Fic: The Man in the Blue Box, or, The Piffle We Teach Our Children
The Man in the Blue Box, or, The Piffle We Teach Our Children
Spoilers: For Journey's End, I suppose, though nothing is directly mentioned.
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Donna/Capt. Jack, Donna/OMC
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and Torchwood aren't mine. I'm just playing with them. They belong to Russell T. Davies, BBC, and probably a lot of other people. Samantha and Paul are mine.
She has a child now, a daughter called Samantha, who is seven years old and into everything. Samantha's father isn't in the picture, never has been, thank you very much. Donna's mother has stopped asking and so will never know that his name is Jed Simmons, and he worked in the legal department at Pratt & Temple. He and Donna hooked up at an office party on Donna's last day. When her test came back positive six weeks later, she called him. They told her he had changed jobs and left no forwarding information.
She went on to another job and another job and another job, working her way around Chiswick. The Town Temp, she calls herself because it annoys her mother, who says it sounds too much like The Town Slut. The whole time she was pregnant, her mother's smirk broadcast "I told you so" better than words. Donna would have felt ashamed, except she was a grown woman, and why shouldn't she be a mother? Her mother can't understand why she keeps 'flitting about', why she can't settle at one place and 'live up to her potential'. Donna figures her mother has a dodgy concept of what potential is, figures her mother doesn't know how difficult it is to drop into a new job and instantly pick up on the filing system. Takes some people days, but Donna can work a file system like she owns it within minutes, doesn't matter where she is.
She's comfortable. She loves her daughter. She doesn't take flack. Some days, she even loves her mother. Other days, her mother looks at her like she knows something. Knows in capital letters. On those days, Donna feels, right down to the twisty little place in her gut, just how useless she'll always be, knows herself just how much filing doesn't matter, despite her claims to the contrary, and all because she can see on her mother's face the map of all the places she didn't go and all the things she didn't do.
Samantha sits in the backyard with her great grandfather at night. They huddle together with the blanket and telescope and look up and up and up. Donna takes tea out to them. Sometimes she sits down, too, but she doesn't have time for the sky. Not when her friends are dating and divorcing and she's got stories waiting for her, a phone call away. Anyway, the stories her grandfather is telling Samantha stop when she comes out. They don't mention it, but she can feel something hovering between them, something they know that she doesn't.
"What's in granddad's stories?" she asks Samantha. She has her tucked into bed, just her head showing from the blankets, and black hair cascading over the pillows (first Noble in six generations with black hair).
"A man in a blue box," Samantha says. "He travels through space and time and every night Granddad and me look up for him. He loves us very much." She yawns and covers her mouth after her lips have closed. "But I'm not supposed to tell you. It's a special story, just for me."
"Sounds like...an interesting story," Donna says. She kisses Samantha and goes out of the room, reaching out to push a pink elephant wearing a tutu back onto the shelf as she leaves. Granddad had some stories when she was little that he made up just for her. She still remembers some of them. Never heard one about a man in a blue box. She's glad that he's making up new ones. And Samantha should have a story of her own, too. Even if it does sound immensely stupid and dull.
It bothers her, a little, that Granddad is telling Samantha the man in the blue box loves "us", because it sounds like he's including Donna in that, and Donna doesn't care much for being loved by made-up people, especially ones who go around in boxes doing who knows what and without proper jobs.
Before Samantha comes down for breakfast the next day, Donna mentions this to Granddad.
"What's wrong with a little imagination, darling?" he says.
"Nothing, Granddad. But I don't want her turning 16 and coming home with some street guy just because she's got a fascination with blokes in boxes."
"She'll have outgrown these stories by then."
"Homeless guy in a box would still be a sight better than the piffle you brought home at that age," her mother says.
"Oi," Donna says, even though it's true. God knows, she trouped a parade of losers home during her 80's punk-phase.
Of course her mother would find it funny. "Karma, darling. Just you wait."
Samantha is a few months away from becoming a junior at her primary school. Transitioning out of the infant class means less time to run around during school hours. More time to be spent on studying for the myriad of tests she'll have to take as she gets older. For now, she doesn't think about tests. She runs around and gets into things and never, ever, comes home without grass staining her tights.
Donna can't keep track of her all the time. In the minutes between 3:30 and 4:00, when Samantha should be heading home from school, when Donna is at work, Donna will look at the clock and realize that she doesn't know exactly where her daughter is. She is somewhere between A and B, exact position indeterminate. The distance between A and B is a black hole of opportunity for a child; a stranger with a puppy to suck her in; a squirrel running towards an oncoming car for her to run after; it's enough to kill a mother with anxiety.
When Donna mentions giving her a mobile phone so she can check in on her walk home, Samantha says, "Don't worry, Mummy, the Doctor will watch out for me."
"The who?" Donna says. Her mother and granddad have put their forks down, too, looking as shocked as Donna. She's too late--Samantha has already met a creep. He probably drives a van with no windows in the back.
"He's called the Doctor," Samantha says. "From Granddad's stories." She is still shoveling peas into her mouth, smiling around her spoon.
Donna lets the relief flood over her. Seven year olds and their imaginations. Come to that, old men and theirs. "Well, I'm going to get you a phone anyway. Just in case he's not around."
"O.K."
Later, when Donna is clearing the dishes, she hears her mother scolding Granddad. "I told you those stories wouldn't come to any good."
"But I never told her his..." Granddad says, but Donna turns the faucet on over the last word and doesn't catch it.
Donna takes Samantha to Dr. Perkins, a real doctor, who drives a car that is neither blue nor box-shaped, for her flu shot. "The Doctor doesn't give shots," Samantha says as she watches the needle go into her arm.
"What doctor is that?" Dr. Perkins says. He presses a piece of cotton over the puncture mark.
"An imaginary friend. Flies around in a blue box," Donna says.
"Sounds cramped." Perkins offers Samantha a choice of Scooby Doo or Postman Pat plasters.
"It's bigger on the inside," Samantha says, and points to the Scooby Doo.
A few days later, Samantha is late coming home, and Donna goes mad. She's good in crisis, though. All that experience from being dropped into a job with no instruction as a temp. She divides up a contact list between herself, her mother, and granddad and tells them to start calling people, starting with the school and ending with the police.
At 6:00, the doorbell rings. Samantha is there, holding a man's hand. He's dressed in some kind of out-dated uniform, not police. Looks military, but that's not right, either. He could be from Special Forces. Whatever he is, he looks...in charge. He lets go of Samantha's hand so he can shake Donna's.
"Are you Samantha's mum? I'm..." He stops speaking when he looks Donna in the face. For a moment, his eyes fog, though his smile never wavers. "I'm sorry. Samantha didn't tell me she had such an attractive mother. I'm Captain Jack Harkness. Pleased to meet you." He pushes his hand towards her, urgently, somehow, as if it's vital to him that she takes it.
She ignores him, instead reaching for her daughter, and doesn't that say a lot about how she's changed since becoming a mum. No time for handsome men, now. "What happened, darling? Are you hurt?"
"No, fine," the so-called Captain says, and then stops when Donna glares at him. "Oh. Right. Not talking to me." He stands quietly in the doorway and keeps smiling. She can feel it, bearing down on her head. His smile and his perfect teeth, beaming at her. It's damned unnerving. He's American, too, which makes him even more annoying because she can't think why an American would be in Chiswick, or in any position of authority while he's here, come to that.
