Title: Of All Things
Author: Rei
Rating: In-between-teen-and-mature-ish nevermind, it's just teen-ish now.
Warning: (implied) rape warning, and oh yes, pregnancy and babiez.
Genre: hurt/comfort, angsty-ish, fluffy friendship/romance
Word count: 2744
Summary: He turns his back on her for the slightest moment, and this happens. Ten/Donna
Disclaimer: "does it need saying?" Don't own anything or anyone--except for Mr. Andrew Farrol. but I hate him. so there's no point in owning him. The poor unfortunate destinedtobemad soul.
A/N: too lazy to check for errors, so any you catch are all my fault. (please point 'em out though, thanks ~). This chapter is a bit darker.
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It’s beginning to dusk, and the both of them had spent the whole day being normal for once-tending to Donna’s newfound sweet tooth, making sure she didn’t have too much of it or she’d make rather long trips to the women’s room, and just walking and talking away.
Donna’s migraines and tiredness comes to hit at her, and the Doctor suggests that they return to the TARDIS and call it a day.
“I’m still kind of suspicious,” Donna says as they walk to the alley. “A whole day, and no ridiculous alien matter has come up. That’s more than rare with you around, Spaceman, it’s near impossible.”
“Well maybe aliens don’t really dig the 70s,” the Doctor shrugs with a slight pout. “I don’t always bring trouble…”
He opens the TARDIS doors for Donna. She doesn’t go in and instead stops in her tracks.
“What?”
“You hear that?”
She hears teeth chattering and random shuffles of movement behind the TARDIS. Donna rounds the TARDIS and finds a small frail boy, who looks up at her in fear.
“What is it-“ he pauses as he stops behind Donna.
“Oh my,” she says a little above a whisper as she kneels down near him. “What’re you doing away from home?”
His glinting brown eyes dilate in response.
The Doctor crouches beside Donna. “’Ello there,” he greets, trying to be as friendly as possible. “May I know your name?”
The boy shivers a little and when Donna tries to set her hand on his arm, he flinches.
“It’s okay, we won’t hurt you,” she says in response. The tenderness on her face makes him unsure, as if he’s not used to seeing that kind of expression.
He tries to word something but can’t bring himself to talk.
The Doctor eyes him as he tilts his head. “Why aren’t you home?”
The boy shakes his head violently, and Donna and the Doctor soon grasp the gist of things.
Donna rises as nausea captures her for a moment.
“Excuse me,” says raggedly as she breathes through a tiny hole in her mouth.
The Doctor stands up and pulls her aside a bit. “Should he come with us?”
“Definitely,” Donna answers. “Poor boy is skinnier and more of a dejected puppy than you are.”
He childishly sticks his tongue out to her and then turns to the boy. “Well alright then! Care to join us for dinner?” He holds out his hand to him, and after a few glances at Donna, him, and his hand, he takes it.
As they open the doors to the TARDIS, the boy stares bewildered into the spacious room.
“I had the same reaction,” Donna chuckles to him and goes inside.
The boy quickly digs into his pocket as if he was reminded to do something. He pulls out a crumpled paper and hands it to Donna.
“Andy,” she reads. “Is that your name?”
He beams as if saying his name had sparked life into him, and he nods.
“Okay Andy,” the Doctor says as he skips over to the halls to the kitchen. “What’ll you have?” His voice resounds.
“Oh no you don’t,” Donna marches after him. “You’re not cooking for anyone, Chef Boyardee!”
Andy catches up to her and clings to her hand. They feel dry and dirty, Donna notes to herself, he might need some proper grooming after he eats. Bless him, poor soul.
Donna is over the stove making a hot soup for all of them and Andy and the Doctor are sitting at the table across from each other, sipping their cups of tea.
The Doctor studies Andy as he watches him uncomfortably sip at his tea, not used to it or something.
“Andy,” he calls to him and Andy lifts up his head from his distraction. “Why can’t you talk?”
Andy shrugs uneasily, shaking his head weakly as his only response and the Doctor drops the subject as Donna comes would a tray of three bowls of soup with the most delicious aroma.
“Alright then, eat up you skinny boys,” Donna smiles and takes a seat next to the Doctor.
The Doctor takes his spoon and sips carefully and then moans with pleasure at the taste. “Blimey this is good!”
“Well aren’t you getting a bit too excited over it,” Donna remarks and laughs. She shifts her eyes to Andy, who holds his spoon awkwardly as if he’s never held one before and tries hard not the spill anything.
She scoots her chair over next to Andy and takes his spoon. “Here, let me help.” She takes an amount of soup into the spoon and blows on it gently and carefully puts it in his mouth.
