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Donna stared at the ceiling. She studied every little scrape and spot on the whitewash, and waited patiently. She was waiting for death.
She was tired. Very tired. The doctors had said she didn't have much time left. Her children and grandchildren had already said goodbye, tearfully. Her parents and her husband had gone before her, so there was no-one else. At least, that's what her mind told her, but she kept having the feeling that there was another person she should have parted from. This, and her grandfather's last words kept drifting around in the vast calm nothingness of her mind.
She'd been sitting beside a bed very like the one she was in now when her granddad had passed away. It had hurt like nothing had ever before, to have him drift away from her like that. At least, that's what she thought. But she had felt that the emptiness he'd left behind had settled in her next to another one, another hole which couldn't heal, a lot more raw then the one left by the peaceful passing of her grandfather. But she'd disregarded the feeling then, and she disregarded it now, concentrating, instead, on his last words to her.
'Darling,' he'd said, his voice as sharp and familiar as ever. 'When it's your time... if he comes, tell him- tell him I send my love. And thanks. 'Cause, well... you'll see.' He'd drifted off, a far-off look in his eyes. Then, his eyes had focused, and he'd turned to her 'Oh and Donna, love - Goodbye.' Donna had cried, then, while he closed his eyes forever. She hadn't understood what he'd said, and she still didn't now, but she remembered it as if it were yesterday.
She wondered what her last words were going to be. As far as she could remember the last thing she'd said was to the nurse, something about her chamber pot not being clean enough. Not that it mattered, but she would have preferred it to be a little more cliché. Something like goodbye sounded a lot better now. She decided to say something meaningful to the next person that came in. She could feel the quiet darkness closing in around her, and the energy seeping out. She was tired - so tired. She just wanted to sleep, endlessly. And - she laughed quietly to herself - that was just what she was going to get. Good. She'd always gotten what she wanted, and death wasn't an exception.
Creak. Slowly, she turned her head away from the ceiling to look at the door. A man stood there. She blinked the tears out of her eyes as he pushed open the door. His thin silhouette came into focus, and she realised he was eerily familiar. Brown, wild hair, a suit, converses, eyes brimming with emotions. Her eyes, thankfully, were as sharp as ever. She hadn't experienced memory trouble either until then, but she found she was grasping at something in her mind, something connected with this man, and it was escaping her every time, slipping through her imaginary fingers.
'Hello Donna,' he said quietly, and she found the feeling of loss strengthening inside her, almost to the point of unbearableness. Still, she was Donna, and she wanted to know who he was, so she asked.
'And you are?' she could hear her voice ringing in the small room, confident, ironic and unpleasantly sharp, if a bit weakened by age. Hearing it, the man smiled, and came forwards to stand at the foot of her bed. Donna's mind was urging her to tell him to get back, to call the nurse, to hit him with her stick - he was a stranger, after all. But she did nothing, because all her senses told her she was safe, perhaps even safer with him in the room.
'I go by many names. You, actually, have quite a few for me. But usually I'm known as the Doctor.'
The Doctor. Those two words started an avalanche in Donna's mind. It was like finally grasping at something that was on the tip of your tongue, but a thousand times stronger. Memories flashed and flaunted themselves and flooded the holes that she hadn't even known were there. And all these memories - these awesome, fantastic, brilliant shining memories - were to do with the man standing in front of her.
She knew who he was now. She knew everything that had happened. She knew what the fact that she now had the memories meant. So she closed her mouth, which had hung open in surprise, and smiled at the doctor. She felt such a surge of affection for him. Her friend.
But with this surge of affectionate memories also came a surge of weakness. She could feel all the new memories weighing on her mind, making her even weaker than before. They seemed to be pushing her towards the black emptiness of death. A minute ago, she would have gone gladly. But now she withstood the force - she wanted to speak. She had something she had to say, and speaking had always been her talent.
'Grandpa sends his love' she said weakly, and watched his face twist with suppressed sorrow. She felt a knot gathering in her stomach too. But all she could do was stare at his face, the Doctor's face, the face she had missed so much and had never remembered.
Then, he advanced around the side of her bed, reaching to touch her hand. His hand got tangled in some of the tubes protruding from her body, and she gasped at the dull pain. She stared at him sternly and said 'Oi! Be careful with those, spaceman!' and with that her remaining energy was gone and she was drifting, falling, sinking away.
The doctor watched the life slip out of Donna's eyes, tears rolling down his face. At least they had gotten to speak one last time, he told himself. There was no going back now - he'd used up their last meeting. But at least... well at least she had had a good life. That was all he could ask for, right? For her to have been happy?