(no subject)
((OOC: Post-Para Donna/Peter. Donna is the wordiest narrator ever and refuses to shut up, just for the record.))
Donna's having yet another shit day in a shit week of a shit month of a shit life. She's standing outside her bed and breakfast in the rain, still wearing the sundress she'd had on earlier, before her rubbish boyfriend - boyfriend? ha! ex, now, if she has anything to say about it (and she has quite a lot to say about it) - stole her car, went on a drug-fueled rampage that entailed driving through a farmer's market (seriously wounding four little old ladies, two dogs, and a prize-winning turnip), plowing through a sheep meadow, and then over a cliff. And apparently he'd got the money for the drugs by embezzling it from work, which meant that Monday was going to be an exceptionally wretched day at the office.
All of this really serves as another mental tally on Donna's list of reasons why she should avoid men her mother approved of in the future, something most women abandon by the time they're twenty or twenty-five. But not Donna. Every bloke her mother's liked or called "a nice man" has turned out to be the complete opposite, and Stu was apparently no exception to the rule. She wonders idly if Sylvia will send him a get well soon bouquet while he's in hospital, even though he totaled her car.
And, God, how is she going to explain this to her mum? "Hi, Mum, Stu went on a rampage and now I'm trapped in the Lake District with nothing but sheep to keep me company, send help?" Maybe she can learn to knit and make herself a sweater - which, at the moment, sounds like a brilliant idea, 'cos she's soaked to the skin and shivering and wondering how many times she has to tell the ruddy coppers that she doesn't know anything. She almost wishes they'd take her back to the station, because it'd certainly be warmer there, and she'd stand a chance of getting a cup of coffee, to boot.
One of the DIs - a tall bloke who's been chewing on the tip of his pen in between taking notes - comes over and unexpectedly drapes his wool greatcoat over her shoulders. She gives him a trembling smile, and suddenly she feels the stress of the day come crashing down on her, and it's all she can do to keep from collapsing in a sobbing heap. She sniffles as tears well up in her eyes, ignoring the questions the two other DIs are asking her. "I don't know," she insists again, closing her eyes for a moment.
When she opens them again, all three of the coppers have backed off, and they seem to be conferring with each other. The tall one approaches her again, giving her a wary smile as he scratches the back of his head. "Look, Miss...Noble, was it? My two comrades here are going to go back to the station. Let me take you back inside and get you a cup of coffee, yeah? On the house. It's the least we can do for you after troubling you for so long."
Donna pushes a long, straggly clump of soaked hair away from her face, sighing in defeat. The coffee can only come with more interrogation, but she figure's it's a small price to pay for getting out of the bloody rain. Some minibreak this turned out to be. "All right," she agrees. "What's your name, then?" Because if she ends up getting raped or mugged or something, she probably ought to know who to accuse, she figures.
"DI Carlisle."
"Is DI your first name, then, or have you got another?"
He gives her a funny crooked smile that seems bizarrely familiar for a moment. "Peter."
"Well, Peter, I'm Donna." She turns and heads into the bed and breakfast without waiting to see if he follows - though she's still got his coat, so the odds are in her favour, if you can call it that.
***
Coffee turned into coffee and a bite to eat, and then became a bottle of wine, and Donna and Peter are sitting at the small table next to the bay window in her room and laughing and chatting like old friends as wind-battered tree branches lash against the glass.
"So then, the bastard finds religion while he's in Vegas and becomes a bloody preacher!" Peter snorts and tops off his glass, swirling the house red around the goblet.
"No, really?" Donna leans forward, elbows on the table, ignoring (or, given how much she's had to drink, perhaps not quite ignoring) the fact that the low-cut blouse she's changed into gives Peter quite a good view of her (rather impressive, if she does say so herself) cleavage.
