Written for Dawn's Chilling In The TARDIS (a.k.a. Wyldlily, a.k.a. Miss Lily, a.k.a. person who keeps trying to kill me.). It's her birthday today! And she wanted 9/Donna being sassy. I hope I was able to oblige. Happy Birthday!
This story takes place in an alternate universe in which the Time War ended without Gallifrey going boom. Apologies for the gratuitous Braxiatel. He keeps working himself in. (Bad Braxxy, get out of my stories!)

"A witness protection program?" exclaimed the man in the leather jacket angrily, slamming down the file onto the polished mahogany desk. "You gotta be kidding me. No. No. And just in case you hadn't got that- no!"

Irving Braxiatel, current vice-President of Gallifrey, and reluctant sibling to the man sitting across from him, massaged his temples and sighed pointedly. "Look, Doctor-"

"You're not dumping a companion onto me because of- oh, I don't know, what did she even see that's so important that you need to take her out of time and space?"

Braxiatel smoothed his moustache smugly, having wanted to respond to that ever since he got the job. "That's classified information," he said with no small amount of relish.

"I was the bloody President!" the Doctor exploded, punctuating the words with a fist slammed on the table. "What's so classified that I can't see it?"

"'Was' being the operative word," Braxiatel pointed out. "You're not the President any more- ever since you tried to destroy Gallifrey in that pesky little war we had- I think the proper term is, you're on 'probation'. Perhaps you can redeem yourself."

"'Pesky little war'?" the Doctor growled. "'Probation'?! 'Redeem myself'?!"

Braxiatel steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them. "Exactly. Now, unless you want me to call up Romana, and get her to put you on another job-"

"Don't bother," the Doctor groaned. "She'll probably tell me to go sit in the ball pit for an hour or something. Where are you keeping this human woman, then?"

Braxiatel checked his comms unit. "Holding cell 201-N. Have fun."

"Fun," snarled the Doctor, and straightened his leather jacket. "Right. Fun. I'll go have fun with a random girl that you shoved into my responsibility without even a second though to how I'd actually feel. I'm sure she and I will eventually become the best of buddies. We'll go on long walks in the moonlike together, reminiscing about all of the good times that we've had-"

"Excellent plan," said Braxiatel, who seemed to be immune to sarcasm. "Now leave me alone before I actually do call up Romana."

The Doctor stomped out of the room, leaving a general aura of moodiness in his wake that probably wouldn't clear up for a week or so.

"Finally!" yelled the woman when he opened the door. "You have no idea how long they've been keeping me in here for- no explanation as to why or how, and they didn't even give me food or anything! And who the hell are you?"

She might have been considered pretty, by human standards- fiery red hair, piercing blue-green eyes, and a face that would have been beautiful if its features hadn't been fixed in a firm scowl.

"I'm the Doctor," muttered the Doctor, regretting this already. The woman poked a finger into his chest, making him rock back on his heels.

"The Doctor!" she snarled. "The Doctor! Well, isn't that great for you? What sort of name is that, anyway?"

"It's my name," the Doctor snapped back. "Most people have one. Now we've got that out of the way, what's yours?"

"Donna bloody Noble!" exclaimed Donna bloody Noble, crossing her arms firmly across her chest.

The Doctor blinked. "What sort of name is that? Did your mother swear a lot during childbirth or something?"

Donna bloody Noble sighed, throwing her arms into the air in exasperation. "It's not my name, dumbo! It's a form of exasperation- for example- I'm really bloody irritated that I'm currently on Mars or whatever alien planet you're from!"

Oh, the Doctor thought. That makes a lot of sense. Aloud, he said, "You've been placed on a witness protection program. You're supposed to travel with me until… well, until the Time Lords say so."

"Me?" Donna was staring at him with something approaching acute shock. "Travel with… you?"

"Yeah, I don't like it any better than you do. But it's either this or the ball pit… and to be perfectly honest, the ball pit is sounding rather good right now…"

Donna's hand shot out to grab his arm, fast as lightning. "Not so fast, Martian Boy. You aren't dumping me that easily. All right, fine, take me with you. I'm not staying in this cell forever."

