Fic: A New Song (1/8)
Posted on 2008.10.15 at 21:06I am feeling...:
contemplative
Title: A New Song (1/8)
Author:![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
shining_moment
Characters/Pairing: Doctor, Donna
Rating: G
Spoilers: Journey's End
Summary: Talking to strange men in the library, not exactly her usual thing but then a few months ago just being in the library would have been odd enough so she’ll just go with it.
Word Count: 1064
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine.
Author's Notes: I know the fanfic world really doesn't need another post-JE fixit story but until TPTB put Catherine in one of next years specials and fix things for us, I am powerless to fight the urge to make it better when the muse strikes.
Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight
Donna has figured out that the best place to be is the library. Not exactly a realisation she ever expected to come to but still, it is what it is. Ever since she inexplicably found herself wandering into a Science Museum exhibition about Black Holes, she can’t shake the curiosity, the fascination with it all. She knows she’s always been a bit blinkered when it comes to the bigger picture, missing huge things that really shouldn’t have gone unnoticed and she has a weird feeling that someone told her off for that once, she just doesn’t remember who it was.
Speaking of remembering- well, she just doesn’t. Oh, she remembers coming home covered in paint after her first day at school, she remembers knowing even at the age of eight that she really wasn’t cut out for ballet and she remembers that she used to hate the smell of bananas until one day she started eating one with breakfast and now she does the same thing every morning.
What she doesn’t remember is anything since the whole thing with Lance. An accident apparently, although no-one seems to want to give her the details, just that it was sudden and horrific and that her brain has blocked it all out for her own good. The doctor says it’s quite common for people who have suffered a major trauma to react this way, that it’s a subconscious reaction and the mind instinctively protects itself from what it can’t handle. It annoys her a bit really because there’s never been anything she couldn’t handle so she wonders what could have been so awful that her brain has just shut it off completely.
Anyway, she reads constantly now because not only is there a mass of information about Black Holes but there are books and books about dark matter, about vortexes and wormholes and things she never even knew existed. At the library she can’t be distracted by her mobile, or the telly, or Heat magazine or her mum banging on about what Mrs Clark at number 75 got up to in Eastbourne like she thinks Donna would really care.
So, here she is again, at the library, ensconced in a million theories on black holes and general relativity, chewing on the end of her pencil, as she always does when she’s engrossed in something, She doesn’t notice him sit down and, when she gets that weird feeling someone is watching her, she has no idea whether he’s been there ten minutes or two hours. She glances up, ready to ask what he finds so interesting but as she does, he looks away far too guiltily for a man who has been caught doing nothing more serious than staring at someone and it makes her smile.
She keeps looking at him because she knows he’ll meet her eyes eventually but until he does, she takes the chance to study him a little bit. He’s wearing a brown pinstripe suit and glasses and he seems to be one of those blokes who wants you to think they don’t care what their hair looks like when really they’ve spent forever making sure it’s the first thing anyone notices. Funny.
He reaches up and scratches his left ear, never taking his eyes from the book in front of him and she feels bad if she’s making him nervous but at the same time it feels like a bit of a game now and she’s damned if she’ll look away before she gets him to cave and meet her gaze. He gives a slightly nervous cough before finally looking up at her and giving her a slightly shy but endearing little smile. He has big brown eyes behind the glasses and, even though he has science geek written all over him, she imagines the combination of those eyes and that smile could be quite a dazzler. She snaps out of her musings when the smile gets wider and he says,
“Hello.”
It must be contagious because she finds herself grinning back,
“Hello yourself.”
“Some interesting theories in that one,” he gestures to one of the books she has beside her on the table, “Oh, and you shouldn’t chew your pencil, you know, it’s terrible for the teeth.”
That’s when she suddenly realises she knows him, she’s met him before, just briefly and she thinks she was yapping on the phone to someone at the time and didn’t pay much attention but yep, she’s sure it’s him.
“I know you, don’t I? I mean, we’ve met before. Jim? No, John? John, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. John Smith, and you are Donna Noble.”
“Yup, that’s me. Good memory you’ve got there.”
“Oh, you’re not exactly easy to forget.”
She’s pretty sure he’s not flirting with her, she’s fairly good at spotting when a bloke is trying that but the intense expression combined with those focussed brown eyes has her a bit baffled about what exactly he is doing. Talking to strange men in the library, not exactly her usual thing but then a few months ago just being in the library would have been odd enough so she’ll just go with it.
“So, you’re interested in all this then? You know, the science stuff?”
“It‘s hard not to be when we’re surrounded by science- energy and atoms and particles. It’s fascinating stuff, Donna!”
Enthusiasm like his is something some people might find a bit weird but since she found herself unable to get enough of all this, she understands it, understands how the more you learn the more you want to learn and how, when you find another theory that excites you, there’s no feeling quite like it- oh God, she’s a geek!
She doesn’t really know what has come over her but the words are out of her mouth before she can analyse it,
“If you’re not busy or anything now, how would you fancy having a coffee with me?”
There it is again, the smile that she seriously suspects could melt hearts, and she wonders if he knows that,
“I’d love to. I think we should probably get you something to eat too so you can spare this poor pencil its life.”
