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hathycolTitle: The Rueful Fate of Donna Noble
Author:hathy_col
Summary: The Rueful Fate of Donna Noble; or, six people Donna Noble didn't know.
Disclaimer: Beeb owns all, I own nothing.
1. She didn’t believe all that crap about Daleks and spaceships and God knows what else. Okay, something had happened, obviously, she wasn’t thick or anything, but some global panic wasn’t going to phase Donna Noble. She had better things to think of, and she was thinking of them on Friday night in the corner of the Walkabout club, downing her fourth drink of the night before dashing off to dance again.
“Oiy, Donna,” said Veena, nudging her, looking excited. “Oiy, look!”
“You’re spilling my drink, Veena, what?” shouted Donna back, straining over the song the DJ had just started playing.
“That bloke over there!”
“What, the skinny one with the specs? Ugh, Veena, are you that desperate? For Christ’s sake, woman…”
“No, not that one!” interrupted Veena, shaking Donna’s arm again. “The really fit one, in the long coat, just next to him!”
“What about him?”
“He’s looking at me!” more or less squealed Veena.
“Of course he’s bloody looking at you, shrieking like that!”
“It’s been ages since I pulled! Do you think I should talk to him? God, he’s still looking…”
Donna took a moment to look up, appraising the man. Tall, dark, and with a very chiselled chin. “Actually, he is a bit fit, isn’t he?” She flicked her hair.
“Donna, no! I saw him first, and he was looking at me!”
“Might be looking at me too, you know,” Donna said haughtily. She took a quick glance again. The man did seem to be looking at her, actually. “Might be gay, too.”
“We could both go and talk to him,” Veena suggested. “Prove he fancies me, not you.”
“Fine,” said Donna, and grabbing Veena’s hand proceeded to sashay across the dancefloor to where the man was standing, who smiled at her – not Veena, her! – with a very knowing smile. Donna tried not to smile too hard.
“Hi,” she shouted into his ear. “Do you have a name, gorgeous? Me and my friend here are thirsty…”
The man’s smile faded. “Thought you’d have remembered me,” he said with a deep American accent, looking upset.
“No, we’ve never seen you before!” chimed in Veena, who seemed to have pulled her glittery top down as far as it would go without breaking the law.
“Not you,” said the main dismissively. Veena looked slightly upset for a moment, pulling her top up quickly. “Donna, don’t you remember me? Jack Harkness? And where’s the Doctor?”
Donna’s eyes widened for a moment, and for a tiny, indiscreet second the music of the nightclub faded and all Donna thought she could hear was a heart beating…
She shook her head. “What doctor? Are you some perv from the health centre? Oh, god, have you looked through my records?” She hit him with her small leather handbag, although he remained immobile, something flashing in his eyes that looked like deep sorrow. “You think knowing about that time I had shingles is going to make me sleep with you? Urgh, I don’t care how fit you are! I’m going toreport you!” She hit him in the arm with her handbag, harder this time, before stepping away; something had flashed in the man’s eyes that made her pause, momentarily.
“Yeah, you tell him Donna!” said Veena, who now looked sickened. “You read about stuff like this in the paper, don’t you?”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry,” the man said, after a long pause; the bouncers had taken notice of Donna’s actions, and were moving closer to them through the swirling mass of dancers. “I thought I knew you. Apparently not. Have a good night.”
He slipped through the couple that had been stood by, watching the exchange agog, and almost silently moved out of the fire escape before the bouncers could catch up with him.
“Ew,” said Veena succinctly. “You get some bloody perverts these days, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” said Donna, thoughtfully. Maybe she had seen the man before… he probably worked at her doctors, that must have been where she’s seen him. She shook her head. “Yeah,” she said again. “Come on, let’s not have some bloke get in the way of our girly night, okay?”
--
She reported a Jack Harkness to the GP’s surgery on Monday morning, but they’d never heard of him or anyone who looked like him. Donna didn’t really think of him again, although she dreamed about him, and the heartbeats, a few times.
