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Donna Noble studied the contours of her friend’s face as he leaned back in his seat at the table. His hair was still a striking peak of brown spikes and his smile, though soft and subdued, was still warm. But he was older now; the faint shadow of stubble grew thicker when it caught the sunlight, and the wrinkles above his brow belied the youthful act that his face – this specific face – once projected. Donna understood and accepted that even Time Lords aged, but, though it was strange comparing his face to how it was – the face she met and had remembered even in the years they were apart, when the memories of him in her life had been consigned to oblivion – there was a part of her, deep in her heart, that simply did not care—her friend was finally back, and that was all that mattered.
It was exceedingly rare to see the Doctor so calm; in the time Donna knew him, there had never been a moment where he stood still. The skinny man that first bounded into her life on that tragic Christmas Eve never once paused for breath, always bristling with energy, always bouncing on the balls of his feet as though he were allergic to the idea of ever stopping. But now, in the garden, in the warmth of the afternoon and the warmer presence of good company, the Doctor was beginning to rest.
‘Do you miss it? Out there?’ Donna asked.
The Doctor smiled to himself. ‘The funny thing is,’ he began, ‘I fought all those battles for all those years, and now I know what for.’ With an expression that shrugged off the weight of years, he turned to Donna. ‘This,’ the Doctor grinned. ‘I’ve never been so happy in my life.’
At the sound of Melanie Bush’s laughter, the pair looked at the others. Donna’s family were still eating but watched with fascination as she regaled them with a tale about Vervoids. ‘It was a shame that we couldn’t stay on the Hyperion III,’ Mel sighed, ‘I wanted to get some proper use out of their gym.’
‘I, for one, couldn’t have been happier to leave,’ the Doctor said. ‘If we’d stuck around any longer, I feel like you’d have ended up forcing more carrot juice on me.’
‘Carrot juice?’ Donna asked.
‘Carrot juice?’ Rose echoed through a laugh.
‘Carrot juice…’ The Doctor shivered.
‘Blame it all you want,’ Mel said, ‘but, if you ask me, I’d say it did its job. The Doctor – well, the other Doctor – was looking very healthy.’
The Doctor gave an indifferent shrug, ‘Probably just a post-biregeneration glow. If I didn’t know better, Melanie, I’d say you were picking favourites.’
‘I can hardly blame her,’ Sylvia said, taking a sip from her glass.
‘Mum, you didn’t even meet him.’
‘Maybe not,’ she said, ‘but if it’s between this one—’
‘Oi!’ the Doctor gasped.
‘—and someone else…’
‘Pay no mind to the wicked stepmother, Doctor,’ Shaun interjected.
Donna nodded, ‘She’s probably just jealous you’ve aged so well.’
Sylvia’s exaggerated display of offence at her daughter’s remark prompted a fresh round of laughter. Once it subsided, however, Rose was keen to press further. ‘Doctor,’ she said, ‘if you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?’
‘You should never ask a lady her age, Rose,’ he replied.
Shaun chuckled, remembering how the Doctor mistakenly introduced himself as the Grandmistress of the Knowledge only a few days ago.
‘Because,’ Rose continued, ‘Mum told me that you said you were a billion years old. But that’s got to be you joking, right?’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Mel. ‘When I was travelling with the Doctor, he told me he was around nine hundred years old.’
Sylvia made an effort to speak neutrally, ‘But there’s a big difference between nine hundred and a billion, isn’t there?’
Everyone’s expectant eyes fell upon the Doctor. He was deep in thought, searching for the easiest explanation. Then, he turned to Donna. ‘I think I left it in the TARDIS,’ he said, nodding to the blue box in the corner of the garden. ‘A blue binder-thingy. Should be on the console.’
‘Back in a mo’.’
A few moments of anticipation passed before Donna returned with the item. Its weight was evident as she carried it with both hands and trod carefully on her way back to the table. As she passed it to the Doctor, it became clear that the item was less a binder and more akin to a scrapbook. A pattern of panels resembling the TARDIS’ doors was the only detailing on the front cover—there was no writing of any kind.
‘Is that a diary?’ Rose asked.