"I'm fine, Mummy. Captain Jack brought me home."
"Well, where were you?"
"I was working on a project for school. We're studying Chaucer's Pilgrims. I went walking to see if I could understand how they felt. I guess I lost track of time."
A slight snort came from the doorway, and Donna looked up to see the Captain apologetically covering his mouth with the back of his hand. She thinks he mumbles something about someone not trusting him with calibrations, but it's all such blabberhooey that she ignores it.
"You're sure you're alright?"
"Yes, Mummy," Samantha says. She's sick of being fawned on and is pulling out of Donna's grip.
"Well, looks like everything's fine here. I'll be off." The Captain puts one foot outside the threshold.
"Captain Jack knows the Doctor," Samantha says.
"He what?" Donna says. Everything stops, even the air, thick in their ears, as Captain Jack's smile turns from smooth to awkward. "Honey, go into the kitchen and have Nana make you a sandwich."
"Goodbye, Captain Jack."
"Bye, sweetheart." Samantha bounces away. "Well, nice meeting you," he says to Donna.
"Not so fast, you. What do you know about this Doctor? Is he real?" She's advancing on him. His back is against the doorjamb. If he turns, he has an easy escape, but he doesn't move. He simply looks at her, like he's waiting for her to think of something. Oh, she'll think of something, all right. Self-righteous-looking man. "Is my daughter out with a strange man? Are you in on it?"
"I found her. I'm an agent. I do find children from time to time." He is speaking, one word at a time, as if she is an imbecile.
"Do. You. Know. The. Doctor."
"She told me about the Doctor in the car. I don't usually bring missing children home. One of my agents does it. But I thought, such an amazing girl with such a wonderful imagination. Of course I wanted to meet her family. Anyway, what's the harm in letting her believe the stories her grandfather tells?"
"Nothing, until people like you come along and tell her they're true." Donna had not realized before how much this bothered her. "She already thinks that she's got an instant save whenever she's in trouble. That this...man in a box is going to swoop down and rescue her!" Donna blinks rapidly to push back the tears that have sprung to her eyes. "And now a strange man finds her wandering in the woods… Anything could have happened. I'm a good mother." She doesn't know why she says this last bit to him.
"I know."
"Whatcha mean, you know?"
"Samantha is a lovely girl. Stands to reason she'd have a good mother. We teach kids about bogeymen don't we? Why shouldn't we let them believe in someone like the Doctor? Someone whose entire purpose is to save us?" The Captain has taken desperation into his voice, too.
"You...really do believe in him, don't you?" Donna lets her hand close around a vase that could, if hefted just so, be as good as anything for felling the loon.
"I just think...it doesn't hurt anything to believe in someone or something like him. Please put the vase down. Please."
Donna does. "I guess it would be a shame to put a dent in you."
"Thank you. Well, it's been nice meeting you, Miss Noble, I'm sorry about any stress this day has caused you. If you need anything, please contact my colleagues at the police station..."
"Why'd you assume I'm a 'Miss'?"
"You aren't wearing a ring."
"Maybe I'm a modern woman."
"Are you?"
"Why can't I contact you at the station?"
"This isn't my territory. Just here on official business. Taking Samantha home was something of a detour."
"Captain..."
"Jack."
"Are you married?"
"Oh, now who's getting personal?"
"Are you?"
"Widowed."
"Recently?"
"Fairly." She can't read any grief in him, but she gets the feeling that he's pushed it so deep that he doesn't know he has it.
"May I...would you fancy a drink sometime?"
"I really shouldn't." This would be a cue to leave, but he still doesn't move.
"Oh. So what you said, about me being beautiful, that was just..."
"I don't think it's a good idea to get involved with..."
"Citizens?"
"Yes," though from the way he agrees, she can tell that this is not the word he would have chosen.
"Alright, then, Captain. Thank you for bringing Samantha home."
"Anytime. Ma'am." He salutes her smartly and about-faces himself down the step and into the road before she can say anything more. She trots to the phone to tell Sheila about the dashing man in the greatcoat.
Sheila has been having man-troubles. Donna suggests that what she needs is a good romp with a soldier in period-dress. Sheila suggests the same is true for anyone. That's when Donna realizes that her only chance at that went out the door five minutes ago to places unknown, never to be seen again.
Until, that is, the following Tuesday, when her desk phone rings and it's him on the other line.
"I've been thinking about that drink," he says. "Could we make it coffee?"
"How did you know where to find me?"
"I had my assistant scan the personnel files at your temp agency."
"Is that legal?"
"Legal, illegal. These are blurred times, Miss Noble."
"Call me Donna."
She's never had a man try that hard to find her. She's equally flattered and creeped out. They meet at a café on her lunch break. He's still dressed like he stepped out of a Beau Brummel catalog.
"Sugar?" He tears open a packet and hovers it expectantly over her mug.
"No, thank you."
"Alright." He dumps it into his own, and then rips open another. "So…how are you?"
"What do you mean?"
He looks confused. It is an expression that doesn't sit well on him. He looks like the sort of man who is never lost or out of sorts. Leave it to her to introduce him to befuddlement. "Well, it's a question that one asks when one is interested in another person…"
"How do you mean interested?"
His spoon doesn't touch the side of the mug when he stirs. "I'm sorry, have I said… You know, you're the first person in recent memory who's flustered me, Donna Noble. And I have a Very. Long. Memory."
She's pretty certain, when he says "long", that he is not talking about his memory. She glances at the table, and wishes, not for the first time, for x-ray vision so she can see through it to his lap. "I'm sorry. I'm just…it's been a while since a man has asked me out. And a man as gorgeous as you…well, I don't know if that's ever happened."
"I am quite a catch," he says.
"You might want to act a bit humble, Captain Hotstuff. Girls find egomaniacs a turn off."
He takes her hand and brings it to his lips. "Do you?"
Her heart slips into overdrive. "What do you want?"
"What do you want?" He throws the question back without malice.
"I want to screw your brains out." She barely stops her hand from slapping over her mouth. Instead, she stares at him, horrified. Maybe he didn't hear and they can go on with the coffee like nothing was said.
He waits not even a second. "O.K." He stands up, swings his coat over his shoulder like a cape, and offers her his arm.
In bed, or, actually, in closet, since they are wedged in the supply closet at Donna's job, Jack is kneeling in front of her, and Donna is thanking every God she can think of that she wore a skirt that day. The Captain's tongue is skilled. She tries not to think of all the places it's been. He doesn't strike her as the monogamous type. He smiles too much to be loyal.
When he finally emerges from under her skirt, his lips are translucent. He has broken Billy Cunningham's cunnilingus record, set in August, 1991, for fourteen minutes, twenty seconds, and every record her girlfriends have ever told her about their dates setting. She'll owe them all a round for this because oh, yes, they have a twenty-year-old wager going. It will be a long, long time before any man comes near this score.
"I have to go back to work. I'm sorry."
"It's O.K. We'll see each other soon."
"We will?"
"Unless you don't want to?"
"Oh no, I want to."
He wipes his mouth and checks the door. They exit separately. She wobbles all the way back to her desk.
