On Water

The sand was silver, the waves were slow and dark, and there was no sun in sight.

"Look at that! Promised you a beach, didn't I?"

"Yeah, lovely day in the underworld, isn't it? Can't wait to meet Hades, I'm sure he's really nice."

"The underworld? The underworld? Donna, this is the moon-beach of Hilina Minor, and you, you just became the first human to ever set foot on it! What do you think of that? Not bad, eh? Eh?"

"And the thing about swimming," Donna went on, "is you should never do it without a lifeguard around. A nice, broad, fit," she held out her hands descriptively, "lifeguard." She paused, enjoying the Doctor's scrunchy miffed face for a bit before adding, "But yeah, all right. Not bad."

On either side the beach stretched as far as she could see, silent and empty. There was a wall of rock behind the TARDIS, but in front of her was only sand, water, and sky. All dark, very dark. She'd never thought that there were so many different shades of black and grey in the world. Maybe there weren't, in her world.

Something was the same, though: in a very few steps, Donna discovered that silver moon sand was every bit as good at getting in her shoes as the Earth kind. She paused long enough to toss her shoes back towards the TARDIS, then kept walking, down to the place where black water met shining sand, over and over again. She stood, and looked, her (first human ever) toes in the sand and her feet still dry.

"Hang on, hang on, hang on! I know what we need!"

Donna turned to see the Doctor pivot on his heels and run back into the TARDIS. She stayed where she was for a heartbeat, two, three, then followed as far as the doorway. She could see him in there, head under the floor grating and bum up in the air, but he didn't see her, and when he came tearing back out he had to skid to stop from plowing into her. "Oh. Hello," he said. "Bored already?"

"Nahhh."

"Good. Look what I got us!" He heaved a raft at her. It was purple, about the size of a mattress, and only half-inflated.

"Yes, very nice," Donna said, pushing it back at him. "Glad you're the one blowing it up."

"Oh, like you haven't got lungpower to spare."

Back down at the water, the Doctor messed about with the raft, and Donna found she couldn't keep her eyes off the sprawling dark. Couldn't help thinking about the last place they'd been, the planet that glittered under a killing sun. Where something had waited - maybe still waited, maybe would wait forever - and the untouched should have remained untouched.

"You brought us here," Donna said, looking down at the Doctor, who was kneeling beside the raft.

"Yeah," he said, looking up, bemused. "Yeah, I did."

Donna gave her head a tiny little shake, and the Doctor went back to work, fiddling with some little gadget and his screwdriver. He was in his shirtsleeves now, she noticed. She'd hardly seen him like that since the day they met. On the roof, before the spiders and the flood.

Suddenly, the raft filled with air so quickly and with such a loud, unnatural whoosh that Donna instinctively stepped back - it would be just like the Doctor to accidentally let some giant inflatey-creature loose on them. But he didn't, not this time anyway. There was a great deal of hopping around, as the Doctor rolled up his trouser legs, took off his trainers and socks, and pitched them out of the water's reach. Then he pushed the raft in and plopped down on it, digging his feet into the sand to hold it in place. "Well, what are you waiting for? Come on in, the water's fine!"

Donna sniffed. "Yeah, but you'd probably be happy taking a dip in an ice cube tray."

"Donna, that mountain back there behind the TARDIS - can you see it? Yes? Well, that's a cryovolcano. Doesn't erupt lava, but gasses that heat this water from underneath. Like a pot on the stove. But don't worry, not a boiling pot. A simmering pot. Well - maybe a pot that hasn't quite simmered yet, think of it somewhere in between oh, I just put this pot on the stove, and ooh, it's simmering - maybe a few of those little bubbles have just got started -"

"Oh, go on, then," Donna said, before the cooking lesson could go any further. She settled on the raft, more carefully than he had, keeping dry. The Doctor pushed with his feet, and they were off.

The waves were gentle, like in a lake, which was where they were for all she knew. The Doctor leaned back on his elbows, leaving his feet dangling over the edge. She could see his pale toes, shining under the surface.

"Are there fish? Or fish things, or whatever?"

"Might be. Might not be."

Just a few days ago she wouldn't have accepted that answer, would have said Oi, don't get cagey with me, spaceman, now tell me, what's in this water? But she recognised it now for what it was: utter, naked honesty. It didn't really matter what he knew - thought he knew - about this place, this beach, this moon. There might be alien fish things. There might not.

The Doctor slid off his elbows onto his back, closing his eyes. And Donna tried it too, feeling the water move underneath her, feeling the bone of his shoulder against her arm, and for all he felt like a rock to her now she couldn't quite keep her eyes closed.

"Remember when I kissed you?"

"Think so, yeah. Ah. Were you thinking of doing it again?"

Little too much worry in his voice for Donna's taste, so she smacked his arm. "A shock, you said, and I thought, I know what would shock me. And it did, mate, I can tell you. I mean, human. Alien. Different species. No."

"Oh, right." There was a pause. "Did I forget to say thank you for saving my life?"

She knocked his shoulder with hers. "Can't say it too much, can you?"

When he'd come to her off that tour ship, he hadn't seemed all that alien. He'd stood in front of her like any man falling apart.

No reason for him to say those words, that day.

"Right, well." The Doctor turned his head to the side and smiled at her, small, serious. In the starlight, his face had its own shadows and its own greys; she supposed hers did too. "Thank you, Donna Noble."

He hadn't seemed so alien, and she hadn't felt quite human, hadn't wanted to feel quite human, not knowing what those people had done. For a moment she'd felt herself other, an outsider sitting in judgment. For a moment she'd known how it felt to convict.

It had washed away, tidal. She knew it would be back.

"You're welcome, yeah," she said. "Anytime." Every time.

They were so close, now, in a universe that wasn't, and as her own smile reflected his, a part of Donna did think. It would take the tiniest effort to put her lips to his again, the tiniest little reach. Might worry him. Might shock her. Might not.

She grasped his hand for leverage, and stretched until her feet found the water. He was right: it was warm.