[Not mine, as per usual - everything belongs to the BBC. Rating is subject to change. All reviews will be cherished immensely.]
"Stay"
Part One
For a nine-hundred year old, the Doctor's memory truly was fantastic. Most days he was quite prideful of it. He could recall an entire galaxy's history in an instant, pulling nearly impossible faces and names and figures from seemingly endless stores of information. Most of the time this served him quite well; he could find customs that interested him, planets that needed him, and all the clever words he needed to save himself in the nick of time. Tonight, though, he loathed that impenetrable memory.
Donna Noble.
The woman is everywhere, he thought as he avoided yet another world that brought his former companion to mind. Those oceans? Far too blue for his liking. Donna would have spent all eternity there, drinking colorful drinks by the purple crystal beaches and reading trashy romance novels. Knowing that, seeing the image so clearly in his mind, made him ache with misery. Abducens-5? No, Donna would never forgive him for going there and shopping without her. Besides, everyone on that planet is ginger and he knew he wouldn't have been able to stay there for long without missing her fiercely. Almost every trip went like this… it had been a month without her, one long month, and not for a single moment had it gotten any easier.
Now, sadly, he was traveling back to the one planet that reminded him of his loss the most – Earth. Martha was marrying and he had been threatened with bodily harm if he didn't attend. He was delighted for Martha, of course. When he'd debated accepting her invitation it wasn't because of her or her affianced – it was because he'd be a little less than a long walk away from Donna. He felt bad that his feelings for other people always seemed to affect the proud Martha Jones more than anyone else but much to her credit, she hadn't seemed to let it faze her at all. Not since she'd deemed it necessary to stop traveling with him, anyway. All for the best, he supposed. Martha was a great girl.
"Maybe that's your problem, then," a voice chimes in out of nowhere. "She's just a girl, isn't she? They both were, her and Rose."
He whipped around in utter shock, losing his footing and falling over as the TARDIS found her footing on Earth's solid and unforgiving ground. His shin gave a sharp wince as it hit a lever on the way down. His pant leg tore and skin broke but he hadn't noticed. All he noticed was the brusque voice still echoing off the walls.
Had he really heard that?
The TARDIS whirred happily around him, seemingly unaware of her pilot's psychological upset, before letting out a series of chirps he'd never heard before. He jumped up, huffing as he examined her controls. What in all the worlds had happened to his TARDIS? There wasn't a sound in her that he hadn't heard hundreds of times before – the fact that she was making all new ones disturbed him more than he wanted to admit. Something was wrong. Something was definitely, definitely wrong.
"Oi! That's her doorbell, you dunce. Not a malfunction."
He jerked his head around, shocked to see another person on the bridge with him. Not just any other person – but this particular person.
His jaw dropped.
"Donna?!"