The beginning of this story is set before Journey's End, before Donna moves in with Shaun or gets engaged. I had the idea for this story circling in my mind for about a year now, and I finally got it all down. I'm sure there are a few stories similar to this one, but I truly felt like I had to write it.
Stepping out of the police phone box, she and the man looked around and smiled appreciatively at their surroundings.
"And this," said the man, "is the planet of Barcelona."
"Barcelona?" she asked. "But isn't that the one you took her to? Your...friend?"
He nodded, eyes saddening for just a second. "Rose," he said, then smoothed back his hair in a vain attempt to flatten the voluminous brown locks. "Well, come on. Dogs with no noses. Allons-y!"
"Allons-y!" she chuckled, slapping him on the back. He wobbled his head like a proud puppy and headed off down the hill, spraying sand in all directions with each step.
"Hold up, Spaceman!" she called after him. "I'm gonna go change! It's bloomin' boiling out!"
"Ooh, it's not that bad!" he chided. "Though you should maybe grab a swimsuit, if you got one. The beaches here are to die for."
She closed the blue door behind her and stepped lightly past the console to find her suitcase, when a hand closed around her forearm. Whipping around, she opened her mouth to yell at her travelling companion for giving her a fright, but instead found herself facing a different, yet eerily familar face.
The woman was blonde, with a kind, pretty face that was staring at her with the most sorrowful of expressions.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Wake up now, Donna," the woman said.
"Wait..." Donna said, "Wait, I know you."
"You shouldn't be dreaming about any of this," the woman said in response, ignoring Donna's words. Donna shook her head and backed away from the younger woman, whose face started to change. She grew taller, and her hair shortened and turned a darker brown. The man from before stood there, eyes blinking away tears.
"Oh, Donna Noble. I am so sorry. But we had the best of times. The best." There were tears in his eyes as he said the last word. "Goodbye."
"No!" she shouted even as his hands touched her temples and everything faded away. "No. No, please! No!"
She awoke with a start, tears streaming down her face. She was in her old bedroom, in her mother's house. She hadn't yet moved in with her groom-to-be, Shaun, but boxes and suitcases of her things lay all around the room, stacked in small mountains and towers atop the shaggy beige carpet.
"Donna?"
She looked to the doorway to find her granddad, Wilf, looking in, concern painted across his features. She smiled to put his mind at ease and brushed at her cheek.
"Just one of my dreams again," she laughed half-heartedly. "Did I call out?"
"You always do," he muttered, then brought a smile of his own to his lips. "Come downstairs, then. We have company!"
"Oh, no," Donna groaned. "Granddad, I haven't done anything with my hair! Or makeup!"
"Five minutes then, sweetheart. Meet you down there. Oh, and, I'll tell your mum you've already been down and eaten." He grimaced. "She's making her egg-white thing again. I swear it smells even worse than last time."
Donna laughed and got to her feet, grabbing a summer dress - white floral patterns on a grey background - and pulling her hair back into a thick ponytail, leaving her red bangs to curl over one side of her face prettily. Later that day she was going to meet some friends for drinks, so she didn't want to look like a trainwreck.
Stepping out her bedroom door, she paused. The dream she'd so quickly woken from came back to her for a second, but in vague, fading glimpses. The man's face and the blue box... It was nonsense, of course, but why did it feel so achingly familar?
Voices drifted up from the living room as she walked down the stairs.
"It is good to see you, sir." said Wilf.
"You did call me, you know." This voice she couldn't place right away, though she certainly recognized it.
"Well, yes, of course, but speaking on the phone isn't the same thing, now is it? Did I tell you she's gotten engaged?"
A pause. "He is human, this time around, isn't he?"
Wilf laughed. "Of course. I did quite the background check you know. Nothing but the best for my Donna."
"Talking about me again?" Donna asked, entering the room.
Wilf and the man with him turned around, looking sheepish at having been caught. Donna looked the man over - tall, ridiculously skinny, and crazy brown hair. She frowned.
"Look, I'm sorry, but, have we met before?" she demanded, trying to place the freckles, the eyebrows, the quirky grin. He smoothed back his hair and it almost clicked into place when Wilf spoke.
"You remember Mr. Smith, don't you, darling?" He exchanged a strange glance with the other man. "He came by after the last spaceship incident, don't you remember?"
"You and your aliens," Donna said, rolling her eyes. To the newcomer she said, "don't mind him. He's convinced that all this 'cybermen' and 'disappearing planets' stuff is extratarrestrial. Him and every other bloke on the block, that is."
Mr. Smith just smiled. "Weeell, I wouldn't call myself an expert but the world is a strange place, isn't it? There could be anything up there. Whole other worlds." He looked away for a moment, staring off into space. "Then again, I could could be wrong. There's probably nothing. Plain old Earth with its spectacular little human people wobbling around on those two legs of theirs. Ours. With nothing at all to worry about. No monsters under the bed, no mysteries to be discovered, right?"
