Doors We Never Opened: Chapter 4
Title: Doors We Never Opened
Author: the_magpye
Rating: All ages
A/N: This started out as a oneshot, grew into a large oneshot, and then a slightly massive oneshot. So, it became chapters. Probably four or five, but that's a rough estimate. I have to send out apologies to momdaegmorgan for this being so late - belated Christmas wishes from me, Mrs Jenny! *hugs* But I hope you enjoy it, and fills the time before you start writing again - you know I have every confidence in you! ^.~ Thanks to rachelbeann for the advice! Feedback is much appreciated and earns hugs, especially since I've been impatient and not had this beta'd. ^^
Summary: Life went on, and on, and on, and Donna didn't notice its passing - mainly because she didn't have a job - a fact which her mum kindly reiterated to her in every other sentence she spoke, whether it be blatant or veiled with a dash of sarcasm. But when an opportunity comes along, she doesn't hesitate to grab it with both hands. Who knows where it could lead her...
Just to make it clear; THIS IS POST!S4, IN THE DOCTOR'S UNIVERSE.
I'm afraid this will be the last daily update for a while - next week, I'll be writing whenever I have a spare moment, but rest assured there won't be a daily chapter. Work, unfortunately, takes over when it isn't the weekend. Meh.
'Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened into the rose-garden.' - T.S Eliot
&& PREVIOUS &&
'The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don't come to mind when we want them.' - Friedrich Nietzsche
A month or so passed. Donna fell into an easy routine; going to work, laughing with Rose, coming home and trying desperately to stop wondering what her family were hiding from her. Eventually, it became second nature.
One rainy Wednesday afternoon, she was running an errand, dropping off some marketing boxes to various rude men dressed in swish suits. She managed to sneak in a conversation with Lee the security guard before she had to go back to the office - much to her inner glee, he asked her out to dinner at the weekend in that adorable, stuttering way of his, blue eyes earnest and ever so slightly pleading.
Of course, she said yes, but she couldn't dawdle and dance around about it - yet. That could wait until she got home and on the phone to Veena.
Knowing that Rose wanted her to schedule a meeting with the board of directors, she beat a hasty retreat into the lift and nearly skipped along the subsequent maze of corridors. Reaching for the knob of the large wooden door, she took a deep breath to regale her boss with the latest tale of how Ed from Accounting was actually a woman, a saga they'd both been following with interest since the latest staff party.
She was stopped short by the sound of a raised voice. A male voice. Donna frowned. She didn't know Rose had planned on having visitors today - it wasn't in her schedule book, at least. She should know - she spent half the day writing in the damn thing.
The rather loud conversation made its way through the thick wood of the door, with Donna as an unwilling audience.
"What you're doing here Rose, what you're planning to do, Torchwood should be up in arms! Not to mention-"
The man was cut off by the calm voice of her boss - she was using that icy tone that Donna only ever heard when she was dealing with an impertinent subordinate and trying not to explode in their face.
"Don't 'not to mention' me, Mick. This is the right thing to do, and I'm sticking by my decision to come here. I don't care what Torchwood says - he deserves a best friend. So much. So very, very much. And you know it."
There was a huff of breath from what sounded like the man, the whistle of it between his teeth showing his frustration even more than his voice.
"Rose... We aren't going to stop you - you know we'd never want to - but haven't you thought about the consequences?"
A quiet sigh.
"We talked about it before I left, and he was sure that if I was careful, everything would turn out fine."
Silence reigned, but something must have happened because Rose spoke again, sounding much brighter.
"Well, I'm glad that's the end of that. You can go back to Jack and tell him that I've not come to foreshadow the end of the universe as we know it. Oh, and ask him why he didn't have the guts to come and see me himself as well. Maybe he thought I might usurp his position as captain of the innuendo squad?"
The man chuckled.
"Yeah, he was worried about the Tyler slap. Thinks I'm immune, so he sent me instead. Anyway - I'm not just here on business: it's been a while, Rose. How are you?"
She scoffed, and it somehow managed to sound a little sad.
"A while? What, a few months for you? Try living my life, and then you'll get a better definition of 'a while'! But yeah... I'm... I'm all right.'"
They laughed together, and lapsed into what could pass as a companionable silence. It was at this point that Donna remembered her new policy on listening in, and took the pause as her cue to open the door. She wasn't going to ask any questions - this was clearly Not Her Business. Though her opinion of Rose as an eccentric had gone up a notch or two in the last few minutes...