*
2. It had been another depressing day. The temp work wasn’t coming in the way it used to; every time she got a contract, the firm folded, or downsized, and it was awful to be in an office full of people who’d just lost their jobs and the temps moved in to finish off their work. The big firms didn’t want to take people on anymore, and eventually Donna’s mum had sat her down.
“Donna, you’re good enough for a full-time job at any of these big firms, you know,” she’d said, surprisingly gentle. Donna had rolled her eyes, and taken a slurp of her tea.
“Mum, you spent all last year telling me that I wasn’t good enough for even a temp job at those firms.”
“Well, maybe I’ve changed my mind.” Sylvia had reached over and taken Donna’s hand. “You can be great at anything you want to, you know. Take a college course or something.”
“I was rubbish at college, Mum!” Donna had said crossly. “That’s why I’m a crap temp. That’s what you said, right?”
As she’d turned her back to rinse out the mug, she’d almost thought she’d seen her Mum wince, as if in pain.
Anyway, the point was that there wasn’t any work going, and Donna had finally given up and gone to speak to the people at the Job Centre. They hadn’t seemed hopeful, and had given her a leaflet about local college courses, and a leaflet to apply for a dole. Flicking through the leaflet – pet grooming? How was that a job? – she walked through the suburbs quickly, just wanting to get home out of the cold. As she turned down her road, she heard her Grandad’s voice raised above the other noise’s from the street. “You keep away from my Donna!” he yelled, sounding angrier than Donna had ever heard. “You’ll do her damage if she ever finds out!”
Another voice responded to that, a boy’s voice, too quiet to make out.
“I don’t care, do you hear me? He said she could never find out, and that’s the end of it! Now get out of it, go!”
Donna was running now, trying to see who these people were who had made her Grandad so angry, and why they were asking about her. By the time she’d made it to her house, three teenagers – two boys and a girl, no more than sixteen each – were walking quickly in the opposite direction from Wilf’s anger, but slowed down as they passed her. One of the boys, geeky looking, whispered audibly “That’s her!”
Donna swirled around. “You leave my Grandad alone, do you hear me?” she snapped. “Go on, buggar off.” She walked proudly past the three, who were staring openly at her.
“She doesn’t remember you, Luke,” she heard the girl whisper. “Maybe you were right, about the biological metathingy…”
That seemed to ring a bell in Donna’s head, but she wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of turning around. Instead, she walked up her front drive, where Wilf was standing, looking worried.
“Bloody kids, eh?” she joked, trying to take the look of concern off his face. “What did they want?”
“Some scam,” said Wilf, putting an arm around Donna and deliberately leading her into the house with some speed. “Probably got your name out of the phone book.”
“Yeah,” said Donna, shutting the door behind them, not looking back. “Shall I put the kettle on?”
“That sounds like a good idea,” said Wilf with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “And then you can tell me about your day, okay?”
“Oh, god, it was awful…” started Donna as she went into the kitchen, before spotting Wilf looking out of the window. “Are they still there?”
“No, gone!” said Wilf hastily, letting the net curtain swing shut again. Donna thought she saw three heads peering over the hedge before the netting obscured the view. “Did they not find you a job, then?”
“No,” said Donna with a sigh. “They think I might have to go to college and study something.”
“You know I think you can do anything, right, sweetheart?”
“Not flipping dog-grooming, I can’t.”
*
3. Wilf died. A heart attack, the doctor thought, and a post-mortem proved it true. He’d died looking out at the stars, and it was only when Sylvia and Donna realised he hadn’t come in that they’d found him. He’d already been cold, on what had been a cold night. They told Donna it would have been quick, and he wouldn’t have even really known about it. Donna didn’t know if that was true, and didn’t know if it made her feel any better.
Sylvia couldn’t cope. Neither could Donna, to be honest, but she organised a funeral, picked hymns, and without the knowledge of Sylvia, she quietly packed up his room and his telescope and put them quietly in the attic, promising herself that if she ever had kids she’d teach them how to use it, and regretted never paying enough attention to the stars. She thought she might have done, once, but Wilf had stopped asking her to come with him, even sometimes deliberately evading her questions about what he was looking for. Still, she thought, it would be a good thing to give to her children.
