Disclaimer: I make no claims to or profit from "Doctor Who."

A/N: A final chapter of "A Little Escapism" is coming, it has not been abandoned. In the meantime, I got caught up in a new fandom and wrote this before I knew what I was doing.

"Saying Goodbye"

by Oceana

The night before my mother died, a strange man came to visit. Mother had been ill for some time, and we all knew what was coming. There had been a constant vigil of various family and friends at the house, meeting in the living room as mother wasted upstairs. They wanted to be near her, though she tired after just a few minutes of conversation. Most visitors would just peek in on her before coming down to share stories, drink wine and feast on the various foods everyone brought.

Not him.

He arrived on 21st November, late in the evening. I was sitting on the sofa with my husband Bill, reminiscing with our latest guests about mother and what she had been like in years past. When the bell rang, everyone stopped talking.

As I went to answer time changed. Things moved slower, more vividly, and I almost expected to see him – a daft stranger I'd never met in my life – before I opened the door.

He was young. That was the only thing that surprised me, how terribly young he looked. I myself was nearly fifty and this fellow couldn't be much more than 30. He wore a blue suit with red sneakers, a fact I took in along with almost everything else. His hair was gelled deliberately to be messy, in a style from my childhood. He looked so ridiculous it made me want to laugh outright.

Instead I started crying. Before he could speak I shook my head and backed away, tears flowing. "No," was the only word I could say.

"Is everything all right?" Bill came up behind me, putting an arm protectively around my shoulders.

"I've come to see Donna," the stranger said. He had a Scottish accent, another fact my brain filed away forever.

"I'm sorry, do we know you?" Bill asked.

"No, but Donna…let's just say I'm an old friend."

"Except you're not," I said. "She doesn't even know who you are."

The Doctor remained quiet, though he looked at me with such compassion it made me want to slap him. Bill tightened his arm around me.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think this is a good time for visitors," Bill said. "Perhaps you could come back tomorrow, earlier in the day."

"No, it has to be tonight," the Doctor said, speaking to me. "I'm sorry, I am so sorry."

"Look, my wife is upset. Now is not a good time."

The Doctor didn't move, just stayed looking at me. Time moved slower, stopped, began again. And I knew there was nothing more to do.

"It's okay, let him in. He needs to say goodbye."

***

I always thought of my mother as a rather sad woman. She'd spent her career drifting between temp jobs, and my father – the only love of her life – died just a few years after I was born.

I was raised in my Grandma Sylvia's modest house. Mother talked constantly about getting a better job for my sake, or maybe going back to school, but she never did. We lived with her mother until I left for college, ten years after Grandpa Mott died.

Grandpa Mott was the reason I recognized The Doctor. When I was very young he would sit out with me at his telescope, gazing at the multitude of stars. He would tell me to keep a vigilant eye out for a blue box, flying through the sky. With time he came to expand on this idea, filling my head with fantastic stories of my mother's adventures with a strange man in this box, called the Tardis. As a child I believed them whole-heartedly and would sit with him late into the night, gazing at the stars and imagining this man out there, having all sorts of wonderful adventures.

When I was older I came to understand these stories were Grandpa's way of helping me admire my mother. You couldn't ask for a more loving or giving person than her, but she was always a bit daft about things. She seemed one step behind everyone, never quite knowing what was going on. She cared more about dieting than politics, more about celebrities than newspapers. Thanks to Grandpa as a young girl I believed my mother had traveled the stars, having daring adventures and saving lives. For my childhood years, my mother was a hero. However, as was the nature of all modern superheroes, she had lost her memory of these events and must not be reminded, lest the consequences be dire. I never quite understood this part, but I took it seriously enough as a child and as I grew up simply forgot the stories along with my admiration for her.

I was in my twenties when I believed again. I was home visiting from college one morning when my mother slept late. She rushed off to work in a rather theatrical – albeit typical – display of incompetence. Grandma Sylvia was there and I made a snide comment about how as a child I had believed mum traveled through time. Sylvia's reaction stunned me.

Grandma Sylvia was always a rather stern woman. I'd hated her as a child and grew up with her at arm's length, mum often the buffer between her criticisms and me. She was not prone to fantasy and I always believed she was the most unimaginative person in the world.

