"There aren't, you know."
The words were out of his mouth almost before the doors had closed on Martha's street.
"Aren't what, Doctor?"
"Laws against it. Not even the Shadow Proclamation made so much as an edict."
"Against what?... oh, you- you heard what I said to Jenny, about us being different species?"
He sniffed and his shoulders slumped as he looked away from her. "Yeah."
Donna looked at him curiously. He seemed to be trying too hard to sound casual, especially since she had mentioned Jenny's name and had seen his eyes darken in response. He stepped away then, rounding the console and starting to fiddle with some buttons, no longer looking at her.
She followed him, not wanting to see him sink into another funk.
"You would consider it then? Being with a human woman?"
Donna knew she was straying into dangerous territory but she didn't want to lose him to despair over Jenny, and besides, he had been the one to bring it up and she couldn't resist. For all her public acclamations of disinterest Donna had to admit the idea of it had crossed her mind. More than once. Especially in the quiet evenings when it was just the two of them curled up on the huge couch in his library, the firelight flickering in the background.
The Doctor met her eyes and she recognized the challenging light in them, it was a look he had been giving her more and more recently.
"I have more than considered it, Donna."
"Oh!" She felt a blush creep over her face and hurried to pull her mind back from the images flashing before her eyes, hurrying on with her words before she could dwell too much on everything that 'I have more than considered it' could mean.
"So, there is really no rule or anything?"
"Nope."
"Ah."
She chewed on her lower lip and then mumbled something about changing clothes; the direction the conversation was going was getting a bit… much. She started for her room but his hand on her arm stopped her.
She looked up at him and the look in his eyes gave her pause, but when he didn't say anything else she felt the urge to keep babbling; maybe he was just looking for distraction, he was obviously not yet ready to process the loss of Jenny.
"Oh, what am I talking about, you and Rose, of course."
"No, I…" he interrupted her then trailed off, scratching at his neck and looking thoughtful.
"You seemed like maybe you were holding yourself back with her, that's all," Donna supplied, tentatively.
"Yeeeah." He nodded once. "I felt very deeply for Rose, but she was very young, and you know, I loved that about her, so much brightness, but it wouldn't have… I mean… but if we-, well, if we…"
He paused and rubbed at his neck even harder, his eyes distant and the tendons in his throat standing out.
"But like I was saying, if Rose and I had, y'know, had anything happened, it wouldn't have been illegal just because she and I, or you and I…cause we aren't the same species. Nope. Nothing like that."
"Oh," Donna managed faintly, and swiveled her eyes away from his now obviously flustered expression, now even less sure that her choice of topic to distract him with had been a particularly wise one.
She watched him as he fidgeted in place, running a hand through his hair. A delicious tremor ran through her as her mind replayed the words "you and I" over and over in her head.
Then she caught herself. Time to get her imagination back on track, he didn't feel that way about her, she had to stop hoping that he did.
"Still," she started, hoping more words would come, anything to break the strange electric tension between them now. His hand shot up to his tie and pulled at it, and for reasons Donna could fathom, her tummy made a little flip. She swallowed hard and fought to keep her tone light.
"Still, guess you aren't in any more danger from Imy/i womanly wiles than those soldiers were today, eh? Practically immune!"
She quirked her lips self-consciously, shrugging off just how much it had stung when he had prevented her from following Jenny's lead in distracting the guards. Oh he had tried to be diplomatic, but his lack of faith in her abilities to be distracting still hurt.
He blinked a few times, then stilled. "What?"
"Y'know, when Jenny got us out of the jail cell, I could tell you didn't want her doing that, so I offered to…uh, distract the next one? Bit ridiculous, I guess."
"Ridiculous?" His voice rose in confusion, his face frowning.
She swallowed and turned away from him, annoyed at herself for even bringing this up.
"Donna, are you talking about when Jenny kissed that boy? The one guarding us?"
"She got us out of there."
He was quiet for a moment, and Donna thought back to how vehemently he had protested Jenny's plan to seduce the young soldier. She and the younger woman had waved away his obvious discomfort and he had skulked off to the corner. He had watched her the whole time, ready to pounce into action if she had needed him. She hadn't, of course.
"I would have stopped Jenny too, Donna, but she was a stranger to me then, I couldn't… she wouldn't listen. I was scared you wouldn't listen, either…I'm sorry if I came on too strong."
"No, you didn't, I'm just being silly. All you stopped me from was making a fool of myself."
"Donna! No! Is that what you think?" She wouldn't look at him until he spun her around and grabbed her shoulders.
"Oh, Donna, no."
"It's okay, Doctor, you don't have to—" She tried to shrug out of his grip but his hands held her firmly, not letting her duck out of talking about this.
"Donna, I didn't stop you because I didn't believe you could do it, I stopped you because I couldn't stand the thought of you doing that. Not you."
She looked up into his troubled eyes. The intensity in his voice surprised her and made her heart skip a beat.
"Donna – you have to believe me. I was not lacking faith in your abilities to…uh… distract the soldiers, anything but, did you see how some of them were looking at you?"
He paused for a moment and let his thumb trace the line of her collarbone until she shivered involuntarily and he stopped. He found his voice again.
"But Jenny, Jenny was a soldier, a fighter, and there were bars between her and that kid… I stopped you, Donna ,because I was worried about you getting hurt, that's all."
"Oh."
His hands squeezed her shoulders and she lifted her fingers to trail across his, until his grip relaxed a little.
"You do believe me?"
"Yeah," she whispered sheepishly.
"Not you," he murmured gently, "I never want you to put yourself into a position like that with a man."
