The road less travelled...

Title: Finding A Way Home – Party Time
Author: katherine_b
Rating: G
Summary: Sylvia has clearly decided it’s time for a little chat.
Word Count: approx. 2,700 words
Characters: The half-human Doctor, Sylvia Noble and Wilfred Mott.
A/N: Written for the forty-sixth weekly drabble challenge with the prompt ‘night’ and also for this picture from dd_plotbunnies.

“Ah, there you are!”

The half-human Doctor freezes at the sound of the voice in the doorway, even as he mentally tells himself off for it. After all, he has no reason to be afraid of Sylvia Noble. He wasn’t the one who caused her father to be trapped in the car with ATMOS going crazy. (Well, not literally.) He wasn’t the person who wiped Donna’s mind and left her behind in Chiswick. And he isn’t the man engaged to Sylvia’s daughter.

In spite of all that, though, his single heart is suddenly racing so fast there might as well be two of them in his chest and he’s desperately wishing for a respiratory bypass because it’s almightily difficult to breathe.

“C-can I help you?” he asks nervously, turning to see that Sylvia has stepped into the kitchen.

“Which Doctor are you?” she asks, her eyes narrowing a little and her arms folded.

“The other one,” he says with a stifled sigh, because this tends to be her first question and he’s tired of hearing it. “The one not engaged to Donna.”

“Oh.”

The frown fades from her face. When she doesn’t say anything for a while, he turns to the oven and opens it, putting on oven mitts before sliding out the trays of vol-au-vents.

“I didn’t think you’d need those,” Sylvia says suddenly, and he shoots her a startled glance over his shoulder as he puts the tray onto the stove.

“Need what?” he asks in confusion.

“Things to protect your hands.”

He rolls his eyes as he begins to understand what she wants. “Do you want me to get burned?” he prompts, closing the oven door and sliding the small items of food onto a plate before removing the mitts.

“Well – no,” she says with obvious reluctance. “But I didn’t think you could have things like that happen to you.”

Carrying the plate over to the table, he pulls out a seat for her and sits down opposite, leaning back to get his drink, which is standing on a nearby bench.

“Mrs Noble, I’m as human as you are,” he points out, waving at the chair and seeing as she finally sits down, although he’s quick to notice that she perches rather uncomfortably on the very edge of it. “Anything that will hurt you will hurt me.”

“What about him though?” She nods back towards the door. He presumes she’s talking about the other Doctor. “He’s not human, is he? He’s an alien.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s Superman,” he tells her in mild exasperation. “Shot, stabbed, burned, blown up – you name it, it’s,” he’s about to say ‘happened’ when he realises that will involve a long, complicated explanation about regeneration that he doubts is a good idea, “going to hurt him,” he finishes rather lamely.

“I thought you were the same,” she offers. “You look the same!”

“We aren’t,” he says flatly.

“He never mentioned you until you came to tell us that Donna was all right again.”

“Well, it wasn’t as if there was much opportunity, was there?” he argues, deciding not to explain that he didn’t actually exist prior to that point. “I mean, the few times you met the Doctor before he brought Donna back to Chiswick after the meta-crisis, it was always running around and trying to deal with alien invasions.”

“So he’s always putting Donna in danger then?” Sylvia demands, a note of tension obvious in her voice as she sits ramrod straight in her chair, not even looking at the plate of nibbles that the Doctor pushes gently in her direction.

“Is it like that now?” he asks, spreading his hands in a gesture of demonstration at the peaceful setting of the TARDIS kitchen. “Is there a single thing here that isn’t like it is at home?”

“Yes,” she replies, although he’d intended it as a rhetorical question. He’s actually a bit unnerved by the firm tone of her voice. “Yes, there is.”

“What then?” he prompts, hoping he doesn’t sound too sceptical.

“Jack.”

“Jack?” He arches an eyebrow. “Jack as in Captain Jack? Jack Harkness? What about him?”

“He still looks exactly the same.”

“The same as what?” he demands, mystified.

He’s astonished to see heightened colour in Sylvia’s cheeks. “The same,” she explains somewhat awkwardly, “as when we used to date forty years ago.”

The Doctor chokes on his vol-au-vent.

“What?” he squawks, before gulping a mouthful of wine to clear his throat.

Sylvia glares at him in obvious resentment. “I didn’t ask for your opinion,” she snaps.

“I know,” he protests once he catches his breath. “And I wasn’t, you know, trying to – That is, I didn’t mean anything by it. But,” a thought strikes him, “Jack couldn’t be – you know…”

He trails off, looking everywhere but at Sylvia.

“I hope not.”

It’s not the absolute denial that the Doctor was hoping to hear, and he makes an immediate mental note to tell Donna what he’s just learned so she’ll leave the Time Agent alone. Even if she wasn’t engaged to the other Doctor, he doesn’t want a case of incest in the TARDIS.