The Doctor chuckled, ‘No. I’ve tried keeping a few in my time. Never really works out. Well, I say never…’
‘The Time Lord can’t keep time?’ Mel joked.
‘With his days like crazy paving?’ he replied. ‘You try writing your life down when you’re living it out of order.’
Shaun cleared his throat. ‘So, I hate to sound rude, but what is it?’
‘In a word? Therapy.’
Donna smiled, ‘How do you mean?’
‘If I’m going to spend my time here working through everything – and, believe me, there’s a lot to work through – it might be worth putting some of it on paper.’
The number of pages was impossible for Syvlia to ignore, ‘And you’ve already done that much?’
‘Not quite. The TARDIS prepared this one. Everything else’ll be handwritten wherever I can fit it. Probably in other books. No, this,’ he said, drumming his fingers on the cover, ‘is the closest thing to a photo album I’ve got.’ Seeing Rose’s eyes sparkle with intrigue, he quickly flicked through the pages and pointed triumphantly at a picture. He showed it to Mel, ‘Remember them?’
‘Indeed I do,’ she grinned.
The Doctor turned the book around to show the others. On the left page was a blond man clad in a striking technicolour coat, and, on the right, was a shorter man in tartan trousers clutching an umbrella. ‘This,’ he explained, pointing to the first man, ‘is what I looked like when I met Mel.’
‘And that,’ she said, rubbing the picture of the second man, ‘is what he looked like when I set off with Glitz.’
‘Wow…’ Shaun said. ‘So, you’ve had a few different faces?’
‘Yep,’ the Doctor nodded. ‘Several.’
‘And you’ve had this one before?’ Rose asked.
‘Correct again.’
‘Why can’t you go back to one of the others?’ Sylvia teased.
Donna rolled her eyes, ‘Sick of him already?’
Her mother simply shrugged, ‘A bit of variety never killed anybody.’
‘Well,’ the Doctor said, trailing off, ‘except me.’ He felt a hand rest against his forearm and saw Donna fix him with a curious gaze.
‘You all right?’ she asked. ‘And don’t lie.’
The Doctor sighed. ‘I am. It’s just…’
‘A lot.’ Donna finished the thought for him.
‘Yeah.’
The Doctor looked at his friend just as she had looked at him, and studied the contours of her face. There was a time when he was less than a memory to her, but in all the time since – the years she had lived and the lifetimes he had spent – Donna stayed with him.
The pain of losing her and everyone else was too much for him to face in his final life; so scared of endings – be they others’ or his own, be they farewells or funerals – the Doctor retreated into a younger body and shielded himself behind a childlike whimsy as the imaginary friend of a little girl in Leadworth. The Doctor had found a family here with Donna, but Amelia Pond and Rory Williams were forever seared onto his hearts, even in the centuries that followed.
His face was his shield, and it hardened when they died. The walls he erected around himself were stronger than ever before, but, over the course of a millennium standing vigil over Trenzalore, warmed in the winter by the unwavering devotion of his impossible girl, he relented and was renewed; shaped by the hardships he had endured and the constant presence of Clara Oswald, the Doctor struggled through into a new regeneration cycle and the new lease on life it entailed.
The piercing gaze and fierce eyebrows that stared back at him in his reflection terrified him, but he found solace in it, too—it was a reminder. Every time the Doctor saw that face, he held himself to the mark and fought to save as many people as he could; every time the Doctor saw that face, he remembered Donna Noble.
Even after all those years, Donna stayed with him.
It was Rose that shook the Doctor back to the present. ‘Nevermind what face he’s got now,’ she said, ‘what other ones have you had, Doctor?’
He looked back at his best friend and felt a stinging start to swell in his eye.
‘Finish up your food,’ Donna said, ‘and we can talk about it when we’re done.’
Before long, the party retired inside. Rose listened with amazement at the stories her mother and Mel told her, laughing when the Doctor clarified how things actually happened.
‘It wasn’t that big,’ the Doctor insisted.
‘It was a giant, flipping wasp!’ Donna exclaimed. ‘How many big insects have you met?’
‘More than you’d think!’
