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“Milk and sugar, as requested,” Donna says, handing him a cup of tea as she sits down next to him with her own mug.
He takes the offered tea with one hand, the other occupied by putting down his current project - a piece of alien technology he’d “borrowed” from UNIT the last time he was there, and was now trying to improve.
“Doctor,” Donna starts, and he can tell from her tone of voice that she’s not going to ask about the mass of wires now sitting on the coffee table.
“Finally going to ask me whatever’s been on your mind?” he says, raising a pointed eyebrow. “You’ve been looking at me like you want to say something and then deciding not to all week.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not sure how much you’re gonna appreciate the question,” she admits, and isn’t that ominous.
He could make any number of implausible excuses to abruptly leave this conversation and hide away in the TARDIS, but Donna is nothing if not persistent. But more than that, there’s poorly-concealed concern lurking in her expression. Running away would only give her more reason to worry, and he can’t have that.
“That’s never stopped you before,” he says, a tacit invitation for her to continue.
Still, she doesn’t jump right into it. “You remember that parallel world that got created around me when we were on Shan Shen?” she asks instead.
“Be hard not to, given what it preceded.” 27 missing planets, Daleks, Rose coming back, and a human-Time Lord metacrisis is a busy day, even for him. “But what about it? I thought you didn’t remember what happened in that universe, even at the time.”
“I didn’t, not really. But I’ve been remembering bits and pieces, ever since I got my memories of you back.” She pauses, takes a sip of her tea. “It wasn’t a good universe.”
“What happened?”
“You died,” she says, blunt.
Ah. Well, he can see how that would be a concerning thing to remember. “It didn’t happen,” he says gently. “When you collapsed that universe, it was like it never existed in the first place.”
“I know. I mean, not really, what do I know about parallel universes and whatnot, but I’ll take your word for it. It’s how you died that’s bothering me.”
There’s a certain morbid curiosity, now that he’s thinking about it, in wondering how he met his untimely demise in that parallel world. “Is it too much to hope that I was doing something dashing and heroic?” he asks with a grin, trying for some levity.
It doesn’t work. In fact, it rather seems to achieve the opposite, as Donna’s expression tips from concerned to upset. “It was with the Racnoss. You know, Christmas Eve under the Thames. I hadn’t met you in that universe, so you were all by yourself and - you drowned. UNIT pulled your body out, afterwards.”
He can remember it, the rushing water and fire and screaming and his cold rage, and takes a fortifying gulp of his tea. It’s not a moment he cared to dwell on, even before learning how easily it could’ve ended with him in a UNIT morgue. But he’s led a dangerous life, and if he stops to think about every incident where he almost died, he’ll be here a very long time. And more to the point, Donna knows that. I was right. It's always like this with you, isn’t it? she’d said, after dangling off a high-rise. So what is it about this time that’s got her so worried?
“It wasn’t your fault that you weren’t there -” he tries, but Donna stops him before he gets very far.
“I know, that’s not -” She breaks off, puts her mug down and runs her hands through her hair. “I’ve been thinking about that night, and I can’t figure out how my presence saved your life. I yelled at you to stop, but -”
Why wouldn’t you have left on your own? he silently completes, and suddenly understands why Donna, usually so direct, has been dancing around the question.
“You’re trying to find a tactful way to ask if I was suicidal.”
Her head twitches in a nod, but she holds his gaze.
He can’t blame her for being nervous. It’s a delicate question to ask anyone, let alone an alien who’s spent lifetimes drawing very firm “do not cross” emotional lines.
Those lines have loosened a little, in this new-old body and the time he’s spent living with - or at least adjacent to - Donna and her family. He doesn’t begrudge her asking, doesn’t feel that itchy insistence to shut down the conversation, the way he would’ve in the past.
That doesn’t mean he knows how to respond, though.
For both their sakes, he’d like to be able to issue an unambiguous denial, but he’s not sure Donna would believe him. He’s not sure he would believe himself, either.
“I wasn’t standing there thinking I wanted to die,” he says, trying to focus on the heat of the mug he’s cradling between his hands and not the words coming out of his mouth, “but I wasn’t standing there thinking about how much I wanted to live, either.” He sips at his tea without tasting it. “It was a bad day,” he adds, almost amusing himself with the understatement. Rose crying on a beach, the words he couldn’t say lodged in his throat, drowning the Racnoss because it was them or the Earth and he had given her a choice, why do they never listen when he gives them a choice -
And that had been with Donna there. Magnificent, brilliant Donna, who had shouted but still trusted him enough to jump out of a car on the motorway, who had kept him focused, who had made him laugh. Without her there…
Yes, he can imagine how he might’ve ended up in a body bag that night.
“Still,” he says, making a concerted effort to drag himself back to the present, “long time ago, now.”
Donna hums noncommittally. “Was that the only time you felt like that, though?” she asks, and for once he wishes she wasn’t so perceptive.
He can’t deny it, not truthfully. Hadn’t he wished he had burned with Gallifrey, afterwards? Hadn’t he screamed at the Daleks to kill him in 1930s Manhattan? Hadn’t she considered, just for a moment, throwing herself into the Flux along with the Sontarans, Cybermen, and Daleks, all sacrificed by her hand in the name of saving the remaining half of the universe? Hadn’t he looked at soldiers with orders to kill him and told them to do what they wanted, because he thought he had just lost Donna again?
He can’t even pretend that one was a long time ago.
His silence is as much of an admission as any words could be. But Donna doesn’t look surprised, just sad. “I wish I’d been there, all those times,” she says quietly.
“I know,” he says, and despite the subject material he can’t help but smile, just a little, at how much she cares about him. “But it wasn’t that often, really,” and he hopes she believes him, because it’s true. “You know me, I always want to see what happens next. Can’t very well do that if - well,” he stops himself, realising that neither of them needs to hear him say it in so many words. “And I never - I mean, I’m here now, yeah? Safe and sound,” he says, stumbling over his words, and even he can tell it comes out too glib, too bright. “I don’t feel that way anymore,” he tries, slower and more serious. “Promise.”
“Good,” Donna says, and her composure lasts another second before she sniffs loudly and swipes at her eyes. “Oh, c’mere, you.”
The Doctor is only too happy to oblige, quickly setting down his tea and embracing her. She hugs him back just as tightly, and he relaxes into her touch. All of those moments are in the past. He’ll always remember them, but what matters is the present, here and now with Donna Noble. He’s exactly where he wants to be, difficult conversations and all.
Donna releases him after a minute but she doesn’t go far, just retrieves both mugs from the table before leaning into his side. She hands his tea back to him and for a while they just sit and drink in comfortable silence.
“Doctor,” she finally says, once their cups are empty, and he can feel her shift slightly as she turns to look at him. “You’d tell me if that changed, right?”
“Yeah.” His voice comes out quiet, barely more than a whisper, but Donna seems to accept it because she rests her head against his shoulder.
He’s pretty sure it’s even the truth. But he also thinks there’s a good chance they’ll never have to find out.