That morning when I laughed over an old fairy tale my great-grandfather used to tell, Sylvia turned deadly serious. Not only were the stories true, my knowing them posed a grave threat to mother's life.

Grandma Sylvia was mad I had been told of them when I was young, for it was true mother would die if reminded and no child should be told things she can't share with her mother. Sylvia told me after her father died she was the only person in the universe – besides that anonymous Doctor – who knew how special my mother truly was. She'd wanted to share with me but feared I might let the secret slip.

It was amazing the difference sharing a secret made. My grandmother transformed from a cold, disapproving figure into a real human being, one I could share with. There were stories Grandpa had told me she didn't know, and details she remembered from my mother's days of traveling that fascinated me. The Doctor brought us together, and through our sharing we were able to see my mother better, to see the strengths and abilities she herself had no awareness of.

Sylvia told me that the last time the Doctor saw mum she'd thought he was a stranger just stopping in. He'd never really been able to say good-bye to her. I didn't think about it then, or for years after, but I always knew he'd come back, when his presence was no longer a danger to her.

***

I brought him upstairs. The door to her room was closed. I knocked softly once before leading him in. Mother was asleep. She looked pale now, and far too thin. Her skin sagged from her face and I looked as a habit to see if she was still breathing. It had been a month since the diagnosis of pneumonia, which on top of her other ails amounted to a death sentence.

There were two nurses who alternated days, taking care of her medications, feeding and other needs. When they weren't there Bill and I shared these responsibilities. The only thing the nurses did we didn't was make certain mum got a sponge bath twice a week.

It was exhausting, watching my mother die. Part of me wondered why she was taking so long. She could barely speak now and was rarely lucid. I had a chair set by her bed, the Doctor sat in it, taking her hand.

"She's sleeping," I said. "If you want you can come downstairs. I'll make a cup of tea and we can check in on her later."

He shook his head. "I should stay with her."

I nodded, hesitating at the door. The fabled man, the stuff of my childhood dreams, here, with my mother.

"Don't…don't tell her anything." I said. He looked up at me. "It's not safe. You know. It's not safe."

He nodded. I left them.

***

I woke with a start at three in the morning. Everything was silent. Bill was turned on his side away from me, his breath soft and even. I'd sent our visitors home after the Doctor arrived, and went to bed with him still in mother's room. I got up, put on a robe and went to check on them.

I heard his voice on the other side of the door. "Oh, you were fantastic, Donna. A million million Daleks and you stopped them all yourself! Saved everyone and everything, literally, every one and every thing!"

I threw open the door. "What are you doing?!"

Mother was sitting up. She had more color in her cheeks and was laughing. It had been years since she looked so healthy. I stopped.

"Beatrice!" She exclaimed, opening her arms to me. When was the last time she used my name? A week, maybe more.

"Mum?" I stayed still.

"It's okay dear, the Doctor's back!"

"You remember him?"

"Of course! Do come here."

Cautiously I went to her side, wrapping myself in her embrace. She still smelled of medicine and sickness, and felt frail in my arms, but also wonderfully lively, like she could jump up and start dancing at any moment.

"What's happened to you?"

"Just feeling a bit better today, that's all." Her voice sounded strong, like before. The voice of the woman who'd caused scenes in restaurants and walked out on jobs just to show that she could. I hadn't realized how much I missed it.

I pulled back to look at her. "Are you really feeling better?"

She smiled and kissed my cheek. I realized I was crying and wiped my eyes self-consciously. I turned to the Doctor and instantly regretted it. His expression told me everything.

I returned my gaze to my mother, looking so vibrant and happy. "I'm glad to see you like this."

"Oh now don't be sad. I was a Time Lord once! How fantastic is that – me, the only ever human Time Lord! Doctor Donna, that's what the Ood called me. Doctor Donna! Did you know that?"

"No, I didn't."

"You were more than that," the Doctor spoke from behind me. "You saved the universes, Donna. Every universe, every world, there is not a being in existence anywhere who doesn't owe its life to you."

"I am rather fantastic, aren't I?" Mother smiled. I looked between them, awed both by the extent of her heroism and how completely I believed it.

