Summary: After an evening with Donna's mother Sylvia and grandfather Wilf, the Doctor finds her crying in the kitchen in the middle of the night.
Disclaimer: Currently am in the middle of a negotiating with Steven Moffat and the other owners of the show.
Author's Note: Well, here's another Doctor Who-Doctor/Donna fic. I hope you enjoy! Yes, still very nervous about posting here! LOL! Let me know your thoughts on it, please?
"Are you going to sleep now, Donna?" The Doctor asked Donna as they walked into the TARDIS and immediately began working on putting them into a time vortex for the night.
Donna looked up from where she was picking and peeling off the red nail polish from her nails, "Hmm…? No, not yet. I think I'll have some tea before going to bed actually." She gave a faint smile.
She'd been acting oddly all evening. He had arrived to dinner late because the TARDIS decided to act up, so by the time he had gotten there, he was an hour late and she was already this way… Quiet. She certainly had not been this way before going over to her mum's. Donna was actually very happy and excited about seeing her granddad again and telling him about all of their new adventures. However, during dinner, saying that she had said two words would more than likely be an exaggeration. Donna was being very quiet. This frightened the Doctor a bit because this was the woman who didn't know how to keep shut. She always had something to say about something. What had transpired during that hour that made his human so quiet?
"Would you like me to join you?" The Doctor offered gently. He wanted her to tell him what was wrong, so that he could fix it! But, he also didn't want to push her to the point of her shutting down on him.
She shook her head politely, quietly declining, "No, it's alright, you should rest… Sleep is good for you… Very good… You should know that, you're a doctor, aren't ya, Spaceman?" She gave him a small smile, "I'll see you in the morning, Doctor." With that, her head bowed and in a disheartened manner, she walked down one of the corridors that the ship opened up that led to the kitchen.
The Doctor watched her go and sighed. He was worried. Donna was quiet and looking very upset. Something must be wrong in the world. If he had learned anything with Donna, though, it was that if the redhead was quiet, something was definitely up! May it be that there was a full moon, though he never understood what humans meant when they said that, or that some alignment in the universe was misaligned… Whatever it might be though, she was in distress. But it wasn't like the Doctor could just walk up to her, swat her arm and say: "'Ey, what's wrong?" He had also learned that if you pushed her to talk, she would push back. She was like a little stubborn mule… But a very cute, brilliant mule. At the moment, she was in a defensive mode, if he brought it up now, Donna would surely clamp up. He had to try and get her alone; without her guards up… He hated to think it that way but, when she was most vulnerable.
The alien man heaved another sigh and realized that it would be best if he stayed up, just in case she needed him. He decided upon tickering around with the TARDIS again. The ship seemed to agree with him when there was a small spark of electricity coming from one of the consoles and some smoke. He groaned and walked over to it, beginning to work on it almost immediately.
Meanwhile, Donna had walked into the kitchen, her mind reeling with thoughts at a million miles per second... It was finally getting to her. She was being weak, she had let her guard down and now her mother's words were destroying her inside out. Often, she'd been able to deflect the woman's harsh words, but tonight, she had allowed herself, for just one moment let all of her guard down as she excitedly arrived home to tell her granddad about all of the amazing things she and the Doctor had seen during their travels. Her mother shut her up faster than toast popping out of a toaster! She began with her nagging the moment Donna entered the house with a bright smile, greeting Sylvia and Wilf.
How useless she was, how she had amounted to nothing and how much of a disappointment of a daughter Donna was to her. Maybe Sylvia was having a bad day? Whatever it may be, it definitely did not warrant for some of the words that came out of the woman's mouth.
Slowly, Donna began preparing some tea, trying to fight off the tears she felt coming on and swallowing the giant knot that was forming in her throat. As the redhead poured the boiling hot water into the mug, her vision began blurring and her nose running. She sniffed to try and stop the running and continued pouring the hot water. Then two of her tears fell, one landing on the hand that held the kettle and one landing just beside the mug. She put down the kettle and laid both her hands flat over the counter, leaning on it heavily, she took several deep breaths trying to recompose herself; trying to remind herself that what her mother had said was not true.
Quickly, Donna wiped her face and nose with the back of her hand and took a tea bag, putting it inside the water in her mug. She then carried the mug to where there was a small table in the kitchen and sat down, preparing the rest of the tea by adding honey as a sweetener and taking out the tea bag. She took a spoon and swished it all around to combine the contents inside the cup and then just watched the tea. So easily how water became tea. Just a few components and bam! You have an amazing drink that could cure ideally anything. Ideally. Could it cure her brokenness inside? Donna highly doubted it. She wasn't sure if she could ever rid the pain and brokenness inside of her. No matter how hard she tried.
