Donna Noble awoke in a hospital bed, with no memory of how she had come to be there. She was lying on her back with her hands resting on her stomach. A white sheet covered her almost to her chest, above which Donna could see she was wearing a light blue hospital gown. There was a dull ache in the right side of her chest and her right shoulder, but other than that Donna just felt a bit tired. A bit tired, and a lot confused.
Donna glanced around the room. There was a door right across from her bed, topped by a scrolling marquis. Donna watched as the words "10:32 AM, September 4, 2016. Good morning, Donna Noble!" slowly made their way across the screen. There was a small table and two chairs to one side of her bed, all of which were empty.
None of it was the slightest bit familiar to Donna. She had no memory of this place, wherever it might be. She didn't remember coming to the year 2016, or how she had been injured. Where was she? And where was the Doctor?
The text on the marquis suddenly flashed. The message displaying the date vanished to be replaced by the words "Nurse entering", which flashed again before resuming scrolling. A moment later the doors slid open with a pneumatic hiss. A woman with light brown hair wearing spectacles and floral scrubs beneath a white lab coat stepped into the room. She smiled professionally at Donna.
"It's good to see you awake, finally," she said, sliding into one of the chairs beside Donna's bed. "How are you feeling?"
"Who on earth are you?" Donna all but shouted, taking the smile as a personal insult. "Where am I? Where's the Doctor? What's going on?"
The woman's smile vanished under the verbal barrage, to be replaced by a look that bordered on shock.
"Try and stay calm," she said soothingly. "You suffered a pretty traumatic injury. A little bit of amnesia is perfectly normal."
"Stay calm?" Donna shouted. "I'll stay calm when-"
"My name is Joanna," the nurse said, raising her voice to silence Donna. "You are in Lanassa Colony's hospital, one of the finest medical institutions in the Prianus system. Now tell me, Donna, what's the last thing you can remember?"
Donna frowned.
"I… I was on the Tardis with the Doctor. He got a message on the psychic paper and… we landed somewhere. A space station, I think?"
"That's right. The colony is an artificial habitation – a 'space station', as you say. You and your friend showed up here about three weeks ago. We had a bit of a problem with some saboteurs, but your friend managed to clear it up for us. Unfortunately, you got caught in a crossfire and took a hit in the chest." Her face assumed an expression of concern. "We were worried we'd lose you."
"Where's the Doctor now? Can you send him in?"
"No," Joanna said.
"Why not?" Donna demanded.
"I'm sorry," Joanna said, hesitating. "He's not here anymore. He left."
"What?" That didn't make any sense. "No he didn't!"
"I'm sorry."
"He wouldn't just up and leave me stranded here!"
"He waited for a long time," Joanna said. "Almost two weeks. Didn't eat. Barely slept. We had to chase him out of here before he would do either. But we honestly didn't know if you were going to make it, and when your condition didn't change, one day he finally just… left."
"Well when's he coming back then?" He had to be coming back. He wouldn't just leave her here.
"I'm sorry," the nurse apologized again. Did the woman have to keep looking at her like that? She didn't need anyone's sympathy! She was fine! "He didn't say anything about coming back."
Donna stared at the woman, mouth slightly ajar but no sounds coming out. She was lying. She had to be. The Doctor would never abandon her like that!
"Donna," the woman said gently. "Your friend… he didn't strike me as the type to stay in one place for very long."
Donna thought about it. That much, at least, was true. With the Doctor they were always moving. There was always something else to do, something else to see, never the same old thing, day in, day out. What would the Doctor do, trapped in one place and time, with no way of knowing when he would be able to leave again and return to the stars? Maybe… maybe he would leave. But he still wouldn't abandon her.
"He's coming back," Donna said certainly.
"I… well. It's possible."
"He's coming back," Donna said stubbornly. She glared at Joanna, daring the woman to challenge her further.
"Of course," Joanna said. Then she cleared her throat. "But in the meantime, the Doctor has paid for you to have a place here on Lanassa Colony. As soon as you're well enough to leave the hospital, we can get you settled in. Now, let's have a look at you."
Donna spent the night in the hospital with the promise that she would be released in the morning. Donna couldn't see as it mattered terribly. She was stuck on this colony until the Doctor came back for her. What difference did it make if she was stuck in a hospital, or stuck in a suite?
Nurse Joanna had given Donna an injection to help with the pain in her chest and then departed, promising to bring Donna something to pass the time. A short time later she returned with a tablet-like device she said would give Donna access to a large library of books, games, and movies she could amuse herself with. And so the day passed with Donna perusing the literature of the future and trying not to think about being trapped in said future, alone, light years away from earth.
At 10:00 p.m. the lights went off in Donna's wing of the hospital, and the sounds of footsteps and carts in the hall slowed until it stopped. The hospital was still. Reluctantly, Donna shut off her tablet and set it aside, her tired eyes demanding sleep.
But unfortunately, while her eyes were ready for rest, her mind refused to cooperate. Without the distraction of her reading, her mind kept coming back to one thing: the Doctor had left her here. Why? How could he do such a thing? Had he really just been bored? And why hadn't he come back for her yet? He had a time machine – he could have been back in five minutes. What if something had happened to him? What if he never came back?
She lay there on her back, staring at the marquis over the door and chasing worrisome thoughts around her head in endless circles. The words "12:29 AM, September 5, 2016. Good morning, Donna Noble!" marched across the screen in glowing letters that offered no comfort. The letters flickered, for a moment becoming a string of unintelligible numbers, then snapped back to their original configuration and continued their trip across the screen. Donna blinked, uncertain that she had really seen it happen. She watched the marquis for a while, but the glitch was not repeated. It was close to two in the morning before Donna finally drifted off to sleep.