"You are," I said. "I…I'm sorry..." I didn't know quite what I meant to say. I was sorry she couldn't have lived on forever with the Doctor in the Tardis, sorry she'd had to forget the past she did have, sorry I hadn't understood better how truly amazing she was. Mostly I was sorry we'd spent the last years watching her deteriorate with nothing but sympathy to help her along.

"It's okay," Mother folded me back into her arms, holding me tight as sobs shook me. "I had a good life, raising you. And you, my shining star, have so much to give the world. Don't bother with any regrets on my behalf."

I realized she understood everything I was thinking. Mother had never known what anyone was thinking, no matter how obvious. She was better than I'd ever seen her.

She smiled at me, still understanding. "All thanks to the Doctor-Doctor-Doctor-Doctor-Doc-" Her voice became like a stuck computer. She stopped herself with an effort and shook her head. "I'm fine dear! Please, don't worry-worry-worry."

I turned to the Doctor. He pushed me out of the way and stood over her. She looked at him not with fear, but knowing. "Goodbye Donna," he whispered. "You were fantastic."

"I know. I'm only sorry I had to forget for so long."

"You can remember now," he said. "You can remember forever."

She smiled with a radiance I had never seen – as an angel might – and a light seemed to glow in her briefly as she closed her eyes. The Doctor leaned over and kissed her forehead.

"What happened? What did you do to her?"

"She's gone now."

"Gone?" I echoed. "But, she was so much better! What did you do? Doctor? What did you do?"

He hugged me tightly. He smelled strange. Foreign. Like the sea only without salt, I thought. He held me for a long time, until I could stop shaking. Pulling away we both looked at her.

"She started to remember on her own, with me sitting here. I didn't say anything, but she wanted to remember. This close to the end, the energy of the Time Lord, it made her more alive."

"For how long? How long did you talk to her like that?"

"Only a few minutes before you came in. Mostly, I just sat with her. I think you were supposed to see."

I went over to her and stroked her forehead. I checked to see if she was breathing. After a moment I pulled the sheet over her head.

***

We sat outside on the stoop. Across the street I could see the Tardis, a blue police box looking so utterly ordinary in the middle of the sidewalk.

"How long ago did you leave her?" I asked.

"Many years now. Well before your time."

"I mean, for you. You're a time traveler. How long since the last time you saw her, when she first forgot?"

"A month, maybe."

"A month," I digested that. Fifty years – my mother's entire life – in a month. "Why did you wait so long? You could have come that day, had your proper good-bye then."

"I could have." He was quiet a long moment. "It's not easy watching friends die. I needed time."

We sat in silence. Everything seemed so different now, no more medicine and attends and feeding schedules. It didn't seem real.

"How precise can you be with that thing?" I nodded toward the Tardis. "I mean can you pinpoint to the hour?"

***

I picked my mother's ashes up at 3pm on 25th November. The sky was overcast; everything around seemed muted and gray, ordinary. My eyes found him immediately. The Doctor stood on the other side of the street with his blue box. He had a kind of electric energy about him, an alertness that drew my attention. It occurred to me just how very alien he was. I crossed to him slowly.

"Somewhere, in all your travels through time and space, she had somewhere she would want to spend eternity. Take her there."

"I will."

The Doctor turned to the famed ship of my childhood imaginings, and all the adventures beyond my ken. "Doctor!"

"Yes?"

"Thank you. For everything you've done. Mother was amazing, but she was nothing without you. I know. I know the woman who raised me and she was nothing like she was as your companion. No one else could have brought that out of her. So, thank you."

The Doctor's looked at me with startling intensity and for a moment I felt afraid. I almost took a step back.

"Beatrice, love, you just lost your mother so I'm going to say this as kindly as I can. Donna was a brilliant woman. No one else could have done what she did, no one. The only thing I ever did for her was be a friend. I didn't judge her or look down on her. Everything else, she did on her own. You got that?"

I nodded.

"Good. Don't ever doubt your mother again."

***

That night I sat on my back porch, looking at the stars. I watched them much the way I had as a little girl, head filled with wonders of the traveler in the blue box. But I wasn't thinking of the Doctor. I was thinking of my mother.