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Artificial sunlight filtered through the window onto her skin, darkening the russet freckles and setting the goosepimples across her exposed forearm into sharp relief. Donna let out a groan and pushed the fiery ginger hair that stuck to her forehead and cheek out of her face. The daylight, artificial though it might have been, sent needles through her eyes, directly into her skull. Her mouth felt like cotton… if cotton could feel? Donna descided bebates about syntax were better left to a time when her stomach wasn't attempting a revolt.
Swallowing hard in the hopes that it might help with her dry mouth, and ease her back into consciousness, Donna shifted, steeling herself to raise her head from the pillow. Moving while this hungover was unpleasant, and the vice grip implosion of her skull traveled readily through her shoulders and down her spine as she changed positions. Two things became apparent to her in that moment: There was a glass of water and two paracetamol on the bedside table, that she had most definitely not put there herself. Grateful, however, she tossed back the pills and water with practiced ease. And secondly, as she pulled the blanket tightly around her torso, she was naked. Very, very naked.
Donna sat on the edge of the bed for a moment. Swallowing again, she caught sight of herself in the mirror on her vanity. Her fingers ran across the darkening bruises on her left shoulder, and she closed her eyes. Flashes of hazy memory volunteered themselves, behind her closed eyelids, disorganized, messy and most certainly out of order, but nevertheless memories. Her memories. The feeling of his teeth on her neck, on her shoulder. Sitting together on bench overlooking a starlit ocean. A flurry of stumbling and ragged breathing. Earthenware mugs filled with purple liquid that burned like a campfire. Something ripping. Tripping on the way into the TARDIS and The Doctor grabbing her before she could hit the grates. Laughing. Brown eyes. Falling into…
Heat flooded her cheeks and she shook her head only to wince as the hangover reasserted its iron-shackled embrace. She hugged the blanket tighter around her. 'Lot’s of things seem like a good idea when you’re drunk, Donna. And you aren’t exactly known for your good decisions.' Sylvia’s voice echoed through her mind, stern and fiercely disapproving when her daughter of fifteen years came home from a friend's house smelling of liquor. A lead ball settled in her stomach as she remembered those words. Her mother’s constant disapproval and disappointment aside, there was wisdom in them. Wisdom and sense. And probably experience, she thought ruefully. You colossal idiot.
Donna leaned forward and snatched an old t-shirt from the floor, tossing it on. She wasn’t known for her tidiness either, but she set about stripping the sheets off the bed and clearing the pillows as soon as she rose. All the while trying not to think too hard about how comfortingly familiar the Doctor's scent was as she shook it loose from the sheets. Friendship had that effect. The problem was that there were other scents that joined it, she was fairly certain she didn’t want associated with him. Even if, as the shock wore off, she had to admit she'd enjoyed herself. Sheets rolled together, she shuffled painfully to the laundry slot, her head pounding, and tucked the big bundle into it, before climbing into her shower. Donna held a vain but persistent hope that steady water pressure could provide clarity and relief that her hungover, exhausted brain hadn't the faculties to attain. By the time she got out, there would be fresh linens on the bed, courtesy of the TARDIS’ hospitality system, almost as though it had never even happened.
Hair wrapped in a towel, and skin scrubbed sufficiently clean of sweat and other things, and feeling much more awake, Donna made her way into her closet. She tied her robe a little tighter as she gathered her discarded outfit, one article of clothing at a time, from the floor and bundled it into the hamper. Save for the tights. Those, she remembered with another furious blush, were beyond repair. The bruises on her shoulder seemed like they’d darkened, or maybe she hadn’t had a proper look before. Pinpoint red petechiation and a deeper purple hue seemed almost black against the light freckles and paleness of her shoulder. She slipped a thigh-length, blue shirt on quickly, hiding them from sight and then, perhaps as an added guard, she threw on her well-loved chestnut brown coat.
At the doorway to the console room, Donna hesitated, staring up between the pillars up to where The Doctor stood, fiddling with an instrument on the console itself. He had many habits, her Doctor, though he was oblivious to most of them. Emotional expression might not come easy to him, but how and where he had chosen to tinker with the TARDIS served as a reliable barometer for his mood. When trying to solve a puzzle, she would often find him underneath the console, disconnecting and reconnecting wiring, trying to visualize the whole picture in those cables. If he was frustrated, he might be working on any part of the TARDIS anywhere in the ship, but there would be a lot of banging. The paracetamol had helped, but there wasn’t enough pain medication in the known universe to make her hangover bearable if he started hammering away at something.