Andy lets it roll in his mouth a bit and then swallows; the expression on his face makes Donna and the Doctor’s facial muscles pull their mouths into big smiles. He gestures for the spoon and Donna guides him with her own hand and he quickly gets the hang of it.
“Will you look at that,” the Doctor says softly with a smile. “ Is that not spectacular mothering or what?”
Donna blushes and restrains her big smile into a small one.
A wave of pain hits at her stomach and head and she pulls from the table.
“Well it’s time to see if you’ve got spectacular fathering,” she says wincing a bit. “Be a dear and wash him up, find him better clothes, and what not.” She waves away at him before he can ask any questions and she retreats to her room.
Donna stirs as the Doctor walks tiredly into the room and collapses on the space next to her after kicking off his shoes.
“Where’s he?” she asks him in a light just-woke-up voice and rubs at her eyes.
“He’s in the next room, soundly asleep.”
“D’you do what I asked you to?”
“Asked?” He scoffs. “More like commanded. But yeah, I did.”
Donna is too tired to laugh so she just smiles and slowly closes her drying eyes. “Good daddy.”
“I noticed a few things about him,” he says seriously after several seconds of silence.
“Hm?”
He takes the palm of her hand and starts running his thumb across it out of impulse. “He had scars all over his body. He had a few stitches on his head, too.”
“Oh my god,” Donna silently gasps. The Doctor nods in the dark.
“Some were fresh.” He says calmly as he swallows. “I had to examine some of them before taking him to the Nanogene room. I only let them heal up to scars though, it’s evidence that he is being physically abused at home.”
Donna is speechless with grief for Andy and the Doctor tries to comfort her with his hand on hers.
“What if,” she starts, and the Doctor turns his head to face her. “What if we don’t have to prove anything?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if he comes with us?”
The Doctor says nothing but thinks about it.
“The poor boy is only so young,” Donna tries, “8 at the most, though I can’t tell cause he looks so unhealthy.” She looks at him in shine of his eyes and waits for an answer.
The Doctor smiles. “Course he can come.”
Donna beams at him and kisses him chastely on the lips. “Thanks. Now let me go to sleep, you interrupted a rather pleasant dream.”
The Doctor is woken up abruptly in the morning when he hears something in the other room. He gently gets out of bed without waking Donna, slides his feet into his fuzzy slippers and groggily opens the door to Andy’s room.
“Andy? You alright in there?”
He is sitting up, hugging his knees and he wept. He slowly lifted his head to look at the Doctor, his eyes red and wet. The Doctor steps inside and takes a seat on the edge of Andy’s bed.
“Shh, it’s okay now, that was only a nightmare,” he says softly as he puts his arm around him and lulls him with humming that almost harmonized with the TARDIS.
After a while Andy calmed down and only had hiccups.
“He alright?” Donna asks from where she is leaning on the door. The spaceman really doesn’t know how to get out of bed without waking the other person. The Doctor smiles at her as if to apologize for that and she walks over to take a seat next to him.
“He just had a little nightmare, is all,” the Doctor answers.
“No,” Donna says softly, her eyes suddenly sullen and the Doctor looks at her questioningly. “Nightmares are never little.”
There’s a short silence in the room and Donna snaps out of her daze. “Well then, Andy, there’s no need to fret anymore,” she says with a lightened look on her face, contrasting from the one a few seconds ago. Andy looks curiously up at her and waits for her to finish.
“Because the Doctor and I have agreed to take you with us. We’ll go traveling all sorts of places, see things you’ve never thought possible, and you’ll live a life much more than this,” she says promisingly and Andy, for probably the first time in his life, genuinely smiles.
The three of them are at the park (a different one, for Donna didn’t really want to run into her mother as often as to make her recognize her 35 years later). The Doctor and Donna sit at a bench as they watch Andy walk around the grass, running around the playground with a face of wonder.
“If this is the best adventure he’s had yet then imagine him with us on the TARDIS,” Donna laughs and the Doctor smiles.
“He’ll be brilliant, that one.”
There was a tone of doubt in his voice that Donna could not pick up. The Doctor wasn’t certain of what it was, but he had a feeling.
Andy runs up to Donna a few minutes later and holds up a daisy to which Donna smiles ear to ear at.
“Aww, thank you.”
Andy smiles and he runs off to play again.
They watch him in silence until in a second everything suddenly goes wrong.
A man approaches Andy and takes him by the shoulder. Andy is paralyzed and he quickly turns his head to the Doctor and Donna.
“Hey, what in the bloody hell is he-Auugh!”
“Donna, Donna! Are you alright?” The Doctor panics and holds Donna as she clutches at her round belly.
Donna gasps for air. “…It’s the baby, I can feel it-It’s dying, oh my God it’s dying!”
“What do you mean dying?!”