Donna pulls herself together enough to get some work done, but she allows a little swoon every now and then. She can't wait to tell the girls, and yet, something stops her. Part of her wants to keep Jack all to herself, like a gift kept on a shelf that only she knows about.
"I had coffee with the agent who brought Samantha home the other day. I think he's interested in me." Despite her better knowledge of the reaction she's going to get, Donna can't stop herself from telling her mother.
"Well, of course he's not interested in you, Donna. Why would someone that good looking be interested in you?" her mother says. Why, why, why doesn't she just stop telling her mother things? The woman could look at a rainbow and see black.
"Shut up, Mum." This will not be one of the days when she loves her mother.
"I only mean you have to be realistic or you'll get hurt."
She's sick of being realistic. Maybe she should start believing in a box that's bigger on the inside and has a little space man in it.
"Well, I think you deserve a handsome, well-mannered man, duckling." Granddad salutes her with his cuppa. "You go, girl."
The next day Jack sends her an email to say he's going back to Cardiff, where he works, and she figures that's the end of him. But on Saturday he turns up at the house with a black man. Donna can't decide if the new guy is young or goofy looking or both. "This is Mickey. He works with me."
Mickey nearly pumps her arm off when he takes her hand. "Brilliant to meet you," he says.
"Likewise."
"He's a little eager, sorry," Jack stage-whispers. "Mickey, would you mind?" Jack nods towards something around the doorway that Donna can't see. Next thing she knows, Mickey is engaged in clanging and rustling. He drags a suit of armor in front of her. Evidently, they had propped it against the outside of the house before they rang the bell.
"What is that?" Donna says.
"It's a suit of armor from 1380, the year Chaucer started writing the Canterbury Tales. I thought Samantha might like to show it to her schoolmates for her project. We discussed it when I was bringing her home the other day. I'm surprised she didn't mention it."
Donna stares at it. It is only about 4 foot and a few inches high. "Awfully small, isn't it?"
"Weighs a ton," Mickey says. Beads of sweat are gathering around his temples.
"People were smaller back then." Jack has made no move to help Mickey with it. "Do you think she could use it?"
"Why don't you bring it in?" She steps aside, and Mickey drags the thing over to a chair. He sits it down in the seat like it's there visiting. She half wants to offer it a cuppa. Once it's out of his arms, he brushes himself off and glares at Jack.
"Thanks for the help, boss."
"I lead, you… I really need to think of something that rhymes with lead. I should have a catchphrase, don't you think?" He looks at Donna.
"I think you *are* a catchphrase."
"Let's go, Mickey Mouse." Mickey shakes his head as he walks out.
"Bye, Miss Noble."
"Bye, Mickey. Thanks for the armor."
"Yep."
She touches Jack's arm. "Is this goodbye?"
He glances towards Mickey, sees the back of him heading towards the SUV. Instantly, he sweeps Donna up in the kiss they never got around to having on Tuesday. "I'll call you."
She believes him. It was a good guy, who helped a little girl with her school projects. And who broke the cunnilingus record. Definition of "a keeper", that.
He waves and races out the door. Mickey has already started honking the horn.
When Samantha comes into the sitting room for cartoons, she heads straight for the armor. Donna watches her and delights in the innocent joy on her daughter's face. Yes, she is a good mum, what other parent provides a suit of armor for a school project?
"Sir Robert!" Samantha cries and embraces the suit.
Donna blinks. OK. She wasn't expecting that. "Samantha, darling, it's an empty suit. Captain Jack brought it over this morning. You remember him? From last week…?" She talks as she watches Samantha, still kneeling on the suit's lap, raising the headpiece and looking in.
"Mummy, it's empty."
"Yes, darling. It's just a suit. There's no knight in there."
"Oh." She turns and sits on it. "Sir Robert was nice though. But he was kind of stinky."
"I'm sure he was." She pops the TV on to a cartoon about penguins in outer space. Then, looking back at her daughter, who is eating dry cereal with her fingers from a bag and has hooked the suit's arm around her waist, Donna changes the channel to a program on math.
She and Jack go to a movie together. Donna had no idea it was possible for a man to be this excited about seeing a film, especially one with such lackluster reviews. He'd told her that he hadn't seen one in years, and still she watches, gobsmacked, as Jack bounces through the line for popcorn. He chatters all through the pre-show advertisements, and she thinks she'll have to shush him during the show, but once the previews start, he is all attention on the screen. During the film, someone's mobile rings and he quietly excuses himself. A second later, the phone stops ringing, and Jack returns. The rest of the film is free from electronic distraction and Jack sports a self-congratulatory smile until the closing credits.
She invites him home for a drink.
On the way, he pulls off the road. They look at each other for two seconds. Then his shirt is off and his pants are open and she's finally getting a look at his Very Long Memory. It's not so much long as thick, but she's in no mood to give corrections. He mumbles when they're making love, as if he doesn't want her to understand his bedroom talk. When she listens, closer, she realizes he's not speaking English. He works in Cardiff, so she figures it's Welsh. She decides Welsh is a damned hot language.
At the house, she goes to get beers. When she comes back to the sitting room with the drinks, Jack is gone. Her first instinct is to look out the front door. His car is still there. She wanders the house, searching. Finally, she ventures outside to Granddad's perch. There she finds Jack, sitting with Granddad and Samantha.
"Whatcha doing out here? You're supposed to be my date."
"Oh…just looking up." He smiles and pulls her down beside him. "You're beautiful, you know? You are."
She thinks about telling him that she dyes her gray hairs, but doesn't.
"So are you."
They all sit and look up together. Samantha snuggles beneath Jack's free arm. Donna looks at the others and realizes she is the only one out there not looking for a blue box. She has what she needs right here beside her.
"You know, Mummy, there are places in this universe where entire nations sing songs in praise of you."
She looks in the rearview mirror at Samantha, who is playing with some broken pieces of pottery that she got who knows where, probably from some dilapidated playground.
"That's very flattering, sweetheart. What are you playing with?"
"It's from this girl I know called Helene. It used to be a vase. It was really pretty. Shame it got broken, but I was teaching her how to play cricket and the ball hit it. She wasn't very good at cricket."
"Was it really old?" Donna calculates how much she'll owe the family if the girls have broken an heirloom.
"Not to her." From the back of the car, Samantha starts to sing something in gibberish, and Donna wonders at what age a child crosses the line from being imaginative to being insane.
"I need to talk to you," Jack says on the phone. "Can we meet?"
Donna looks up as Paul, her current boss, comes storming out of his office waving papers at her. "Hold on." She covers the receiver. "I'm on the phone, what is it?"
"Crisis, absolute crisis. Hang up with whoever that is and help me."
"What if it's the Prime Minister? You want me to hang up on her?"
Paul leans in until she can see the whites of his eyes. "Yes."
"Café, one o'clock," she says to Jack and hangs up. "Now then, what's this so-called crisis?" Paul explains. Mis-matched memos, the wrong people receiving, confidences in risk… She snatches the papers up. "Don't worry. Got it sorted."
"Really?"
"Yeah. No problem." She has it taken care of in five minutes and is back at her desk in time to watch the anti-social bitch sitting next to her click onto YouTube.
"We all know what you're doing, honey."
