from fake, unnecessarily grimy windows. It is all such a properly textbook spooky attic that the Doctor immediately realizes the TARDIS has constructed it for the benefit of their resident “ghost.”
Rose quickly lets go of his hand, giving him a definitive shake of the head when he indicated she should precede him. “I’m not going in there,” she informs him. “Haunted attic? No thanks, not today. Never been a fan of horror movies.”
He rolls his eyes and moves away, stepping inside. He immediately catches the sad feeling of dejection permeating the room and he sighs, feeling guilt creep into him.
"Donna?" he calls into the dark corners.
The air goes preternaturally still, like a child holding their breath in the hopes they won’t be discovered during hide and seek.
"C’mon Donna, I know you’re in here. Look, I came to say I’m sorry."
He feels a tentative breeze to his right, and follows it to a large broken buffet, its long expanse blanketed in dust. Understanding, he focuses on the dust and sees a single fingerprint appear in the thick layer, before it spreads into words.
"You’re afraid of me," loops in the dust in a shaky hand.
"You startled me, is all. Not everyday a traveler from the fourth dimension pushes me around," he explains.
"Not traveler. Ghost. I died. I don’t belong anywhere."
The Doctor blinks at this sentence. He still doesn’t believe it. More likely Donna thinks she died, as she dissolved within the timestreams, pulled through different dimensions and caught between. Probably a Time Agent, stupid apes that they were, dabbling into what they didn't understand. Either way, he’ll look into it, and it is’t worth arguing about now. Especially when he can feel Donna’s words tugging at what he would have sworn were utterly atrophied heartstrings.
“‘Course you do,” the Doctor informs her gruffly. “Everybody belongs somewhere.” Except for him - he was much like Donna, a traveler stuck without a home, the TARDIS their only refuge as they floated aimlessly. “And the TARDIS can be the place you belong until we find it for you.”
There are no more words for a while, until he sees tiny script forming in a corner, the size conveying Donna’s embarrassment.
"Sorry I scared you. I was just excited."
The Doctor tugs at his collar, ill at ease with the apology. He no longer feels like he was the wronged victim in all this, and doesn't like feeling like a bully. He folds his arms firmly over his chest. “Just try to contain yourself in the future.”
"I can’t touch anything. But I touched you. Why?"
He doesn't know why, and he worries about what that could mean. But for right now he thinks they've had enough of dingy attics, so he ignores the question and covers for the confusion with an impatient noise. “Come on then, let’s get out of here so the TARDIS can clean up all this dust. She must have combed the Universe for this much! I’ll even let you spy on me in the shower if you stop moping.”
He would have missed it if he weren't paying such close attention, a tiny addition to her last sentence.
: )
He smiles and shakes his head at himself as he presumably leads Donna out of the attic to where Rose waits for him. What a silly old life he has, conversing with non-corporeal forms and feeling so oddly pleased at smiley-faces written in dust.
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From that moment, Donna becomes a seamless addition to the TARDIS. She and Rose largely ignore each other, though on occasion Rose complains that she can’t find her mascara. Since Donna can’t reliably do more than manipulate condensation or dust - and the occasionally angry push, as he knows firsthand - it’s far more likely that Donna has looped the TARDIS into her game.
For his part, the Doctor feels Donna’s presence a bit more strongly. He theorizes that she’s getting a bit of a boost from the energy of the vortex, the longer she stays.
He starts to learn her moods, too. A brush of cool air means she’s saying hello. Smiley faces drawn in steamy mirrors means she’s amused. Ripples in his tea cup means she’s dipping her fingers in it, and makes him wonder if she misses tea. Cobwebs near his face means she’s pulling at his ears and wants his attention, or she is simply bored, and wants to start a row with him just to amuse herself.
And sometimes he feels her just there…floating…existing just on the edge of his consciousness. Watching the life around her without being able to take part in it. In this moments, she feels very distant. Cold, aloof, and isolated.
It’s during those particular moments that he starts talking to her. Nonsense, really, about this and that and everything else. But regardless of the topic, he feels her attention sharpen, and she always draws closer. Generally its about his and Rose’s latest adventure, other times its random trivia - like the fascinating mating habits of the Rare Blue Giant Louse from the Andromeda Galaxy. And sometimes, before he realizes it, he tells her things he thought he would never speak of again. Like Gallifrey.
To the Doctor's surprise, he himself begins to feel less alone, too, in those moments of confession. It’s almost comforting to know Donna's there. Listening silently, not offering platitudes or promises. Just listening.
He starts leaving the TARDIS doors open when they’re floating in space, so that Donna may have something to look at. He thinks she probably appreciates it. Rose likes it too, and sits with her legs dangling over the edge. He wonders if Donna is sitting beside her, her own legs drifting into nothingness.
Only he still doesn’t think she’s a ghost. In all his long life he’s never come across a true ghost - as evidenced by the Gelth - so why would Donna be the only one?
One day he finally builds up the courage to type her name into the database, and only finds two pieces linked to a Donna Noble from the old address in Chiswick, England. One is a single line from an Earth news article, listing the fatalities from when the Autons attacked and the Doctor dealt with the Nestene Consciousness. The other is an obituary:
Donna Noble, 1970 - 2005. Beloved daughter of Geoff and Sylvia Noble, and granddaughter to Wilfred Moff. Killed by the invasion of living mannequins while ensuring her family’s safety. You will be missed, little general.
He closes the database and doesn’t try to find out more. He believes in ghosts now.
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They meet Captain Jack, and Rose convinces the Doctor to bring him on-board. When the Doctor steps into the TARDIS, followed by the handsome Captain, he immediately feels a rush of excited, cool air pass by him. Moments later, Captain Jack begins to pull at his hair and look around, confused, feeling as if he just walked into a cobweb.
The Doctor advances towards Jack and starts slapping the air around him. “Oi, back off!” he says into the air.
Jack looks at the Doctor as though he has gone insane. “I just got here! You invited me!”
"I’m not talking to you," the Doctor says, voice short, as he smacks air again. "I’m talking to Donna."
"And Donna is?" queries Jack, watching curiously as the Doctor casts a baleful glare at nothing.
"Resident ghost. You know she’s trying to touch you when you feel cobwebby things around you. Also, she likes to spy on people in the bath," quips Rose.
Jack only blinks at the mention of a resident ghost, taking it all in a stride. He looks around himself with a charming, dimpled smile. “Is that so? Lovely to meet you, Donna. I have absolutely no problem with you spying on me in the bath. Anytime, sweetheart,” calls Jack into the air with a wide smile.
Donna giggles like a school girl. “I will take you up on that offer,” Donna promises Jack. “I hope you take lots and lots of showers.”
He does, bless his heart.
And for a little while, everything is good
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Go to part 4