"Yeeeaah," Donna said, nodding slowly at this strange man and his stranger outburst. "Okay. I'm just gonna pop into the kitchen to see how mum's doing."
As she entered the hall, she heard Wilf sigh. "I miss her, Doctor. The real her."
Donna paused. Why did he call him doctor? In fact, since when did Wilf know a young brunette doctor anyways?
"I'm sorry. You know I am. But I can't return again after today. I've given you his number though. Call it when you think she needs another...checkup."
"Absolutely, Doctor. Thank you."
There was a brief silence before the doctor came out into the hall and saw Donna standing just outside the doorway. Smiling sadly, he lifted one hand from the pockets of his coat in a small goodbye gesture. Then he turned and made to go out the front door. To leave.
"Doctor."
The man stilled but didn't turn back to her. She heard him swallow and inhale slowly.
"Donna."
"I - " She shook her head. What had she been going to say? "I just wanted to say goodbye. You aren't coming back. Isn't that right?"
His head bobbed in a nod. "I'm sorry. I have to go."
She exhaled sharply in way of laughing. "You don't have to be so sorry about everything, you know. I'll be fine without you."
She meant it as a joke, but the doctor turned anyways and smiled gratefully at her.
"One more thing?" he asked her, smile wavering. "You are an incredible person. And so important. Not just a fantastic temp, but so much more. Believe me. And...well...don't you forget that."
And then he was gone. A few minutes later, she heard a strange noise that made her pause in the conversation she was having with her mum. Her mother perked up too at the sound, looking alarmed, but Donna just shook her head and took an Advil. All those nightmares were giving her headaches.
...
"That's what I'm telling you," Donna said at lunch later that day. The three of them were sitting in a corner booth in their favourite pub, sharing a round of chips. "I've only met the guy twice, and here he was, giving me a pep talk on his way out the door!"
"Maybe you have met before, and you just passed him over before." This was Jack, the oh-so-handsome best friend of Martha. Admittedly, both girls had fancied him in the past, and he and Martha still innocently flirted. Only when Mickey wasn't around, of course. But Jack was a player and he played all kinds of games with all sorts of people, and Donna had Shaun now. There was no point in carrying on with a silly crush on a friend who would never have been hers.
"It is possible," Martha chimed in. "You do miss quite a bit."
They all laughed a little at that.
"Have you told Shaun about this mysterious dark stranger yet?" Jack asked. Donna gaped at him.
"Why sir, you offend my ladylike sensibilities," she scoffed.
"When did you get those?" he retorted. Martha rolled her eyes.
"Why I never," Donna said. "Anyways. Nah, he definitely wasn't my type. Too skinny, way too much product in his hair. And it was just strange is all. Just strange."
Jack and Martha exchanged a glance which Donna couldn't interpret, and so instead she brought up a new topic.
"So where's Mickey today?" she asked Martha. "Working on another project?"
Martha nodded. "Sort of. He's researching, actually. But he'll be taking the train back tomorrow."
"Cardiff?" Jack inquired. Martha nodded again and Jack groaned sympathetically. "It's like a nonstop thrill ride up there, ain't it?" he laughed.
"I don't get what you two are so busy with in Cardiff," Donna said. "Let me tell you, I have been to Cardiff, and there is no way it is as exciting as you three always make it out to be. I mean, besides the filming that's usually going on."
Another knowing look was exhanged. Donna could feel the annoyance rising. Before she said anything however, their waiter came by. Jack checked him out blatantly, and the young man definitely noticed.
"This just arrived for you, miss," he said to Donna briefly, then to the group: "Will there be anything else?"
"Yeah, actually," Jack said. "Can I maybe get..." he spared the bar menu a quick glance before grinning at the waiter. "A date?"
The waiter at least had the decency to look surprised, despite the fact that he and Jack had been undressing one another with their eyes the whole time. "Come again?"
"Again?" Jack asked with a glint in his eyes. "We're getting ahead of ourselves. But I didn't get your answer. What time do you get off?"
This time the man smiled. "Now who's getting ahead of himself?"
Martha pursed her lips and wrote somehting down on a bit of napkin before sliding it over to Donna. The innuendos are strong with this one, it said. Donna covered her mouth and tried not to giggle.
The second the waiter had ducked back into the kitchen the girls started laughing. Jack merely shrugged and leaned back in his chair, looking pleased as punch.
"So is that from Shaun?" he asked. The laughter stopped as Donna spied the paper bag at the edge of the table. There was nothing in it but a book with a plain blue leather cover - Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. Opening it, she found a handful of pressed, tiny blue flowers and an inscription.