She took a small sip of the tea and set the mug back down on its resting place. She exhaled in a small huff as her mind wouldn't rest; beginning to reel again. Donna could still hear her mother's voice, nagging at her as if her mother was right next to her in the kitchen that instant. She had stolen all of Donna's happiness in everything she had ever done. She always had. Donna didn't know how to make her mother stop. Did Sylvia really not know the amount of damage and verbal abuse she was causing on her first and only child? Why couldn't she just stop? Just… Stop being such a horrible person to her? Yes, she knew, she had amount to nothing, that she had been a failure all her life! She did not need her own mother throwing it into her face every time she came around!
That was when a sob escaped Donna's mouth before she could refrain and realized she was crying very hard. The tears were falling as if Niagara Falls were now in the lining of her eyes; quickly and mercilessly. She choked on her own breath as she cried harder, unable to stop. The distraught redhead pushed away the cup of tea that she had barely touched as she put her head in her hands and cried into them longer and harder. Her lips trembled whilst she panted to get oxygen to her lungs only to exhale with yet another sob. Despite her face being in her hands, she still tasted the saltiness of her tears and felt them drop into her hands as well. She continued to weep for what felt like forever… Just sitting there, alone, in the kitchen of the TARDIS. Broken.
"Oh, no! No! No! No! Oh C'mon! I just fixed that!" The alien screamed at the console of the Tardis with a huff and a groan. He came out from under the console where he was cleaning something and looked at her, "You are being absolutely impossible tonight, you know!"
The Tardis hummed and grumbled slightly. The Doctor frowned, "Well you're not helping the cause either, sunshine!"
He received a spark of electricity from something on the console as her response. His eyebrows furrowed, "'Ey! What was that for!" He got another spark and sighed, "Alright, alright. I'm sorry." He patted her gently.
But that didn't seem like enough consolation because he only got yet another spark from her and then he realized what she was trying to say to him. "Oh! Uhm,.." He brought the scanner around so that it he was able to look into it and tapped in to see what was going on in the kitchen.
What he saw tugged on his hearts and broke them into many pieces. He brought his hand up and touched the picture of the distressed woman on the video scanner, "Oh Donna…" He whispered to himself as he traced the image of her with two of his fingers.
The Tardis hummed softly again and shut off the video as if telling him to go and comfort her. "Alright, alright. I'm going." The Doctor said and walked to the kitchen.
The Doctor stood in the doorway momentarily, watching her sniff and sob. The plain sight of it just tore him up inside. Why was such a wonderfully brilliant woman crying? She shouldn't be upset, what had gone wrong? He needed to fix this or he possibly wouldn't be alive much longer. He walked inside quietly and called her name, "Donna?"
Her head snapped up toward him almost instantly, not expecting to find him there. She wiped her face quickly and cleared her throat, "Whattaya want, Spaceman?" She tried to sound as much like her usual self as possible.
The Doctor shrugged a bit as he took several steps toward her, "Nothing, just wonderin' if you were alright…"
Donna scoffed slightly, "Of course I'm alright, why wouldn't I be?"
"Well, for one thing, you've been crying..." He now stood at the side of her, his hand on the back of her chair as he leaned in slightly.
"What? I have not." She scoffed once more and got out of her chair when she felt he was getting too close.
Taking hold of the cup of now cold tea, she went to dump it in the sink. However, as she walked back, she found the Doctor blocking her way back to the table. She tried to move past him but he wouldn't allow it. She huffed slightly and was about to snap at him when he took her face into his manly-sized hands. She wasn't sure what to think of it or how to react to it. She did know that she couldn't melt into his touch despite how much she wanted to. He swallowed and then whispered to her, "Donna, I've been alive for nine hundred plus years, I think I know when someone has been crying. Alien or not. Now please, tell me what is wrong?" He lifted her face slightly, trying to look her in the eye, his eyes nearly pleading, begging her.
Something else she knew was that she could not look him in the eye. The Ginger could not bring herself to gaze into the light eyes of the man who, in her heart, had become more than just a mate. She feared that the dam would break and Donna refused to seem like just another weak human to him. Sure, she had cried in front of him before, there was the Ood and Pompeii, but this was different. Very different. This involved her heart. Oh that treacherous heart of hers. This would mean she would be letting out into the open all the turmoil she had endured over the years.