With that, as he stands up, he takes the chewed pencil out of her hand and slips it into his inside pocket, grinning as she rolls her eyes at him.
Author:
shining_momentCharacters/Pairing: Doctor, Donna
Rating: G
Spoilers: Journey's End
Summary: Talking to strange men in the library, not exactly her usual thing but then a few months ago just being in the library would have been odd enough so she’ll just go with it.
Word Count: 1064
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine.
Author's Notes: I know the fanfic world really doesn't need another post-JE fixit story but until TPTB put Catherine in one of next years specials and fix things for us, I am powerless to fight the urge to make it better when the muse strikes.
Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight
Donna has figured out that the best place to be is the library. Not exactly a realisation she ever expected to come to but still, it is what it is. Ever since she inexplicably found herself wandering into a Science Museum exhibition about Black Holes, she can’t shake the curiosity, the fascination with it all. She knows she’s always been a bit blinkered when it comes to the bigger picture, missing huge things that really shouldn’t have gone unnoticed and she has a weird feeling that someone told her off for that once, she just doesn’t remember who it was.
Speaking of remembering- well, she just doesn’t. Oh, she remembers coming home covered in paint after her first day at school, she remembers knowing even at the age of eight that she really wasn’t cut out for ballet and she remembers that she used to hate the smell of bananas until one day she started eating one with breakfast and now she does the same thing every morning.
What she doesn’t remember is anything since the whole thing with Lance. An accident apparently, although no-one seems to want to give her the details, just that it was sudden and horrific and that her brain has blocked it all out for her own good. The doctor says it’s quite common for people who have suffered a major trauma to react this way, that it’s a subconscious reaction and the mind instinctively protects itself from what it can’t handle. It annoys her a bit really because there’s never been anything she couldn’t handle so she wonders what could have been so awful that her brain has just shut it off completely.
Anyway, she reads constantly now because not only is there a mass of information about Black Holes but there are books and books about dark matter, about vortexes and wormholes and things she never even knew existed. At the library she can’t be distracted by her mobile, or the telly, or Heat magazine or her mum banging on about what Mrs Clark at number 75 got up to in Eastbourne like she thinks Donna would really care.
So, here she is again, at the library, ensconced in a million theories on black holes and general relativity, chewing on the end of her pencil, as she always does when she’s engrossed in something, She doesn’t notice him sit down and, when she gets that weird feeling someone is watching her, she has no idea whether he’s been there ten minutes or two hours. She glances up, ready to ask what he finds so interesting but as she does, he looks away far too guiltily for a man who has been caught doing nothing more serious than staring at someone and it makes her smile.
She keeps looking at him because she knows he’ll meet her eyes eventually but until he does, she takes the chance to study him a little bit. He’s wearing a brown pinstripe suit and glasses and he seems to be one of those blokes who wants you to think they don’t care what their hair looks like when really they’ve spent forever making sure it’s the first thing anyone notices. Funny.
He reaches up and scratches his left ear, never taking his eyes from the book in front of him and she feels bad if she’s making him nervous but at the same time it feels like a bit of a game now and she’s damned if she’ll look away before she gets him to cave and meet her gaze. He gives a slightly nervous cough before finally looking up at her and giving her a slightly shy but endearing little smile. He has big brown eyes behind the glasses and, even though he has science geek written all over him, she imagines the combination of those eyes and that smile could be quite a dazzler. She snaps out of her musings when the smile gets wider and he says,
“Hello.”
It must be contagious because she finds herself grinning back,
“Hello yourself.”
“Some interesting theories in that one,” he gestures to one of the books she has beside her on the table, “Oh, and you shouldn’t chew your pencil, you know, it’s terrible for the teeth.”
That’s when she suddenly realises she knows him, she’s met him before, just briefly and she thinks she was yapping on the phone to someone at the time and didn’t pay much attention but yep, she’s sure it’s him.
“I know you, don’t I? I mean, we’ve met before. Jim? No, John? John, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. John Smith, and you are Donna Noble.”
“Yup, that’s me. Good memory you’ve got there.”
“Oh, you’re not exactly easy to forget.”
She’s pretty sure he’s not flirting with her, she’s fairly good at spotting when a bloke is trying that but the intense expression combined with those focussed brown eyes has her a bit baffled about what exactly he is doing. Talking to strange men in the library, not exactly her usual thing but then a few months ago just being in the library would have been odd enough so she’ll just go with it.
“So, you’re interested in all this then? You know, the science stuff?”
“It‘s hard not to be when we’re surrounded by science- energy and atoms and particles. It’s fascinating stuff, Donna!”
Enthusiasm like his is something some people might find a bit weird but since she found herself unable to get enough of all this, she understands it, understands how the more you learn the more you want to learn and how, when you find another theory that excites you, there’s no feeling quite like it- oh God, she’s a geek!
She doesn’t really know what has come over her but the words are out of her mouth before she can analyse it,
“If you’re not busy or anything now, how would you fancy having a coffee with me?”
There it is again, the smile that she seriously suspects could melt hearts, and she wonders if he knows that,
“I’d love to. I think we should probably get you something to eat too so you can spare this poor pencil its life.”
With that, as he stands up, he takes the chewed pencil out of her hand and slips it into his inside pocket, grinning as she rolls her eyes at him.