"Fine." The Doctor led her out of the cell.

"Where are we going?" Donna Noble asked.

"To the TARDIS."

"What the flipping hell is a TARDIS?"

"It's bigger on the inside," Donna breathed, turning around. "It's bloody bigger on the inside- how does that even work!"

"Oh, very well done, you," replied the Doctor sardonically. "Well noticed. You can't have ever been the first person to make that original observation."

"Oi!" Donna exclaimed, spinning to face him. "Less of that cheek, you!"

The Doctor grumbled quietly to himself as he set the co-ordinates to where he was planning to go before he had been impolitely diverted by the Time Lords.

"Hey," said Donna, who had worked out what he was doing. "Where are you taking me?"

The Doctor sighed. "Before you were forced onto my care, I was about to go sort out a distress call that the old girl had received."

Donna glanced around. "You call this box… 'old girl'? You're not one of those motor freaks who talk to their vehicles, are you?"

The Doctor ignored her. "I'm going to go do that now, so you can just stay in the TARDIS and read a book or something."

"Read a-" Donna's mouth dropped open. "-read a book? You're not serious, are you? I'm coming with you!"

"No," said the Doctor, quite firmly he thought. "No, you're not."

"Yes," said Donna, equally as firmly. "Yes, I am."

Donna went with him.

Afterwards, the Doctor had to admit that Donna had been pretty helpful, especially during the bit where she had made the mushroom monster explode, just by screaming quite loudly at it. But he wasn't going to tell her that- at least, not to her face.

"This is your room," explained the Doctor, pointing at a door. "The TARDIS seems to really like you for some reason, so she made up a place for you to stay."

"What? This place is alive?" Donna exclaimed, stopping short. The Doctor sighed- he seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

"Yes, she's alive," he said with utmost patience. "But it's perfectly safe, don't worry- like I said, she seems to like you."

Donna had different priorities on her mind, though. "Does this mean that we're standing in her kidneys or something right now? Because that sounds really gross. Does it hurt her?"

Well, the Doctor mused to himself. That's a new one.

It was only after about six planets, saved from the brink of utter destruction/anarchy/revolution/death by flying laser-eyed turtle that Donna started to get competitive.

"You know," she said slyly, an odd sort of look stealing onto her face. "I bet I could topple an evil lunatic quicker than you could."

The Doctor nearly choked. "What? I've been doing this for longer than you've even been born. What do you mean-"

"Prove it," Donna interrupted smugly.

The Doctor stared. The side of his mouth twitched slightly, as if he was about to smile but was barely controlling himself. He spun around, and began setting the controls for somewhere new and exciting. "Fine," he said. "Fine. But I know you won't get very far alone. I'll be standing on the sidelines, just in case you need me…"

After the victory celebration, half an hour later, in which Donna was crowned Queen of all landmasses on prehistoric Earth, the Doctor finally managed to drag her away. She looked at him with a particular sort of haughtiness that wasn't going to go away for a very long time. He wondered, for a moment, where he had seen that before.

Oh, he thought, realizing that the last time that he had seen that expression was on the face of one Romanadvoratrelundar, shortly after she had fixed the chameleon circuit on his TARDIS for the very first time in a long line of arguments about whether it looked better as a police box or not. That thought was shortly followed by a really intense hope that Donna wasn't just a Chameleon Arch-ed Romana, because- to be honest, that would really, really suck.

"Oi!" Donna snapped, clapping her hands together. "Wake up, Martian Boy! Quit the daydreaming!"

The Doctor blinked. "Oh, right, fine. You can save planets faster than me."

Donna beamed.

"But," he continued. "It would probably be a lot faster if we both worked together- right?"

He was fully aware that he sounded slightly pathetic and just a little desperate.

Donna ruffled his almost non-existent hair, smiling. "Of course."