She would be letting go, allowing herself to grieve over what she could never be or have; possibly, finally, ending the internal battle that constantly conflicted her every hour of every day. The constant nagging of how she could never be good enough for anyone or anything. That gnawing feeling in your gut that tells you you'll never amount to anything. Yes, looking into his deep eyes would unlock Pandora's Box to a boundless load of emotional pain that she just wasn't ready to deal with.
And what makes you think that he'll really care anyway? You're nothing to him but someone to keep him company during his travels. Believe it, darling, he'll be disposing of you as soon as he finds a way to bring back his precious Rose. You're nothing but a failure, Donna. A temp. No good to anyone. Donna heard the little voice in the back of her head remind her. That voice that now had the same nagging tone as her mother's. That voice she had become all too accustomed; that tormented her day and night. That voice that she wanted to rip out of her mind and throw it back into the dark abyss where it had come from.
She had tried so many times; tried so hard to heal herself from her past. Ignore this voice. She had tried everything! Everything! And nothing. Nothing helped. She could only ever find solace inside the TARDIS with the Doctor. With a man that was so brilliant, so amazing that he would never be hers to claim. However, being here with him was as far away from her mother and her complaints about her incompetence, it silenced the voice in her mind to a low whisper. No matter how far away into the universe they went, the Voice always followed. Great, now she sounded schizophrenic.
Despite, the Doctor being her relief, she could never give the Doctor the luxury of knowing this. Why? Because she knew that it would be used against her. Somehow, it always was. It would make her seem weaker in front of him. What if this made him want to dispose of her sooner?
Donna kept her green eyes fixed on the color of the brown leather jacket he had chosen to wear for dinner that night, seemingly, having a new fascination with it.
"Donna?" She heard his soft, deep voice call to her with an over-abundance of concern like an overflowing cup of water under a faucet, which she did not mind.
She didn't reply. She didn't know how to and she was afraid that if she did open her mouth to let any words or sounds out, a sob would escape instead. Besides, it wasn't as if she was actually able to think clearly underneath the warm palms that covered her now rosy cheeks.
"Donna, please? Please, talk to me?" He said, using his hands to make her look up at him, even if it wasn't looking at his eyes.
Her cheeks were wet again. This was when she realized tears had begun falling from her eyes. She sniffed and brought her hands up, and wiped her face, shaking her head out of his hands and taking several steps back, "I'm sorry, Doctor." She cleared her throat, "I'm alright, really."
"Donna! Stop lying to me and tell me what's wrong!" He said more harshly than intended, but he was very, very worried about her.
"Why do you wanna know, hmm? So that you can throw it back in my face later?" She shot back, looking cross.
His eyebrows furrowed, "What? I've never thrown anything back in your face! What reason would I have for that?"
Slowly, he was learning that Donna's anger or sudden rages were defense mechanisms that he'd need to learn to get around. It was her way of protecting herself, but from who or what?
"Well, you haven't yet… But you will! One day!" She snapped; eyes fiery.
"Exactly, I haven't." He took on large step toward her and grabbed her face in his hands and forced her to look at him, "Look at me, Donna. Look at me!"
Her eyes averted from the floor up to his and they both locked. She found herself getting lost in his sea of chocolate brown. "And I never, ever will. And that is a promise I will keep. Trust me." He said gently and lowly.
She choked a bit and brought a hand up to cover her mouth as she began sobbing loudly again. Donna broke their gaze and broke free from his grasp again, quickly walking out of the kitchen before he could say or do anything. The Doctor huffed and ran a frustrated hand through his hair, pulling it a little.
He was in deep thought as to what to do when he heard the TARDIS hum to him. He sighed, "Yeah, but it's not exactly that easy, and you and I both know it." She hummed again and he let out an exasperated breath, "Look, you know her just as well as I do, do you really think she will just let me go in there and hold her tight while she cries?" The TARDIS made an odd sound and he blinked, "That… Actually could work…"
He quickly went back to the console room and found Donna there with her head in her hands. He didn't say anything to her and went directly into flying the TARDIS out of the vortex and into someplace else after punching in the coordinates of where he wanted to go. Donna looked up at him and whispered, "Doctor? Where are we going?"
"Well, you won't tell me what's wrong, so I figured I'd take you to this one place where I know you can be comforted…" He said, not looking up from the monitor.
