Ah angst. You never leave me alone.
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who.
She always managed to make sense of everything.
He stands in the console room, arms crossed, thinking. He's always thinking, of course, but right now it is about a particular ginger, one that left the TARDIS far before her time.
He doesn't remember ever being this unstable before. This face rattles off words even faster than his previous one and says far less. She always got him to talk, though. She understood what he needed to say and listened without judgment. She would distract him at the precise moment he needed distraction, the conversation flowing effortlessly into something else...
She would have had a word or two to say if she saw River now. The more he encountered River, the more she seemed... militaristic. Full of war and guns. He hated that. And he was meant to fall in love with her? Donna would have laughed. She knew him better than that. Guns were things that the Doctor never wanted or needed. Perhaps River felt better protected this way when he wasn't around, but she never put the weapons away when he was. Did that mean she didn't truly trust him?
Amy and Donna together would have been an argument and a half. Two fiery gingers at once. One was more than enough. He almost laughed aloud at the expression that would have undoubtedly been on Donna's face when she discovered Amy coming on to him, trying to cheat on her fiance with a man from the stars. Yelling would have ensued, along with an angry, but not regretful, Amy.
Donna would have liked Rory though. Rory honestly surprised him, if he would admit it to himself. First impressions weren't Mr. Pond's strong suit, he decided. He had proved to be much more than the Doctor had first thought. The Lone Centurion, so courageous and loyal. Loyal almost to a fault, that one. Just like her. She would have liked him.
She could have kept him from running so fast. Running away from everything that he didn't know and, for once, didn't care to. Not knowing bothered him, but now it was better than actually knowing. He wasn't sure he really wanted to find out.
And for once, he wasn't just running from his past. He was running from the people there. His friends, the ones who had died and stood at his side while planets burned. He was rejecting his own memories, desperate to start anew. There was so much pain now, it was threatening to overwhelm his hearts. There had been a time not so long ago when she would have shared in his pain, given him relief, but there was no one left to do that now. No one who understood.
He slowly ran a hand over his eyes and down his face, dropping it to his side with a soft tap on his leg. Amy and Rory were asleep; they wouldn't wake for hours. He turned and walked off into the depths of the TARDIS to think.
He still needed her, whether he wanted to admit it or not.