It would have earned him a smack, only she'd seen the look on his face after they'd found him sitting handcuffed next to River Song's body.
No, the Doctor wasn't all right, Donna thought, as she watched him at the TARDIS console throwing the switches that sent them far away from the Library.
And neither was she.
And neither were they.
There was nothing she could do to ease his grieving heart, or her own. Only time would balm those wounds. But what was wrong between them – that needed sorting. Now.
"You sent me away."
The Doctor glanced up from his contemplation of the monitor and arched an eyebrow. "What?"
"You sent me away!" she repeated, more forcefully. "Or tried to, anyway. With that transmat thingy," she added in response to his blank stare.
He looked pained. "Donna, I told you, without a pressure suit you had no defense against the Vashta Nerada. It wasn't safe for you!"
"Wasn't safe for you either," she retorted sharply.
"Safer for me than you."
She bristled. "Why's that then? Cos you're Mr. Superior Species, an almighty Time Lord, blah blah…"
"Time Lord, yeah," he snapped in annoyance.
"What – you had a special invisible space suit, then?" she continued mockingly. "Some kinda fancy shadow repellent to keep them off you?"
This time he didn't respond to her sarcasm. Instead he stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked away from her, gazing down at his scuffed red trainers.
Donna stared at his angular profile. He looked tired, so desperately tired. Nine hundred years old – he'd been through so much. He'd watched River Song die today. How many others had he lost?
But he still needed someone. She'd been right about it then and was right about it now. "I thought we were mates," she said softly.
The Doctor's head jerked up. "We are!"
She thought of Pompeii – of standing beside the Doctor, her fingers on his, together pressing down the lever that blew the volcano. Twenty thousand lives – gone – their blood on her hands.
She would do it again.
Just as she would willingly face the shadows – even the nasty, creepy, flesh-eating kind – as long as he was by her side.
Because mates didn't let mates bear their burdens alone.
"If we're mates, then – we face things together, right? That's what mates do."
He sighed heavily, but she was having none of it. It might have worked on the kids he'd had around here before, but he wasn't pulling his martyred act with her.
"So we face things together, yeah?" she repeated. "You don't just go sending me away cos there might be a bit of danger."
Silence.
Donna waited. Patience wasn't one of her strong suits, admittedly, but right now she was more than willing to make the effort. Some stuff in life wasn't negotiable.
At last he drew one hand out of his pocket and ran it through his hair, then met her eyes squarely. "Ok. Together."
"Everything?" she persisted.
He puffed out a breath. "Yeah."
"Too right." She began to nod in satisfaction, then stopped abruptly as a thought struck her. "Except for any sort of kinky alien goings-on you might get up to, Sunshine. I'm not havin' any of that!"
The Doctor blinked. "No, no, of course. I mean – of course not. Right."
FIN