"When did you know you loved him?" Jack asked.
"It's not that simple," Donna replied.
"I don't mind complicated."
"It wasn't love at first sight, if that's what you're hoping for. Not like the movies." She sipped her coffee, crossed and uncrossed her legs in the chair.
"I would have been surprised if it was." Jack fidgeted with the papers on his desk, but stayed focused on her. "How was it?"
"The day I met him, he saved my life."
"That's a pretty common way to start off with the Doctor." He leaned back in his chair.
"I know. I trusted him. Well, not at first. At first I thought he was a kidnapper. But later, I knew. He was kind, and amazing, and wonderful." She twirled a strand of hair absentmindedly.
"But you told him no."
"It was too much. He was terrifying."
"Yeah."
"Then I spent forever trying to find him again."
Jack nodded. "Yeah."
"And then I did, and he said I could go with him. But we were just mates, nothing more. He didn't want it to be complicated. And that was fine with me. I mean, he's just a long streak of alien nothing, after all." She smiled, remembering.
"So when did it change?"
"I dunno, it was so gradual. Maybe when we saved the world in Pompeii."
"Pompeii? You were in Pompeii?"
"Oh, yeah. Well, we were trying for Rome, but you know how it is. So, Pompeii, on volcano day," she said. "I just - didn't want him to bear the burden alone." She remembered her hands over his, his look of surprise and relief.
"Hmm," Jack said. "So it was then?"
"No, I don't think so. I knew then that he needed a partner. It was later. Maybe when I was on the Sontaran ship."
"You were brilliant, I heard," he said.
Donna smiled. "I was so afraid of letting him down, but he was so …I don't know what the word is. He believed in me." She had heard the tension in his voice as he talked her through what he needed her to do.
"He was right to."
Donna ignored that. "No, I don't think it was then. I was afraid of disappointing him, and then of losing him when he went back to the ship on his own. But I don't think it was love yet. Maybe when he told me about the family he had lost, in the war."
"He never talks about that. About before."
"Well, I had to drag it out of him, of course."
"Of course. So it was then?"
"No. I knew I cared about him, wanted to spare him pain, help him," she said.
"You did help him. I can see that."
Donna shrugged. "No, I think it was in the kitchen, with Agatha Christie. When I kissed him."
Jack nearly fell out of his chair. "You kissed him?"
"Well, it was to save his life, not a proper kiss," she said, putting her coffee cup down on the desk.
"With Agatha Christie?"
"She was there, yeah."
"So that was when you knew you loved him?"
"Maybe. I knew he thought of me as more than just a mate then." The look in his eyes afterward had given that away. "Midnight, though, I knew for sure."
"Midnight? What, like New Year's Eve?"
"No, the planet Midnight. We were separated, and he was in danger." Her breath caught, remembering. "And he was so broken, when he came back to me. His arms around me, so tight." She hugged herself, remembering the feel of him, her heart racing in fear for him, and something more. And that night, he had come to her at last, open, needing her, wanting her. And she had needed him, loved him, more than she would have believed.
"And that's when?"
"Yes. Definitely."
"Took you awhile, didn't it?"
"Yeah. What, you fell at first sight, I assume?"
Jack grinned. "Yeah, I did. But he never looked at me the way he looks at you."