He cocked his head and tried a smile. "I told you," his tone was lighter now but Donna had the impression the shift was deliberate. "I said I wanted you to keep all your womanly wiles for later anyway, not share them with anyone else. And to answer your earlier question, no, I'm not immune. Anything but."
He breathed the last two words so quietly Donna couldn't be sure he had spoken them at all. She bit the inside of her cheek and tore her eyes away finally from the depth of emotion she saw in his. He dropped his hands from her shoulders and straightened awkwardly.
"Well then." He sniffed decisively, and Donna watched his feet as he teetered for a moment, standing off kilter on the sides of his Converse. Then he bounced a little in place before bounding away from her over to the console.
Her eyes followed him, warmth infusing her chest at how important it had obviously been to him to explain his actions. It was more than that too, and a tingle ran through her at the thought of what he seemed to be trying to say.
Or had she just imagined it? Was he just trying to be kind, to offset the rejection she had felt? He was sweet to say what he had about her womanly wiles, but Donna knew she was no blonde and bubbly gymnast Time Lady, or whatever they called a female Time Lord.
She was drawn back to reality when it was only moments before her thoughts went back to Jenny. It didn't take a genius to see the same was true for the Doctor. Now he was half-heartedly twiddling knobs and the pain had crept back into his eyes as he slouched a little and stared into space.
At a loss for how to reach him Donna regarded at him for a moment more then headed to the kitchen to start the teakettle.
When she returned he was just standing there, lost inside himself so deep he didn't even register her presence. He held one of his hands inside the other, clutched to his chest, rubbing, soothing, like he was still cradling his dying daughter to his hearts.
Donna blinked away unexpected tears at the disconsolate tenderness on his face, tension in his frame and the ache of his loss inscribed in his furrowed brow. She bit her lip. He was too far-gone for distraction now, she realized. Well then, facing a problem head on was more her style anyway. She breathed in and settled her shoulders.
When she slowly rounded the console he dropped his hands immediately and went back to idly fiddling with the buttons and switches. His nervous energy had faded now and Donna's heart sank as she saw how heavily the grief wore on him.
"How are you, Spaceman?" she asked softly, ignoring the agony that swept through her; his sadness was palpable, filling the cavernous room. She kept her tone matter-of-fact, sensing that he needed her to be strong, to reach him even as he turned away from her.
He swiveled back to face her almost before her hand touched his arm and when she laid her palms on his chest he just watched her, no longer trying to hide the darkness in his eyes, sorrow shrouded in anger.
"You see that pain, in there? It doesn't mean you were wrong to let her in, it proves you were right." She spoke softly, feeling that she was reaching him even though his expression remained lost, his face creased in pain.
"What do we do now?" he asked her, his voice controlled, yet desolate.
When she moved her hands from his chest he lurched slightly toward her, he had been leaning into her touch more than she had realized and she caught his arms. She held him, wrapping her fingers firmly around his surprisingly solid biceps, supporting him strongly and not letting go.
"We go on. We live. We remember… What else can we do?"
His eyes started to mist a little as she talked. She rubbed his arms reassuringly before letting go with a final comforting squeeze as he drew in a breath and tore his eyes away from hers.
He stood taller now, his shoulders back, his head held high. Her words seemed to have channeled his grief into the energy he needed to keep going.
"Where do you want to go?" He attempted deceptive levity, picking up on her suggestion to keep moving.
"Let's find a new world. For her."
His face broke into a lopsided smile that mixed joy and pain. The pride in the straighter set of his shoulders indicated how much he seemed to warm to the idea of honoring his daughter by findings new worlds for her, as Jenny had wanted to do herself. His eyes held Donna's, locked in their mutual understanding that went beyond words as he drew strength from her.
Donna smiled back, in relief and compassion, and his grin became wider, but still broken. The tightness in his frame relaxed and she backed away, letting him throw himself into piloting.
He looked over at her. "Hey, where are you going? C'mere." He held out his hand to her and pulled her closer when she returned to his side questioningly.
Donna froze for a moment as he drew her close. He was watching her face intently, that speculative gleam seemingly back now. Her thoughts flitted back to their earlier conversation, his insistence on a relationship between them being against no law still echoing inside her mind.
No, she schooled herself firmly, not a relationship between ithem/i, just between a human and a Time Lord. Purely theoretical, or hypothetical, or one of the two: she always mixed those two words up, especially when she was flustered.
The Doctor trailed his fingertips down her arm then stepped behind her, his hands coming to rest on her shoulders. "Feel up to another driving lesson, Donna?"
She breathed out slowly, trying to calm her fluttering heart.
"Only if you can handle the competition." She turned in his arms and smiled up at him over her shoulder. The Doctor smirked, tilting his head, his tongue curling on the roof of his mouth.
"Show me what you've got, Earthgirl." His eyes crinkled with warmth even as one eyebrow rose challengingly.
Donna felt the connection between them as he guided her hands from behind, following his lead on what lever to grab and what dial to twist. She worked hard to concentrate, hoping desperately he wouldn't notice how fast her heart was beating with his body so flush with hers; he really was awfully close.
Finally apparently satisfied, the Doctor moved alongside her and they worked together on an intractable linear beltdrive oscillator, Donna refusing the mallet and chuckling when her soft pat on the console released the tricky belt to oscillate again.
When they landed, with only the slightest of bumps, she looked up and met his eyes as he wrapped his hand around hers, and they both held still for a moment.
"A new world awaits," he breathed softly. His fingers tightened on hers and she squeezed back.
"For her," she whispered in reply. The Doctor's throat worked and he nodded almost imperceptibly.
They would move on, but not forget; they would grieve Jenny and honor her, and they would do it together.
5