The bitch just glares.
Five minutes to one, Donna heads to the café. Jack is already waiting with one coffee. She is about to get snappy with him about that when she realizes he has positioned it in front of her seat.
"I can't see you anymore," he says. "I'm sorry."
"What do you mean?"
"It's not you, it's…well, it's not me either. I've gotten orders."
"What do you mean? I thought you were commander of your unit or whatever."
"I am, but there's always someone above, you know? He says I'm not to…"
"Fraternize with civilians?"
"Yes." Again, the word that both of them know isn't what he means. Trouble is, she doesn't know what the correct word actually is.
"Why now?"
"He only just found out. I hadn't told him."
"What? You were ashamed of me?"
"No. I knew he wouldn't understand."
"Understand what?"
"Being left behind."
"I don't know that I do either. These last two weeks have been amazing. I never thought I could feel this way about an American."
"Well, thank you. My boss, he doesn't think like normal people. He's good at the big picture. Not so good at the little one, at the one that involves one or two people."
"Sounds like a real piece of work."
"I'm sorry, Donna. I wish I could…"
"It's bad enough you're walking out on me, but what about Samantha? She loves you!"
"I'd like to say goodbye to her, if it's alright."
"Come over tonight."
"O.K."
He arrives at seven, when they are finishing up dinner. Samantha runs over to him. Donna has warned her that he is going away, so she knows the reason he's there. They go into the sitting room.
"Aren't you going in with them?" her mother says.
"It's their goodbye," Donna says. She stares at her plate until Granddad takes it away. After five minutes, she figures that's enough time for goodbyes. From the door, she hears Jack promising that he will always, always, always be thinking of her.
"Jack has to go, darling," Donna says.
Samantha gives him a hug. "I'll miss you, Jack."
"Me too." He looks more crestfallen about leaving Samantha than he did about leaving Donna.
"Go see Granddad now. It's Mummy's turn to say goodbye."
"Take good care of all those broken old things, now," Jack says. "You never know when you'll need some kind of junk."
Samantha nods. She goes slowly into the kitchen. Jack wipes his eyes. "Sorry. I didn't think it would be that hard."
She kisses him, full-on, farewell in the movies type kiss. "Go on, then."
He touches her face. "Don't ever forget how wonderful you are."
"Yeah. Sure won't."
She watches him get into his black SUV and drive off. Never would have worked out, anyway, what with gas prices what they were and the environment going bottom-up. If she was going to date anyone, it would be a guy with a sound sense of ecology.
She starts to remove all trace of him from her life. She packs him into a box and puts him away. No looking back, that's her motto. Take that for a catchphrase and shove it, Captain Jack.
Her current boss, Paul, calls. "I just wanted to thank you," he says, "for managing that crisis today. I'm sorry it all came down on your last day, but I am so grateful that we had someone like you on hand to sort it out."
"Oh, anytime," but she is stunned. Thirty years as a temp and her supervisor has never called her at home for any reason.
"I'm actually calling for another reason."
"The Penderplast files are in your left hand drawer."
"No…uh…I was wondering…would you want to get dinner sometime?"
"What?"
"I didn't think it was appropriate to ask while you were working for me, but now that you're not, I would really love it if… Donna, I've wanted to ask you out since that first day when you told Claudia to get her own coffee. Please say yes."
"What kind of car do you drive?"
"A hybrid. Why?"
"Yes."
"Oh, thank goodness. I would have been really embarrassed if you'd…"
"But not just now."
"Oh."
"I just finished a relationship, today, in fact. I need some time. Can I call you?"
"Yes, of course." She takes his number.
"The Doctor looks different now," Samantha says. She is sitting on the edge of Donna's bed playing with a ring that Donna has never seen before.
"Did he change out of that brown suit?"
"His face is different. And his hair. It's black like mine. He wears shorts now, and shirts without sleeves."
Donna is brushing her hair and not paying much attention. She'd thought it was strange when Samantha told her about the brown suit. She didn't know anyone who wore brown. Maybe that was why she decided the Doctor did. And now she'd invented a wardrobe for him suitable only for someone who was sartorially challenged or who lived in a gym. Weird, weird, weird child.
"He must have a tan to be showing off that much skin."
"Naw, he's still British."
"How do you know it's the same guy? Could be someone else saying he's the Doctor."
"I can tell from his jokes." Samantha spins the ring off the edge of the bed and drops down to fetch it.
"What about them?" Donna watches warily because Samantha is within touching distance of the Box of Jack. She sits up with the ring on her finger.
"He's the only one who thinks they're funny."
"Honey, you've just described every man in the universe."
"I know." She says it with a conviction that a seven year old should not have.
She waits a week before she calls Paul. They go out the next day.
"Before anything else, I want you to know that I'm divorced. I have a son, Peter. He's twelve." Paul has said all this before the drinks even arrive. "So, if you want to run, now's the time."
"I have never been married. I have a seven-year-old daughter. Her name is Samantha. Her father is not in the picture and never has been. So…"
"Alright. So. Glad that's out there." He has a dopey smile, not at all like Jack's. He's got the smile of a monogamous man. About time she had a man like that.
"Yeah, me too." Please, she thinks, don't let him be boring.
He isn't boring. He's fascinating, in a way. Dinner stretches into four hours. Afterwards, they go out for drinks. He walks her to her door and doesn't ask to come in. How old-fashioned of him.
"Can I see you tomorrow? Or is that too soon?" he says. But…not so old-fashioned that he won't ask her out on the spot. Brilliant.
"Pick me up at seven?"
"Great." He starts to walk away, but she grabs him. He looks stunned when she kisses him, but he quickly responds. Afterwards he stumbles backwards, grinning, and almost skips to his car.
As Donna moves down the hallway, she sees light leaking from beneath the door to Samantha's room. She starts to open the door, thinking Samantha is pulling her old trick of reading with a torch under the covers. No matter how many times she tells her that she'll ruin her eyes, at least once a week she has to go in and confiscate a book. Instead, she finds Samantha sitting up in bed, tears running down her face.
Donna slips into the room and sits down on the bed next to her crying girl. "Sweetheart, what's wrong? Did you have a bad dream? Mummy's here. It's ok."
Samantha slumps into Donna's arms. "He says I can't see him anymore."
"Who?" Donna can't remember Samantha mentioning a crush on anyone at school.
"The Doctor."
"Your imaginary friend?" She pushes Samantha's hair away from her wet face.
"He's real."
"O.K. O.K. There there."
"He says I'm too young to be around him. He says I don't know how to handle it."
"Handle what?"
"Mummy, if you knew him… He's magical. He's wonderful. He shows you things you never knew existed, but he's stern, Mummy. He's so, so stern. And he's afraid. But not of monsters or the things we're afraid of. He's afraid of Christmas dinners and watching cartoons on a Saturday and of hanging out."
"Sounds like you're better off without him."
Samantha pulls back, and looks at Donna, eyes intent on her understanding. "No, Mummy. He needs someone with him. See, Mummy, he's lonely. He's the loneliest man who ever lived. And he's so, so sad. He says that's why I can't see him anymore, because I'm too young to know about feelings like that. But it's too late, Mummy. I do know. I will never, ever forget."
"Oh, honey."
"What am I going to do now?"
