Finding Donna
Eyes flashing, frantic.
Desperate. Desperate to get away. Desperate to escape.
Hands, reaching out. Forcing the contact.
As her cries grow louder.
COLLAPSE.
I'm so sorry. Truly, I am.
He stands in the rain.
Not moving. Not speaking. Standing still with the raindrops running down his face.
Gray sky. Gray buildings. Gray concrete beneath his feet.
His whole world is gray.
And he can't seem to find the energy to move.
If it weren't for you, I never even would have made it here.
When had it all become so old? It had never seemed old before. It was astonishing and terrifying and awful and awesome and...brilliant.
Just brilliant.
And he's tried, to find that flippant joy again, but all the places he visits seem…tired. Dull. Empty. And he's left facing the monotony of just another planet. Same as the thousands of others he's been to in his lifetime. And he wonders…
When did he become so old?
So, thank you.
So he doesn't try to move. Lets the grayness wrap around him, muddle his vision, muddle his thoughts.
But no matter how hard he tries, he can't escape the face that sears into the darkness every time he closes his eyes.
He's seen whole worlds destroyed. So many worlds.
But the hardest to bear is when he sees a world destroyed…and the only way to tell is by the look on a face.
On her face.
Hey!
Her world destroyed.
He's seen many faces with that look. On criminals who are finally meeting their due. On families who have just realized that one of their own is lost forever. On friends who know they will never see each other again. He likes to think he's hardened himself to it. He apologizes and accepts the guilt and then just…moves on.
But not this time.
Because this time the person begging was his friend.
And he destroyed her.
Hey, wait a minute.
The rain pounds away. Tiny drops of water crashing to the earth, delivering little bursts of kinetic energy.
E=MC².
Einstein had the idea. Energy and matter. Neither created nor destroyed. You cannot obliterate something beyond its base parts. You are still left with the whole.
But what if some of that whole is…altered? Because when you remove the energy from matter…
All that's left is dust.
He remembers a planet he once visited. Rykon. With forests so vast you couldn't even see the sky. And in the largest forest, in a grove at the very heart of it, were towering, soaring trees that seemed to stretch forever. Stately giants, so unaffected by those on the ground.
But he knew…they could only stretch so high because of miles and miles of strong, solid roots linking them to the ground.
He's lost his roots. He used to be able to soar above life, never needing to see where his feet were landing because he always knew where his roots were.
But now they're gone and he's falling, falling, falling…
W-w-wait! Where are you going?
And when did he become so old?
He knows when.
When he saw Donna Noble.
And the Doctor laughs bitterly, in the rain.
Oh yes, he saw Donna Noble.
Saw her as the dawning realization darkened her eyes. Saw her as she backed away from him. Saw her as she was reduced to begging. And…
Saw her today. And this time might have been even worse.
It's over.
He had rushed into the office building, caught up in tracking down a lead connected to strange energy fluctuations appearing in the area of late. His mind had already been racing ahead to eventual possibilities...
And then time froze for the Time Lord, as the face he had relegated to the dead appeared from behind a help desk.
Her face. Why can't I stop seeing her face?
And for a split second, it was like nothing had ever happened. She would look up, and see him, and break into that idiot grin of hers and whap him on the head for leaving her alone for so long and they would run off to their next fantastic adventure and…
One brief instant.
And then his hearts shattered all over again.
We were too late.
He spent five minutes watching her. Just five minutes.
It seemed like five million.
And every word out of Donna Noble's mouth slammed into his hearts like bullets, tearing away the carefully constructed barricades that had allowed him to function without pain.
But he hadn't been able to force himself to walk away.
He remembers (oh, he remembers) how Donna was when they first met. Dumb Donna, playing the brash, rude fool.
What was the saying? All the world's a stage…
Which left Donna the walking shadow. The poor player. Who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then… is heard no more...
Acting to hide her fear. To hide her hopelessness.
To hide her despair.
And if he had never come along that would have been the end of Donna Noble. And no one would have blinked twice. But then he met her…and she met him…and…
She grew.
All she ever needed were some roots.
No…no, you can't! Stop!
And so he had watched her, hiding behind a pillar. Silent witness to a tragedy. Because he had to know…
How much damage was there?
How much damage did he cause?
Please don't go away.
The Doctor's eyes clench shut. Keeping out the rain.
And a memory appears.
He and Donna were attending some high state council functiony something or other on a planet that turned out to be so boring he can't even remember its name.
It was something he had started to do. Stop at random planets. TARDIS version of the lotto. Because he hadn't needed to hide the universe in glamour. Not with Donna.
She knew what lurked beneath the glitter.
So they're sitting at this dinner, bored out of their minds, and the only reason they haven't left is the issue facing the council is just enough of a complicated mess to keep him in his seat, giddily running scenarios in his head. And the speaker begins droning on and on and everyone is fawning all around him and the servants are bustling to and fro and Donna begins fidgeting in her seat and then she blurts out, "Well why don't you just cancel the project, then, if it's causing such a hassle?"