If he was angry, truly angry, she wouldn’t see him for hours. He’d disappear into the depths of the TARDIS engines and brood for a while, before he’d finally come out, bright and ready for his next adventure. It irked her that his impulse was to hide, but she’d learned changing a person’s nature was something best done with patience and not a sledgehammer. Loath though she was to admit it.
As much as his instinct to hide his anger away bothered her, it was the last of his tinkering styles that she feared the most. When particularly unbalanced by something, she’d often found him at the main console, standing silent, and somehow small amid the room. Almost as though the rest of the time his boisterous personality managed to extend beyond him, unlike his quiet and pensive form.
The night after Jenny had died, so soon after she’d come to be, this is where he was. Donna had woken, her own grief soothed by a cup of coffee, a hot shower, and a few tears that abated into restless sleep, and found him staring at the console screen, running and rerunning the young woman’s DNA and bioscans as though it might offer some insight or explanation. When she’d pulled him into a hug, he collapsed in his grief. They’d stood there together after The Library too, both too hurt to voice the losses that, to anyone else, hardly seemed worthy of the void they left behind. This was the place he came to when the question he was asking had no answer, or had an answer but he was too frightened to seek it. And too proud to admit that he was even afraid.
It was there at the console he stood, fiddling with a dial and a lever, alternately, then consulting his screen. All silently. Even the TARDIS was quiet. His back was straight and in spite of the distance, she could tell his jaw was clenched. He had his glasses on. In spite of herself, an amused smile tugged at the corners of Donna’s lips. She fondly wondered, not for the first time, why a Timelord with his alien physiology and ship that traveled through all of time and space would need glasses. Drawing in a deep breath, she made her way up to join him at the console. No time like the present.
The Doctor’s gaze flickered away from the dials as she approached, meeting hers for the briefest of moments before dropping back to his work.
“How are you?” He asked, the words just a little too casual to be unpracticed.
Donna leaned one hip against the console, her fingers resting on the thick cracked stone rim a few paces away from him. Leaving enough room for the holy spirit. Her mother’s voice chimed unhelpfully in again. But she had to admit, leaving a bit of space seemed prudent given the circumstances.
“Sore,” She replied lightly, hoping the entendre might cut some of the tension that filled the air like a thick London fog.
His gaze snapped up from the console to meet hers, color gone from all but his cheeks. He’d forgone shaving, and in the absence of his normal complexion, the stubble cast a shadow around an already drawn face. Not joking then, Donna concluded, a curl of guilt filling her stomach.
“Hangover,” she gestured at her head.
“Right,” His shoulders visibly sank a few inches as he relaxed, “Hangover.”
“Thanks for the paracetamol, by the way,” Donna offered a tiny smile, “Not sure it’s quite doing the trick but… What were we even drinking anyway?”
“Makadh Dafoor,” came the Doctor’s guttural reply, turning back to his work, “the traditional libation of the Tekaang province.”
“Do they also have a tradition of liver failure?” Donna quipped and was pleased to see this eeked a tiny grin.
“Good bit stronger than I remember it being, I’ll admit that. But then it's been a few centuries since I last visited. Maybe they’ve refined the distilling process,” The Doctor agreed, “They take the spines of local cactus plants and strip them down to the vascular tissue and then ferment the juice from that into an alcohol. Not unlike tequila, I suppose.”
“Seems appropriate.”
The words had left her lips before she could stop them. Whatever comfort The Doctor had recovered during this return to their usual discourse, vanished at the quip. The glance he tossed her was quick, almost reproachful. Wincing internally, Donna ran a finger around the rim of a silver button near the edge of the console, trying to remember what it did. Between the Library and their disastrous ‘vacation’ to Midnight they hadn’t really had time to continue their TARDIS flying lessons. He tapped a few keys, and then readjusted the focus of the viewscreen. Donna could just see the outline of a star chart surrounded by circular Gallifreyan writing.
The silence echoed around the console room. Topics of conversation snagged on the dryness of her throat as Donna searched for something, anything to break the deafening nothing. None, however, seemed equal to the task of shaking loose the discussion The Doctor was clearly, determinedly, vehemently avoiding. In fact, the longer the silence stretched, the further away any words that didn’t apply directly to their situation fled. When she finally lifted her gray eyes from the silver button, she found a man, sternly, stubbornly even, transfixed by whatever domain of space and time he was studying on the console screen. Every now and again, she thought he tossed a surreptitious glance her way, confirming she was still there. Donna couldn’t quite tell whether her continued presence was helpful, or hurt, but she chose to believe the former.