She sits, rocking her daughter, and says the only thing she can think of.
"Look up."
The End
Spoilers: For Journey's End, I suppose, though nothing is directly mentioned.
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Donna/Capt. Jack, Donna/OMC
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and Torchwood aren't mine. I'm just playing with them. They belong to Russell T. Davies, BBC, and probably a lot of other people. Samantha and Paul are mine.
She has a child now, a daughter called Samantha, who is seven years old and into everything. Samantha's father isn't in the picture, never has been, thank you very much. Donna's mother has stopped asking and so will never know that his name is Jed Simmons, and he worked in the legal department at Pratt & Temple. He and Donna hooked up at an office party on Donna's last day. When her test came back positive six weeks later, she called him. They told her he had changed jobs and left no forwarding information.
She went on to another job and another job and another job, working her way around Chiswick. The Town Temp, she calls herself because it annoys her mother, who says it sounds too much like The Town Slut. The whole time she was pregnant, her mother's smirk broadcast "I told you so" better than words. Donna would have felt ashamed, except she was a grown woman, and why shouldn't she be a mother? Her mother can't understand why she keeps 'flitting about', why she can't settle at one place and 'live up to her potential'. Donna figures her mother has a dodgy concept of what potential is, figures her mother doesn't know how difficult it is to drop into a new job and instantly pick up on the filing system. Takes some people days, but Donna can work a file system like she owns it within minutes, doesn't matter where she is.
She's comfortable. She loves her daughter. She doesn't take flack. Some days, she even loves her mother. Other days, her mother looks at her like she knows something. Knows in capital letters. On those days, Donna feels, right down to the twisty little place in her gut, just how useless she'll always be, knows herself just how much filing doesn't matter, despite her claims to the contrary, and all because she can see on her mother's face the map of all the places she didn't go and all the things she didn't do.
Samantha sits in the backyard with her great grandfather at night. They huddle together with the blanket and telescope and look up and up and up. Donna takes tea out to them. Sometimes she sits down, too, but she doesn't have time for the sky. Not when her friends are dating and divorcing and she's got stories waiting for her, a phone call away. Anyway, the stories her grandfather is telling Samantha stop when she comes out. They don't mention it, but she can feel something hovering between them, something they know that she doesn't.
"What's in granddad's stories?" she asks Samantha. She has her tucked into bed, just her head showing from the blankets, and black hair cascading over the pillows (first Noble in six generations with black hair).
"A man in a blue box," Samantha says. "He travels through space and time and every night Granddad and me look up for him. He loves us very much." She yawns and covers her mouth after her lips have closed. "But I'm not supposed to tell you. It's a special story, just for me."
"Sounds like...an interesting story," Donna says. She kisses Samantha and goes out of the room, reaching out to push a pink elephant wearing a tutu back onto the shelf as she leaves. Granddad had some stories when she was little that he made up just for her. She still remembers some of them. Never heard one about a man in a blue box. She's glad that he's making up new ones. And Samantha should have a story of her own, too. Even if it does sound immensely stupid and dull.
It bothers her, a little, that Granddad is telling Samantha the man in the blue box loves "us", because it sounds like he's including Donna in that, and Donna doesn't care much for being loved by made-up people, especially ones who go around in boxes doing who knows what and without proper jobs.
Before Samantha comes down for breakfast the next day, Donna mentions this to Granddad.
"What's wrong with a little imagination, darling?" he says.
"Nothing, Granddad. But I don't want her turning 16 and coming home with some street guy just because she's got a fascination with blokes in boxes."
"She'll have outgrown these stories by then."
"Homeless guy in a box would still be a sight better than the piffle you brought home at that age," her mother says.
"Oi," Donna says, even though it's true. God knows, she trouped a parade of losers home during her 80's punk-phase.
Of course her mother would find it funny. "Karma, darling. Just you wait."
Samantha is a few months away from becoming a junior at her primary school. Transitioning out of the infant class means less time to run around during school hours. More time to be spent on studying for the myriad of tests she'll have to take as she gets older. For now, she doesn't think about tests. She runs around and gets into things and never, ever, comes home without grass staining her tights.
Donna can't keep track of her all the time. In the minutes between 3:30 and 4:00, when Samantha should be heading home from school, when Donna is at work, Donna will look at the clock and realize that she doesn't know exactly where her daughter is. She is somewhere between A and B, exact position indeterminate. The distance between A and B is a black hole of opportunity for a child; a stranger with a puppy to suck her in; a squirrel running towards an oncoming car for her to run after; it's enough to kill a mother with anxiety.
When Donna mentions giving her a mobile phone so she can check in on her walk home, Samantha says, "Don't worry, Mummy, the Doctor will watch out for me."
"The who?" Donna says. Her mother and granddad have put their forks down, too, looking as shocked as Donna. She's too late--Samantha has already met a creep. He probably drives a van with no windows in the back.
"He's called the Doctor," Samantha says. "From Granddad's stories." She is still shoveling peas into her mouth, smiling around her spoon.
Donna lets the relief flood over her. Seven year olds and their imaginations. Come to that, old men and theirs. "Well, I'm going to get you a phone anyway. Just in case he's not around."
"O.K."
Later, when Donna is clearing the dishes, she hears her mother scolding Granddad. "I told you those stories wouldn't come to any good."
"But I never told her his..." Granddad says, but Donna turns the faucet on over the last word and doesn't catch it.
Donna takes Samantha to Dr. Perkins, a real doctor, who drives a car that is neither blue nor box-shaped, for her flu shot. "The Doctor doesn't give shots," Samantha says as she watches the needle go into her arm.
"What doctor is that?" Dr. Perkins says. He presses a piece of cotton over the puncture mark.
"An imaginary friend. Flies around in a blue box," Donna says.
"Sounds cramped." Perkins offers Samantha a choice of Scooby Doo or Postman Pat plasters.
"It's bigger on the inside," Samantha says, and points to the Scooby Doo.
A few days later, Samantha is late coming home, and Donna goes mad. She's good in crisis, though. All that experience from being dropped into a job with no instruction as a temp. She divides up a contact list between herself, her mother, and granddad and tells them to start calling people, starting with the school and ending with the police.
At 6:00, the doorbell rings. Samantha is there, holding a man's hand. He's dressed in some kind of out-dated uniform, not police. Looks military, but that's not right, either. He could be from Special Forces. Whatever he is, he looks...in charge. He lets go of Samantha's hand so he can shake Donna's.
"Are you Samantha's mum? I'm..." He stops speaking when he looks Donna in the face. For a moment, his eyes fog, though his smile never wavers. "I'm sorry. Samantha didn't tell me she had such an attractive mother. I'm Captain Jack Harkness. Pleased to meet you." He pushes his hand towards her, urgently, somehow, as if it's vital to him that she takes it.
She ignores him, instead reaching for her daughter, and doesn't that say a lot about how she's changed since becoming a mum. No time for handsome men, now. "What happened, darling? Are you hurt?"
"No, fine," the so-called Captain says, and then stops when Donna glares at him. "Oh. Right. Not talking to me." He stands quietly in the doorway and keeps smiling. She can feel it, bearing down on her head. His smile and his perfect teeth, beaming at her. It's damned unnerving. He's American, too, which makes him even more annoying because she can't think why an American would be in Chiswick, or in any position of authority while he's here, come to that.