The crematorium was full, people that Wilf had known, people who Sylvia knew and Donna knew, relatives that hadn’t helped out before but felt they should show their face. The singing was muted, and Donna fretted that she’d picked the wrong hymns, that she was wearing the wrong thing, that she’d chosen the wrong flowers. As the coffin moved through the curtains – Donna refused to think where it was going, instead holding onto Sylvia’s hand and glancing around the room, at the ceiling, at the vicar, at anything but the wooden box, she caught the eye of a black woman stood at the back of the crematorium. She was neatly dressed, younger than Donna was but still with the look of someone who had led a long and exhausting life. Donna didn’t think she knew her, or the younger man in the long brown coat next to her, although both seemed strangely familiar. Perhaps they were neighbours? She made a note to speak to them at the wake afterwards, before turning her attention back to the vicar, who was quietly closing the service. The curtains were shut now, and Donna knew she had to lead Sylvia out, and somehow keep herself together.
She didn’t see the woman and the man slip out, and she forgot to look for them later on amongst the curled up sandwiches and warm chicken legs of the wake.
*
4. “Dementia,” she heard the nurse whisper overhead to the doctor. “Common enough when they’re this age. She makes really strange word connections sometimes, and it can upset her. She’s sleeping now, she always does after lunch, but she can be pretty feisty when she wants to.”
“I’m sure she can,” she heard the doctor reply, sounding amused. “Maiden name Noble, you say?”
“She married much later on in life, so she responds better to Noble, we’ve found.” A different nurse now, the one Donna vaguely associated with tea, and biscuits, and kindness when she was confused, or scared. She was a bit hurt they were talking about her like she wasn’t there, but of course, that happened when you were old… and Donna knew she was confused, more than she used to be, but she wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t going to be talked about like this. She opened her eyes to see two nurses – the matron, and the kind nurse – and someone who she assumed was a doctor, who she’d never seen before.
“Oh, good afternoon Donna!” said the matron cheerfully. Donna remembered, for a moment, how much she hated this woman and her false cheeriness. “Nice of you to join us. This man is doctor…?”
“Smith,” supplied Dr Smith. “John Smith. Hello, Donna. Can I call you that?”
Donna peered up at him through a thin film of white, and leaned slowly out of the bed, painfully aware of her joints cracking, to pick up the glasses she despised wearing but now couldn’t do without. They cleared the mist slightly to reveal a tall man, skinny, in a brown suit, looking at her with a kind smile. “If you like,” she replied. “I don’t get much choice around here.”
“I bet you don’t,” said Dr Smith, looking around with mild distain at the floral wallpaper and framed prints of not very much at all. He looked at the matron. “Can I be alone with Donna for a bit?”
“If you think that’s best, Dr Smith.” The matron left the room, but the other nurse leaned over the bed, and helped Donna to sit upright, and assured her that this doctor was here to help with the confusion, that he was an expert. Dr Smith stood in the corner, unobtrusive and quiet, until the nurse had left.
“Well?” said Donna, looking at him. “What are you here to help with?”
“Do you know me, Donna?”
“Should I?” Even as she said, an image of a hatbox, and suitcases, the boot of a blue car, flashed across her mind quickly. “Suitcases?” she asked suddenly, and then shook her head. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I…” she trailed off, unable to finish.
“You think of me with suitcases?”
“And a hatbox,” she said with a shrug, and laughed weakly. Dr Smith actually smiled at this, properly smiling, coming over to the bed and holding her old hand, covered in liverspots but still with the telltale pale tinge of a woman who once had fiery hair.
