A/N: I don't own Doctor Who at all. I'm just... a fan!
p.s. -- this is largely my own wishful thinking. Soooo... yeah!
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Silence. Stillness. Well, mostly. Not really. The TARDIS still hummed, and the walls and floor grating protested as they settled into place after the rough ride. He briefly caught his breath before his racing mind levered his body to his feet and he sprinted for the TARDIS door.
Grabbing his long brown coat from where it was flung negligently over the railing, he swung it on. The slightest of jangles from his coat pockets made him pause before opening the door. The Doctor jammed his hands into his pockets and dug around. Like his beloved TARDIS, they were bigger on the inside. Questing hands settled the plethora of items stashed inside until his right hand came into contact with the noisy article. Turning it over in his hand briefly, he recognized it as a clockwork mouse. He shook it to confirm. Hah! Noisemaker identified.
Clockwork mouse? What was that for? He shrugged, having forgotten its original purpose (surely he'd find something to do with it later), and the back of his hand brushed against something soft that was not part of his coat. His eyebrows pulled together for the briefest moment as the original possessor of the shirt in his pocket came to mind. The fabric was soothing against his hand as it enveloped it, and he could almost hear its owner in the back of his mind, telling him to go find out where they'd landed already. He nearly dropped the mouse, making it clank faintly again, so he shoved the bit of clockwork deep into the folds of wadded-up cloth to keep it quiet. Turning back to the task at hand, he poked his head out of the door experimentally before exiting the TARDIS to look around. Adventure! What could sully a good adventure, really?
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"Oi! What's wrong with clean hands!?"
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He had been too distracted by the possession of two hearts, a sharp mind, and an overt eagerness so akin to his own to notice. It was impossible not to be, and that vaguely sickening sense of hope towards the end of her short time with him had not been helping either. He wouldn't figure it out until a few weeks later, but in the moment the Doctor had been manhandled into providing a tissue sample that created his daughter, his Jenny (as he now had come to refer to her in his mind), his hands had not been as clean as he thought.
The sample had been tainted, something he had finally realized in one of those rare moments of quiet after some brilliant caper several worlds away. Though the scrape on his hand had healed quickly and cleanly, the ghost of the mark in his mind would call up the memory of her face. Blonde hair, bright eyes—but suddenly the face shifted slightly. His hearts gave a funny flutter and he had to brace himself against the console. Why hadn't he seen it sooner? Was it even possible that something so brief and insignificant meant that Jenny was not, as he thought, entirely his own?
He looked behind him to where his long brown coat with its deceptive pockets lay strewn over the jump-seat next to the console, then back to the control panel.
Donna plopped down in the jump-seat next to the Doctor's jacket lay and ran her fingers through her hair with a sigh, twisting it up. In the process of pulling her hair back from her face, she prodded his foot with hers, having noticed the slump of his shoulders.
"Alright, Doctor?"
He sprang back into movement and his hands quickly flew over the console, pressing this button or that, flipping a lever. "How does Face of Boe's 10,617th birthday party sound? I doubt we'll actually see him, the guest list is immense. But I love a good party, don't you?" He sounded distracted, or like he wanted to be distracted. She wasn't going to get anything from him now. Oh well. She would ask another time.
"Who's that?"
The engines revved to life and they were off, the Doctor determined to not give himself the time to mourn the two women he would never see again. Instead, he launched into a fast-paced description of the ever-enduring Face.