Someone to Stop You (Doctor Who | Ten, Donna (rated G)
Title: Someone to Stop You
Author: Sue DeNimme
Characters/Pairing: Ten, Donna
Rating: G
Spoilers: S4
Word count: 1014
Summary: The Doctor's thoughts about Donna. A companion piece to A Funny Old Life.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and its characters belong to the BBC. No copyrights were harmed in the making of this fanfic.
A/N: This is the first time I've ever done the piece/companion piece thing. I'd originally planned to put the Doctor's thoughts into A Funny Old Life as well, but it didn't seem to be gelling, so I cut those bits out. Then the wheels got going again, and well, this is the result.
"It's a funny old life in the TARDIS."
All right, so it's not a very good warning. He's great at handing out warnings to the villains. But to people inviting themselves into his life? Not so much. He's not sure she even heard, with her babbling about injections and Cambodia.
He's never had someone look for him before. Not for the sole purpose of joining him, anyway. They've always tended to just stumble in by accident. One or two of them have been assigned to him by persons in authority, or otherwise foisted on him. But none of them has ever actually methodically hunted him down. None of them have come complete with tons of luggage, all packed and ready to go. None of them have had a hatbox, for goodness' sake.
Obviously no one has told her that this is not in the script.
What in all the worlds is happening? Yes, he did invite her once, but she turned him down. Seemed glad to get rid of him. Told him to "find someone", obviously meaning "someone other than me". Well, he supposes he can't really blame her for that. Here she was, getting married to a man she loved, who loved her -- or she thought he did, anyway -- and she gets beamed against her will into a spaceship billions of miles away. Not exactly the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
But now here she is, standing in the doorway of the TARDIS, looking at him all eager and expectant, and what the hell is suddenly so damn hard about saying the word "no"?
At least she's not attracted to him. At all. Which is a relief. The "long streak of nothing" comment is a bit excessive, perhaps. Insulting, even. He happens to think this is one of his more charismatic, not to mention aesthetically pleasing, incarnations. But still, it's reassuring. He's not repeating the mistake he made with Martha, who'd claimed that she only went for humans, yet was flirting with him even as she said it. He'd chosen to ignore that, and look where it got both of them.
A mate really is all he wants. Not a charge. Not a surrogate granddaughter. Not a pupil or a hanger-on or an admirer. Not a lover, either. Just a friend. Someone to run with. To experience the universe with. To make him remember the small picture when he's too busy looking at the big one. To be his sounding board, his anchor, his touchstone. To keep him from being too much of a prat. That's not so much to ask, is it?
He does have a hard time making her understand why they can't save Pompeii, but when she finally does get it, the simplicity of her gesture, pressing the lever with him, takes his breath away. He's had to do a lot of unpleasant things over the centuries, for the sake of the greater good, and his companions have generally unhappily accepted them, but none of them have ever actually chosen to share the burden. But she doesn't even ask, or wait for him to do so. She just steps up, and puts her hands on his.
It's almost frightening, in fact, how quickly he's come to depend on her insight, her toughness, her compassion, her sanity.
And it's mystifying, how blind she is to her own magnificence. When she's faced with a task beyond her experience, she's terrified that she's not up to it, that she'll let him down. But she comes through brilliantly, every time. Yet she continues to dismiss herself.
He can do lots of things. But he can't make her see what she is to him. No matter how much he'd like to, he can't erase the words "just a temp" from her vocabulary. All he can do is try to replace them. If he could give every single person in her life who ever drilled them into her head, starting with her mother, a good taste of the Oncoming Storm, he would. He'll just have to hope that maybe one day she'll see, that she'll believe his words and not theirs.
He's startled to realize how much it feels like a punch to the gut when he thinks she's had enough and she's going home. Fortunately, it only happens twice. Once is on the Ood-Sphere, the other on Earth, both before they've even had more than five adventures together. The second time, he makes rather an arse of himself, going on about how she's saved his life in so many ways and all that, and she gives him just enough rope before informing him that he's a great big outer-space dunce. Which is exactly what he feels like. But she never again hints that she might want to leave. As if she recognizes the distress the thought causes him.
She's there when he gains and loses a daughter. She kisses him to shock cyanide out of his system, and doesn't use it as an excuse to change their relationship. She lets him know it's all right not to be "all right". She heals him, stands up for him, laughs at him.
She knows there were others before her, and she doesn't get snarky about it. She doesn't go all quiet and downcast when he mentions Rose.
She doesn't look at him and see only what she wants to see. A tour guide, a mentor, an eccentric uncle, an imaginary friend, a magical savior, a love object, a god. She sees him, more clearly than anyone has ever seen him before, even Romana. She sees who he is, what he's done.
And she wants to stay with him anyway.
The only thing he wishes is that he hadn't heard her say "forever".
~end