“Donna, I’ve come to apologise,” he said, looking at her intensely. “I’m the Doctor, just the Doctor. We did know each other, once. You brought a hatbox and everything; I never gave you it back. We stayed together, for a time…”
And the Doctor explained everything, and apologised again, and placed his hands briefly against her forehead. Dona hit him on the shoulder with as much force and she could muster, and then hugged him. “I know you had to make me forget,” said Donna softly, eventually. “I know. I wish you hadn’t.” She paused for a minute, enjoying the images flashing across her mind. “All I did was be unemployed, marry a stupid man, divorce him not much later. I didn’t even have any kids, you know.” Her voice was softly accusing. “And now I’ve wound up in this bed with that absolute bloody cow of a matron looking after me. She thinks I’m thick, you know.”
“I never thought you were thick. Even when you were standing in the TARDIS howling at me in a wedding dress.”
“You liar.” She smiled at the memory. “You thought I was a madwoman.”
“Yeah, a bit.”
Donna sighed. “So if the memory wall was breaking down already, I didn’t have much longer left, did I? Bad heart, like Grandad…”
The Doctor nodded, just once.
“So that means I have…” Donna worked it out, using the knowledge she’d always had, she realised now, and just never used. “Until teatime. Just about. If you’re letting me have the memory back, I’m going to die anyway…” Her voice cracked at that.
“I’m sorry,” the Doctor replied softly. “I’m so sorry.”
“You always are,” said Donna absently. It was quiet in the room for a bit. “Did you bring the TARDIS?” she asked suddenly.
“She’s outside the window. I can take you to look, if you’d like?”
The offer was genuine. For a minute, Donna thought about going with the Doctor again, at least seeing the blue box once more in more than just old memories, newly awakened. Then she looked down at her frail body, thought about the orthopaedic shoes she needed to walk, the support she needed for just a short distance. She raised an eyebrow at the Doctor. “Like I’m going to trust you to support this old woman.”
“You’re younger than me!”
“Oh, don’t bloody rub it in. Besides, it’s easier for them… you know, the staff… if I’m here. Later on. Human stuff. You know.”
“Ah,” said the Doctor, uncomfortable. “I didn’t think.”
“You never did.” Donna went quiet again. “Will you stay? Just to talk?”
“Of course I will,” replied the Doctor. He was still holding her hand when the sun set, and a nurse came around with the tea trolley.
Originally posted on 21/01/09 as a birthday fic.
Author:
hathy_colSummary: The Rueful Fate of Donna Noble; or, six people Donna Noble didn't know.
Disclaimer: Beeb owns all, I own nothing.
1. She didn’t believe all that crap about Daleks and spaceships and God knows what else. Okay, something had happened, obviously, she wasn’t thick or anything, but some global panic wasn’t going to phase Donna Noble. She had better things to think of, and she was thinking of them on Friday night in the corner of the Walkabout club, downing her fourth drink of the night before dashing off to dance again.
“Oiy, Donna,” said Veena, nudging her, looking excited. “Oiy, look!”
“You’re spilling my drink, Veena, what?” shouted Donna back, straining over the song the DJ had just started playing.
“That bloke over there!”
“What, the skinny one with the specs? Ugh, Veena, are you that desperate? For Christ’s sake, woman…”
“No, not that one!” interrupted Veena, shaking Donna’s arm again. “The really fit one, in the long coat, just next to him!”
“What about him?”
“He’s looking at me!” more or less squealed Veena.
“Of course he’s bloody looking at you, shrieking like that!”
“It’s been ages since I pulled! Do you think I should talk to him? God, he’s still looking…”
Donna took a moment to look up, appraising the man. Tall, dark, and with a very chiselled chin. “Actually, he is a bit fit, isn’t he?” She flicked her hair.
“Donna, no! I saw him first, and he was looking at me!”
“Might be looking at me too, you know,” Donna said haughtily. She took a quick glance again. The man did seem to be looking at her, actually. “Might be gay, too.”
“We could both go and talk to him,” Veena suggested. “Prove he fancies me, not you.”
“Fine,” said Donna, and grabbing Veena’s hand proceeded to sashay across the dancefloor to where the man was standing, who smiled at her – not Veena, her! – with a very knowing smile. Donna tried not to smile too hard.
“Hi,” she shouted into his ear. “Do you have a name, gorgeous? Me and my friend here are thirsty…”
The man’s smile faded. “Thought you’d have remembered me,” he said with a deep American accent, looking upset.