The collective ruling powers of the world had turned and stared at her.
And he knew Donna had wished she could just crawl under the table and be done with it all.
But she didn't back down. Didn't look away.
Not Donna.
Instead she gave all those elder statesmen her patented Donna death-glare, the one that suggested the recipient was only five years old and maybe it was time to man up and it was quite possible she had never heard such a ridiculous thing uttered in her entire life.
And the council froze.
He remembers that part crystal clear.
They froze, and then gradually the shock on their faces softened to thoughtfulness and by the time the dinner was over the whole project had been scrapped, and everyone was wondering why they had thought it necessary in the first place, and Donna was the life of the party.
Twirling and laughing and sparkling under the gaze of a hundred eyes.
The Doctor smiles in recollection.
A brittle smile.
One touch to shatter.
The Donna he had seen today no longer sparkled.
This Donna would have never said anything at all.
Please?
Oh, sure, the whole time he had watched her, Donna had been chattering away, mile-a-minute words, red hair glinting in the lights.
Good old Donna.
But before, her words had changed the actions of world leaders.
Now, they were hollow. Bitter.
Before, she had stood up to armies.
Now, she hunched under the angry words of a customer.
Before, there had been contentment. And joy. And purpose.
Now, all he could hear was coldness. And apathy. And hidden agony.
She just seemed empty.
Like him.
No one's ever stuck with me for so long before.
And hiding there, watching, he thinks that perhaps this is the worst thing he has ever done.
Taking away someone's words.
And replacing them with…this.
Donna had abruptly left the help desk, disappearing out of sight. And he…
He had run. Run into the rain.
And if you leave, if you leave…I just, I remember things better with you. I do.
It's still raining.
The Doctor breathes heavily, as though he's still running.
Two things he's good at. Running and words. He uses his running to stay one step ahead of trouble. And he uses his words…
He uses his words as weapons.
Donna did too. Perhaps that was why they got along so well.
He often wondered how many disasters originated, accidents happened, lives were destroyed…because someone did not have the right words.
But Donna always had them. And if she didn't, then she stumbled ahead until she found them. The silence breaker.
And the one time he left her behind…he lost his words.
And I, I look at you and…I'm home.
He never told her. But that's what she was to him.
Rose broke his hopelessness. Martha broke his loneliness. And Donna…
Donna broke his silence.
Oh how she broke it.
But his last memory of her, his last real memory, has her reduced to one word. Just one.
Please.
Because Donna Noble always was smart. Even before he come along. As much as she shouted at the things she didn't like, the things she wanted to ignore and to forget and to make go away…just the fact that she knew to shout...it meant she recognized the wrongness. Recognized it and wanted to make it stop.
But she hadn't been able to stop this.
I don't want to go away.
And seeing her today, he knows she was still the same Donna Noble.
...E=MC²...
Still ready to shout the universe into submission.
...A walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets…
But now…
She seemed lost.
And it was as if Donna Noble had become an outline, a shade, a mockery of herself. Because you can look at a shadow and see a trace of what once was…
But then the cloud covers the sun and the trace is gone.
There were so many things he had wanted to tell her.
You're brilliant. And funny. I needed a friend. You were it. Thank you. I wish I didn't have to do this. I wish there were another way. I wish I wish I wish…
If wishes were fishes…
I don't want to forget.
He stands in the rain.
And lets himself remember.
Donna had dragged him to see the movie, insisting that even "Spacemen" needed to relax once in awhile, and no, this movie was not just for kids, and who was he to talk, he was practically a child anyways…
She had cried.
During the movie, she had cried.
For just one scene…
I'm sorry, Donna...
Impact, into the Doctor's side. He jerks, coming to himself. The shopper scuttles past. The Doctor's head lifts up, eyes blearily focusing on the wall in front of him.
The wall he has just spent who knows how many hours in front of.
The wall on which there is a faded poster.
Advertising a movie. About a little clown fish. And his search for what he lost.
And a blue tang fish. Who just…can't…remember.
It was the last happy time the Doctor had spent with Donna on Earth.
But…I…do.
Author's Note:
Well, I'm back.
Did you miss me? I apologize for the extreme drought of fics but-who knew?- student teaching keeps you incredibly busy.
The inspiration for this story came when I was watching the scene in Journey's End when Donna is pleading with the Doctor not to take her memory away. It gave me an extreme sense of déjà vu. Call it emotional resonance. And then I remembered this other scene from the movie Finding Nemo. Where Dory is pleading with Marlin not to leave, because she remembers things better when he's around.
It was the exact same emotional context as the scene from Journey's End.
And I knew I had to write a story about it.
This is quite possibly the first ever Doctor Who-Finding Nemo crossover. All the separate italicized lines come straight from Finding Nemo. If you want to see the scene that inspired it all go to: www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=HAk__tyJ6NE and start watching at the 8:30 mark.
As far as the future goes, I won't be posting anywhere near regularly due to student teaching, but I will be posting. Look for the final chapter of Memories to be posted sometime soon.
Oh, and by the way...
I missed you.