1. Maintenance
He'd let her loose in Paris.
Paris!
It was the year 2533, it was sunny and she was in Paris! With the blinking Eiffel Tower! She'd dreamed about coming to France since she was a teenager, having been intoxicated by the food, the language and of course, the tower. It wasn't really something affordable on a temp's wage, though.
Travelling with the Doctor, however, was a different story.
"I've got work to do," he'd told her, jerking a thumb back at the console. "Maintenance on the flight computer, and I might fix up that glitch with the shower system. We can't have it shooting diesel at you again, can we?"
"That wasn't funny," she accused, narrowing her eyes.
"That's why I'm fixing it! I might be a while, so go have some fun. It's Paris outside, 26th century some time. Should be a few thousand credits on your card, I topped it up for you."
She just grinned at him.
"Go on, then. Important, complicated time machine stuff to do. Have fun. Don't kiss any strangers."
Donna Noble didn't need to be asked twice.
She returned just under four hours later with more bags than her two hands could carry. She struggled to open the TARDIS doors, let alone find the key in the folds of her jacket.
"You'd never believe the bargains they had in this hat store!" she hollered into the main room, attempting to squeeze all of the bags through the small opening at once.
Usually, she would get a grunt of approval, or a not-really-bothered, "Uh-huh, that's nice..." in reply to her raving, but today, she was only greeted by silence. He didn't even offer to help!
With a huff, set down the first lot of bags on the walkway, and then squeezed the rest inside and shut the door.
It was still quiet. Too quiet. Donna frowned at the empty room, glancing up at the room rotor, which was still. Everything in the room was still.
"Oh, don't tell me you're hidin'!" she exclaimed. "I have delicate skin, you know! Not exactly made of alien like you. I don't scare well!"
She stopped blundering about when she found the Doctor.
He was in the floor, underneath all the grating, like he usually was when conducting maintence to the ship. But normally, he'd been tinkering with wires, pointing the sonic at them or yelling about their stupidity. Now, the wires were granted solitude and the sonic was on the grating above him, within an arm's reach.
He was asleep.
She was awfully glad all her springing about and shouting hadn't woken him up. It looked like he'd just dozed off in the middle of his inspection; he was leaning against the flooring panel, with his head lolling to one side. His legs were outstretched - as much as they could be, at least - and his hands were sitting in his lap.
His eyes were closed. The usual tension in his face was now all gone. The only thing moving was the rise and fall of his chest as he slept.
Donna – who was kicking herself from not bringing a camera along – had to leave him alone. It wasn't every day the Doctor got to nod off quietly for a little while, somewhere safe. Usually, he was up and about, saving worlds left and right. But today, he was sleeping, and so she quietly moved back to her room to retrieve a blanket and to dump the shopping somewhere he wouldn't trip over it when he woke up.
She threw the blanket over him, picked up the sonic and put it on in the console, and opened a good book.
2. Holiday
They stepped out of the TARDIS together, him babbling about the planet's history, "Centuries ago," he said, "there was a nuclear war here. Lasted for decades. The planet's just only started to replenish again. Look." He pointed out into the glorious blue ocean, where something resembling a dolphin dove out of the water, high into the air, and then spread its wings and flew away.
She had to laugh. "What was that?!"
He grinned in answer, offered her his arm, and they skipped down to the green sand on the beach.
"It's the only remnants of the war," he explained to her, as he laid out his coat on the sand for them to sit down. "It's not actually sand, either, it's a highly absorbent form of metal. It's very fine, though. Harmless! Just green."
"Green sand-metal."
"Yep!"
"Blimey, that's great." She hadn't sat down on his coat. Her eyes were on the water, which he assured her was safe to go in. "And the water, why's it so blue?"
He sat down, stretched, and then laid down, staring up at the sky. "Before the war, this planet was renowned for its beautiful beaches. Tourists would come from all corners of the universe to see them."
Donna Noble had to smile, but then it faded as her thoughts wandered. "What about all those people, Doctor?"
"Not many died. The tourist shuttles had been stopped for months prior to the first bomb. The rest of the population had also been fleeing, months before the shuttles stopped. The planet was dying." He gave a slight sigh. "When war did break out, it was only the soldiers. Not many of them, either. Not many were going to die for some stupid planet over a corporation argument."
After that, she'd gone to the water to get her toes wet. He pulled a book from his jacket and began reading.
It was such a beautiful day.
The sun was a welcome heat on her skin, as was the cool water under her toes.
The ocean stretched out to the horizon, its blue tendrils reaching for the pale white sky and the orange sun beyond. It was such a magnificent blue; much lighter than the TARDIS, but still as breathtaking.
All of a sudden, it stirred a few feet away, and then another dolphin creature burst out of the water and into the air, splashing her in the process.
Laughing, she called back to the Doctor, "Oi! Spaceman, look! There's more of them!"
