Author's note: This was inspired by a prompt given to me by one of my friends, which was "River (the water source, not the character). Books. The spears of sunlight as the light glints off the water's surface." I took it and ran, and this was the result. However, I do not own or have any claim to Doctor Who or any of its characters. Enjoy!
The Doctor and Donna sat side by side along the banks of the Seine. Donna had collected a handful of small pebbles and was idly flicking them, one by one, into the clear waters of the river. The Doctor, as was his habit, simply sat quietly and watched the people passing by. Occasionally, Donna would look over and he would have a small smile on his face, almost as if he didn't realize it. After the fourth time she looked over to see him grinning, she nudged him with her elbow.
"Oi. What's got you in such a cheerful mood all of a sudden?" she asked. He turned to her and grinned outright, like a cheeky schoolboy.
"Why shouldn't I be cheerful?" he said, beaming. "Look around!" The Doctor spread his long arms as wide as they could stretch. "Look at all the people! Just look at them! All dashing about, trying to get from point A to point B as fast as they can, and never paying attention to what's around them. You people. You're just funny like that." Donna cocked an eyebrow in confusion.
"And this is a good thing…how, exactly? You're the one always complaining about how people never notice things. Why is that suddenly amusing now?" The Doctor flapped a hand at her in dismissal, as if to say, That's not what I meant; never mind. She pursed her lips in mock irritation. "Come on now, out with it. Why does this suddenly make you happy?"
"I'm not happy that people don't notice, Donna," he said with a sigh. He pointed across the river, to an older couple standing together on a bridge, gazing down into the water. "Look at those two." She looked at him blankly.
"And?" The Doctor stared at her in disbelief.
"What, you don't see it?" Donna shook her head. "They've noticed, Donna!" he said with fervor. "They've stopped because they're really looking. Out of all you people and your busy lives and your hurried existence, some people notice. Some people stop on a bridge and take a minute to truly appreciate the amazing thing that your world can be." He paused to watch the couple, smiling all the while. "And why shouldn't they? Those two are standing on a bridge, watching the way the sunlight hits the water and splits into a million spears of glinting light, and why shouldn't they? Brilliant painters like Monet and Renoir were fascinated by the same exact image on this same river." He stopped speaking as the couple joined hands and started walking across the bridge, and didn't take his eyes from them as they passed out of sight. Donna looked at him curiously.
"So you like it when people notice, then? Is that what all that boils down to?" He grinned and shrugged his shoulders.
"Your world is beautiful. I like it when people notice that," he said simply. Donna just smiled and shook her head, mostly out of fondness.
"You're an odd duck, I'll give you that," she teased. The Doctor looked at her, obviously confused.
"I'm…not a duck? I'm a Time Lord. You know that," he said, his eyebrows drawn together as he tried to puzzle out the meaning behind her words. She just laughed and swatted him on the arm.
"I just mean you're funny, that's all," she chuckled, and tossed another stone into the river. They sat in silence for a time, watching the play of the light on the water and the current pass them by. Then Donna nudged the Doctor again and pointed across the river at a young woman with a book under her arm who was leaning against a guard rail and apparently just staring at the Seine, smiling all the while. "What about her?" The Doctor, who had been lost in his own thoughts, jumped and looked at Donna.
"What about who?" he asked. Donna pointed again.
"What about her? The woman with the book. Is she noticing?" The Doctor followed her outstretched arm to find the young woman now leafing through the book she held, but still periodically gazing at the shifting river. He looked, shook his head once, and then started to stare. The woman was young, yet held herself with a poise that suggested a much older age. She had blonde hair and an open, cheerful face, and was wearing a straw hat with a wide brim. Periodically between reading from her book and scratching some notes with a pencil, she would simply stop and look around at her surroundings, smiling faintly all the while. Donna poked the Doctor's arm, first gently then with more force. "Oi! Doctor! Doctor! What's gotten into you?" He jumped up and grabbed her arm to help her to her feet.
"We have to go. Now," he said, panicked. Donna stood her ground.
"Why? What's going on? I'm not going anywhere until you tell me why I have to leave. You said we could actually stay and rest a while. What's gone wrong?" she demanded. He paced in a circle, nearly running, then stopped dead and pulled a small leather-bound book out from an inside coat pocket. Donna thought she read "500 Year Diary" in gold-embossed letters on the cover before the Doctor flipped it open.
"If I'm right," he said, rifling through the book's pages, "And I think I am—no, I definitely am—I may have just caused a teeny-tiny temporal paradox. We need to leave now." Donna folded her arms and stayed still.
"I'm going nowhere until you explain instead of dropping hints, Doctor," she said stubbornly. He threw his hands up in the air and, instead of explaining, shoved the diary back into his coat. As he placed his forefingers on his temples, he closed his eyes and gently, ever so gently, reached out with his mind. For a split second, his mind brushed the thoughts of the young woman across the river and he knew. He knew her. He knew her thoughts and her memories almost as well as he knew his own. As his eyes flew open and he staggered backwards, he whispered her name.
"Romana?"
Donna caught him as he almost fell, and made sure he was back on his feet before demanding answers. "Doctor! What's going on? What on earth are you doing? Why've you caused a temporal paradox? Why are you babbling about Romans?" He waved her off and set off at a jog for the road.
"Come on, Donna! I'll explain as we go!" She grumbled to herself, but reluctantly followed. She caught up as they both reached the sidewalk, and grabbed his arm.