Donna stood quickly and took several strides toward him, "Doctor, please, please do not take me home?"
The Doctor looked at her momentarily with a small smile before turning back to the monitor just as they landed a much softer landing than usual. Where was he taking her? Was he getting rid of her that quickly? He turned to her and took her hands in his as he looked at her with such a soft gaze that sent a shiver down her spine. "Trust me." He whispered and then let go of her hands.
Donna watched him with saddened, dark eyes, filled with so much emotion that they were literally just spilling out of her eyes in form of water works. She sniffed and nodded slowly then whispered to him, "You.. You can't take me home... You promised that I could... That I could stay here, with you and the Tardis..."
He gave her a faint smile that just warmed her from head to toe. He took a few more steps to her and wrapped his arms around her arms and pulled her close. The Time Lord hugged her tightly and this time, Donna didn't fight him off. The distraught redhead buried her face into his strong chest. Though she was tried very hard not to cry again in front of him, she couldn't help but breakdown right there when he kissed her head affectionately. Donna cried and sobbed harder than she had ever before in her life and all he could do was hold her close and tightly and wait until it was over.
It broke his hearts to hold her in his arms in this condition. At night, when everyone was asleep, he'd lie awake in bed wondering what it'd feel like to not have to sleep with an empty spot in his bed. What it'd be like to hold her close in the cold and loneliness of darkness and battle with any of the bad dreams that would disturb her from rest. He'd been pondering what it'd feel like to just want to hold her hand while walking down a street, just because he could. He was more than content for being there for her right then when she mostly needed him, but he also wanted to be there to make things all better and keep her happy. When she had those walls up...
He wanted her to know that he'd climb all those walls and barriers she constantly put up; thousands upon millions of them need be, he didn't care, he'd do it, if it meant that he could have her, and make her into a stronger person and see her grow and blossom into the full potential he saw in her. He wanted her to know that he could never see her as a weak woman. She was anything but. She was feisty, smart, stubborn, beautiful, incredible...
Oh Doctor... What is it with you and falling in love with your female companions? Tardis was right; you should look into having male companions more often, said a voice in the back of his head. His eyebrows furrowed. Donna wasn't just any female companion. She was his female companion, mate, best friend... Woman he had come to know and love. And loving someone means loving them through thick and thin, not just when things were happy and dandy and that's what he was doing. Loving her no matter what the circumstances and he wanted her to know this... All of it! He wanted her to know all of it! But how...?
Besides, what make you think she loves you back? Just because you're the Doctor won't get you everything you want in life, deary. Sorry to break it to ya., sweetie. She was right... The voice in the back of his head... What made him think that she did love him back? Donna was free to love whomever her heart very damn well chose to. Why would she choose this raggedy old Doctor anyway? There's not much about him that-
"I'd choose you because you're smart and you know how to treat a girl and how to make her feel special... I'd choose you because you don't... *sniff* You don't take crap from anyone and you don't let people step all over you. I look up to you for protection when no one else is there to catch me because I know you always will... Most importantly, I'd choose you because I'm in love you with as well, Doctor." Donna's shaky, hoarse voice broke through his thoughts.
The Doctor stared at her with a blank expression plastered on his otherwise handsome face. "What?" He had a look on that a child would have had they been caught with their hands in the cookie jar before dinner.
"I... Just heard everything you said, Spaceman." She chuckled, teary-eyed and sniffling.
"But how, I was..." He paused, "I was speaking out loud?"
She nodded, "Yep.. I heard every last bit of it. You were quite lost in thought there." She smiled and smoothed out what she'd been crying into just moments before, his jacket. "Sorry about that..."
The Doctor shook his head, "No, no. It's alright. Don't worry about it." He took a breath and then said, "Donna?" He gently brought her face up so that they'd lock eyes again.
"Yes Doctor?" She took a step back, though her arms were still around him and vice versa.
"I want you to know that I... I meant every word of what I thought... Said a few moments ago." His cheeks were still flushing from being caught.
"I know..." She got a bit closer to him.
"Oh you know? Good, because-"
Their lips were just inches apart from each other now and he hadn't realized it until he felt her breath against his lips as she whispered him, "Shh." Donna mustered all the courage she had left to lean up and capture his lips with hers in a tender, slow kiss.
Yes, it was true; she still had a lot of healing to do, But now... Now she had her Spaceman there by her side to help her through it all. And that was a promise he had made and intended on keeping as well.