The road less travelled...

Title: Donna and the Doctor 2/2
Author: katherine_b
Rating: G
Summary: An almost-married woman called Donna Noble finds herself on board the TARDIS with a strange alien from a lost planet called Gallifrey. Now why does that sound familiar?

Part II

The Doctor nods a little as he leans against the supporting back of the bench, feeling his hearts slowly return to their normal pace after the unexpected shock. For a moment he studies Donna’s profile, seeing the slight tension in her neck and jaw that suggests she’s struggling for control, revealing how upset she is by what just happened.

“Are you satisfied with what you found out?” he prompts gently, unsure whether to be relieved or concerned when she nods.

However he has no idea what she wants him to say, whether he should apologise for the way he reacted – for the way he feels – and in the end, he finds it easier to say nothing.

Donna breaks the silence instead.

“With… all that,” she says at last, her gaze suddenly swinging around to his face, casting an almost infinitesimally quick glance at his lips before returning to his eyes, “how would you have managed if Shaun hadn’t… if it hadn’t changed, and he’d come and travelled with us?”

His voice is low, a solemn promise. “I would never have kissed you like that if the two of you were still together.”

“Explain,” she orders, and he can see the glimpse of relief in her eyes, as if she’s glad not to have to talk about herself and her situation for the moment.

“Donna, I’m old,” he reminds her, suddenly feeling all of his nine hundred years. “So unbelievably old. You know better than to think you’re the first person I’ve ever felt things for. I’ve loved before – and a person I loved didn’t love me back. I mean, they loved me, but not like that. Not that deeply. And there wasn’t anything I could do to change that.”

Her hand shifts on top of his, her fingers entwining with his, giving a gentle squeeze as if in consolation or encouragement to continue. He doesn’t break eye contact, though, not wanting to miss the way the dimming light from the ceiling above is somehow causing her eyes to glow an even deeper blue than usual.

“I’ve seen it in other people, too,” he admits. “I know what Mickey went through with Rose and me – how much it hurt him. I even,” he hisses breath between his teeth because he’s not proud of this confession, “knew about Martha, almost from the first day. And Jack, too. But I couldn’t give either of them what they wanted and I didn’t want them to have expectations that would never be fulfilled.”

He sighs a little, feeling as her thumb strokes small circles on the back of his hand. He wishes he could hold her close to him, to make this confession with her in his arms, but he knows he can’t.

“I’ve learned to hide my feelings,” he admits. “I’ve done it over and over again, in all sorts of ways, to suit all the different versions of who I am and who I’ve been. I’ve hidden it in noise and in silence, in stillness and in manic activity.”

He stops, wondering if she’s going to speak, what she might say, but she remains silent, simply gazing at him.

He studies her face, memorising the way she looks in this light. “I would,” he confesses, unable to hide the passion in his voice, “do anything in the Universe to make you happy, Donna Noble.”

The large space around them almost seems to fall silent as the last words drop from his lips. The waterfall has been switched off for the end of the cycle that the TARDIS programs so carefully to reflect the seasons in this room in order to ensure that the plants live as long as possible.

Donna continues to gaze at him for a moment before suddenly and abruptly tearing her eyes away. The very definitive gesture causes his hearts to sink and he turns to look out at the garden, feeling that her hands are still against his skin.

“If you want,” he says slowly, staring out at the ferns that are slowly curling as the garden goes into its nighttime pattern and the air around them begins to cool, “I can take you back to Chiswick. You can try again, with Shaun. Make him realize what he’s lost.”

There’s a terribly long pause following this, and the Doctor feels his hearts sink as he waits for her to accept his offer. He’s mentally recalling the co-ordinates for her house when she finally speaks.

“Actually he was right.” Donna’s voice is a sigh, and he wonders if she even heard what he said.

“About what?” he prompts.

Suddenly she turns to him again, and he can’t be surprised that her eyes are full of tears. Her next words, however, catch him off guard.

“I have moved on,” she admits, choking a little over the words and searching his face with her eyes as if she had almost forgotten when he looked like, “and I hadn’t even realised it until right now.”

His hand finds hers, lying restlessly in her lap, and entwines their fingers, feeling as she clings to him. A tear is sliding slowly down her cheek, and he reaches up to smooth it away with his thumb, his palm cupping her face.

They move closer without him consciously being aware of it, but it’s a relief rather than a shock when he once more feels the soft touch of her lips against his. This time it’s her that lets out a soft moan, although he knows it’s from thankfulness instead of surprise.

Her free hand comes up, her fingers sliding into his hair as her eyes close. Now, as he releases her hand to slide his arm around her waist and draw her slightly closer to him, she doesn’t pull back. Instead she relaxes against him, the hand he has just released gradually working its way up his stomach and then his chest, coming to rest on top of his right heart, her fingers smoothing his shirtfront in an action that unconsciously mirrors the gentle pressure of her mouth against his.