The door creaked quietly to reveal both familiar and unfamiliar occupants of the office. Sat across the desk from her boss was a man - dark skinned, shaven hair and a determined gaze. He was dressed casually, but there was something about the way he was sitting that spoke business. Or danger. One or the other, she couldn't decide. But what she did know was that he was watching her like one would watch a wild animal.
Rose spoke.
"Ah, Donna. This is Mickey. Mickey Smith. A... business associate of mine."
Looking at his face and nodding politely, Donna winced as her headache once again made itself known. The bloody thing had become recurring recently, waving cheerily at her from behind her eyes whenever she thought she'd escaped it. It was like a bad itch. A really, really bad itch. Except more painful.
"Sorry I didn't pencil him into the meeting book, I didn't realise he was coming until... well, he showed up in reception." The blonde rubbed the back of her neck bashfully, eyes darting from her face to Mickey's.
"Erm, Mickey, this is Donna Noble. My PA."
His reply was terse.
"Nice to meet you."
Now that she looked at him more closely, he seemed oddly familiar. Like she'd seen him somewhere before, in the same way she thought she'd met Rose's 'partner-in-crime' - one of those odd little coincidences. Brushing it off, she smiled at him and went back to work.
It appeared that her appearance totally derailed their conversation, as they only spoke quietly together for a few minutes until Mickey left, casting one look in her direction and another at Rose before he shut the door. Donna couldn't fathom the emotion in that one glance - wariness? Urgh. She needed more coffee. And some painkillers.
Rose was silent for a while after he left, clearly thinking, and she wasn't about to interrupt. The tale of Ed from Accounting could wait for a while. The afternoon passed quickly, and soon she was jogging around the corner of the building through the rain, into the alleyway where she now left her car to escape parking charges.
&&&
The evening passed as normal - catching up on paperwork, going up the hill with her granddad. Oh, and eating her mum's attempt at dinner had to be the highlight. Tonight, it had been some sort of meat in a yellow sauce - which was clearly supposed to be spicy, but hadn't been able to take its correct place in the universe due entirely to her mum's ineptitude with food.
Delightful.
Sleep didn't come easily after that wonderful concoction, but she eventually managed to ignore the stomach ache and drifted away into dreams...
There are hands on her face, fingers brushing along the line of her cheekbones to rest against her temples, spanning the entire width of her features with a gentle touch. She can feel droplets of water running in rivers from her eyes, cascading over the curve of her cheek to drop to the floor.
She wonders why she's crying, because for the life of her she can't remember what could possibly have caused this horrible anguish searing her insides, blooming like a flower and settling, an uncomfortable lead weight in her chest. It blocks her lungs, her throat, her tongue - she can't speak, but she can listen, because there are voices around her, so many voices that she can barely tell one from the other. It's a cacophony of noise and mystery and music, wild, singing music, and her head is spinning, flaming with the same pain as that bloody recurring headache and now she has to squeeze her eyes shut against it or maybe she'll burn out, fizzling away like a spent star...
"Donna, isn't it?"
The other voices fade into a insistent hum as one rises above it, familiar, female, and echoing. She hears it every day at work.
"I think you dream about him, sometimes. It's a man in a suit? A tall, thin man, great hair. Some... really great hair."
A flash, of a photograph or a face, close up and almost touching hers.
"I've been pulled across from a different universe..."
A woman, in a blue leather jacket, pink top, black trousers, looking up at the stars.
"Donna Noble, you're the most important woman in the whole of creation."
She's looking at her now, Rose, her boss and yet someone entirely different, someone who she'd met before in a different time, a different place, a different universe... and she couldn't remember why...
"I need you to come with me."
The fingers tighten, and that's odd, because she's almost forgotten they were there. Fire blazes behind her eyes again, and Rose is speaking over it, over the shaking of those hands on her face and the sobs coming from the general vicinity of her throat.
"I know you'll come with me. Only when you want to."
She's burning now, darkness is building at the edges of her eyes and the tears feel like candle flames licking her skin.
"But you've got to be certain. Because, when you come with me, Donna... sorry... so sorry, but... you're going to die."
She gasps, and everything is consumed, a string of disjointed words drifting hazily through her awareness before the world falls away.
"... two words... Bad Wolf... remember..."
Donna woke with a sob, sitting up and shuddering beneath her duvet. Startled at feeling the drops falling from her eyes, she hastily wiped them away.
"Bloody hell. What a dream. Urgh, another thing to blame mum's dinner for... at least my stomach ache's gone..." Feeling sleep beginning to overtake her again, she flopped back down on the mattress, head sinking comfortably into her pillow.
The dream did not come again.
&&&
In her office, Rose sat back with a long sigh.
"Doctor, you better be thankful for this."
&& NEXT &&