Doors We Never Opened: Chapter 5
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.
Well, yeah, I know what I said yesterday about the daily updates, but I didn't get any work today (a minor miracle!) so I had time to write the next chapter. :) This is most likely the last daily update, but you never know, may get lucky again tomorrow. xD P.S: Any errors you spot, please point them out - it's late, and I'll go through this again later when I've had some more sleep. xD)
'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 &&
'Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.' - Saul Bellow
When she woke up the next morning, Donna felt like she'd been hit by a bus. The covers were wrapped around her like a straightjacket and the horrific patchwork quilt her mum insisted she use in winter was bundled at her ankles like some sort of weird fabric manacle.
And the box of painkillers was just a little further than an arms reach away. She tried to grab them nonetheless, struggling against the duvet which appeared to have developed a prehensile grip during the night. She suspected alien involvement.
Nope. Too far away. If at first you don't succeed...
After a few long minutes of fighting to move, Donna decided that irony must be waving at her cheerfully from a handy place on the ceiling. Or was that the floor?
Thud.
Yes. That was the floor. And the painkillers were still up by her bed. Hell.
Shoving her nose into the plush carpet, she groaned. God, what had she been drinking last night? That was the only explanation she could think of for the headache. Veena must have fed her paint stripper to make her feel this bad. Or maybe that Tesco Value Vodka they once hid in her mum's broom cupboard when they were fifteen. Hmmm... that had to be nicely aged by now.
... could vodka age?
"Donna? Donna! You're going to be late for work!!"
The loud noise wasn't nice. She ignored it, preferring to perform an internal victory jig as the tablets were finally shoved down from their lofty perch by her waving sock-clad foot.
"Donna, get a move on!"
Footsteps were coming up the stairs, and acting on some buried teenage instinct, she began checking around her room for empty bottles.
The door opened just as it dawned on her that no, she hadn't been drinking last night, and no, it wasn't the weekend - and also, no, she was no longer a teenager who had to sneak in house parties beneath her parents' noses when they weren't looking.
But yes, it was a Thursday, and she had to get to work.
"Donna!"
Her mum stood there, framed by the doorway, attempting to look imperious and commanding and yet really, really not doing a good job of it. The fluffy slippers didn't help in the slightest. Nor did the overly large white robe covered in cartoon sheep.
That was not a sight she wanted to see in the morning.
'Urgh... this headache has to go. No wonder I thought I was hung over, it flippin' well feels like- oh, bloody hell!'
She finally noticed the clock, and the red digits blinked at her accusingly from beside her bed.
"WHAT! Nine o'clock?!?"
&&&
Being as she was dosed up with medication, the drive to work was interesting. For her, at least. The other drivers clearly thought it was terrifying, and anyone who even attempted to pull out of a junction was forced to sit back and watch as a redhead in a blue Peugeot sped past, leaving flying pieces of grit and startled pedestrians in her wake.
"Yeah, you stay there mate. There's a Noble coming through, so you'd better move over and give way. Read the damn sign!"
Twenty harrowing minutes later, the car was shoved into her normal spot in the alley, and she was running around the corner and into the square in front of Canary Wharf, her headache still pounding in time with the loud click of her heels against the paving.
She did have time to wave to Lee, who was on lift duty, and field off his questions about why she was here when she looked like she was about to fall over.
"Ill! I'm not ill!", she laughed, eying the lift even though her feet were itching to stay exactly where they were. "It's just a headache, I'm fine, everything's fine... and now I have to go. Or Rose might go psycho on me if I'm not there with her coffee at quarter to ten. Argh."
"All right. B- be careful, D-D-D... Rose's PA."
They smiled, and she slipped into the lift, leaning against the glass as it ascended smoothly. The cool surface was a temporary balm to her head, and the still rise of steady movement gave her a few minutes of thinking time. The first thing that automatically came to mind was that stupid dream, which she was beginning to suspect was one of many possible causes for her banging brain.
She couldn't really remember everything in the dream. She didn't understand what she did remember, so what was the point?
(Not that she was into that kind of thing. The dream meanings/superstitions/miscellaneous occult related stuff was more Veena's department - mainly because she still stood by that conspiracy theory about the Earth being moved across the universe and back on one decidedly average Saturday night. Which was totally, utterly, unbelievably stupid, if she did say so herself.)
Her head throbbed, and she stopped thinking about it. It was only a dream, so why worry?
Minutes later, she was off the lift and stepping through the office door, trying to look calm while worrying her hands behind her back.
"Rose, I'm so sorry I'm late! My alarm didn't go off this morning, and my mum didn't think to try and wake me until nine."
The blonde glanced up from the paper she was examining - 'The Financial Times', which wasn't the most interesting choice of reading for someone in their early twenties, but was definitely a must for any businesswoman who wanted to kick some stockbroker arse. As Rose did, on a daily basis.
"Don't worry, I didn't plan to start work until..." She trailed off, looking up fully now, the paper dropping down on the desk. "Donna? Are you feeling all right? You look really pale."
Blinking, she shook her head and made an effort at rolling her eyes with her usual sarcastic vigour. "M'fine - that headache's come back again, but I've taken some painkillers and I should be able to work for the rest of the day."
She hoped the stubborn set of her jaw would convince Rose that she was all clear to work. She didn't want to let her boss down by having to have the day or the rest of the week off. Donna knew, looking at the coming month or two leading up to Christmas in the schedule, that what they did in the next few weeks was vital. Things were getting tight on the finance side of the company, and even if she was just a PA, she wasn't about to leave Rose to deal with it by herself. They had to sort everything out before the Christmas rush, and only had a month and a half to do it in. A bloody headache was not going to get in the way of helping her boss, or doing her job. After all, she was Donna Noble.