His lips part a little, the kiss moving from chaste to something more romantic, a touch more frantic, but not giving in to total abandon just yet. He wants to give her the chance to back away, to change her mind, if she feels that she’s making a mistake.

And yet he can feel how different this kiss was from last time. He can realize now how much of her actions then were an experiment, a way to test his feelings for her. Now she’s letting herself go, in a way he doubts she’s done since she came back to the TARDIS – back to him.

He cradles her face in his hands, feeling as if he's holding the most precious thing in the universe, only to realise, with a sense of shock, that she’s crying. Silent tears are sliding down his fingers, to be absorbed by the cuffs of his shirt.

Suddenly she gulps and pulls back, sinking her face into her hands, her shoulders shaking as she struggles for breath and her composure. He tucks a handkerchief in between her fingers and then wraps his arms around her, holding her against him and feeling as she leans her head against his shoulder, one hand loosening to stroke the lapel of his jacket as if she can’t quite bear to lose contact with him completely.

Unable to help smiling at that tentative touch, he presses a kiss to her hair and then waits for her to recover, finally allowing himself to embrace the joy that is making his hearts beat faster, even as he physically embraces the cause of his happiness.

It takes time, but he can feel as the tears gradually dry up and Donna ceases to tremble in his hold. He understands the relief she must be feeling and the reaction that caused her to respond the way she did. After all, her entire world has just been turned upside down.

And the only reason he knows so precisely how she’s feeling is because he isn’t feeling much different.

He looks down to find her blue, watery eyes fixed on his face and smiles at her as he gently dries the tearstains off her cheeks with the tips of his fingers.

“Better?”

“Mm hmm.” She manages a nod and a shaky sigh. In spite of the obvious weariness on her face, however, her eyes are still alight with curiosity. Her head rests back on his shoulder, a gentle weight that seems almost ridiculously as if it belongs there and should always have been there.

“How long, Doctor?” she asks, stifling a sniff.

“Have I loved you?” he asks, understanding. “I don't know when I began. I just know that I realised how important you were to me when you pointed out that Rose was coming back.”

He can't be surprised when Donna suddenly tenses, much as Martha used to do, at the mention of that name. Still, he has to explain, and Rose is part of that explanation. He keeps a gentle pressure around her shoulders so that she can't pull away from him, seeing a frown cross her face.

“What does Rose have to do with anything?” she demands defensively.

“Just this.” He rests his head against hers so that he can hear the faint echo of her heartbeat. “Before you came back, I'd always imagined that, if Rose ever crossed over from the parallel universe, I would have been so unbelievably happy that nothing else would have mattered. But when you suggested she was returning, all I could think about was that it might mean you would want to leave - that you'd feel uncomfortable staying.”

“Never.” Her response is a mild rebuke, but he can only be thankful to hear that the worst of the tension is gone. “I would never have left you if I'd had the choice.”

“Just as long as you don't leave me now,” he pleads softly.

“Tell me about Rose,” she retorts and he nods, understanding that she needs to know everything about his feelings before she can make any promises.

He pauses for a moment to weigh his words. He doesn’t usually think before he speaks. In fact, the thought process mostly comes after the words have already escaped. But he can't bear for Donna to misunderstand what he's trying to say.

“I'm grateful to her,” he confesses softly. “Things were so hard after the Time War, Donna. I was so different - so dark and bitter. And Rose brought me out of that. I can't deny that she was the person who taught me to laugh again - to enjoy life instead of hating it.”

“You loved her.”

“Yes,” he agrees, because he did. “I did love her, and I was in love with her. I won’t try to deny that to you, Donna, because you already know how I felt.”

“Do you still love her?”

“It’s different.” He compares the two women who have recently meant so much to him before looking down at the one in his arms. “I'm not in love with her anymore."

“She's in love with you.”

“I know.” He sighs a little, regretting the way things changed, suddenly grateful that Rose never had a change to realize how his feelings for her changed, because he knows how much she would have been hurt. “In some ways, I felt like I owed her something because of her feelings for me - like maybe I left the half-human version of me in the parallel universe with her as a form of consolation prize or something.” He tightens his hold around Donna as he remembers those moments on the beach. “Even when we were there though," he confesses uncomfortably, "I wasn't thinking about Rose.”

“What were you thinking about then?”

“You.” He looks down at her, studying her features. “I was waiting – hoping that things would be different.”

As she nods, a sad smile on her lips, he remembers the version of events that he lived through, when Donna Noble found a way to save herself from the meta-crisis and go on to Victorian London and other adventures with him. However he knows that that version of Donna Noble is gone, that in linear time she never even existed, that only a few people will have a vague memory of her when, in this timeline, they shouldn’t – that his actions on Mars changed everything.

