Fic: A New Song (2/8)

Title: A New Song (2/8)
Author: shining_moment
Characters/Pairing: Doctor, Donna
Rating: G
Summary: There lies the problem though- she’s quite simply the best friend he has ever had and he can’t bear the thought of never seeing her again, carrying on without her in his life.
Word Count: 1596
Spoilers: Journey's End and little mentions of other S4 episodes here and there.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.


The Doctor is a wise man, prides himself on it, it’s the legacy of his home planet, after all. So why then is he walking out of Chiswick library headed for the nearest coffee shop with Donna, his best friend and the one person he absolutely should not risk seeing.

There lies the problem though- she’s quite simply the best friend he has ever had and he can’t bear the thought of never seeing her again, carrying on without her in his life. She makes him laugh, she has no qualms about challenging his decisions, she holds his hand for no reason other than it feels right and she loves him completely, without agenda. Or she did then. He loves her just as he always did but, to her, he’s someone she met only once, an acquaintance of her beloved Gramps.

He wants nothing more than to change that, wants her to know him again like she did before, better than anyone ever has, even though the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in warning, telling him he’s taking a stupid risk. He tells himself it’s only a temporary risk though, while he’s working on the thing that could isolate the Timelord consciousness triggered by the metacrisis and separate it from her own memories without causing any damage, without the chance of her brain burning up.

He won’t risk it until he’s sure though and he’s convinced that in his guise of plain old John Smith, there’s nothing that could trigger any memories, could spark any recognition and he promises himself that if there is ever even the slightest flicker of anything like that before he‘s been able to fix the damage he did, he’ll be gone and she’ll never see him again, as agonising as that would be.

So, here they are- he has tea, she has coffee and they share a slice of some kind of banana and chocolate cake. He has to quell his surprise at that and he wonders how the girl who used to wrinkle her nose and move away from him whenever he started to peel a banana now points at banana cake as her first choice in a fridge full of goodies.

He’s seen Wilf a couple of times since he brought Donna home; the first time not long afterwards when he told him sadly that it was like nothing had ever changed, not one wonderful thing seemed to have remained in the back corners of her mind, no matter how much he wished on the stars for it to be so. Six months later it was a different story, Wilf had practically jumped for joy when he saw the TARDIS appear and couldn’t wait to tell the Doctor how Donna had suddenly appeared in the kitchen one morning, announcing how stupid she felt for missing all these things that everyone else had seen and that she was going to the library. He said he knew it was serious when she ran back in just seconds later to leave her mobile on the table, telling Wilf she didn’t want to be disturbed.

That’s where the seed was planted, the little idea in the Doctor’s head that grew and grew until he knew he had to see her for himself, to know she was alright and being the wonderfully brilliant Donna that he knew she could be. If he could get an idea of how she was, what exactly she was thinking, feeling, then he could hopefully establish how likely she was to respond to him returning her memories to her. He’s missed her terribly, for the first few months he barely functioned, couldn’t quite remember what it was like before she was with him and didn’t want to.

They’ve been chatting about everything; the weather, what she’s been reading, the latest space mission and, for a while, it feels just like old times to him. She brought some of the books with her from the library and she looks at the front cover of one of them before she smiles at the Doctor, the excited smile he’s missed so very much, the one she gave him whenever he showed her something new or peculiar.

“Imagine how great it would be to go to space. I mean, to actually be up there, millions of light years away from Earth, flying through the sky. Don’t you just think it’d be brilliant?”

He wants to grab her and tell her she has been up there, she lived flying through the sky with him and it was brilliant, completely brilliant. He doesn’t of course, he just nods and agrees with her, “I can’t imagine there would be anything else quite like it at all.”

“What is it that you do, John?”

He was prepared for this, he knows her well enough to know that asking questions is what she does and he loves that about her, he always did, loves that she would never pretend to know something just to avoid the possibility of appearing ignorant or silly if a simple question would give her the information she wanted.

“Oh, I work on various projects, science-based, so it’s fairly varied.”

“I knew you were a scientist type, I could just tell, plus I guessed you probably knew Gramps from the astronomy group. That’s why I temp, you know, because it’s nice and varied. It’s funny though, most people just assume it’s because I can’t be bothered looking for something permanent.”

“Maybe all this interest in space and science will lead you off in a different direction, somewhere you never dreamed you would end up. It could be what you were meant to be doing all along. You never know.”

She smiles at him, “You sound just like Gramps, I half expected you to launch into ‘you can do whatever you put your mind to, sweetheart’ for a second there. Do they feed everybody optimism pills at those little gatherings of yours?”

“Just looking at the stars is enough to make you feel optimistic Donna, you really don’t need anything else.”

He notices the tables around them being cleared and realises they’ve been there for much longer than he thought. He’s not surprised though, it was always like that when they were together, sometimes hours of conversation felt like mere minutes.

She looks at her watch, “Bloody hell, where did the time go? Well, I suppose we should leave before they have to throw us out.”

She gathers up her things and heads towards the door and, as he follows, he feels strangely proud seeing her with an arm full of books, like an enthusiastic student on her first day at school. He has never wanted to hug anyone as much as he wants to hug her right this second and he has to stuff his hands in his pockets to be completely certain the urge won’t overcome him.

They start to walk back in the direction of the library and, as Donna pulls her scarf tighter around her, he is reminded of her reaction to the cold when they landed on the Oodsphere and he smiles.

“What?”

“Oh no, nothing. I like that scarf, you look good in purple. You know, with your hair and all, it’s nice, um good, suits you.”

She looks slightly amused rather than embarrassed or horrified, “Thank you.”

He’s sure she’s about to say something else but she hesitates for a few long seconds before continuing, “I was wondering if- no, never mind.”

His hearts leap into his throat and he silently wills her to ask whatever it was she was about to. When she doesn’t, he has to ask,

“Go on?”

“Well, if you’re busy or you don’t want to or whatever, just say so but I wondered if you might want to do something on Saturday?”

“I’m not. Busy, I mean. Saturday would be good, I’d love to do something.”

She exhales and smiles at him, “Ok then. Good.”

“You might not want to mention it to-”

She apparently knows exactly what he’s thinking, even if she couldn’t possibly know the reason, because she interrupts him, her smile a little wider, “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything to Gramps. I know what he’s like, the last thing you need is him grilling you next time you see him about what we’re doing going for coffee together and stuff.”

He grins at her as they reach the library and she gestures to where her car is parked, “Right then, this is me. Saturday afternoon then, here at 3pm?”

“Saturday, 3pm, here. Brilliant!”

“Thank you John, this was…nice.”

“Donna Noble, the pleasure was most definitely all mine.”

“Charmer!” she smacks him lightly on the arm and it suddenly feels like they’ve never been apart. He takes a chance that she won’t thump him and gives her a very quick peck on the cheek- nothing inappropriate, nothing that might make her run screaming down the street but enough to satisfy the need to touch her that’s been burning away inside him these past few hours.

She looks right at him and smiles as she opens the car door and her eyes are those deep pools of blue that he remembers. Walking away from where she is getting into her car and trying to quickly calculate exactly how many minutes it is until 3pm on Saturday, he has a weird feeling and at first he can’t place it. It’s not until he reaches the doors of the TARDIS that he recognises what it is; he‘s happy.