"Explain. Now." The Doctor sighed, and began to explain as best he could.
"When I asked the TARDIS to bring us to Paris, she did exactly that, but she took the easy way out." He shook his head, smiling. "Silly old girl." Donna snorted.
"Blame it on the TARDIS, sure. What happened?" she demanded.
"Well," the Doctor said slowly, "We did end up in Paris. But…"
"But?"
"It's a Paris we've—well, I've—been to before. Specifically, it's a when AND a where that I've already visited. It was a long, long time ago, and I've been through more than a few faces since then, but I've been to this exact time before. The TARDIS must just have used the time and space coordinates from my last visit to Paris, and so we ended up here." Donna nodded, understanding.
"So you've accidentally crossed your own time stream and have to leave before you run into yourself, right?" The Doctor grinned and bopped her on the nose.
"Right you are! I knew there was a reason I keep you around," he said with a laugh. Donna grinned at him.
"I know, I'm just smart. Also, I do wood. And your sonic doesn't." He frowned at her, half-mockingly.
"Don't diss the sonic, Donna! Just because it doesn't do wood—" She cut him off mid-sentence.
"Yeah, it doesn't, but I do. So you've got nothing to worry about as long as I'm around." They stopped as they reached a busy intersection, and Donna continued talking as they crossed the street. "So I get that a past version of you is running around here and you don't want to meet yourself, but why were you talking about Romans?" The Doctor looked at her blankly for a second, then threw back his head and laughed.
"Romans! No, no no no, not Romans, Donna! Romana. It's not a what, it's a who. Or more specifically, a she. A very particular she." Donna raised an eyebrow.
"Ooh, a she? And a particular one at that! Sounds like you know her pretty well, Doctor. Something you're not telling me?" she teased. He raised an eyebrow.
"There are so many things I'm not telling you, Donna Noble, that it would take years to tell you them all." She shrugged off his momentary seriousness.
"I've got time. So who's Romana? Is she another one of your lady friends like me and Martha and—" She paused for a second before saying the next name. "—and Rose?" The Doctor looked out at the Parisian street, remembering.
"Well, yes, and also no." He stopped, trying to think of the best way to explain exactly what—exactly who—Romana was. "She did travel with me for a time. But in the beginning, I didn't exactly ask her to come with me, you understand. She was…almost foisted on me, you could say. There was this…thing, you see, that I had to find, scattered all across the universe, and…" He decided not to try to explain the White Guardian to Donna today. He knew if he started talking about universal Guardians, he'd never hear the end of her questions. "And someone thought she should go along with me and help me find the pieces we were looking for." He smiled, remembering their search to find the Key to Time. "And then, once we'd found it, she decided to stay and travel with me for a while." His smile faded. "But eventually she decided to stay behind in a parallel universe, and I traveled on. I never knew how she returned home, though. I only wish I could have left her with her TARDIS instead of just K9. K9's a good dog, but he's no TARDIS." He lapsed into silence, and Donna crinkled her forehead as she tried to process this information dump. Finally, she spoke up with just one question.
"Her TARDIS? What do you mean, her TARDIS?" The Doctor looked at her, surprised.
"What? Didn't I say?" Donna shook her head firmly in the negative. "Oh. Sorry. Romana is—was—like me, you see." She gestured at him to elaborate. "Gallifrey was her home too, Donna. She was a Time Lady." Donna stared at him for a few seconds, and then burst into impassioned speech.
"But you said nobody was left but you? But I just saw a Time Lady! Couldn't you go back and take her with you now? Then you wouldn't be—" The Doctor stopped her with a finger to his lips.
"Sssh." They had reached the street corner where the TARDIS was parked, and he rummaged around in his pockets until he found the key. "It doesn't work like that, Donna. If I take her with me now, I change her future. I change the past. That's definitely a temporal anomaly, and those have the potential to swallow the whole universe. If a fixed point in time is tampered with, everything could just…end. I don't want that to happen." He pushed open the doors and walked into the TARDIS as Donna dashed after him.
"BUT—" The Doctor whirled around and placed two fingers on her lips.
"No, Donna. I can't. I wish I could, but I can't." He lowered his hand. Unexpectedly, he smiled. "She has a truly amazing life ahead of her. How could I selfishly take that away? Let her read her book by the Seine. She has so much in store that she can't even imagine yet." He stepped back to the TARDIS console and started fiddling with the controls. Donna walked up behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder.
"You okay?" she asked. The Doctor looked up at her and grinned.
"Never been better!" he exclaimed, though his smile was a little forced and his laughter didn't reach his eyes. "Now, where do you want to go? There's the singing fields of Orieros, or the glass forests of the Carpistian Galaxy, or Krepsbox, the planet with the supernova for a sun. What strikes your fancy?" Donna smiled and thought for a minute.
"Why don't you let the TARDIS decide?" she asked. "But not Paris."
"Randomized it is, then!" the Doctor shouted, and flicked some switches. "Hold on tight, now!" He grabbed a lever and pulled down with all his might. "Allons-y! Next stop, anywhere!"
As the TARDIS faded away from the Parisian street corner, the (relatively) young Time Lady turned away from the river as a tall man with curly brown hair and an impossibly long scarf strode around the corner. "Ready to go, Romana?" he asked with his irrepressible toothy grin. She closed her book and walked away from the Seine as he approached.
"Always ready, Doctor. Shall we go?"
The Time Lord and Time Lady walked off into the city, striding forward into their futures.