And Donna Noble did not give up, under any circumstances.
The medicine was starting to kick in, and the fuzzy buzz behind her eyes was fading into a dull hum. Not so much a pneumatic drill anymore as an irritated bumblebee. It would do, at least until she could get home and pass out in bed again.
"Hmm. But one sign of you getting worse, and I'm sending you home, okay?"
She nodded, walking across the room and towards her beloved little desk in the window.
"All right, all right, I promise I'll go home if I feel any more rubbish than I already do. Now then, where's that schedule book? Just make sure not to come too near me, I don't want you to catch whatever I've got if it's contagious."
She missed the wry, secretive smile which unfolded on Rose's face as she concentrated on not tottering too much in her heels.
Feeling a little woozy, Donna collapsed in her chair, watching the screen-saver on her computer blurring pleasantly, colours fazing from one to the next, calming and mesmerising. When it faded to black, she caught her reflection in the curved glass of the monitor and scowled.
Did she really look that bad?
From the amount of concern people had been showing based on her appearance, maybe it would have been better if she had gone out with Veena last night. At least then, there was the possibility of having some fun before feeling crap, instead of suffering the punishment of a hangover-like illness with none of the advantages.
Rose rustled the paper as she folded it over, before dropping a blue leather-bound book on Donna's desk with a neat throw.
"Not much to do today, so I'll try to let you go early." She paused for a moment, considering. "And the late thing, this morning? Don't worry about it. It'll stay between you and me, I'll make sure they don't put it on your record. You have an excuse. You're ill."
Her boss really was the best, both as a manager and a mate.
Yes. She didn't know when or where it happened, but Rose had made a seamless transition from work colleague to friend, as easily as if they'd been at school together all their lives. It started over coffee after work, and progressed into the playful banter they shared during the day like it was the most natural thing in the world.
At least, when one of them didn't feel like their head was about to implode.
Feeling immensely grateful for the let off, Donna spun around on her chair to thank her profusely and offer a coffee outing when they both had time. Why not?
Instead, she was greeted by a flash of images behind her eyes, of a woman standing on a beach and staring out towards her with a very familiar gaze, and a big blue box behind her that looked like it came straight from the 1960's. There was a man, too, stood to her right and dressed in brown, skinny and young. He was reaching a hand towards her, though she couldn't move to grab it because her limbs wouldn't listen to her, and felt like lead.
The pain in her head doubled, tripled and splintered, and she could feel herself falling, barely catching the sound of a gasp from the other side of the room.
"Donna!"
&&&
It's dark again. The hands are absent this time, but she can still feel someone standing in front of her, close enough to reach out and touch but she still can't move, cold steel in place of blood, freezing her in utter stillness.
A male voice whispers, and she half-listens, drifting between dreams and reality.
"With this ring, I thee bio-damp."
"... Great big spaceship? Hovering over London? You didn't notice?"
"You've got a... a... hatbox?!"
"Oh, that's all right, just us girls."
"There's a murder, a mystery and Agatha Christie."
"Oh well. Nice try. I've got you Donna!"
"I couldn't get rid of you if I tried."
Little snippets of conversations, crackling in and out like a badly tuned radio, slip between the moments of sound and silence, until the words come into focus, and she can hear him shouting now, accent terse and clearly Estuary.
"Donna, open the door."
"Open the door!"
"You've got to jump!"
"Donna!"
&&&
"Woah, woah, it's all right. You're fine, Donna. Deep breaths."
"Wha- Rose? What happened?"
A room swam into view, painted in light pastel colours. It wasn't the office. Blonde hair appeared above her, and brown eyes peered down, worried.
"You passed out. How's your head feeling?"
Blinking, she sat up slowly, to find she had been laid out on a long chaise lit by sunlight pouring through a large window. Oddly, the pain in her head was gone, the fiery throbbing replaced by a dull ache that she could easily ignore. She smiled at her boss.
"Better, thanks. Where am I? What happened?"
"We - well, me and your Lee-" Rose smiled wickedly, and Donna managed a raspy chuckle. "We brought you back to my flat. Since he's a first aider, he checked your head over. You seemed all right, so we ferried you across the road to my apartment block. The big bosses didn't mind me borrowing fifteen minutes to look after an ill friend. Lee had to go back, though, but he says he hopes you feel better 'n you're still up for dinner at the weekend."
"Yeah... yeah." Despite the pleasing lack of headache, she still felt a little dazed. Words were roiling around her head like breaking waves - the world spun, and she felt hands steadying her.
"Donna, lay back if you feel dizzy. The office called your mum to pick you up-"
"Oh, god." That was what she meant to say, but it came out more like "Mnugh."
Rose grinned, clearly understanding anyway, and continued.
"D'ya want a cuppa while you wait? It'll help your head, I'm sure. Lots of sugar, yeah?"
She nodded, liking the sound of that.
Rose's gaze tightened, focusing on her like lasers. "Are you sure you're all right?"
For a few moments, she considered saying no. But then, the words rearranged themselves into a sentence, inserting itself carefully into her thoughts. It came out of her mouth before she could even blink.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Just a really weird dream. Can't really remember it. It's slipping away. You know when you try and think of it and it just sort of... goes."
Rose nodded. "Yeah, I know that feeling. Anyway, I'll get you that tea, we'll wait for your mum, and then you, Miss Noble, are going to take some time off. Can't have you organising everything if you're going to collapse on me again, eh?"
They both managed a chuckle as she retreated towards what looked like a rather stylish kitchen. As she walked, Donna saw the sunlight from the window catch her eyes, turning them an eerie shade of gold.
Donna shivered, and lay back to wait for her mum, ideas and moments half-remembered keeping her awake.
&& NEXT &&