And he can't help wondering what might have happened – to Donna, to Wilf, to the Master, even to himself! – if things had been different.

“Rose is my past,” he murmurs into her hair. “She taught me that I shouldn’t take life as seriously as I did then. But you…”

He feels his hearts swell with emotion as he thinks of the many gifts that Donna Noble has brought into his life, the ways she’s changed it on so many levels, and how terrified he was of losing her.

“When the TARDIS was sucked into the bowels of the Crucible,” he tells her at last, “I was begging with them – pleading with them – to bring you back. I offered to put myself in your place.” He exhales shakily as the remembered stress of that moment briefly swamps him. “I would have put Rose there instead if they’d allowed me to,” he confesses. “I nearly offered it. Jack would have killed me – but if it meant you were safe…”

He tightens his hold around her, using the feel of her in his arms to convince himself that that time is past, that the moment of danger is gone, and that she’s safe. She wraps her arms around him in return, pressing herself against him, pressing her lips to his neck and throat over and over again as her hands smooth his back and caress his hair.

Finally the tension fades away and he lets himself relax a little, although he doesn’t release his hold on her.

“You,” he says softly, “Donna Noble, are my future. I hope.”

“I hope so, too,” she murmurs, and there’s a thoughtful tone in her voice that makes him wonder what else she’s thinking about. He looks down to find her watching him. “Eventually though,” she ventures, “it would have killed me, would it? That defence mechanism you gave me. Letting out energy like that would have finally got too much for me. Or would I have remembered everything else first?”

“Everyone dies eventually, Donna,” he offers, prevaricating a little.

“You don’t know, do you?” she retorts, and it’s clear that she knows him well enough to have picked up on what he’s unwilling to say. “You set that whole thing up without knowing exactly what was going to happen.”

“It saved you though,” he points out, suppressing a shudder at the memory this conversation is recalling to his mind. “Remember all that pain? Do you want that to have been the last thing you ever experienced?”

“There were other ways though,” she argues, and he wonders if she’s about to point out what the version of herself in the parallel world achieved. Her next words, however, reassure him on that one point but then ignite his concerns. “Why,” she suggests, “didn’t you try bombarding me with radiation to get rid of it?”

He now shudders for real, his arms tightening around her. “Donna,” he says softly, his tone intense, “I could never hurt you like that.”

Perhaps the memory of the agony she suffered recurs to Donna, too, and she almost cringes against him, her face pressing against her neck. He doesn’t want to distress her further, but he knows that, if he doesn’t explain now, she’ll ask later. Better to get everything over and done with.

“Besides, Donna,” he whispers, “the chances of that doing what it did – you have no idea just how lucky you really were. And if it came down to losing you forever or you having no memory of me, well...”

Donna shivers in what the Doctor realises is delayed reaction as she understands just how close she might have come to dying. He wraps his arms around her so closely that she’s almost sitting on his lap and she nestles against him, clearly seeking the comfort of his closeness.

“Donna,” he whispers reassuringly, his thumb stroking up and down her arm, “it’s all right. I promise. It won’t happen, any of it. Not now.”

She nods and reaches up, presumably trying to surreptitiously wipe her eyes. He remains silent, waiting for her to speak, to give her time to recover.

“I,” she gulps audibly, “I used to dream about you. I think I did anyway. A man in brown, but I never knew his name.” Her thumb is lightly stroking the sleeve of his jacket. “I remember,” she adds thoughtfully, “that I used to tell Shaun about the dreams sometimes. But I stopped when I heard him telling Gramps about it once day. I thought,” her lips tremble a little and colour flushes her cheeks, “I thought it sounded so bloody silly, having dreams about someone I didn’t know.”

“I suppose,” the Doctor muses aloud, “that was one of the reasons Wilf set his friends to look for me. As well as his own nightmares, he was clearly worried about yours.”

“What, the Silver Cloak?” Donna demands, and there’s a proper smile on her face now. “I heard Gramps on the phone to one of them one day, but I didn’t know that’s what he was up to. They usually play bingo together, travelling around and trying to do better than some of the other local clubs!”

The Doctor chuckles, unavoidably reminded of that incredibly awkward photo session when he was interrupted in his pursuit of the Master. “They’re – unique,” he says at last.

“They’re completely daft!” she retorts, straightening a little, although she doesn’t move away.

“Actually,” the Doctor points out, “I can see a lot of your Granddad in you. The same determination. The same energy. The same drive.”

“Anyone would think,” Donna teases, “that you liked him better than me.”

He reaches down and slides a finger beneath her chin, gently tilting her face up so that he can press a light kiss to her lips. “No,” he promises. “Definitely not.”

Fin