Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. I do have few shirts and a toy sonic, though.

Author's Note: This is a series of interconnected one shots, that can be read on their own, set after Midnight, canon or my rewrite. This is a Donna/10 series.

After they were back in flight, away from Midnight, the Doctor surprised Donna with the fact that he was going to go rest - she had never seen him sleep or really rest - ever, so when she questioned him, he explained that he didn't really need sleep, but the TARDIS had a special room where he could be cut off from everything and rest his weary mind without any interference from anything else.

This of course, let her alone in the TARDIS, without company - something fairly odd. To her, it sounded as if the great big outer space dunce needed a vacation from the running and the monsters and was just too proud to admit it, instead, going to his special room to have a sulk.

So, she decided that if he wouldn't take a vacation, maybe she could make him. She had been learning to fly the TARDIS after all - and the Doctor always told her that the TARDIS went where she wanted sometimes. So, after about an hour of reading some popular novel from the thirty-first century, Donna stood up from the jump seat and caressed the controls. "Sunday morning in Chiswick?" She offered, quietly. "He could probably use a day on Earth, just eating banana pancakes and getting away from everything."

Unsure if the machine could answer, she placed herself at the temporal controls - the only ones she truly understood to any degree - and set the date for the Sunday nearest to the date on her mobile. Across the console, the bell rung and the rotor moved on it's own.

And no mallet required! Donna would remember that after their vacation. Asking nicely seemed to work better, not that it should be a surprise. As they landed, the scanner showed Donna her street, and she patted the console. "Thanks." She paused. "Don't let him leave without me if he gets it in his thick skull that I'm trying to abandon him."

Just in case, though, she left a gorgeous wide-brimmed blue hat on the jumpseat so that he couldn't just leave with all her things.

The house was empty, as she had expected, and she flicked on the telly to keep her company as she settled in for something she hadn't done since she left with the Doctor.

The Doctor was able to escape his innate time sense somewhat inside the rose-smelling zero room, a place he had retreated too often to think in his first incarnation and not-to-think in other regenerations. It was the perfect place to escape everything and be alone.

The thing was, at his age, it was very hard to be alone with your own thoughts and memories. That's why he always looked for companions - not just to share the universe with, though that was part of it, but so that he wouldn't be so utterly, completely alone. Eventually, he headed back to the console room, surprised that it was empty. Had it been so long that Donna had gotten bored?

"Donna?" He called out in confusion, finding out quite quickly through his ship and the lack of a response that Donna was gone. In a panic, he immediately started pounding buttons to figure out where the irrepressible ginger had disappeared too.

With a sound almost like a sigh, the doors opened, as if the TARDIS was making up for Donna's absence by calling him a "big outer space dunce" without so many words.

Chiswick.

The Doctor's stomach dropped to his feet and he looked over at the console, remembering fondly Donna's flying lessons. It was then he spotted the hat and a wrapped package. Hoping that maybe, just maybe, the purpose had been gift-giving alone, he grabbed both and left the TARDIS safe and sound on the corner.

"How did we end up in Chiswick?" The Doctor asked, as he found Donna in the kitchen of the house, making, what seemed to be breakfast. A very big breakfast in fact. Which seemed odd, considering that he had been very thorough in his scan for Sylvia.

"I set the date and asked nicely." Donna replied, turning around and shaking her spatula at him, flinging what seemed to be droplets of batter about. She started to turn back and noted what he was carrying. "Oi! How'd you find your present? Is that what you do while I'm not around? Snoop through my things?"

"Present?" The Doctor said dumbly, looking down at the gift. "It was on the jump seat with the hat. I thought maybe you were bringing your family souvenirs."

"Wot, and risk compromising the timeline or making some baddie for us to run from 'cause something is here before it's been created? I bloody well think not. I'm not that daft, thank you." Donna said with a huff, stopped in mid-rant by the need to turn over the crepes she had been making.

"So it's for me?" The Doctor said in confusion. "Why?"

"Because!" Donna declared, and the Doctor made a seemingly wise choice and didn't ask anything further, afraid of making his companion angry.