"I'm fine, Mummy. Captain Jack brought me home."
"Well, where were you?"
"I was working on a project for school. We're studying Chaucer's Pilgrims. I went walking to see if I could understand how they felt. I guess I lost track of time."
A slight snort came from the doorway, and Donna looked up to see the Captain apologetically covering his mouth with the back of his hand. She thinks he mumbles something about someone not trusting him with calibrations, but it's all such blabberhooey that she ignores it.
"You're sure you're alright?"
"Yes, Mummy," Samantha says. She's sick of being fawned on and is pulling out of Donna's grip.
"Well, looks like everything's fine here. I'll be off." The Captain puts one foot outside the threshold.
"Captain Jack knows the Doctor," Samantha says.
"He what?" Donna says. Everything stops, even the air, thick in their ears, as Captain Jack's smile turns from smooth to awkward. "Honey, go into the kitchen and have Nana make you a sandwich."
"Goodbye, Captain Jack."
"Bye, sweetheart." Samantha bounces away. "Well, nice meeting you," he says to Donna.
"Not so fast, you. What do you know about this Doctor? Is he real?" She's advancing on him. His back is against the doorjamb. If he turns, he has an easy escape, but he doesn't move. He simply looks at her, like he's waiting for her to think of something. Oh, she'll think of something, all right. Self-righteous-looking man. "Is my daughter out with a strange man? Are you in on it?"
"I found her. I'm an agent. I do find children from time to time." He is speaking, one word at a time, as if she is an imbecile.
"Do. You. Know. The. Doctor."
"She told me about the Doctor in the car. I don't usually bring missing children home. One of my agents does it. But I thought, such an amazing girl with such a wonderful imagination. Of course I wanted to meet her family. Anyway, what's the harm in letting her believe the stories her grandfather tells?"
"Nothing, until people like you come along and tell her they're true." Donna had not realized before how much this bothered her. "She already thinks that she's got an instant save whenever she's in trouble. That this...man in a box is going to swoop down and rescue her!" Donna blinks rapidly to push back the tears that have sprung to her eyes. "And now a strange man finds her wandering in the woods… Anything could have happened. I'm a good mother." She doesn't know why she says this last bit to him.
"I know."
"Whatcha mean, you know?"
"Samantha is a lovely girl. Stands to reason she'd have a good mother. We teach kids about bogeymen don't we? Why shouldn't we let them believe in someone like the Doctor? Someone whose entire purpose is to save us?" The Captain has taken desperation into his voice, too.
"You...really do believe in him, don't you?" Donna lets her hand close around a vase that could, if hefted just so, be as good as anything for felling the loon.
"I just think...it doesn't hurt anything to believe in someone or something like him. Please put the vase down. Please."
Donna does. "I guess it would be a shame to put a dent in you."
"Thank you. Well, it's been nice meeting you, Miss Noble, I'm sorry about any stress this day has caused you. If you need anything, please contact my colleagues at the police station..."
"Why'd you assume I'm a 'Miss'?"
"You aren't wearing a ring."
"Maybe I'm a modern woman."
"Are you?"
"Why can't I contact you at the station?"
"This isn't my territory. Just here on official business. Taking Samantha home was something of a detour."
"Captain..."
"Jack."
"Are you married?"
"Oh, now who's getting personal?"
"Are you?"
"Widowed."
"Recently?"
"Fairly." She can't read any grief in him, but she gets the feeling that he's pushed it so deep that he doesn't know he has it.
"May I...would you fancy a drink sometime?"
"I really shouldn't." This would be a cue to leave, but he still doesn't move.
"Oh. So what you said, about me being beautiful, that was just..."
"I don't think it's a good idea to get involved with..."
"Citizens?"
"Yes," though from the way he agrees, she can tell that this is not the word he would have chosen.
"Alright, then, Captain. Thank you for bringing Samantha home."
"Anytime. Ma'am." He salutes her smartly and about-faces himself down the step and into the road before she can say anything more. She trots to the phone to tell Sheila about the dashing man in the greatcoat.
Sheila has been having man-troubles. Donna suggests that what she needs is a good romp with a soldier in period-dress. Sheila suggests the same is true for anyone. That's when Donna realizes that her only chance at that went out the door five minutes ago to places unknown, never to be seen again.
Until, that is, the following Tuesday, when her desk phone rings and it's him on the other line.
"I've been thinking about that drink," he says. "Could we make it coffee?"
"How did you know where to find me?"
"I had my assistant scan the personnel files at your temp agency."
"Is that legal?"
"Legal, illegal. These are blurred times, Miss Noble."
"Call me Donna."
She's never had a man try that hard to find her. She's equally flattered and creeped out. They meet at a café on her lunch break. He's still dressed like he stepped out of a Beau Brummel catalog.
"Sugar?" He tears open a packet and hovers it expectantly over her mug.
"No, thank you."
"Alright." He dumps it into his own, and then rips open another. "So…how are you?"
"What do you mean?"
He looks confused. It is an expression that doesn't sit well on him. He looks like the sort of man who is never lost or out of sorts. Leave it to her to introduce him to befuddlement. "Well, it's a question that one asks when one is interested in another person…"
"How do you mean interested?"
His spoon doesn't touch the side of the mug when he stirs. "I'm sorry, have I said… You know, you're the first person in recent memory who's flustered me, Donna Noble. And I have a Very. Long. Memory."
She's pretty certain, when he says "long", that he is not talking about his memory. She glances at the table, and wishes, not for the first time, for x-ray vision so she can see through it to his lap. "I'm sorry. I'm just…it's been a while since a man has asked me out. And a man as gorgeous as you…well, I don't know if that's ever happened."
"I am quite a catch," he says.
"You might want to act a bit humble, Captain Hotstuff. Girls find egomaniacs a turn off."
He takes her hand and brings it to his lips. "Do you?"
Her heart slips into overdrive. "What do you want?"
"What do you want?" He throws the question back without malice.
"I want to screw your brains out." She barely stops her hand from slapping over her mouth. Instead, she stares at him, horrified. Maybe he didn't hear and they can go on with the coffee like nothing was said.
He waits not even a second. "O.K." He stands up, swings his coat over his shoulder like a cape, and offers her his arm.
In bed, or, actually, in closet, since they are wedged in the supply closet at Donna's job, Jack is kneeling in front of her, and Donna is thanking every God she can think of that she wore a skirt that day. The Captain's tongue is skilled. She tries not to think of all the places it's been. He doesn't strike her as the monogamous type. He smiles too much to be loyal.
When he finally emerges from under her skirt, his lips are translucent. He has broken Billy Cunningham's cunnilingus record, set in August, 1991, for fourteen minutes, twenty seconds, and every record her girlfriends have ever told her about their dates setting. She'll owe them all a round for this because oh, yes, they have a twenty-year-old wager going. It will be a long, long time before any man comes near this score.
"I have to go back to work. I'm sorry."
"It's O.K. We'll see each other soon."
"We will?"
"Unless you don't want to?"
"Oh no, I want to."
He wipes his mouth and checks the door. They exit separately. She wobbles all the way back to her desk.