“So I was thinking-”
The Doctor’s voice tore open the silence like a claw to flesh, the suddenness of the exclamation not to be outdone by the unexpected brightness of his tone. True to character, he was no match for extended quiet. Donna’s stomach clenched as she watched his expression shift, the darkness never quite leaving his eyes as he chattered. It was so tempting to let him go, to let him bury this with the rest of his memories he never talked about, but, perhaps selfishly, she wasn’t sure she could let him. The Doctor continued to ramble, rapidly punching numbers and figures into the TARDIS console, resetting a toggle here, and a lever there as he paced around the rotor, passing her a few times.
“Doctor,” Donna interrupted.
“Hmmmm?” His voice retained the cheerful note though it grew much quieter.
“How are you after…the drinking?” She hoped the indirect reference might give him some degree of comfort.
The Doctor's hand flew to the back of his neck, rubbing the skin just below the hairline.
“Yeah, fine. Good even,” He spun the dial he’d been tinkering with aggressively in the opposite direction, “Molto bene!”
The TARDIS lurched, as if to punctuate his words.
Donna reached across the distance between them and curled her fingers around his bare forearm. Whatever words he’d been about to utter, no doubt further assurances of his “fine-ness,” died on his tongue, leaving the Timelord slack-jawed. Perhaps she should have hit him. It hadn’t even occurred to Donna that he had his sleeves rolled up. Timelords are touch telepaths. She recalled him saying, and a blush of embarrassment rushed to her cheeks she wasn’t certain was entirely her own. Did that telepathy go both ways?
“Donna…” His voice was hesitant, cautionary as though he feared whatever she might say.
It must, she thought, as a wave of guilt that was certainly not her own swelled in her chest. Donna looked sharply up at him. Did he know, she could feel his emotions?
“I’m sorry,” The Doctor’s shoulders slackened completely, soft blue dress shirt sagging as the words fell from his mouth, “I’m so sorry.”
Mirroring his expression of open-mouthed surprise, affection blossomed in her chest and she softened her grip on his arm. Why did men always think these things were their fault? Even, apparently, alien ones. The alien ones. There was a thought for later. The fingertips of her free hand found his cheek, coaxing his deep brown eyes up to meet hers. He fought the gentle touch at first, the stubble she’d noticed before pressing into the palm of her hand.
As gently as she could manage, Donna replied, “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
Her hand sliding away from his cheek, to rest against his jugular.
“But I do,” He shook his head, “You made it clear, so clear, from the moment you stepped into the TARDIS.”
"So did you," She refuted calmly.
“I know, but you were drunk, I shouldn’t have… I mean…” He paused, eyes darting rapidly around, looking past her to the far wall of the TARDIS, “I should have stopped…”
Donna’s thumb pressed into the line of his jaw, ever so slightly, stilling his rambling for a second time, “Look, at me, Spaceman."
His eyes snapped up to meet hers again, and the deep, uncertain fear she found swimming in their depths tugged at her heart.
“Do you really think, if something was happening that I didn’t want, I would just let it happen?” Kind though, she’d meant it to sound, Donna thought she might have failed on that account, in favor of the sardonic.
“I still took liberties…” He looked away.
“I’m the one that kissed you!” She interrupted.
A fuzzy memory of that choice volunteered itself at that moment and Donna’s hand fell from his jaw, back to her side. There was something just slightly too familiar about the gesture for her comfort. Drunk was one thing, but sober was another entirely.
“You were drunk, Donna.”
“So were you!”
“It doesn't give me an excuse to cross a line,” The Doctor argued.
Squeezing his forearm gently, Donna sighed, “We crossed it together, Spaceman. In fact, we didn’t just cross it, we saw it, jumped over it, did a little tap dance on it, and blew it up for good measure.”
For all the humor in the rueful bite of her words, her expression never wavered from the gentle certainty that had pushed her to speak in the first place.
“You’re my companion, Donna, and I…” The Doctor paused, “I didn’t even try to stop you. And I should have. I really should have.”
Donna’s eyes fell as she replied, “And you’re my friend, Doctor. I didn’t try to stop you either.”
She let his arm go and leaned back against the console, staring at the TARDIS doors. Her fingers clung to the stone rim on either side of the pockets of her jeans. Her head pounded again as she breathed out.
“Didn’t even occur to me.”
