Writers note: This story is about the period of time between the end of series four and the next time we see Donna in David Tennant's last episode as the Doctor. Although I have written this story spanning a year, I understand that this may be a generous amount of time for this period, but I hope when you read the end of the story that you will understand.
I have also written this as a sort of experiment as I tend to write in the past tense quite often, so I have changed my writing style for this text.
Please read to the end as there is a twist that I hope you will enjoy! I know that this story might be quite boring but if you are a fan of Doctor Who and specifically series four, you will find relevance in all of the words I think as this is the intention. Thank you for reading, and please feel free to offer constructive criticism in comments!
'The sky's the limit'
Donna smiles at the man serving her at the Starbucks counter at her break from work. She vaguely recognizes him and is looking at him quizzically, searching her memory for his face and her association with her. But she can't think, so she takes the coffee with a polite 'Thank you' and goes to sit by the window, looking out on the busy street she stared mundanely at every time she had a break from her temp work.
Her day had been mundane and uneventful; filing documents and filling out forms. Or at least, filing her nails and filling out online quizzes. Today hadn't been busy at the office she worked at now. She was temping for someone who was on maternity leave, but she wouldn't mind staying, as she got paid excessive amounts for the amount of work she actually did. The only problem was that the other people in the office weren't that friendly. They treated her as some sort of outsider. An intruder into their scarily silent work place, isolated by dull brown separators.
The sky was blue and she looks up, wondering if people would ever be looking up at a different sky to this one, from a different planet. She remembers the saying 'The sky's the limit' and thinks about its irrelevance. She tells herself that we'll get beyond the sky some day, and she tries to imagine all the planets we'll visit. Donna closes her eyes.
There is an image that she has in her head of a glass ball, dropping to the floor and smashing, releasing green gas and transforming the world outside into a haven of trees and nature, and she hears the sound of air being blown into water, bubbling up to the surface. Then there's a world of books and the bubbling stops and there is nothing but silence. And then there is a world of white. White snowflakes falling around her to thicken the white blanket below her feet, undisturbed by any footprints. There's not much distinction of the horizon as the sky was just as clear white as the snow, the earth and the sky seemingly merging as one. As she looks up at the sky in her imagination, a red rocket roars past, huge flames blazing out of the back, and the smell of burning fuel. Suddenly a single pair of eyes flashes into her head, hot red and angry. There is only a flash of this image before she jumps and opens her eyes to get the image out of her head. They were inhuman; mad and alien.
She refocuses on the glass in front of her- separating her from the street outside. Her imagination scares her. The pictures she sees are so very vivid, beyond human thought and impossible to dream up, but they are hazy and distant at the same time, like a wall of _ glass is separating her from the reality of the images; blurring them just enough for her to be convinced they aren't real memories. It was a silly thought to enter her head that they possibly could be.
Donna finishes her latte, and carefully dabs away the moustache of frothy milk that it has left behind on her upper lip, and re-applies the nude lipstick that she always wore to work. She sits for a while longer, staring out of the window blankly. She thinks about the man she met in a bar she went to last week. They had arranged a dinner together and he seemed nice. She thought about his silky soft hair that had been the main topic of conversation between the two in the brief time they had talked before exchanging numbers. She smiles as she remembers the sweet text that he had sent her five minutes after she had left the bar. 'I can't wait to get to sleep now so I can dream about you' it had read. At first she had found this a little strange, as they had only just met, but she reconsidered a while after, and she had been excited to see him again. He was skinny though. His jacket wouldn't fit a rat. Who else had she thought this about? It wasn't important, but somewhere in the back of her mind: it was.
Her train of thought is interrupted by the man who had served her who had come over to the table. He asks her if she is finished with the latte, and she nods her head. Yet again the feeling of nostalgia that had swept over her last time she had seen his face returned. Yet again she tries to remember where she knows him from, but as he turns to walk away with her empty mug, the nagging sensation of trying to remember him went away, and it is no longer important to her. She slowly rises from her chair and picks up her back and walks out of the shop, taking one last sniff of the invigorating smell of coffee that engulfs the shops air. She is dreading going back to work, so she takes slow paces and daydreams some more. Then she is out of sight of the shop.
The Doctor takes off his green apron he has borrowed from one of the staff and places it on the counter. He puts down the empty mug he has been carrying away from the table and he takes one last look at the ginger haired lady in a smart suit walking slowly away from the shop. He had been studying her as she ordered the medium latte, and as she had sat staring up at the sky, closing her eyes occasionally and smiling at what she was imagining. The Doctor knows that she hasn't been imagining though- she had been remembering. This was a common side effect of the mind wipe he had done to her when there was no other option. He walks out of the coffee shop, and smells the same scent of coffee as he left as Donna had done, and he walks over to his Tardis. He takes one look at the building to which Donna was entering and remembers waving to the Adipose on that very roof.
He closes the door to his Tardis and he walks over to the control panel. He skips forwards exactly a month in time, and walks out of the Tardis towards the little Starbucks shop and puts on the apron waiting for him and stands behind the counter just as Donna enters the shop and orders her usual medium latte from him, but this time with a skinny man who has evidently met her in her lunch break. He pays. The Doctor stands and watches her, checking up on her and making sure that she is alright. Just like he had done for twelve days now, one day a month.