The road less travelled...

Title: Friends or Strangers Part II – 3/12
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Characters: Donna, the Doctor (John Smith)
Disclaimer: If the Doctor and Donna were really mine, this story wouldn’t even need to exist!
Spoilers: Up to and including Planet of the Dead
Summary: The Doctor is feeling lonely.

Chapter 2

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry!”

The Doctor might be momentarily lost for words, but Donna clearly isn’t. Her eyes look him up and down, clearly searching for coffee stains on his suit.

“I wasn’t watching where I was going,” she continues. “My fault entirely. But,” her gaze travels down past his feet to the puddle of coffee on the ground between them, “it seems to have missed you.”

He gives her a brilliant smile in reply, definitely too wide considering the circumstances, but he’s just so thrilled to hear her voice, knowing she’s talking to him, that it’s the only way he can express his feelings.

“No, it’s fine,” he’s quick to assure her. “Not a mark.”

All the same, he can't suppress a quiver of nerves in his stomach. He's not sure he's prepared for this. He isn't ready, doesn't have all the answers to questions he knows she'll ask. But there's nothing he can do about it now.

“Let me get you another one,” he says. “What would you like?”

“Oh, no!” A variety of expressions crosses Donna's face – surprise, confusion, embarrassment, and finally suspicion. “No, it's fine.”

“No, really.” He holds open the door. “I insist.”

There's a faint, puzzled smile on her face, but she turns back into the shop and leads the way back to the counter. He follows, hunting out the small bundle of notes he always carries for moments like this – he doesn't want to use the psychic paper and deprive the shop of income. Several minutes later, he turns, a tray bearing two drinks in his hands, and heads over to the table where Donna is waiting for him.

“Thank you,” she says, a shy smile on her face as she accepts the mug.

“You're welcome.” He removes his jacket, slings it over the back of his chair and sits down opposite her. “It's my pleasure.”

She arches an eyebrow, and for some reason his memory takes him back to the moment after their detox kiss, when he suggested that he needed to do 'that' more often. It's that same disbelief, and he has to remind himself that she doesn't know him anymore.

“Can I, um, ask you something?” she says at this juncture.

He smiles, watching her over the rim of his mug. “Of course.”

“This is going to sound strange, and I don't mean it to be all weird, but – do I know you?”

The Doctor feels as if he's been punched in the gut, but he just manages not to gasp in shock, his mind going into overdrive. Only the very faint memory of a moment in the Noble living room saves him saying something he might regret.

“Yes,” he says slowly, a hesitant smile forming on his face. “I'm a friend of your grandfather,” he tells her. “John Smith.”

“Oh!” Her eyes widen. “Oh, yeah, I remember. I met you that day everyone said the planets disappeared.”

“That's right.” He stretches a hand across the table. “Good to meet you again, Donna Noble.”

She shakes it, smiling in reply, and he can see the relief in her eyes at the understanding of why he seems to be familiar.

“I'm glad that coffee missed you,” she says suddenly. “I'd hate to hear what Gramps would say if I had to admit that I'd poured a drink all over a friend of his.”

The Doctor chuckles. “Well, you're assuming I'd tell him,” he says conspiratorially. “It could just be our little secret.”

“Oh, I can't keep secrets from Gramps,” she says, sipping her coffee before adding, “Now Mum, she's a different story.”

“Yes, your mother is certainly something else,” the man says without thinking, mentally kicking himself as Donna's eyes widen in obvious surprise.

“You know her, too, huh?”

“We've met once or twice,” he says carefully.

And it's like that for the rest of their discussion, which stays on trivial subjects like work and Wilf's interest in the stars. He's delighted to see Donna's growing interest in things that, when he first met her, she dismissed or feared.

However the entire conversation is a challenge for him. He has to slow down his usual rate of speech and think about every word before he says it to make sure that nothing will sound overly familiar.

It's more than just protecting Donna though. He's presenting himself as a human being rather than a Time Lord, so he can't do or say anything that could make Donna suspect he's anything else. He has to act like a human being.

He has to act the way he did when he was a human being!

And suddenly he understands and can fully appreciate the irony of the situation he's just created.

Back then, when the chameleon arch changed him, he didn't know about his own past and refused to accept what he would become when he had return to being a Time Lord.

Now Donna doesn't know about his past – their past – and he's afraid that she would find it impossible to accept his status as a Time Lord.

The parallels would make him smile if he wasn't so afraid. And that fear doesn't diminish as he walks Donna to her car.

Still, it's not enough for him to decide not to see her again. Even their talk today – goodness, has it really been a two hour conversation? - hasn't persuaded him that she's safe yet.

And it certainly wasn't enough for him.

Even if this isn't about him at all.

“Oh, by the way,” Donna says as she stops beside the small blue car that he recognises from that fateful day when she agreed to go with him, “did you drop these?”

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out the two small flowers he carved in the park. The Doctor realises that they must have fallen out of his pocket at some point, perhaps when he put his jacket back on as they left the cafe, and that Donna must have picked them up.

“Keep them,” he tells her, adding quickly, “That is, if you want to.”

“Did you make them?” she asks, holding them up to the glow of the streetlight so that she can get a better look.

“They're nothing,” he says, somewhat embarrassed by the tone of her voice. “Just a way of passing the time.”

“They're brilliant,” she says, and he flinches at that word, because he knows that her use of it comes from him even if she doesn't consciously remember it. “You really don't want them?”

“No.” He smiles, holding out a hand in refusal. “Keep them. Really.”

“Thanks.” She slides them into her pocket before fishing out her car key. “And thank you for the coffee.”

“You're welcome.” He hesitates for an instant before leaning down to brush a light kiss on her cheek. “Have a good night, Donna.”

“You, too.” She smiles, a slightly embarrassed smile, before unlocking the car door and getting in behind the wheel.

Moving out of the way so that she can close the door, the Doctor steps back from the car and watches her drive off, waving when he sees her glance back in the rearview mirror.

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his duster, he turns away, his shoulders hunching against the chilly wind that he only notices now for the first time. Walking down the street, he finds himself back in the park and heads for the alley where his blue box is waiting for him.

It's only as he unlocks the TARDIS doors and opens them that he remembers he hadn't deactivated the perception filter. The only way Donna could have seen him was if the TARDIS itself had turned the filter off.

He growls at his ship as he slams the door behind him.

* * *
Teaser for the next part

He'd tried to guess what questions she might ask and pre-empt them, but she constantly surprises him with the things she wants to know about him.