And her ploy, deliberate or not, does manage to distract Peter for a moment before he continues his story. "Yeah, and then he thought he'd try to open Vegas-style wedding chapels in Blackpool. Let me tell you, that was a bit ridiculous. But this was a bloke who'd dress up like Elvis to marry people, so ridiculous was his forte." Peter licks his lips, clearly distracted again. "Donna?" he asks finally. "We...haven't met before, have we?"
Donna bites back a snarky comment about him recognising her breasts from somewhere and shrugs, trying to appear casual. "Don't think I've ever been in a police lineup in the Lake District before, so no, not to my knowledge." Except she thinks he looks familiar, too, and it's niggling at the back of her mind somewhere, along with every other bloody irritating bit of deja vu that she's managed to pick up lately. Before she quite knows what she's doing, she leans in a bit more and kisses Peter. He makes a small surprised noise against her lips, but he kisses her back, setting the glass down and wrapping an arm around her waist. It feels strangely right in a way that doesn't generally happen when you're drunk and snogging a stranger - at least, not in Donna's experience. But she doesn't mind a bit.
***
She wakes up the next morning when a particularly irritating sunbeam shines in through the window and onto her face, illuminating the red hair fanned out across Peter's chest and making it shine like burnished copper. Peter cracks an eyelid open and smiles sleepily down at her, and Donna's got that weird deja vu again - but there's something more to it now, a sense of loss and heartache and loneliness. She frowns for a moment, then nestles closer to him.
Though he looks bony, he's surprisingly nice to cuddle with - and nothing pokes her in uncomfortable places (except for maybe that, but it's hardly uncomfortable), even if he's practically thin enough to cut her (and that phrase niggles at her, something about paper cuts? but she pushes it out of her mind). She nuzzles his chest, then settles back into the crook of his arm, perfectly content to stay right where she is. As Donna drifts off to sleep again, she can almost swear that she and Peter are somewhere else - a room with stone walls and luxurious furniture, someplace much nicer than she could ever afford on her salary. But it's got to be the hangover, or a fragment of a dream floating into her consciousness like a stray soap bubble, or something other than a memory that can't possibly be real.
Donna's having yet another shit day in a shit week of a shit month of a shit life. She's standing outside her bed and breakfast in the rain, still wearing the sundress she'd had on earlier, before her rubbish boyfriend - boyfriend? ha! ex, now, if she has anything to say about it (and she has quite a lot to say about it) - stole her car, went on a drug-fueled rampage that entailed driving through a farmer's market (seriously wounding four little old ladies, two dogs, and a prize-winning turnip), plowing through a sheep meadow, and then over a cliff. And apparently he'd got the money for the drugs by embezzling it from work, which meant that Monday was going to be an exceptionally wretched day at the office.
All of this really serves as another mental tally on Donna's list of reasons why she should avoid men her mother approved of in the future, something most women abandon by the time they're twenty or twenty-five. But not Donna. Every bloke her mother's liked or called "a nice man" has turned out to be the complete opposite, and Stu was apparently no exception to the rule. She wonders idly if Sylvia will send him a get well soon bouquet while he's in hospital, even though he totaled her car.
And, God, how is she going to explain this to her mum? "Hi, Mum, Stu went on a rampage and now I'm trapped in the Lake District with nothing but sheep to keep me company, send help?" Maybe she can learn to knit and make herself a sweater - which, at the moment, sounds like a brilliant idea, 'cos she's soaked to the skin and shivering and wondering how many times she has to tell the ruddy coppers that she doesn't know anything. She almost wishes they'd take her back to the station, because it'd certainly be warmer there, and she'd stand a chance of getting a cup of coffee, to boot.
One of the DIs - a tall bloke who's been chewing on the tip of his pen in between taking notes - comes over and unexpectedly drapes his wool greatcoat over her shoulders. She gives him a trembling smile, and suddenly she feels the stress of the day come crashing down on her, and it's all she can do to keep from collapsing in a sobbing heap. She sniffles as tears well up in her eyes, ignoring the questions the two other DIs are asking her. "I don't know," she insists again, closing her eyes for a moment.
