The road less travelled...

Title: Daydreams 3/6
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Characters: Donna and the Doctor (Ten) (may become Ten/Donna)
Spoilers: All of Season 4 up to the end of Forest of the Dead
Summary: The Doctor has nightmares about Donna.

Part III

The world is on fire.

The sky is orange and the sound of flames crackles around him. Voices are screaming nearby, but he can’t see through the smoke. He spins on the spot, desperately trying to find a way through. The smoke is getting thicker, forming shapes, very distinct ones.

People.

People-shaped gold robots.

With wings and haloes

And other people.

People who look very like Wilf.

And Sylvia.

And a man that the Doctor only just remembers seeing from Donna’s wedding. Her father? Maybe.

And another woman that the Doctor has never seen before, but then he hears a voice screaming ‘Veena’ and knows it’s coming from his own throat.

And the gold robots disappear, but the others don’t, and the space around him becomes more defined, shifting and changing.

And finally becoming a room that once belonged to Donna.

And yet he knows he’s not there at all.

He’s lying on the bed in the TARDIS.

Not asleep.

So how’s he dreaming then?

He opens his eyes and finds himself inches from Donna’s face. Her eyes are flickering vigorously beneath closed lids.

In the back of his mind, he can feel that the dream is playing on in her head. He can smell the smoke and feel her mounting terror as the fire gets closer and no one comes to save her.

“Donna,” he calls softly, sliding his arm around under her neck and drawing her into his arms, “it’s okay. I’m here.”

The hand in hers is now pressed against his chest, and he can hear the faint echoes of his twin heartbeats in her mind, but the dream is fading. He holds her against him until he’s certain that she’s not going to wake before slowly releasing her.

He settles back against the pillow, his hand, wrapped in hers, still resting against his chest, and gazes at her in confusion.

There’s something very wrong.

The sky is orange…

And Donna wasn’t with him on the Titanic when he faced the Hosts.

So how do parts of his history that he knows he’s never shared with her appear in her nightmares?

He never told her what Gallifrey was like.

Rose, yes.

Martha, too.

But never Donna.

She knows it’s gone – he said so to the Empress of the Racnoss, and Lucius Petrus Dextrus mentioned in Pompeii that it had burned, but he never described it to her.

So how did she know the sky was orange?

Co-incidence, he finally decides. Fires are orange and the colour was reflected in the sky.

He tries to dismiss it from his mind.

But he can’t.

Because there are other things, too.

He looks down at the hand pressed against his chest. Between his hearts. And he remembers being in that cell on Messaline when Donna demanded his stethoscope and proved that Jenny was his daughter.

Two hearts.

He never told her.

Never.

And yet she knew.

About regeneration, too.

“It’s all right, Doctor, you didn’t regenerate.”

She even seems to understand that he’s frightened of doing so.

And he would certainly never have told her that.

He can’t help himself – he has to know what he said, how much he told her.

So he makes the connection with her mind again, finds that moment in her memory, and hears the familiar and yet strange voices coming out of his mouth.

Feels her terror and hates himself for it.

Change everything about me. What I look like. My personality. Everything. Regenerate into another me.

He has to give his fifth self points for succinctness. If he’d tried to explain it, he’d have been babbling for hours.

Not that he ever babbles.

The Doctor slowly releases his hand from Donna’s hold and eases himself up off the bed. He’s uncomfortable, feeling that he knows too much, almost as if he’s been spying. He doubts she would ever have told him some of the things he’s just found out.

And as he turns away from the bed, he hears the TARDIS begin to hum again. She’s probably agreeing with him.

“Right,” he murmurs to himself, straightening his suit jacket. “Kitchen.”

But his mind is being treacherous and won’t let him forget, even as he works on putting the kettle back together.

Two hearts.

Regeneration.

Pain.

“Spaceman?”

He leaps several inches into the air at the sound of Donna’s voice and comes down with a crunch on a piece of china.

“Ha – what – Donna?”

“Who were you expecting, the Spanish Inquisition?” she suggests with a grin as she strolls into the room. That fades as she looks at the bench and the mess on the floor. “What happened?”

“I was – ah – ” he waves his hands in a gesture of demonstration, the screwdriver dangling between his fingers. “Fixing it,” he finishes limply.

“Yeah, and I’m a monkey’s aunt,” she says with a snort. “That wasn’t my favourite mug, was it?”

“Hope not.”

“So do I, for your sake.” She comes over and prods him affectionately in the ribs. “What happened to my tea then?”

“Um.” He thinks back to what feels like a long time ago. “Oh, yes. The kettle wasn’t working. And I thought it’d be better to wait until you woke up in any case. Didn’t think you’d want cold tea.”

“Mmm.” She studies him, her head on one side. “So you knew I’d nodded off then?”

He ventures an uncertain nod.

“Don’t suppose you had anything to do with me finding myself in a strange room when I woke up?”

“Might have done,” he admits.

“And why did you decide your bed was better than mine?”

“That wasn’t my bed,” he protests vigorously. “My room’s not like that. Single bed, for starters. And,” he adds with a placating smile that he hopes will stop her from yelling at him, “my bed’s got about as much on it as yours does. There wouldn’t be room for me, let alone both of us.”

She smiles back and he’s relieved that she doesn’t seem angry. “I should probably say ‘thank you’. But,” her expression becomes concerned, “you didn’t hurt yourself, did you? Didn’t try to lift me or anything?”

“No,” he lies quickly. “Just sort of woke you up and got you in there.”

“Just sort of.” She repeats the words thoughtfully and studies him. He can’t help feeling as if she’s looking straight through him, but then she nods and steps away. “You get on with repairing that, then, and I’ll clean up this mess.”

He turns back to the bench, nervously flipping the sonic screwdriver and trying to fix his mind on the task at hand. He’s trying to work out where the last screw goes when he hears the tinkle of china and looks down to see Donna brushing the remains of the two mugs into a dustpan.

As she leans over and her shirt slips up, he sees the ugly dark bruising across her back from her landing on the floor of the TARDIS. He mentally growls at his ship and then drops the sonic screwdriver, leaning over to pull Donna back to her feet.

“Hey, what – ?” She glares at him. “What are you playing at now, Timeboy?”

“You might have forgotten to mention something.” He reaches around and lightly brushes his hand across her lower back, watching her squirm at the pain. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Yeah, ‘cos a couple of bruises are really comparable with all your injuries,” she tells him, trying to wrench her arm free. “What are you doing?”

“Helping you.” He keeps hold of her arm as he guides her out of the kitchen and down the hallway to the medical bay. Leading her in, he closes the door and then points to the bed. “Sit.”

She remains standing in the doorway as he goes over to the cupboard on the wall, and when he fishes in his pocket for his glasses, he catches sight of her waiting there, her hands on her hips, glaring at him.

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