Disclaimer: Like Wilf, I wish that the Doctor and Donna could've had their happy ending, but 'cause I ain't the BBC, they didn't.
Easiest job in the world
Wilfred Mott had always looked forward to becoming a grandfather.
The way he saw it, it was the easiest job in the world.
And from the moment he had laid eyes on his granddaughter Donna he knew there would be nothing easier than loving her. He was completely gone, what with all her pink chubbiness, shock of ginger hair and those piercing blue eyes that didn't miss a trick, even when she was small. When she gurgled and giggled in delight at finding something new, or being tickled, or her daddy swinging her up in the air – well, Wilf didn't think he could ever hear a sweeter sound. He swore that as long as he lived, he would do everything he could to make sure his granddaughter felt special and protected and loved so that she kept laughing like that.
He watched her grow up, celebrating her achievements, commiserating her disappointments, being the one she could talk to when things started to get strained with her mother. When she lost her Dad and her Nan, they'd become each other's confidants, forming their own little secret society and meeting regularly on the top of the hill to drink tea, whinge about Sylvia and gaze at the stars.
Wilf knew even back then that his Donna was restless, that part of her felt there must be more to life than temping, gossiping down the pub with her mates and dating dodgy blokes. He could see the disillusionment seep in more and more as her life rolled on unchanged and dreams remained only that.
When Donna got engaged to Lance, he had tried to be happy – even though he'd never really liked the git, bit showy and full of himself, really –because it finally looked like one of her dreams might be coming true. He wasn't really surprised when the whole thing turned into an end-of-the-world style schmozzle, but his heart still broke for his darling girl and her crushed hopes.
Yet amidst the betrayal and the embarrassment (and quite a bit of danger, too, he'd heard), something else, something big and significant and wonderful had begun, because all of a sudden he could see a spark back in her eyes, as if for the first time in a long time she really believed that her hopes were not in vain.
He'd seen it most during their hilltop star gazing sessions, where she'd look up to the sky filled with excitement and determination, and tell him about the man in the blue box that she would wait a hundred years for. Seeing the joyous anticipation that filled her then, he'd never doubted she would find him again.
She started travelling with the Doctor soon after, and Wilf watched in wonder as his granddaughter's small, self-focussed life disappeared, and the compassionate, loving woman she had always been inside start to emerge and bloom.
Whether she was happily talking at a million miles an hour, or quiet and reflective, or just plain knackered from all the running, no matter where they'd been or what they'd done or seen, each time she came back with him, she was somehow more, bigger.
Better.
She was better with the Doctor.
But now she wasn't with the Doctor, she was stuck back in the emptiness and smallness and something missing of before, and suddenly his job as Gramps had become the hardest job in the world.
Knowing what he did about what she did, everyone she'd saved, the universes where they sang of her and the Doctor, but seeing her walking around every day oblivious to it all, the light and spark gone, sometimes he wondered how he would possibly be able to keep on not telling her.
His usual cuddles and jokes and praise were a poor substitute for the truth, he knew, and they hadn't been enough to make her happy again. He wanted that more than anything, not just because she was the most important woman in creation, but because she was his granddaughter. He just wanted the best for her, and it seemed wrong that she should have to make do with anything less.
Besides, he already knew what 'the best' was, he'd seen it every time they'd popped in for tea after one of their adventures. Oh, they always denied that they were anything more than mates – best mates, mind you – but he'd seen the way they were with each other, the glances, the touches, the wordless promises of mutual love and protection that enveloped their togetherness.
He saw it and he understood it for what it really was, because it was the way things had been for him and Donna's Nan. He remembered it as the most wonderful thing in the whole world and in the end, that's all he wanted for his granddaughter, that she be able to experience the same glorious gift of love that he had had with her Nan.
He couldn't help being angry at a universe that denied his beloved Donna and the Doctor, the man who had helped her become more than she'd ever dreamed, the man he loved as if he were his own flesh and blood, the happy ending they deserved.
Instead, he shared the burden of keeping her travels through time with the Doctor a secret, to keep her safe, but Wilf wondered sometimes if this less-than life that Donna was living, if her relentless but inexplicable sadness and fading spark, was really any better than the consequences of knowing the truth.
Why was there no way for her to know how special and beautiful and brilliant and loved she was? Why was it outside the realms of possibility for her to be truly happy, for him to be truly happy, for them to escape the pain and be truly happy with each other?
Wilf felt a flash of resentment; it wasn't fair to have to be the one that lied to her everyday, to be complicit in hiding from her who she really was for the rest of her life.
And yet however hard it was for him, he knew that it was infinitesimally worse for the Doctor.
He'd sat with him in the café, watching him gaze out the window at Donna with such a naked, deep longing that it fairly made his own heart clench with pain. If the circumstances of their separation had ever given Wilf cause to doubt that the Doctor adored her with every fibre of his being, his fears were well and truly put to rest right then. He had never seen someone so tormented, so anguished, so lost. The weight of the Doctor's grief that he could never again be with his partner and soul mate was crushing the life out of him right in front of Wilf's eyes and he was helpless to do anything about it.
For the answer to his granddaughter's sadness, and the Doctor's, was so simple and yet so terrible, and even as Wilf, in tears, all but begged him to go to her so that she could make him laugh again, he knew that he wouldn't because he loved Donna more than he loved even his own life.
It was then that Wilf started to understand the curse of the Time Lord, the impossible choices where nobody won, and someone always got hurt, or died, or even worse, forgot. It was a terrible responsibility, and one that the Doctor usually had to bear alone.
Wanting to comfort him somehow, Wilf did the only thing he could, and grasped the Doctor's hand in desperate understanding, as his tears fell, mixing with the Doctor's own.
As difficult as being Gramps had become, Wilf realised that being best friend was even harder.