Another bout of quiet fell between them as the argument subsided into introspection. This silence lacked the volatility of the last. As Donna’s hangover continued to assert itself in ways that forced her to question whether they would have to continue this conversation at a later time, she reflected at least she’d managed to drag The Doctor into addressing their night instead of avoiding it utterly. Perhaps they would have been fine after a time, if they’d done things his way, but keeping her thoughts to herself wasn’t something at which she excelled. Sooner or later, it would have come up.
“I’ve never done this before,” The Doctor admitted.
Donna looked sharply up from the holes in the grating she’d been absently counting, to meet his gaze, “You-”
“Not with someone traveling with me,” He clarified at her askance expression.
Donna tossed a sheet of red hair out her face, “I was going to say…”
She stopped herself, biting her lip instead. He raised an eyebrow inquisitively though Donna saw the ghost of a smug smirk play across his lips that she thought she’d like to smack off.
“Not even with…”
Well that took care of the smirk. A twinge of guilt struck just behind her navel. Bringing up Rose was a low blow. But considering how little he said about her, and how heartbroken he’d been when she’d first materialized in the TARDIS, Donna had been left to assume many things. Apparently incorrectly.
“No.” he replied flatly, and offered no further explanation.
Silence fell on them again as the Doctor messed with the viewscreen dials. Donna watched him play with a synchronization knob, unsuccessfully. She reached back and flipped a little blue switch, and the image cleared. His brown eyes met her grey ones briefly before she retreated back to her own space. Donna crossed her arms together.
“So you’ve been knocking around in the TARDIS for how long?” Donna queried.
He paused, leaning back away from the console, “Seven hundred years… give or take a decade.”
Her inhale was audible, “Seven HUNDRED years?!”
“Technically six hundred and ninety-six.”
Donna let out a little laugh, “Four years doesn’t make it better, Spaceman.”
She watched him as he shifted, pulling the sonic from his pocket and readjusting his glasses. He pointed it at a lever with a red handle. The soft whir of the tool spread through the room.
“In seven hundred years, you’ve never…”
“Oh, no,” The sonic stopped, “I have, on occasion. Just not with any of my traveling com- friends.”
Her scowl brought about a quick course correction from The Doctor. Whoever had started calling the people he traveled with ‘companions’ needed a lesson in the definition of patronizing. Donna at little doubt, that person was a He. It might have even been an older (well younger, she supposed) version of the Doctor. Either way, she was his friend, not his companion and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Why not?”
The Doctor straightened and turned to lean back against the console too, legs and arms crossed, shoulder to elbow brushing against the leather of her coat. He hummed thoughtfully for a moment.
“I’m nine hundred and five years old. That’s a lot of time spent living. And a lot of wonderful people who’ve left.” He smiled down at her, a sad, earnest smile that was almost a frown, “You’re like… fireflies at dusk. By the time I notice how wonderful it is that you’re there, you’re gone.”
Donna laid a hand on his elbow. She expected some, ‘duty of care’ type answer, and knowing him, that was certainly part of it too, but this… this went deeper. This was closer to the truth.
“And things get complicated, Donna. I told you that when you asked to come with me. That's why I told you from the beginning that I just wanted a friend.”
She reached even further, curling her fingers around his and squeezing, reassuring, “I know, Spaceman.”
“And when things get complicated, people leave,” He gave her a sad smile, “I can’t afford to be careless.”
“You take us to planets where the sun could vaporize us without the proper protection. And where shadows eat people.” Donna’s voice quirked up a few notches, “How is that any less careless?”
But she knew what he meant. Mortal danger was very different from the emotional upheaval of physical intimacy. Especially, Donna noted, when considering the average age of many of his prior friends who had joined him in the TARDIS. From the stories she'd heard, there was no shortage of hero worship aboard the TARDIS and it certainly contributed to a dramatic inequality between him and his traveling companions. He had traveled with people who were excited by the universe and everything he could show them and it enthralled them. Their first adventures had been a choice, and like a student who falls in love with their teacher, they’d fallen for him, and in some ways, though she meant no disrespect to them, they’d forgotten he was more than just a man who could show them the stars.
Her first time aboard the TARDIS she’d thought she’d been drugged and abducted and wanted nothing more than to go home, to get married, to get back to life. Or so she’d thought. It was almost enough to make her laugh, looking back at it all now. And maybe that’s why she was, somehow inexplicably, alright, now.
“Anyway,” She didn’t give him a chance to answer, though she doubted he would be able to if he tried, “You don’t have to worry, Spaceman, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Well…” The Doctor uttered at length, “That’s a relief.”