“No, we’ve never seen you before!” chimed in Veena, who seemed to have pulled her glittery top down as far as it would go without breaking the law.
“Not you,” said the main dismissively. Veena looked slightly upset for a moment, pulling her top up quickly. “Donna, don’t you remember me? Jack Harkness? And where’s the Doctor?”
Donna’s eyes widened for a moment, and for a tiny, indiscreet second the music of the nightclub faded and all Donna thought she could hear was a heart beating…
She shook her head. “What doctor? Are you some perv from the health centre? Oh, god, have you looked through my records?” She hit him with her small leather handbag, although he remained immobile, something flashing in his eyes that looked like deep sorrow. “You think knowing about that time I had shingles is going to make me sleep with you? Urgh, I don’t care how fit you are! I’m going toreport you!” She hit him in the arm with her handbag, harder this time, before stepping away; something had flashed in the man’s eyes that made her pause, momentarily.
“Yeah, you tell him Donna!” said Veena, who now looked sickened. “You read about stuff like this in the paper, don’t you?”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry,” the man said, after a long pause; the bouncers had taken notice of Donna’s actions, and were moving closer to them through the swirling mass of dancers. “I thought I knew you. Apparently not. Have a good night.”
He slipped through the couple that had been stood by, watching the exchange agog, and almost silently moved out of the fire escape before the bouncers could catch up with him.
“Ew,” said Veena succinctly. “You get some bloody perverts these days, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” said Donna, thoughtfully. Maybe she had seen the man before… he probably worked at her doctors, that must have been where she’s seen him. She shook her head. “Yeah,” she said again. “Come on, let’s not have some bloke get in the way of our girly night, okay?”
--
She reported a Jack Harkness to the GP’s surgery on Monday morning, but they’d never heard of him or anyone who looked like him. Donna didn’t really think of him again, although she dreamed about him, and the heartbeats, a few times.
*
2. It had been another depressing day. The temp work wasn’t coming in the way it used to; every time she got a contract, the firm folded, or downsized, and it was awful to be in an office full of people who’d just lost their jobs and the temps moved in to finish off their work. The big firms didn’t want to take people on anymore, and eventually Donna’s mum had sat her down.
“Donna, you’re good enough for a full-time job at any of these big firms, you know,” she’d said, surprisingly gentle. Donna had rolled her eyes, and taken a slurp of her tea.
“Mum, you spent all last year telling me that I wasn’t good enough for even a temp job at those firms.”
“Well, maybe I’ve changed my mind.” Sylvia had reached over and taken Donna’s hand. “You can be great at anything you want to, you know. Take a college course or something.”
“I was rubbish at college, Mum!” Donna had said crossly. “That’s why I’m a crap temp. That’s what you said, right?”
As she’d turned her back to rinse out the mug, she’d almost thought she’d seen her Mum wince, as if in pain.
Anyway, the point was that there wasn’t any work going, and Donna had finally given up and gone to speak to the people at the Job Centre. They hadn’t seemed hopeful, and had given her a leaflet about local college courses, and a leaflet to apply for a dole. Flicking through the leaflet – pet grooming? How was that a job? – she walked through the suburbs quickly, just wanting to get home out of the cold. As she turned down her road, she heard her Grandad’s voice raised above the other noise’s from the street. “You keep away from my Donna!” he yelled, sounding angrier than Donna had ever heard. “You’ll do her damage if she ever finds out!”
Another voice responded to that, a boy’s voice, too quiet to make out.
“I don’t care, do you hear me? He said she could never find out, and that’s the end of it! Now get out of it, go!”
Donna was running now, trying to see who these people were who had made her Grandad so angry, and why they were asking about her. By the time she’d made it to her house, three teenagers – two boys and a girl, no more than sixteen each – were walking quickly in the opposite direction from Wilf’s anger, but slowed down as they passed her. One of the boys, geeky looking, whispered audibly “That’s her!”
Donna swirled around. “You leave my Grandad alone, do you hear me?” she snapped. “Go on, buggar off.” She walked proudly past the three, who were staring openly at her.