“I mean it’s going to stop living, what else you dunce!-never mind me, go help Andy!”
The Doctor whips around to Andy and the man still has him in his place. He’s about to make a dash for him until he sees his face. He has a look of hatred and contempt mixed with fear-and the Doctor knows that face. He wouldn’t forget it for the world.
“Donna, we have to leave now.” He lifts her up on her feet. “Hang on there, can you walk?”
Donna cringes in pain and holds her stomach before she can protest. Breathing heavily, she pulls away from him.
“What do you mean we’re leaving? Get Andy out of there now!”
“Oh Donna I am so, so sorry.” The Doctor picks her up into his arms and runs for it before Donna has any chance to object.
Andy has a look of shock and with all the strength he can muster, breaks away from the man and runs after them.
“Doctor! Put me do-auuugh,” she groans in pain and tears are starting to dribble down her face. “Doctor, what’s happening?” She whimpers to him.
They ignore all the people in the street who turn their heads to watch a man carry his woman at the speed of light, with a small child running after them and another grown man trailing behind him.
The Doctor reaches the TARDIS and rushes inside, putting Donna down at the entrance and zipping for the console.
“Excellent, she’s up and ready now-“
“Doctor!” Donna screams as she struggles to keep herself up on her knees using the railings.
“Donna just lay still it’ll all be okay-“
“Doctor!” She seethes. “What about him?”
There’s a sharp pain in her belly again and soon she hears pounding on the TARDIS doors-Andy. Donna tries to open the doors but they’re locked. She’s ready to explode when the Doctor crouches in front of her and takes her by the shoulders.
“You promised me,” she nearly chokes in her fury. “We promised him!”
“Donna, this is where you make your decision-“
“Really? Cause it looks more like you’re doing the decision making!”
The Doctor pauses, taking a hit in her words and then continues. “Well then I’m making it yours now.”
The pounding on the doors become more frantic.
“Think fast and make it quick-“
“Well first tell me what in the damn hell is going on!”
“That child. Andy. That’s just a nickname. It’s Andrew. He’s a mute. He can’t talk. He is the man that hurts you 30 years from this point-“
Donna processes it before he could finish and starts shaking her head furiously. “No, no, I don’t care we can’t leave-“
“Donna listen,” the Doctor says desperately, holding tighter on her upper arms, looking at her with a hard expression. “If you change his future, you kill the baby, and most likely you go with it.”
Tears are streaking her face as she breathes heavily and the pounding on the doors are all too persistent.
“What if I choose to bring him? What will you do?”
The Doctor’s face tenses with the thought. “Donna, just please, choose.”
Donna’s stomach stings again and she can hear the man outside.
“There you are, you little runt!”
Andy’s pounding become faster and then fade when he is dragged away and Donna can hear him struggling. She can’t take it anymore.
“Just go.” She swallows as she closes her eyes.
“Donna?”
“Just go!”
The Doctor looks at her apologetically and then rises to rush over the console, and in a matter of seconds, they’re back in space with a noiseless nothingness replacing the terrified silence of a boy who can’t even scream for help.
Donna is still laying in her place, facing the TARDIS doors on her side as she runs her fingers on the lining of the door. The horrible pain in the fetus is gone. Now it’s like nothing ever happened.
The Doctor stares at her for a while before joining her and sitting against the railing.
“Donna-“ He doesn’t know what to say after that.
“The way he grows up after that day…” she says in a drifting voice, eyes still on the doors. “It’s my fault.”
“No it’s not.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Donna…”
There’s a long pause before she speaks again.
“All those people he hurts in the future, I cause that. Never mind what happened to me, Doctor, I can learn to not let it bother me. But they probably won’t.
“I just traded the happiness and well-being of a child and how many other people for the survival of two.”
There’s another silence, because the Doctor can’t bring himself to clear the lump in his throat.
“Donna, I didn’t make you choose so you can blame yourself in the end,” he finally says.
“I suppose you didn’t.” Donna turns over on her back to look up at the Doctor; her eyes are glistening with tears, looking at him rather coldly. “Then why did I have to? Doctor, you knew who I would choose, why did-“
Donna sobs and chokes up on her tears.
“You knew…that I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t leave you and-because your misery is just so much more damn important,” her voice is shaking and is eating her own words. She tries hard to cling on any coherent thought and to make sense, but she just rambles. “More important than anyone else-and it’s not fair, Doctor, it isn’t…”
“I know,” he says simply as he lifts her by the shoulders and rests her head on his lap. “And I’m sorry.”
Donna shakes her head as she lets him tuck in her damping strands of hair behind her ear. “You’re not.”
He’s silent and she starts again, “and you’re lucky I forgive you anyway.”
Part siete