Donna pulls herself together enough to get some work done, but she allows a little swoon every now and then. She can't wait to tell the girls, and yet, something stops her. Part of her wants to keep Jack all to herself, like a gift kept on a shelf that only she knows about.
"I had coffee with the agent who brought Samantha home the other day. I think he's interested in me." Despite her better knowledge of the reaction she's going to get, Donna can't stop herself from telling her mother.
"Well, of course he's not interested in you, Donna. Why would someone that good looking be interested in you?" her mother says. Why, why, why doesn't she just stop telling her mother things? The woman could look at a rainbow and see black.
"Shut up, Mum." This will not be one of the days when she loves her mother.
"I only mean you have to be realistic or you'll get hurt."
She's sick of being realistic. Maybe she should start believing in a box that's bigger on the inside and has a little space man in it.
"Well, I think you deserve a handsome, well-mannered man, duckling." Granddad salutes her with his cuppa. "You go, girl."
The next day Jack sends her an email to say he's going back to Cardiff, where he works, and she figures that's the end of him. But on Saturday he turns up at the house with a black man. Donna can't decide if the new guy is young or goofy looking or both. "This is Mickey. He works with me."
Mickey nearly pumps her arm off when he takes her hand. "Brilliant to meet you," he says.
"Likewise."
"He's a little eager, sorry," Jack stage-whispers. "Mickey, would you mind?" Jack nods towards something around the doorway that Donna can't see. Next thing she knows, Mickey is engaged in clanging and rustling. He drags a suit of armor in front of her. Evidently, they had propped it against the outside of the house before they rang the bell.
"What is that?" Donna says.
"It's a suit of armor from 1380, the year Chaucer started writing the Canterbury Tales. I thought Samantha might like to show it to her schoolmates for her project. We discussed it when I was bringing her home the other day. I'm surprised she didn't mention it."
Donna stares at it. It is only about 4 foot and a few inches high. "Awfully small, isn't it?"
"Weighs a ton," Mickey says. Beads of sweat are gathering around his temples.
"People were smaller back then." Jack has made no move to help Mickey with it. "Do you think she could use it?"
"Why don't you bring it in?" She steps aside, and Mickey drags the thing over to a chair. He sits it down in the seat like it's there visiting. She half wants to offer it a cuppa. Once it's out of his arms, he brushes himself off and glares at Jack.
"Thanks for the help, boss."
"I lead, you… I really need to think of something that rhymes with lead. I should have a catchphrase, don't you think?" He looks at Donna.
"I think you *are* a catchphrase."
"Let's go, Mickey Mouse." Mickey shakes his head as he walks out.
"Bye, Miss Noble."
"Bye, Mickey. Thanks for the armor."
"Yep."
She touches Jack's arm. "Is this goodbye?"
He glances towards Mickey, sees the back of him heading towards the SUV. Instantly, he sweeps Donna up in the kiss they never got around to having on Tuesday. "I'll call you."
She believes him. It was a good guy, who helped a little girl with her school projects. And who broke the cunnilingus record. Definition of "a keeper", that.
He waves and races out the door. Mickey has already started honking the horn.
When Samantha comes into the sitting room for cartoons, she heads straight for the armor. Donna watches her and delights in the innocent joy on her daughter's face. Yes, she is a good mum, what other parent provides a suit of armor for a school project?
"Sir Robert!" Samantha cries and embraces the suit.
Donna blinks. OK. She wasn't expecting that. "Samantha, darling, it's an empty suit. Captain Jack brought it over this morning. You remember him? From last week…?" She talks as she watches Samantha, still kneeling on the suit's lap, raising the headpiece and looking in.
"Mummy, it's empty."
"Yes, darling. It's just a suit. There's no knight in there."
"Oh." She turns and sits on it. "Sir Robert was nice though. But he was kind of stinky."
"I'm sure he was." She pops the TV on to a cartoon about penguins in outer space. Then, looking back at her daughter, who is eating dry cereal with her fingers from a bag and has hooked the suit's arm around her waist, Donna changes the channel to a program on math.
She and Jack go to a movie together. Donna had no idea it was possible for a man to be this excited about seeing a film, especially one with such lackluster reviews. He'd told her that he hadn't seen one in years, and still she watches, gobsmacked, as Jack bounces through the line for popcorn. He chatters all through the pre-show advertisements, and she thinks she'll have to shush him during the show, but once the previews start, he is all attention on the screen. During the film, someone's mobile rings and he quietly excuses himself. A second later, the phone stops ringing, and Jack returns. The rest of the film is free from electronic distraction and Jack sports a self-congratulatory smile until the closing credits.
She invites him home for a drink.
On the way, he pulls off the road. They look at each other for two seconds. Then his shirt is off and his pants are open and she's finally getting a look at his Very Long Memory. It's not so much long as thick, but she's in no mood to give corrections. He mumbles when they're making love, as if he doesn't want her to understand his bedroom talk. When she listens, closer, she realizes he's not speaking English. He works in Cardiff, so she figures it's Welsh. She decides Welsh is a damned hot language.
At the house, she goes to get beers. When she comes back to the sitting room with the drinks, Jack is gone. Her first instinct is to look out the front door. His car is still there. She wanders the house, searching. Finally, she ventures outside to Granddad's perch. There she finds Jack, sitting with Granddad and Samantha.
"Whatcha doing out here? You're supposed to be my date."
"Oh…just looking up." He smiles and pulls her down beside him. "You're beautiful, you know? You are."
She thinks about telling him that she dyes her gray hairs, but doesn't.
"So are you."
They all sit and look up together. Samantha snuggles beneath Jack's free arm. Donna looks at the others and realizes she is the only one out there not looking for a blue box. She has what she needs right here beside her.
"You know, Mummy, there are places in this universe where entire nations sing songs in praise of you."
She looks in the rearview mirror at Samantha, who is playing with some broken pieces of pottery that she got who knows where, probably from some dilapidated playground.
"That's very flattering, sweetheart. What are you playing with?"
"It's from this girl I know called Helene. It used to be a vase. It was really pretty. Shame it got broken, but I was teaching her how to play cricket and the ball hit it. She wasn't very good at cricket."
"Was it really old?" Donna calculates how much she'll owe the family if the girls have broken an heirloom.
"Not to her." From the back of the car, Samantha starts to sing something in gibberish, and Donna wonders at what age a child crosses the line from being imaginative to being insane.
"I need to talk to you," Jack says on the phone. "Can we meet?"
Donna looks up as Paul, her current boss, comes storming out of his office waving papers at her. "Hold on." She covers the receiver. "I'm on the phone, what is it?"
"Crisis, absolute crisis. Hang up with whoever that is and help me."
"What if it's the Prime Minister? You want me to hang up on her?"
Paul leans in until she can see the whites of his eyes. "Yes."
"Café, one o'clock," she says to Jack and hangs up. "Now then, what's this so-called crisis?" Paul explains. Mis-matched memos, the wrong people receiving, confidences in risk… She snatches the papers up. "Don't worry. Got it sorted."
"Really?"
"Yeah. No problem." She has it taken care of in five minutes and is back at her desk in time to watch the anti-social bitch sitting next to her click onto YouTube.
"We all know what you're doing, honey."
The bitch just glares.