When she opens them again, all three of the coppers have backed off, and they seem to be conferring with each other. The tall one approaches her again, giving her a wary smile as he scratches the back of his head. "Look, Miss...Noble, was it? My two comrades here are going to go back to the station. Let me take you back inside and get you a cup of coffee, yeah? On the house. It's the least we can do for you after troubling you for so long."
Donna pushes a long, straggly clump of soaked hair away from her face, sighing in defeat. The coffee can only come with more interrogation, but she figure's it's a small price to pay for getting out of the bloody rain. Some minibreak this turned out to be. "All right," she agrees. "What's your name, then?" Because if she ends up getting raped or mugged or something, she probably ought to know who to accuse, she figures.
"DI Carlisle."
"Is DI your first name, then, or have you got another?"
He gives her a funny crooked smile that seems bizarrely familiar for a moment. "Peter."
"Well, Peter, I'm Donna." She turns and heads into the bed and breakfast without waiting to see if he follows - though she's still got his coat, so the odds are in her favour, if you can call it that.
***
Coffee turned into coffee and a bite to eat, and then became a bottle of wine, and Donna and Peter are sitting at the small table next to the bay window in her room and laughing and chatting like old friends as wind-battered tree branches lash against the glass.
"So then, the bastard finds religion while he's in Vegas and becomes a bloody preacher!" Peter snorts and tops off his glass, swirling the house red around the goblet.
"No, really?" Donna leans forward, elbows on the table, ignoring (or, given how much she's had to drink, perhaps not quite ignoring) the fact that the low-cut blouse she's changed into gives Peter quite a good view of her (rather impressive, if she does say so herself) cleavage.
And her ploy, deliberate or not, does manage to distract Peter for a moment before he continues his story. "Yeah, and then he thought he'd try to open Vegas-style wedding chapels in Blackpool. Let me tell you, that was a bit ridiculous. But this was a bloke who'd dress up like Elvis to marry people, so ridiculous was his forte." Peter licks his lips, clearly distracted again. "Donna?" he asks finally. "We...haven't met before, have we?"
Donna bites back a snarky comment about him recognising her breasts from somewhere and shrugs, trying to appear casual. "Don't think I've ever been in a police lineup in the Lake District before, so no, not to my knowledge." Except she thinks he looks familiar, too, and it's niggling at the back of her mind somewhere, along with every other bloody irritating bit of deja vu that she's managed to pick up lately. Before she quite knows what she's doing, she leans in a bit more and kisses Peter. He makes a small surprised noise against her lips, but he kisses her back, setting the glass down and wrapping an arm around her waist. It feels strangely right in a way that doesn't generally happen when you're drunk and snogging a stranger - at least, not in Donna's experience. But she doesn't mind a bit.
***
She wakes up the next morning when a particularly irritating sunbeam shines in through the window and onto her face, illuminating the red hair fanned out across Peter's chest and making it shine like burnished copper. Peter cracks an eyelid open and smiles sleepily down at her, and Donna's got that weird deja vu again - but there's something more to it now, a sense of loss and heartache and loneliness. She frowns for a moment, then nestles closer to him.
Though he looks bony, he's surprisingly nice to cuddle with - and nothing pokes her in uncomfortable places (except for maybe that, but it's hardly uncomfortable), even if he's practically thin enough to cut her (and that phrase niggles at her, something about paper cuts? but she pushes it out of her mind). She nuzzles his chest, then settles back into the crook of his arm, perfectly content to stay right where she is. As Donna drifts off to sleep again, she can almost swear that she and Peter are somewhere else - a room with stone walls and luxurious furniture, someplace much nicer than she could ever afford on her salary. But it's got to be the hangover, or a fragment of a dream floating into her consciousness like a stray soap bubble, or something other than a memory that can't possibly be real.