"'To my noble friend," she read aloud. "'Congratulations on your engagement. Temply-Noble, huh? Not bad. I wish you all the best. And before I forget I have one request: leave this book to your daughter one day so she can pass it down the line. It has to go to a library one day.' Well that's just odd," she said, flipping through the rest of the book looking in vain for some clue as to who the gift-giver was.
"Forget-me-nots."
Donna looked up, exasperated. "What?"
Martha was tearful as she picked up a flower that has fallen out. "These are forget-me-nots."
Donna stared at her crying friend in utter confusion. Shaking her head, Martha excused herself and disappeared into the ladies' room. Jack just pursed his lips and smiled strangely.
She couldn't help but get the oh-so-familiar feeling that she had missed something.
...
"Rosie, get back here!"
Donna groaned. "Oh, Shaun, go get her, please. She'll get herself covered in mud and my mum'll murder me. That's her new dress!"
Their daughter, at only five years old, was a wild young thing, always running off on her own adventures, to which Donna and Shaun were not privy. She climbed a tree once and fell, spraining her wrist, and she didn't even cry. In fact, she said it 'could have been worse' and to 'not worry so much, Mummy'.
"Are we going to get that girl to babysit her again tonight, then?" Shaun asked as he lifted a giggling Rosie from a damp, moss-ridden log.
"They should really clear that away," Donna said. "No use leaving it in a park where children play all the time."
"Sweetie?" Shaun said, laughing a little as his wife's absent-mindedness.
"Sorry. Yes. Clara, right? I like her."
"I like her souffles, personally," Shaun said.
"Yeah," Donna said, looking at his tummy pointedly. "I know."
He opened his mouth to retort, but a shout from beside the playground stopped him. They swung around to see a tall, gangly man jogging towards them.
He looks like a baby giraffe, was Donna's first thought. The second was where on earth did he get that get-up? The man was sporting a sort of eccentric college proffesor's outfit, complete with tweed jacket and garish scarlet bowtie.
They didn't notice Rosie had run towards the stranger until she was right beside him. He pointed what looked like a torch at her, looking almost fearful. He clicked a button on it and the thing buzzed as he scanned her with it. Satisfied, the man folded his arms and leaned forwards to look Rosie in the eye.
"Why, hello," he said. "I like your pigtails, miss. Just the other day, or well, millenium really, I was saying to myself, Doctor, pigtails are cool. People should really start putting their hair up in pigtails more - "
"Oi!" Donna shouted. The man glanced up with a smile on his face, which faded fast as he straightened and adjusted his bowtie. "I - er - I was just leaving actually. Another time, then."
"Wait a second, mate!" Donna said, striding towards the man without slowing. He backed away a pace or two and swallowed visibly. Shaun caught up to them and took Rosie by the hand.
"Where did you get that?" Donna demanded of the man. He blinked, surprised by the question and she pointed at the metal object in his hand. He raised it and offered it to her hesitantly. Snatching it up, she examined it, but didn't touch any of the buttons.
"Donna," Shaun said.
"I know what this is," she said, memories flicking about like shadows cast by a candle at the back of her mind. Half-forgotten dreams resurfaced.
"Donna," said the man.
She blinked. "How do you know my name?" she asked. The man's smile returned, conspiratorial this time, as if he were about to share a secret with her.
"We met a few years back. I've had some work done, gained some height, grew new hair... I don't expect you to remember me. It's good to see you, though. Glad to see you doing so well."
Donna frowned. "Hold on a minute. You know Clara, don't you? I saw you outside the house with her the other day."
"Oh, yes, well, that wasn't me. Well, it was me, but not yet. Sorry. Yes. You saw me. Friends of friends, I suppose. Small world."
She nodded. "Right. Um, here." She handed the screwdriver back to him. Screwdriver? she thought. The thing doesn't even look like a screwdriver. Where did that come from?
"Okay," he said. "I must be off. Places to see."
Rosie let go of her dad's hand and trotted up beside Donna. "Good-bye, Doctor."
"Rosie," Shaun chided, taking her hand again.
The man fidgeted. "Rosie," he said. "Beautiful name."
Shaun nodded proudly. "Donna chose it. It's short for Rosaline."
"Do you still have bad dreams?" the Doctor asked Donna suddenly. She shook her head slowly. She hadn't had a nightmare in weeks.
"Ah, good. Great. Molto Bene. Wait, no, sorry. Old habits, you know. They die hard."
With that, he turned on his heel and marched away. "I'll be around," he said, looking over his shoulder at the trio. "Small world, we're bound to meet again. Till then, stay cool!"
Rosie was already back to skipping through the trees, followed closely by Shaun. She felt oddly happy and sad, as if she'd just finished a great book or a moving film. It started raining a few minutes later, and they headed home. As she strapped Rosie into her car-seat though, she heard a fading sound that she often heard in her dreams, and she smiled.