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“Did you know she kept a diary about travelling with us?”
Donna Noble groans and opens her eyes softly. Her neck and back hurt, her hair is an unwashed mess and she doesn’t even have to look at her blouse to know that there’s dried blood on it, she can smell it.
The Doctor’s back with a bag filled with stuff he puts on the bed next to the unconscious Y/N.
“No,” Donna murmurs. Her mouth’s dry.
“I found it when I looked through her bedroom for a pyjama. A note fell out. Here, you can read it,” the Doctor says, handing Donna the pink post-it. She deciphers the handwriting.
The more I travel with the Doctor, the more I realize just how sad time travel is. It’s never letting go. People always say they want time travel to exist because of all the possibilities. You can go anywhere, anytime. But what they don’t realize is that you can’t change anything. It’s like being put inside a photograph. You’re surrounded by dead people and they don’t know that.
“Poetic,” Donna sighs, handing the Doctor the post it back.
“She’s a smart girl,” the Doctor says. “And what she wrote is right. I just never really looked at it that way.”
“It’s sad,” Donna says
“That’s probably what makes it poetic, Don-Don,” the Doctor says. Donna winces when she hears the nickname the Doctor has for her. He’s paying her back for calling him ‘stick man’ for a week, but Don-Don is just bloody stupid.
“You know I’m not a damsel in distress, right?” Donna asks, not taking her eyes off the still girl in the bed.
“I never thought you were,” the Doctor said and somehow Donna knows he speaks the truth. “Why are you asking that, Donna?”
“I suppose Y/N thinks I’m a damsel in distress. She jumped in front of me... the bloody fool... she’s lucky she’s just in a coma, she could have been dead,” Donna curses.
The Doctor just stares at her until she’s done. “You’re the fool here, Don. People say I’m thick and I’ve noticed.”
“Noticed what?” Donna asks. She doesn’t have time for Time Boy’s games.
“She’s in love with you.”
When Donna met Y/N, the girl whom they just met on accident, she immediately knew where this was going. Y/N was young and pretty. She stared in awe at the Doctor who rambled on about time travel and alien planets and everything she would be able to see if she joined them. She knew she would fall for him.
Donna thought that she probably was the only girl who ever travelled with him who didn’t fall in love with the Doctor. And she couldn’t really blame Y/N or the other girls, and probably boys too. Who would be able to resist a handsome alien who always seems to be on a sugar rush? She just hoped that the Doctor wouldn’t break poor Y/N’s heart. She seemed so nice.
Donna herself saw the Doctor as some kind of brother. Or a best friend. Being in a relationship with him was something she just couldn’t picture. It was like imagining being married to her grandfather or something. No, she was content with exploring the galaxy with that weirdo, but if he wanted more... well, he knew how well she could kick somebody.
“So, how long have you been travelling with the Doctor?” Y/N asked one day. She sat down next to Donna in the library with two cups of tea.
Donna accepted the mug. “I have no idea. Never really kept track. How are you... do you like it? I know it’s a bit weird in the beginning. It took me a year to get used to the idea of time travel, mind you!”
Y/N laughed. “I... well, I always kind of thought that there were aliens out there and I’m used to it now. It’s just... I still don’t understand why you two allowed me to travel with you.”
“Well, I didn’t allow anything,” Donna said and only two seconds later she realized how that came out of her mouth. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No, it’s all right,” Y/N said, softly. Donna knew it wasn’t all right. Her face was far too red. “I’m just not that important. I’m a normal girl.”
“So am I,” Donna said.
“No, you’re not. You’re like amazing. You’re very pretty and you’re very smart... like you always find little clues. And you’re sarcastic, I love it... you’re kind to everybody you meet, everybody loves you!”
Y/N turned even redder after she said that and immediately put down her cup of tea. “I have to go. I have to... ask the Doctor something.”
She fled the library.
“Bullshit,” Donna says to the Doctor.
“What, you don’t believe me? Whenever you’re in the rooms she can’t keep her eyes off you!” the Doctor exclaims. “Honestly, it’s like watching a really really long romance movie, it’s so frustrating!”
“But I thought she was gonna fall in love with you!” Donna yells.
“Me?”
“Yeah, you!” Donna says. “Why would she fall in love with me?”
They went on so many adventures. Some dangerous, some funny, some happy, some sad. In the beginning, Donna had her doubts about Y/N. Would she be able to handle it? Would she fit in or would she forever be the awkward third wheel? But she did great.
Donna found herself looking forward to their conversations. Y/N was intelligent but not stuck up. She always laughed when Donna told a joke. Donna still felt Y/N was holding herself back, somehow. She was a shy girl, that was something Donna had immediately noticed. She had opened up a bit more and had even sassed the Doctor twice, but she was hiding something.
The first hug was after a dangerous adventure where they had been separated for hours. The Doctor had hugged Donna and Donna had pulled Y/N in a big hug, rubbing her back and asking her if she was okay. The girl just couldn’t talk for some minutes, stuttering with a red face.
It happened every time. Donna hugged loads of people for no reason, so whenever Y/N said goodnight and left to go to her bedroom, Donna hugged her quickly. And Y/N stumbled off.
Maybe she should have realized.
They just sit there, the Doctor and Donna. In silence. The nurse checks Y/N and writes some things down on a piece of paper on her clipboard and then leaves, the door closing behind her.
“How did I not notice? God, I’m thick. She must’ve felt horrible,” Donna finally says.
“Never mind that, are you in love with her?” the Doctor asks her. He turns to her, his hair spiky as always. “Don-Don?”
Donna realizes she likes Y/N when she thinks back to the way she talks. So kind, so caring. She listens so well, forever patient.
She can see the way Y/N’s eyes shine when they save someone.
She can hear her ramble about something she loves when she’s forgotten that Donna is listening to her.
She sees Y/N move, gracefully.
She hears her laugh and it’s just the most wonderful sound in the entire universe to her.
It’s then that Donna realizes she should’ve snogged her senseless a long time ago. Her damsel in distress.