“She doesn’t remember you, Luke,” she heard the girl whisper. “Maybe you were right, about the biological metathingy…”
That seemed to ring a bell in Donna’s head, but she wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of turning around. Instead, she walked up her front drive, where Wilf was standing, looking worried.
“Bloody kids, eh?” she joked, trying to take the look of concern off his face. “What did they want?”
“Some scam,” said Wilf, putting an arm around Donna and deliberately leading her into the house with some speed. “Probably got your name out of the phone book.”
“Yeah,” said Donna, shutting the door behind them, not looking back. “Shall I put the kettle on?”
“That sounds like a good idea,” said Wilf with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “And then you can tell me about your day, okay?”
“Oh, god, it was awful…” started Donna as she went into the kitchen, before spotting Wilf looking out of the window. “Are they still there?”
“No, gone!” said Wilf hastily, letting the net curtain swing shut again. Donna thought she saw three heads peering over the hedge before the netting obscured the view. “Did they not find you a job, then?”
“No,” said Donna with a sigh. “They think I might have to go to college and study something.”
“You know I think you can do anything, right, sweetheart?”
“Not flipping dog-grooming, I can’t.”
*
3. Wilf died. A heart attack, the doctor thought, and a post-mortem proved it true. He’d died looking out at the stars, and it was only when Sylvia and Donna realised he hadn’t come in that they’d found him. He’d already been cold, on what had been a cold night. They told Donna it would have been quick, and he wouldn’t have even really known about it. Donna didn’t know if that was true, and didn’t know if it made her feel any better.
Sylvia couldn’t cope. Neither could Donna, to be honest, but she organised a funeral, picked hymns, and without the knowledge of Sylvia, she quietly packed up his room and his telescope and put them quietly in the attic, promising herself that if she ever had kids she’d teach them how to use it, and regretted never paying enough attention to the stars. She thought she might have done, once, but Wilf had stopped asking her to come with him, even sometimes deliberately evading her questions about what he was looking for. Still, she thought, it would be a good thing to give to her children.
The crematorium was full, people that Wilf had known, people who Sylvia knew and Donna knew, relatives that hadn’t helped out before but felt they should show their face. The singing was muted, and Donna fretted that she’d picked the wrong hymns, that she was wearing the wrong thing, that she’d chosen the wrong flowers. As the coffin moved through the curtains – Donna refused to think where it was going, instead holding onto Sylvia’s hand and glancing around the room, at the ceiling, at the vicar, at anything but the wooden box, she caught the eye of a black woman stood at the back of the crematorium. She was neatly dressed, younger than Donna was but still with the look of someone who had led a long and exhausting life. Donna didn’t think she knew her, or the younger man in the long brown coat next to her, although both seemed strangely familiar. Perhaps they were neighbours? She made a note to speak to them at the wake afterwards, before turning her attention back to the vicar, who was quietly closing the service. The curtains were shut now, and Donna knew she had to lead Sylvia out, and somehow keep herself together.
She didn’t see the woman and the man slip out, and she forgot to look for them later on amongst the curled up sandwiches and warm chicken legs of the wake.
*
4. “Dementia,” she heard the nurse whisper overhead to the doctor. “Common enough when they’re this age. She makes really strange word connections sometimes, and it can upset her. She’s sleeping now, she always does after lunch, but she can be pretty feisty when she wants to.”
“I’m sure she can,” she heard the doctor reply, sounding amused. “Maiden name Noble, you say?”
“She married much later on in life, so she responds better to Noble, we’ve found.” A different nurse now, the one Donna vaguely associated with tea, and biscuits, and kindness when she was confused, or scared. She was a bit hurt they were talking about her like she wasn’t there, but of course, that happened when you were old… and Donna knew she was confused, more than she used to be, but she wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t going to be talked about like this. She opened her eyes to see two nurses – the matron, and the kind nurse – and someone who she assumed was a doctor, who she’d never seen before.