Five minutes to one, Donna heads to the café. Jack is already waiting with one coffee. She is about to get snappy with him about that when she realizes he has positioned it in front of her seat.
"I can't see you anymore," he says. "I'm sorry."
"What do you mean?"
"It's not you, it's…well, it's not me either. I've gotten orders."
"What do you mean? I thought you were commander of your unit or whatever."
"I am, but there's always someone above, you know? He says I'm not to…"
"Fraternize with civilians?"
"Yes." Again, the word that both of them know isn't what he means. Trouble is, she doesn't know what the correct word actually is.
"Why now?"
"He only just found out. I hadn't told him."
"What? You were ashamed of me?"
"No. I knew he wouldn't understand."
"Understand what?"
"Being left behind."
"I don't know that I do either. These last two weeks have been amazing. I never thought I could feel this way about an American."
"Well, thank you. My boss, he doesn't think like normal people. He's good at the big picture. Not so good at the little one, at the one that involves one or two people."
"Sounds like a real piece of work."
"I'm sorry, Donna. I wish I could…"
"It's bad enough you're walking out on me, but what about Samantha? She loves you!"
"I'd like to say goodbye to her, if it's alright."
"Come over tonight."
"O.K."
He arrives at seven, when they are finishing up dinner. Samantha runs over to him. Donna has warned her that he is going away, so she knows the reason he's there. They go into the sitting room.
"Aren't you going in with them?" her mother says.
"It's their goodbye," Donna says. She stares at her plate until Granddad takes it away. After five minutes, she figures that's enough time for goodbyes. From the door, she hears Jack promising that he will always, always, always be thinking of her.
"Jack has to go, darling," Donna says.
Samantha gives him a hug. "I'll miss you, Jack."
"Me too." He looks more crestfallen about leaving Samantha than he did about leaving Donna.
"Go see Granddad now. It's Mummy's turn to say goodbye."
"Take good care of all those broken old things, now," Jack says. "You never know when you'll need some kind of junk."
Samantha nods. She goes slowly into the kitchen. Jack wipes his eyes. "Sorry. I didn't think it would be that hard."
She kisses him, full-on, farewell in the movies type kiss. "Go on, then."
He touches her face. "Don't ever forget how wonderful you are."
"Yeah. Sure won't."
She watches him get into his black SUV and drive off. Never would have worked out, anyway, what with gas prices what they were and the environment going bottom-up. If she was going to date anyone, it would be a guy with a sound sense of ecology.
She starts to remove all trace of him from her life. She packs him into a box and puts him away. No looking back, that's her motto. Take that for a catchphrase and shove it, Captain Jack.
Her current boss, Paul, calls. "I just wanted to thank you," he says, "for managing that crisis today. I'm sorry it all came down on your last day, but I am so grateful that we had someone like you on hand to sort it out."
"Oh, anytime," but she is stunned. Thirty years as a temp and her supervisor has never called her at home for any reason.
"I'm actually calling for another reason."
"The Penderplast files are in your left hand drawer."
"No…uh…I was wondering…would you want to get dinner sometime?"
"What?"
"I didn't think it was appropriate to ask while you were working for me, but now that you're not, I would really love it if… Donna, I've wanted to ask you out since that first day when you told Claudia to get her own coffee. Please say yes."
"What kind of car do you drive?"
"A hybrid. Why?"
"Yes."
"Oh, thank goodness. I would have been really embarrassed if you'd…"
"But not just now."
"Oh."
"I just finished a relationship, today, in fact. I need some time. Can I call you?"
"Yes, of course." She takes his number.
"The Doctor looks different now," Samantha says. She is sitting on the edge of Donna's bed playing with a ring that Donna has never seen before.
"Did he change out of that brown suit?"
"His face is different. And his hair. It's black like mine. He wears shorts now, and shirts without sleeves."
Donna is brushing her hair and not paying much attention. She'd thought it was strange when Samantha told her about the brown suit. She didn't know anyone who wore brown. Maybe that was why she decided the Doctor did. And now she'd invented a wardrobe for him suitable only for someone who was sartorially challenged or who lived in a gym. Weird, weird, weird child.
"He must have a tan to be showing off that much skin."
"Naw, he's still British."
"How do you know it's the same guy? Could be someone else saying he's the Doctor."
"I can tell from his jokes." Samantha spins the ring off the edge of the bed and drops down to fetch it.
"What about them?" Donna watches warily because Samantha is within touching distance of the Box of Jack. She sits up with the ring on her finger.
"He's the only one who thinks they're funny."
"Honey, you've just described every man in the universe."
"I know." She says it with a conviction that a seven year old should not have.
She waits a week before she calls Paul. They go out the next day.
"Before anything else, I want you to know that I'm divorced. I have a son, Peter. He's twelve." Paul has said all this before the drinks even arrive. "So, if you want to run, now's the time."
"I have never been married. I have a seven-year-old daughter. Her name is Samantha. Her father is not in the picture and never has been. So…"
"Alright. So. Glad that's out there." He has a dopey smile, not at all like Jack's. He's got the smile of a monogamous man. About time she had a man like that.
"Yeah, me too." Please, she thinks, don't let him be boring.
He isn't boring. He's fascinating, in a way. Dinner stretches into four hours. Afterwards, they go out for drinks. He walks her to her door and doesn't ask to come in. How old-fashioned of him.
"Can I see you tomorrow? Or is that too soon?" he says. But…not so old-fashioned that he won't ask her out on the spot. Brilliant.
"Pick me up at seven?"
"Great." He starts to walk away, but she grabs him. He looks stunned when she kisses him, but he quickly responds. Afterwards he stumbles backwards, grinning, and almost skips to his car.
As Donna moves down the hallway, she sees light leaking from beneath the door to Samantha's room. She starts to open the door, thinking Samantha is pulling her old trick of reading with a torch under the covers. No matter how many times she tells her that she'll ruin her eyes, at least once a week she has to go in and confiscate a book. Instead, she finds Samantha sitting up in bed, tears running down her face.
Donna slips into the room and sits down on the bed next to her crying girl. "Sweetheart, what's wrong? Did you have a bad dream? Mummy's here. It's ok."
Samantha slumps into Donna's arms. "He says I can't see him anymore."
"Who?" Donna can't remember Samantha mentioning a crush on anyone at school.
"The Doctor."
"Your imaginary friend?" She pushes Samantha's hair away from her wet face.
"He's real."
"O.K. O.K. There there."
"He says I'm too young to be around him. He says I don't know how to handle it."
"Handle what?"
"Mummy, if you knew him… He's magical. He's wonderful. He shows you things you never knew existed, but he's stern, Mummy. He's so, so stern. And he's afraid. But not of monsters or the things we're afraid of. He's afraid of Christmas dinners and watching cartoons on a Saturday and of hanging out."
"Sounds like you're better off without him."
Samantha pulls back, and looks at Donna, eyes intent on her understanding. "No, Mummy. He needs someone with him. See, Mummy, he's lonely. He's the loneliest man who ever lived. And he's so, so sad. He says that's why I can't see him anymore, because I'm too young to know about feelings like that. But it's too late, Mummy. I do know. I will never, ever forget."
"Oh, honey."
"What am I going to do now?"
She sits, rocking her daughter, and says the only thing she can think of.
"Look up."
The End