Oh good, his internal monologue cheered, trying to ignore the fact that Donna was sounding ever so slightly patronizing.

"So, what is this place?"

"It's a small colony planet called Karn- oh, bugger."

"What is it?"

"Well, it's just that… the Sisters of the Flame- they're the people that live here- they have very good reasons for hating me very much."

"What- burn the haughty stuck-up Time Lord with pitchforks, that sort of thing?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"And these Sisters- they'd be the ones wearing red robes, and looking pretty angry?"

"…how did you know that they'd be wearing red robes?"

"They're right behind you."

"…"

"And they have those pitchforks I mentioned."

"…"

"…"

"…Donna?"

"Yeah?"

"Now would be a good time to, you know, run."

"Good plan."

"When I say run-"

"-leg it!"

Much screaming and cursing followed after that.

Later, the Doctor would swear that he had only kissed Donna because of all the confusion and the relief of being alive. Donna, however, would never let the matter drop, and occasionally brought the topic up at parties- often accompanied by loud laughter from everyone present.

What happened after that, though, was neither accidental nor related at any sort of party afterwards- not even the really dirty type.

"You know," said the Doctor conversationally. "I've never done this before."

"Hm?" Donna paused in her work. "…but, you're over nine hundred year old! That's what you said, about a week ago. Do you mean you've-"

"No," the Doctor said. "I mean, never in this body. It's quite nice, actually."

"Oh yeah, that regeneration thingamajig." A beat. "Ooh, that felt really good. Do it again?"

The Doctor obliged.

What followed next, after the discreet cutaway, was the obligatory walk along a sandy beach in the moonlight so they could reminisce about all of the good times they had.

There was a long, awkward silence.

"Donna?" said the Doctor.

"Yeah?"

"Have we actually had any good times?"

"You mean, apart from last night?"

The Doctor almost blushed. "Yeah, apart from last night."

Donna considered. "No."

"Oh," said the Doctor sadly. "That's a bit of a shame."

"Yeah," said Donna, actually meaning it. "It is."

"Well, we could-"

"What?"

"I only meant, we could go and-"

"-have some fun?"

"Yeah."

"Sounds good."

"Why not?"

So the Doctor and Donna went off to have some fun that was entirely non-related to the bedroom. And everything was happy and fun and stuff until next Tuesday.

Next Tuesday, Irving Braxiatel appeared in the middle of the TARDIS console room, and Donna screamed and threw her hairbrush across the room, hitting him in the eye.

"There's no need for that," he complained, rubbing the side of his face. "I was only calling to say-"

"DOCTOR!" Donna shrieked. "There's a strange bloke with a moustache in the console room and he looks like a corrupt politician!"

"Now that's just rude," Braxiatel began, but was whacked by Donna's hairbrush again. He went down like a sack of bricks.

"Shut it, corrupt politician!" she yelled. The Doctor came dashing in.

"What is it?" he yelled. "Has another Betelgeusean monster broken in to eat all of our strawberry marmalade? I've still got the paintball gun somewhere- oh, hi, Irving."

"Hello, Doctor," said Braxiatel. "Would you mind telling your human pet to stop throwing that instrument of war at me?"

"It's a hairbrush, dumbo," Donna scowled, folding her arms. "What do you want?"

Braxiatel struggled to his feet. "I was just dropping in to let the Doctor know that the witness protection program has been terminated. You, Ms Noble-" he pointed at Donna. "can go home."

"No," they both said together, which startled Braxiatel. He raised an eyebrow.

"I'm sorry?"

"I'm keeping him," said Donna possessively, gripping the Doctor's arm firmly. "He's mine now, and I'm not letting go."

"Don't I get a say in this?" the Doctor muttered, squirming a bit.

"No," said Donna firmly.

So Brax went off to help run a planet once more, and they all lived happily ever after. Except when the Doctor found Donna's chocolate supply and she got all mad at him for eating several kilograms more than he could handle. But even so, they lived happily ever after. After that.

The End.