“Oh, good afternoon Donna!” said the matron cheerfully. Donna remembered, for a moment, how much she hated this woman and her false cheeriness. “Nice of you to join us. This man is doctor…?”
“Smith,” supplied Dr Smith. “John Smith. Hello, Donna. Can I call you that?”
Donna peered up at him through a thin film of white, and leaned slowly out of the bed, painfully aware of her joints cracking, to pick up the glasses she despised wearing but now couldn’t do without. They cleared the mist slightly to reveal a tall man, skinny, in a brown suit, looking at her with a kind smile. “If you like,” she replied. “I don’t get much choice around here.”
“I bet you don’t,” said Dr Smith, looking around with mild distain at the floral wallpaper and framed prints of not very much at all. He looked at the matron. “Can I be alone with Donna for a bit?”
“If you think that’s best, Dr Smith.” The matron left the room, but the other nurse leaned over the bed, and helped Donna to sit upright, and assured her that this doctor was here to help with the confusion, that he was an expert. Dr Smith stood in the corner, unobtrusive and quiet, until the nurse had left.
“Well?” said Donna, looking at him. “What are you here to help with?”
“Do you know me, Donna?”
“Should I?” Even as she said, an image of a hatbox, and suitcases, the boot of a blue car, flashed across her mind quickly. “Suitcases?” she asked suddenly, and then shook her head. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I…” she trailed off, unable to finish.
“You think of me with suitcases?”
“And a hatbox,” she said with a shrug, and laughed weakly. Dr Smith actually smiled at this, properly smiling, coming over to the bed and holding her old hand, covered in liverspots but still with the telltale pale tinge of a woman who once had fiery hair.
“Donna, I’ve come to apologise,” he said, looking at her intensely. “I’m the Doctor, just the Doctor. We did know each other, once. You brought a hatbox and everything; I never gave you it back. We stayed together, for a time…”
And the Doctor explained everything, and apologised again, and placed his hands briefly against her forehead. Dona hit him on the shoulder with as much force and she could muster, and then hugged him. “I know you had to make me forget,” said Donna softly, eventually. “I know. I wish you hadn’t.” She paused for a minute, enjoying the images flashing across her mind. “All I did was be unemployed, marry a stupid man, divorce him not much later. I didn’t even have any kids, you know.” Her voice was softly accusing. “And now I’ve wound up in this bed with that absolute bloody cow of a matron looking after me. She thinks I’m thick, you know.”
“I never thought you were thick. Even when you were standing in the TARDIS howling at me in a wedding dress.”
“You liar.” She smiled at the memory. “You thought I was a madwoman.”
“Yeah, a bit.”
Donna sighed. “So if the memory wall was breaking down already, I didn’t have much longer left, did I? Bad heart, like Grandad…”
The Doctor nodded, just once.
“So that means I have…” Donna worked it out, using the knowledge she’d always had, she realised now, and just never used. “Until teatime. Just about. If you’re letting me have the memory back, I’m going to die anyway…” Her voice cracked at that.
“I’m sorry,” the Doctor replied softly. “I’m so sorry.”
“You always are,” said Donna absently. It was quiet in the room for a bit. “Did you bring the TARDIS?” she asked suddenly.
“She’s outside the window. I can take you to look, if you’d like?”
The offer was genuine. For a minute, Donna thought about going with the Doctor again, at least seeing the blue box once more in more than just old memories, newly awakened. Then she looked down at her frail body, thought about the orthopaedic shoes she needed to walk, the support she needed for just a short distance. She raised an eyebrow at the Doctor. “Like I’m going to trust you to support this old woman.”
“You’re younger than me!”
“Oh, don’t bloody rub it in. Besides, it’s easier for them… you know, the staff… if I’m here. Later on. Human stuff. You know.”
“Ah,” said the Doctor, uncomfortable. “I didn’t think.”
“You never did.” Donna went quiet again. “Will you stay? Just to talk?”
“Of course I will,” replied the Doctor. He was still holding her hand when the sun set, and a nurse came around with the tea trolley.
Originally posted on 21/01/09 as a birthday fic.