Shaun and Sylvia watched with amusement but entertained themselves as they remarked on the Doctor’s new house. The pair agreed that, had her father not departed earlier, the house could provide for him adequately. ‘I think it would do him some good,’ Shaun said. ‘Both of them. It’d give the Doctor someone to take care of. And you know how much Wilf loves him.’
‘I do,’ Syliva confessed. ‘Still, I didn’t expect his house to be so clean.’
‘It’s not like this is my first house,’ the Doctor called out from across the room. ‘I’ve had a few in my time. I quite like this one, of course I’m going to keep in good nick.’
‘But no pictures?’ Shaun asked, gesturing to the empty walls.
‘I might go for some art or landscapes. Maybe. I haven’t decided yet.’
Sylvia checked her watch, ‘A decision for another day, I’d say.’
As the evening gave way to the night, after the last story had been told, the party came to an end. Mel was the first to leave, insisting as she gave a parting hug to each of the Noble family that they get together again soon. When she reached the Doctor, she made a point of hugging him a bit tighter than the others. ‘You take it easy, Doctor,’ she said.
‘You know me, Mel. Easy isn’t fun.’
‘But it’s good for you.’ She looked him up and down and shook her head, remembering who it was in front of her, ‘I suppose there’s no point, is there? Well, if you ever get any ideas about shooting off somewhere marvellous, check in with me first and see if I’m free.’
‘After all this time?’
‘Oh, Doctor… Time? You of all people should know that doesn’t matter.’
The Doctor laughed, ‘I suppose not. I’ll keep it in mind, Melanie. Have a good night.’
The others followed shortly after, but Donna lingered by the front door. Shaun stopped mid-stride a few paces ahead. ‘Everything okay?’ he asked.
‘Yeah. Yeah, I just…’
He could see the concern play plainly across his wife’s face. Shaun nodded, ‘I’ll let them know.’
Donna gave him a quick peck on the cheek and watched as he headed to the car with a smile. She moved towards the living room and paused just outside to peer carefully around the doorframe. The Doctor was sitting in an armchair, hugging his blue book close to his chest. His eyes were closed.
She hesitated for a moment before calling out. ‘Doctor?’
He blinked open, slightly startled. ‘Hm? Yeah?’
‘You sure you’re all right?’
‘Of course,’ he said. His thumb was stroking gentle patterns against the spine of the book. ‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why do you ask?’
Donna titled her head to one side, ‘Because you’re my friend. And that’s what friends do.’ Cautiously, she stepped closer, ‘What else is in that book? Because it’s not just your faces, is it?’
‘No. No, it’s not.’ The Doctor drew a deep breath. ‘It’s you. And Mel. And everyone else.’ The book felt suddenly heavier in his arms. He pointed to a section near the end. It spanned the width of two fingers, but was still a fraction of the full book. ‘This part, just here, that’s where I’ve been since… Well, since…’
Donna knelt down and held the Doctor’s hand. ‘I’m not going to push you or pester you, but you know you can talk to me about it, don’t you?’
‘Donna…’
‘I mean it.’
The Doctor groaned, ‘No, that’s not it. Since I last saw you… Well, I told you, it was a lot. And I can’t… Not without…’
‘Those puppets.’ The memory of the Toymaker sent a shiver down Donna’s back. ‘They were—’
‘Yes. Yes, they were.’ The Doctor patted the book, ‘And they’re all in here.’
Donna squeezed his hand, ‘Not all of them. Some of us are still here.’ Slowly, she stood up again, ‘But, for now, we’ve got to go.’
The Doctor gave a faint nod of acknowledgement and a limp wave as Donna departed. When the door closed behind her, the sound rang out through the empty house. Though there was nobody else to keep him company, the Doctor was not alone; he hugged the book tighter to his chest and closed his eyes, the memories of over a dozen lifetimes washing over him, the hundreds of friends and companions he had met and loved and lost returning to him once more.
Amidst the symphony of voices, he heard the words of Sarah Jane Smith and felt his hearts ache; he remembered when they stood together in a park, when she looked into his eyes – eyes held in the same face he had now – to remind him of what he always knew and what he remembered as he felt himself drift to sleep: ‘You know, you act like such a lonely man. But look at you. You’ve got the biggest family on Earth.’