Okay, perhaps this fic deserves some explanation. I wrote this as a 'what if' fanfic, the 'what if' being 'What if the Doctor fell in love with someone who wanted to be platonic—we always see women fall head over heels for him, but what if the opposite happened? And what if his love ruined everything?
Maybe they're a tad OOC (mostly the Doctor on the whole 'love' thing) but it's for the sake of the story.
Basically, it's just a crap excuse for writing angst. I LOVE angst, makes my heart all fuzzy…in a strange, sick way.
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As Donna and the Doctor stepped from the TARDIS, their reactions were simultaneous and opposite: excitement and disappointment, respectively.
"Oh, Doctor, another party!"
"Yes, Donna, I'm well aware of this." Stretching out before them was a swirling, rhythmically moving sea of couples dancing and twirling about one another in long, shimmering gowns and tailored tuxedos. Donna gripped the Doctor's arm, and suddenly he knew he was beaten; he could harness the power of all the suns of all the worlds if he tried, but he couldn't say no to that woman…not for anything in the world.
"All right."
He couldn't say no…because he had fallen in love.
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He stared into the mirror with empty, dark eyes. Suddenly he shook his shoulders, as though the chill in his heart manifested itself in the air around him.
He had never been in love like this…he had been in love before, certainly, dozens of times. None of those times meant anything less to him than this, but this was different still. So many times, so many beautiful girls had chased him while he was disinterested…so this was what it felt like to be in love with someone who completely ignored you.
More to the point, she was his best friend.
He straightened his tie, praying Donna wouldn't notice he stank of sweat…perhaps that was just his own olfactory hypersensitivity—oh, that was why Donna would never love him. He was an alien—so different, so wrong, so not who she needed him to be. She needed a human man, a normal man, a man that wasn't him.
He stepped out of his room; for once, Donna was dressed before him. Had he really taken so long—
There she stood; barely batting an eyelid as she casually stole his breath away. She wore a long, simple purple gown and a black stone necklace, and held a small black clutch at her side. Her hair was pulled from her face in a small, jeweled black barrette.
He nodded, running a hand back through his hair. "Right. Let's get going, then?"
He held out his arm and she took it, though he knew she'd rush out and be swept into the crowd the moment they left the TARDIS.
She did.
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He finally caught sight of Donna at the bar, sipping an alien cocktail while eying the young-ish man a few seats away from her. He considered going up to her, but halted as she slid a few seats to the right to speak with the man. They were within listening distance, and he nonchalantly slipped up to the bar several seats to the left of Donna, beside a Vinvocci woman too legless to notice him.
"What's your name?" Donna asked, and the Doctor noticed she set her arm on the bar and her cheek on her knuckles, swiveling her torso to face the man.
Her target seemed disinterested; that a man could scorn her made the Doctor's blood boil. "Charles Dafoe," he answered, turning slightly to the right; Donna was not so easily discouraged.
"Well, Charles," she said, following his movements and setting her hands on her knees, "I don't suppose you can dance, can you?"
The man swallowed. "I can," he muttered. The Doctor leaned forward; he didn't like where this was going.
"And…did you happen to come alone?"
"I did." The Doctor swallowed, seeing a vein appear in the man's neck.
"Well, then, how about you and I ditch these drinks and—"
"Do you mind?" The man turned to look Donna in the eye condescendingly. "I was having a perfectly nice drink here. I certainly don't need to be bothered tonight by some old whore looking for a good time. Leave me alone."
The Doctor could practically see the light vanish from Donna's heart, and felt the fury of nine hundred years well within both of his. The man got to his feet, and both the Doctor and Donna, as they turned to watch him leave, realized just how many people had seen the altercation. Several of them smirked; a few even laughed, muttering under their breaths. The Doctor paid them little mind, however, as he realized his legs were taking him, of their own volition, to Donna's side.
She had downed the rest of her cocktail and was ordering another; the Doctor took her wrist, and she looked up at him with steamy eyes.
"Dumb old bloke," she murmured; he nodded to the dance floor, and she got shakily to her feet, following him to the center.
She seemed to swallow her pride there, setting her hands on his shoulders. His shaky hands took her waist, and suddenly they became part of the living, breathing organism that was the dance—yet, they were apart. While others spun in perfect time with the slowly finishing song, their dance was something erratic and alive; Donna was trembling from both drink and tears, and the Doctor shivered at such proximity to the most beautiful woman in time.
The song ended, and while others clapped, they remained connected there, dancing into the next.
It started out as a feeling
Which then grew into a hope
Which then turned into a quiet thought
Which then turned into a quiet word.
The Doctor held his breath as Donna pulled him millimeters closer; her hands rose up to his neck, and his hands inched up her back to embrace her shoulders. The distance between them was gone.
And then that word grew louder and louder
'Til it was a battle cry
"I'll come back, when you call me," the Doctor murmured to the music. "No need to say goodbye."
Just because everything's changing
Doesn't mean it's never been this way before
All you can do is try to know who your friends are
As you head off to the war.
"Doctor," Donna whispered. "Never leave me."
"I never will," he promised, his voice low and raw. "I never will." He swallowed, feeling her hair gently brushing his face as they spun; slowly, he angled his neck so he could plant a kiss just on her temple, where through her hair she couldn't feel his lips wet with tears.
The verse led into the chorus, and as the instrumental bridge led into its climax the Doctor felt a rush of bravery, bravery as he had never mustered in nine hundred years' worth of dances. He raised his hand slowly, nervously, to cup his fingers around the so-soft skin of her neck and push with his thumb that loose strand of hair that fell just below her ear. His hearts pounded so that he could no longer hear the music, only the furious blast of blood through his ears.
Donna was simply too…perfect. There were her lips, trembling in such vulnerability there, and it was when his last drop of sanity drained away that the Doctor leaned into her, pressing his lips into hers and feeling them push back into his so willingly, so naturally. For nearly a minute they were locked, completing each other so divinely the universe seemed to slow, and come to a stop, just for them. The Doctor imagined his fears gone, all the fears of the universe gone as the beautiful Donna was finally his…
As the song ended, so did the dream.
Donna's arms became rigid, and she pulled away from the Doctor, inhaling with a gasp. The moment their contact broke, the Doctor wanted to die; he realized with utter finality what he had just done. The dark, shattered look in Donna's eyes was enough. He had taken her, used her…taken advantage of her weakest moment and betrayed her.
There were no words between them. No snarky remarks about the Doctor being an alien, no apologies he could say that could even approach what he had done, that unspeakable line he had crossed. They could never go back to where they'd been before, and there was no way Donna would even imagine going forward.
They were done.
Back inside the TARDIS, he silently entered the coordinates for Donna's home. She left with only a somber look back into the ship, back into the world he had forced her from the moment he forced his lips to hers.
Maybe someday she would forgive him…but he could never forgive himself.
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So, what do you think? Brilliant, Fantastic, or Molto Benne? Or, anything you'd change? Please remember to review, thanks!
XOXO,
Bella