She didn’t have to look at him to know he was smiling. You could hear a grin in his voice without even trying. Donna noticed as they lapsed again into companionable silence, the TARDIS had resumed its quiet droning hum. She ran a hand over the edge of the console a few times, almost like she was soothing a nervous horse. Had the machine been as worried as its pilot, that she was about to leave like everyone else had? Shaking her head gently, Donna grinned, in spite of her headache. Her life made no sense.
At her side, The Doctor swung one leg across the other, slouching back against the console a little. His arms were still crossed but it wasn’t a protective gesture anymore, merely where they’d ended up. Donna let out a breath she hadn’t realized she been holding. She hadn’t even been the one most distressed by the whole thing, but she’d be lying if she said there hadn’t been a small part of her that wondered if his desire to run from complications would leave her back in Chiswick temping. She could think of nothing worse. Not after all of this. It was unimaginable. And not happening.
Relief washed over her like a warm breeze and with it came a heady sensation of lightness. She might have attributed it to the hangover lessening, if it hadn’t still regularly pounded behind her eyes.
“You know,” She bumping the Doctor’s shoulder with her own, “You’re not half bad.”
He wavered at the gentle pressure of her shoulder hitting his, “I…you…oh. OH!”
His expression shifted from utter bewilderment to complete understanding in seconds. There it was, not the shadow of a self-satisfied smirk, but the genuine article. The smugness was so expansive it reached beyond his lips all the way to his hair.
“Really?” he asked with an exaggerated waggle of his eyebrows.
Donna smacked his arm, “Oi, I gave you a compliment, not bait.”
His grin softened into one of genuine warmth, “Thank you, Donna.”
“You’re welcome, Spaceman.” She bumped his shoulder again, good-naturedly.
They lapsed into companionable silence again, if only to enjoy the cleared air. Then to Donna’s surprise, the Doctor spoke, quietly and slowly, but his voice didn’t waiver and she had no trouble trusting he was telling the truth, in spite of years of self-doubt.
“For the record, I had a very good time too,” He glanced down at her, “drinking with you.”
Donna swallowed hard, fighting and losing to a bright blush that filled her cheeks. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d had a conversation like this, if she’d ever. But here she stood, next to her best friend, with words once again caught in her throat for reasons she couldn’t unravel. And for a moment, just a moment, there lingered that same impulse that had driven her to kiss him the night before. The overwhelming tide of acceptance and comfort he offered her for heaven knew what reason, threatened to conquer sense. But she was old enough to know that this was a moment, that this was her friend, and that was not where she wanted things to go. Not really. She swallowed again, this time freeing the lump in her throat.
“Not really something we should repeat though. Bit… weird,” Donna’s eye flickered between his face and her fingernails.
“Yeah,” he agreed and she noticed that he swallowed as well, his voice a bit rougher than it had been before, “Definitely. Absolutely. Not something to repeat.”
A loud clunk echoed through the console room accompanied by a massive lurch. Donna caught the edge of the control panel with her fingertips to stabilize herself. The Doctor pitched sideways into the console screen, throwing out an arm to grab the edge of it. As it was, his knee crashed hard into the grates. A shower of sparks rained down on them from the top of the rotor and Donna hissed as one caught the end of her hair. Hurriedly, she patted it out.
“What was that?!”
“Not sure. We’re still on the planet. Shouldn’t be anything too bad.” He groaned as he pulled himself up onto his feet, “Right Donna can you get the stabilizers.”
She snapped a set of blue levers into place and the shudders of the ship decreased somewhat. Then she pulled a fire extinguisher from under the console, “Doctor!”
He grabbed it from the air and aimed it up at the top of the rotor. The time machine wheezed a few times then was silent again.
“Now what?”
“We’ll just have to see,” he replied fire extinguisher hanging at his side, “There’s nothing on the computer but background energy.”
She smiled at him from the other side of the time rotor, “Then I guess we should get out of here before something else explodes.”
“Hmmmm,” The Doctor grabbed the viewscreen and spun it around to it was next to her and incidentally, next to the initiation toggle.
“Right, we’ve done sight-seeing, we’ve done archaeology, we’ve done eating, we’ve done partying,” he skimmed through locations on the console faster than she could even attempt to read them, “There is this wonderful little market on a planet called Shan-Shen, I’ve not visited in ages.”
“So long as there’s no drinking.” she replied, “I’ll never say no to a shopping trip.”
The Doctor punched in the coordinates with a grin. Donna reached out grabbing the handle of the switch. After a moment, his brown eyes met hers and he nodded. She flipped the switch and they both grabbed on to the console as the ship dove into the vortex with her usual calamitous wheeze.