Still, at least this explains why Jack has never flirted with Donna. It seems even he has standards!

“You’ll have to ask Jack why he’s the way he is,” he says at last.

“I have,” she says peevishly. “He won’t tell me.”

“Well, even he’s got the right to some secrets.” He leans forward. “Are you going to tell your friends that your daughter’s marrying an alien?”

“Not if I can avoid it!”

“Well, then.”

He tilts his head on one side and offers her the plate of vol-au-vents again, relieved when she takes one and shuffles back in her chair to sit more comfortably.

“I suppose,” she mutters before starting to nibble on the pastry.

As he’s also been helping himself to the nibbles, the plate is looking somewhat empty, so he gets up and sets out more of the vol-au-vents on a tray, sliding them into the oven and then turning to lean against the nearby bench, folding his arms over his chest as he stares at nothing.

Considering what a ready way with words this incarnation has, which the ‘Donna’ part of him only further enhances, he’s surprised at how he’s struggling here to come up with a way to break this awkward silence.

The next moment, though, he realises it’s because he’s worried he’ll say or do something that will only make Sylvia mistrust the Doctor even more.

“So,” Sylvia says so suddenly that he almost jumps, “you’re not him,” she clarifies, and he nods.

“I look like him,” he repeats, “but no, I’m not exactly the same as him in every way.”

“You’re not in love with Donna?”

He can’t help grinning. “No,” he assures her, shaking his head, although he’s certain that this is not the time to mention that Donna is, in some ways, his mother. “I love her as a friend,” he says in all serious, “but that’s all.”

“Good.” Sylvia falls silent for a moment before looking up at him again, and her next question causes his jaw to drop. “Do you think he – the other Doctor, obviously – really loves my daughter, or is he just entertaining himself with her?”

“No!” His voice goes up at least two octaves in his indignation. “No,” he repeats more calmly. “He’s definitely not doing that. He’s deeply in love with Donna. You can’t even begin to imagine how he really feels about her.”

The Doctor sighs, regret for past loves and lost opportunities filling him as he walks back over the table and sits down in the chair he formerly occupied.

“He isn’t good,” he says slowly, meeting Sylvia’s questioning gaze with a steady, honest look, “at admitting his feelings for people. He’s been hurt and rejected and left behind, so he usually doesn’t tell people he loves them. And for him to take that next step,” a tone of astonishment creeping into his voice, “it’s been longer than you can imagine since he even considered asking someone to marry him!”

“I see.”

The response is calm and measured, but the Doctor waits for something more, and when Sylvia looks up from an examination she had begun of the table so that he can see the anxious look in her eyes, he readies himself for an outburst.

“You have to understand, Doctor,” she begins, more calmly than he expected, “I know my daughter.”

“Better than anyone else, I would imagine,” he adds.

“And I know how she’s feeling,” Sylvia goes on, ignoring his interruption. “I saw her with Lance and with all of the men before him. I saw the pain and heartbreak she went through when each one of them rejected her.” She sighs, but he knows better than to interrupt. “I’ve seen her lower herself for men who are beneath her, just because they show her some attention. I know how much pain she suffers when they throw her away, and I can see, when the next man comes along, how she gets her hopes up again. Most important, though, I know when she’s in love.”

He can’t help holding his breath, waiting for what will come next.

“And she is,” Sylvia goes on, and he breathes again. “Very much so,” she goes on, and then suddenly her expression seems to be pleading with him for understanding. “I just don’t want her to get hurt again, Doctor.”

Suddenly so much of what he’s seen in Sylvia Noble makes perfect sense.

You don’t want her to make the same mistake you might have made with Jack, he thinks, although he doesn’t say it aloud because he doesn’t want to tempt fate or make this woman feel worse than it’s obvious she already does.

In spite of himself, though, he can’t help being curious to know whether Geoff Noble was already around then. Still, he definitely isn’t about to ask! He already knows how hard Donna can slap, and he suspects Sylvia won’t be any more gentle.

Instead he decides to change the subject.

“Can I ask you something?” he prompts, and she turns a startled gaze on him.

“I suppose so.”

“Why,” he asks as she finishes off the vol-au-vent, “do you think Donna sought at the Doctor again after everything that happened at the wedding with Lance? Why do you think she spent a year going to every possible place she could reach, finding out all of the things he might have been interested in, and immersing herself so much in the stars?”

“She spent that entire year wasting her time,” Sylvia snaps. “Never bothered settling down into a sensible job like I always wanted her to. Always flitting from one place to another, or spending hours up the hill with Dad, staring at the sky.”

“Exactly.” He doesn’t bother wasting time being hurt by her dismissive words. “Only she wasn’t wasting time. She was embracing ideas she’d only ever belittled before that day with Lance – like life on other planets. That’s why she started studying stars, Mrs Noble, because she wanted to be ready, when she finally found the Doctor again, to embrace the life he leads. In fact, let me show you,” he adds suddenly, leaping to his feet.