"So...we're just here for a visit?" The Doctor asked. "See Wilf and...Sylvia and off we go?"

Donna expertly dumped batter into a pan and then slipped it into the oven. "No, we're here to give you a break from running for a day. You've shown me the universe, now I show you Chiswick."

It was on the tip of his tongue to remind her that he had seen places she couldn't even imagine, but then he thought better of it. He took the thought as it was meant, as a gift. A tiny look into the world of Donna Noble.

After five minutes of just sitting there, watching her and trying not to think about how well his hands would fit on her hips, he cleared his throat. "Can I open my present?"

Donna worried her lip as she rolled an orange under her palm. She had bought it on a whim, but she had never had the courage to actually give it to him, because she was sure he would find it terribly boring or outdated or something. "It's probably not any good." She warned him. "Don't get your hopes up. I tried to throw it out once, but the TARDIS threw it up at me, so it's not even good for incineration or whatever happens to our rubbish." Certain his hopes wouldn't be up too far, she added. "But yeah, you can. I kept the receipt, just in case."

The Doctor looked at her oddly, trying to understand why one would keep a receipt for a gift, but then he shrugged and opened the TARDIS blue paper. He blinked at the heavy book inside the paper. Condensed Matter, Space Pressure and Subsonic Telepathy. She had bought him a Physics book. A really interesting looking Physics textbook from the thirty-first century.

"Brilliant!" He declared effusively. He put the book down and jumped the counter, wrapping his arms around her waist and hugging her tight while spying over her shoulder. "Thank you, Donna!" His hands may have wandered, just a bit toward the curve of her hips, but the expected 'Hands!' didn't come and he didn't dare push his luck.

He went back to his seat on the other side of the counter, and cracked open the book, which made that irresistible 'snik' noise that accompanied never-opened books.

Fifteen minutes later, turning the cake in the oven, Donna glanced at the Doctor, who seemed to be engrossed in the book. It made her smile and she poured a glass of juice for him without asking.

When Sylvia Noble and her father returned to the house after church, they found a full Sunday breakfast waiting for them, like Geoffery had done so often, and Donna making what seemed to be a smoothie of some sort.

Breakfast was about what Donna expected - her mother criticised this and that, and remarked on the lack of phone calls to her mobile, sending glares at the Doctor while he and Wilf discussed old music, aliens, and planets.

After the mountain of dishes were done, Donna changed, and came back out to the kitchen, reaching for her hat and throwing the Doctor's shed suit jacket at him. "Come on, Martian. I've got another surprise for you."

"Another one?" The Doctor said in surprise. He followed her dutifully, content to be the companion for the moment, throwing on his suit jacket and following her to the little blue car with only a little grumbling.

He was shocked where he ended up. He would have been far less surprised if she had somehow compacted space to allow them to walk from Chiswick to China, then when they drove up to the Chiswick and Latymer Cricket Club.

"Donna, you hate cricket." The Doctor felt the need to point out.

"Yeah, but you like it," Donna replied, offering him her arm, as if she were a gentleman in a movie. "Get a move on, Spaceman, you'll need to get kitted up."

"I get to play?" The Doctor said in amazement.

"They have new players all the time." Donna assured him. "And of course you're playing dumbo. Like a footy fan like me is going to sit up in the stands without a bloke to cheer for? I don't think so."

At the end of the day, the Doctor was a little dirty, and carrying a cricket kit and a book as they walked back to the TARDIS. He had so many things he wanted to say - about how brilliant she was, about how wonderful the day had been, and when she was about to step into the TARDIS, he stopped her. For a moment, he looked in to her blue-green eyes, trying to settle on a word, any word.

For once in this incarnation, he was properly speechless with something other than horror. It was obvious to him, that she was getting frustrated, and just as she opened her lips to no doubt scold him for keeping her out in the chilly air, he kissed her.

He kissed her with all the gratitude and uncertainty and worry, all of his fears of how he put her in danger, all of him, the good parts and the bad parts. He pulled back when his respiratory bypass kicked in, and took a deep breath.

"Thank you, Donna Noble." He said slowly. "You make Sundays worth landing on."