Prompt Word: stalkers
Disclaimer: the only thing I own here is a jar of Kenco coffee and the means to make a toasted cheese sandwich.
A/N: written for hc_bingo round 9.
Preston Road Café
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The warm autumn sunshine smiled down upon her as Donna Noble took a step into a small café and risked sitting at an outside table on the street. It was too nice a day to stay cooped up inside, and she wanted to celebrate how great she felt in that moment.
Within seconds a waiter came bustling out and offered to fetch a beverage while she perused the menu. "I'll have a white coffee and…" She cast her eyes to the menu to double check her choice. "…a toasted cheese sandwich, please."
"Certainly, madam," the waiter acknowledged, and hurried away to place the order.
Having made her choice, she sat back, sighed happily, and glanced towards the nearby crossroads. Her breath instantly stuttered in her throat.
He was there again. A tall, skinny man, wearing a suit with the absurd addition of Converses on his feet and wayward tie around his neck. What sort of idiot did that? The sort named John Smith, obviously.
Yes, she knew him. Again, sort of. A great deal about him was 'sort of'. Like he was sort of her grandfather's friend, but Gramps never spoke about him, as though he was frightened to utter a word. And yet John was obviously a good friend because he had taken the trouble to check on them all the night of the planets. It sort of suggested that John had no one of his own to check on.
There was that phrase 'sort of' again. It hung around every notion of the man.
Donna narrowed her eyes to examine him at a distance as a coffee was placed in front of her and she took her first sip. Mmmm. Tasty, if you liked that sort of thing. And she wasn't just thinking about the coffee. John had made the effort to say goodbye to her, she remembered, as if she meant something to him.
Perhaps they had been friends during the period of time she had lost her memories? She would never know until they decided to appear; if they ever would. There was a great big gaping hole in her mind, lasting almost two years of her life. Time she would love to know about but suspected was gone forever.
But John Smith lingered on, in the background. Like today, when he was pretending to be just hanging about on a street corner, right near where she sat.
Idiot! As if she hadn't been aware of him doing it before.
At first, she had been rather scared. I mean, you hear so many horror stories of women being stalked by an unknown 'admirer'. The admirer normally turned out to be a psychopathic killer, so there wasn't much true admiration going on. But John Smith didn't seem to fit that category. There was something comforting about his distant presence, as if she knew the true reason for it and approved. If only she could remember why.
When the waiter reappeared at her table with the toasted cheese sandwich she had ordered, she asked, "Do you do deliveries? Local deliveries?"
Shocked for a moment, he replied, "Yes, madam. Were you thinking of having one?"
"Yes," she confidentially replied. "You see that man standing on the corner, in the brown suit and mismatched shoes?" The waiter nodded. "Well, I want you immediately deliver to him the exact same thing as me but make the drink a tea instead. I'm paying."
"I'll arrange that for you right away, madam," the waiter agreed. "Isn't your friend going to come and sit with you?"
"Everything is a takeaway situation with him, so he'll need the order to go," she replied, "and make sure he takes it."
"What should we say to him?"
"Just say that I'm still looking after him too. He'll understand." As she said the words, she wondered how she knew that, but went with the flow. She often came out with stuff like that, especially where John Smith was concerned. It was better that she didn't query it, otherwise a migraine would lay her low in seconds to mentally beat the stuffing out of her.
He'd be back; she was sure of it, so she bit into her meal and basked in the autumn sunshine. Yes, it was a grand day when all was said and done.
And if she chose to think of her stalker as a sort of guardian angel, there was no harm in that, was there. Not when he made her feel more than safe he was around; and she could keep an eye on him in return.