Another three appeared from the depths of the water, and shot into the air, high above Donna and the Doctor.
Then, together, they flew overhead and Donna grinned at them. She set eyes on the Doctor as they flew over the TARDIS. He was sprawled on his stomach, completely motionless. The pages of the book were facing the blue sky.
It quickly became apparent he wasn't asleep, otherwise he'd be marveling at that sight, too.
"Of all places," she muttered, looking around, casting a look back to the endless, blue ocean.
Donna padded back to his makeshift camp, the green sand sticking to her feet and getting stuck between her toes. There, she sat down on the edge of his jacket, careful not to wake him.
She closed the book in front of him, made sure to bookmark his page, and put it to one side. She exercised enough self-restraint so she didn't bury him in the sand, pinstripes and all.
That would prompt retaliation, of course, so she was perfectly content to lie here in the sun a while longer until he woke up.
3. Captured
The lock on the dungeon door clicked shut, and the pig-like alien outside of the tiny cell snorted at them.
Completely peaceful, he'd said. Friends with the planet's population, he'd said! But no! Upon landing, they'd been grabbed and taken to the main building under arrest and he'd muttered under his breath, "Wrong century."
The pig thing turned on its heel– no, hoof. Nope. Claw? Foot? Thing-at-end-leg? Sod it. The pig thing walked away, leaving them in the wooden holding cell.
"Oi! You can't just leave us here!" Donna called to its retreating back, but it didn't turn around. It walked until it was Donna and the Doctor, alone in the detention block.
When she turned around, the Doctor was grinning.
"What're you so 'appy about?"
"Wrong century!" he replied happily, still grinning. "Ah, it's fantastic though, isn't it? Love being kept on my toes."
"We're. In. A. Bloody. Cage."
"I know! Isn't it great? You know, this species is actually quite peaceful..." He went on.
They weren't in any immediate or obvious danger, mind you. She was just bored out of her mind. And unfortunately, hours stretched into a day, so she turned to him and asked, "Okay, can't you sonic us out of here, or something?"
The other times she'd asked him about escaping, he'd told her no, because he didn't want to anger them.
"Well, they seem pretty angry! They bloody locked us up!"
"No, they're just scared," he'd replied. "If they were angry we'd be dead."
She crossed her arms over her chest, staring at the ceiling. "That's reassuring."
When she asked this time, she didn't get in answer. Instead, he was leaning uncomfortably against the wooden bars, fast asleep.
"Oh... bloody hell." She was about to slap him on the shoulder to rouse him, but one of the aliens entered the cell block and approached the little jail.
She got to her feet, moving the bars. The alien quickly explained it had all been a misunderstanding – they'd been mistaken for enemy tribe members (something about primitive clothing) – and were free to go.
It opened the door but the Doctor was still asleep. Donna went to go and wake him, for real this time, but stopped short before her foot met his leg.
They could have escaped. Totally. The blasted cell was made of wood. But the Doctor preferred to sit in here and wait for something to happen. Too bad, he missed the 'something' this time around.
"Wait, can we stay in here?" She turned back to face the alien. "Please?"
She explained that the poor Doctor rarely slept, he was so stressed, and needed his beauty sleep. She'd see them both out as soon as woke up.
The alien grumbled something about insurance policies, but left them to their shut the door as it left, but didn't lock it. She wouldn't be telling him about that when he woke up.
4. Regenerate
His hands felt almost foreign. Looking at them, it was as if they'd betrayed him, strangled him to death then and there. But instead, they glowed with golden light, casting long, ghostly shadow across his drawn face.
It was the end.
He made it to the console, the Ood's song echoing in his head, and set her gently into the vortex. For the last time.
The end.
He didn't think it would catch up with him.
Running all his life, as fast as his two feet would carry him. He only stopped to catch his breath, or to grab a wink or three before he was off again, hurtling into time and space. There had never been anything he couldn't run from, not even the Umthabrians of Illos and their three thousand horsepower flying broomsticks.
He had spent his entire life on the run. He had started running from the Time Lords, long ago, but now he would give anything to step foot back on Gallifrey, jail cell or no. Everything has its time, everything dies, even Gallifrey. Even the Doctor.
One of him, anyway.
But it shouldn't be like that. He was the last one. The winner of the Time War, which had consumed the Time Lords and the Daleks; two of the most powerful races of their time. He was the victor of all of them - the strongest, the best and the most powerful. He earned the right to control time, to bend it to his will, so he could save others where he failed to save the rest of them.
Yet, his hand glowed in front of his face, and his head pounded with the force of twin suns in supernova. His chest burned as the remainder of the residual energy spread through him, igniting, and touching every cell in his body.
"I don't want to go," he said, and finally-finally, he was asleep.
In an office near Chiswick, a single tear ran down Donna Noble's cheek.