He can’t help being a bit surprised when Sylvia actually gets up and follows him out of the room, but he remembers how showing Donna the creation of the Universe went such a long way to changing her opinion of him. His idea now is to see if something similar will happen with Donna’s mother.

In the console room, he glances quickly at the scanner to make sure they’re where he thinks they are and then crosses to the doors, flinging them open.

“Come and take a look,” he offers, leaning back against the railings along the sides of the ramp.

“But we’re still in our back garden in Chiswick,” Sylvia argues.

“Not quite,” he tells her with a grin. “Come and see.”

She glances at him suspiciously, but makes her way over to where he’s standing, her eyes widening at the sight of the dark sky outside.

“It’s night-time?” she demands. “But it was only the middle of the afternoon when you came to get us.”

“And it is still is, down there,” he tells her, nodding at the blue-green planet far below them. “You can see the line of the shadow being cast by the sun across the Earth.”

Still standing some distance from the doorway, but having clearly glimpsed the world outside, she squawks aloud and suddenly grabs his arm.

“Where are we?” she demands.

“On the moon,” he says. “Donna’s never been here, and it’s a bit of a long-standing joke between the other Doctor and Martha.”

“I’m afraid,” Sylvia says rather primly, although she at least loosens her death-grip on his arm, “I don’t understand the punch-line.”

“You can get closer,” he assures her. “Have a better look. The Earth is beautiful from up here.”

“I’m quite happy to see it from down there!” she insists, pointing at the planet below.

“No, but don’t you see?” he prompts. “There’s so much more than just the little world you’ve got down there. That’s what Donna started to realize when she met the Doctor – how much bigger it all is! In fact,” he suddenly dashes to the console, “let me show you something else. Close the doors. She doesn’t like them open when we’re in the vortex.”

“Who doesn’t like it?” Sylva demands, although he’s rather surprised when she does as he says.

“The TARDIS.” He pats the ship affectionately, even as he sets in new co-ordinates and releases the handbrake as gently as he can manage to avoid upsetting Sylvia. He doesn’t want to make this worse.

As they give a slight jolt, that woman shrieks and grabs hold of the railings on either side of her.

“Won’t this ruin the party?” she demands as she regains her footing.

“Nah, they won’t even notice we’ve moved,” the Doctor promises, before setting the handbrake as they arrive. “No one’s going to be paying attention to anything except what’s happening down there. Now this,” he promises as he crosses the floor to join her, “is worth seeing! Right on your doorstep.”

“What is it?” Sylvia demands. “Paris? I’ve been there.”

“Oh, we’re a bit further away than Paris,” he tells her, trying not to laugh. “This,” he goes on, finding the door handles, “is the Eta Carina Nebula.”

Opening the doors, he moves aside again and hears a gasp as Sylvia sees the bright reds and yellows that make up the massive cloud of dust and gases.

“Where…” she begins faintly, before taking several steps down the ramp towards the doors. “Where are we?”

“Still in the Milky Way. Even Wilf won’t have seen this though, because it’s only visible in the southern hemisphere. But Donna’s been much further than this – back to the creation of the Earth, in fact!”

“Oh, don’t be daft!” Sylvia shoots back, and he grins. “How could she?”

“I’m serious,” he promises. “She told you what the ‘T’ in TARDIS stood for.”

“Yes, ‘time,’” Sylvia retorts impatiently, before falling silent as her eyes widen. “Oh!”

“Exactly.” He grins and waves a hand in demonstration. “This is why Donna did all she could to find the Doctor again. This is what all this ‘wasted time’ was for – so that she could embrace everything she sees and experiences with him. And,” he can’t help adding, “the way you’re feeling now is exactly the same as Donna felt on her wedding day, when she was pulled into the TARDIS and saw things like this.”

“It… is beautiful,” Sylvia admits, her eyes fixed on the glorious spectacle before them.

“This is the sort of thing Donna sees every day,” he assures her softly. “The wonders of the Universe. The beauty. The amazing, incredible, wonderful things she can’t find on Earth. This is why she came back to the Doctor. It’s one of the things he adores about her – that he can share all of this with her because she loves it as much as he does.”

Sylvia nods, but doesn’t seem capable of speaking. The next sound comes from a new voice in the console room.

“Oh, my word!” Wilf shuffles forward, his eyes wide as he makes his way down the ramp, staring at the Eta Carina Nebula. “Oh, my…”

Unable to help grinning at the awe in the other man’s voice, the Doctor points out the highlights of the gas cloud to the star-struck man, although he’s quite pleased to note that Sylvia seems to be listening with some enthusiasm.

He can only hope that this will be the start of Sylvia being a little bit nicer to the man who is engaged to her daughter.

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