A/N: Admittedly I've gotten rather sick of Donna death fics as of late, but I wrote this over a year ago and I've only just finished the final edit so I needed to do something with this fic. I hope you enjoy my rendition of this trope.
This is for Bee, who hates Donna death fics and will probably never actually read this.
To Die is Gain (or Donna Dies at the End)
The elderly woman was the only occupant of the darkened hospital room; the beeping monitors the only noise. There was a small window that she would periodically gaze out of, almost impatiently, disappointed with the direction it faced since she was unable to see the setting sun. Instead she got the rising sun which woke her up at the most crucial points in dreams because those damn nurses never listened to her and would forget to close the blinds. One nurse had told her it was because when the warm morning light came in, it gave them an idea of what her beautiful ginger hair looked like before it was streaked grey with years. She was almost angelic, another nurse said, until she opened her mouth at least. She didn't believe them though, clearly it was the only subtle revenge they could have just short of killing her. Donna Temple-Noble would admit that she was a difficult patient. Shouting at the world because nobody's listening. That was oddly profound, where did it come from?
She liked better when the sun would set; it meant that she could see the stars. Donna got her love for them from her gramps; every night he would sit on the hill by their house gazing through his telescope. Whenever her mother would get to be too much, she would join him. Watching the stars made her sad sometimes and she wasn't sure why. But it was a beautiful kind of sadness.
She missed Gramps. He had died so long ago, but she still kept up with his telescope, night after night and year after year, still gazing through it up at the stars before she was admitted a week ago. His room had been four doors down from Donna's when he passed in his sleep. She was there with him, her and her mum; the kids had been with Shaun at home. It was peaceful, other than the occasional mutterings from his sleeping form of conversations with friends long gone. Then he muttered "Doctor", and Donna had been worried that he was in pain, frantically pushing the call button for a nurse. Her mother seemed to have the same concern but she was staring at Donna with worry instead of her father. It confused her but she didn't have time to think about it because, with a small smile and the murmured name of his waiting wife, Wilfred Mott was gone.
Her mother was dead too. She was on the floor beneath when she was talking to Donna about how much she missed her father and mother, and her husband, Geoff. Sylvia joined them shortly after going into cardiac arrest. After they called time of death, the doctors couldn't stop Donna from climbing onto the bed and holding her mother's body. Their attempts to pull her away from Sylvia were swatted away like flies by the grieving woman. She didn't let go until the nurses called Shaun to come get her almost an hour later.
He was gone as well. Her loving husband and father of two. Almost five years ago she had woken up to find that he had died in her arms during the night. When their son came in the early afternoon to take Donna out to lunch, he had wondered why his parents were still in bed. Then he saw the tears on his mother's face and how tightly she held onto her husband. Two weeks later their house was on the market and she was living with her son and his family.
She didn't like where her thoughts were going. Those were dangerous memories. In her experience, maudlin thoughts in bed only led to one thing: death. It was the same way that the others had gone, remembering and reminiscing. And she wasn't having any of that now; she wasn't finished with her life yet, it was too soon. But when would it not be too soon? Could the sun hurry and set already? Donna needed to see the stars; somehow they always calmed her. Maybe it was because of all of the stories written up there. Gramps told her a few times that Venus was the only planet named after a woman. Imagine that, being the only woman flying about.
Changing tracks on her train of thought, Donna contemplated life since, being at the end of her own, it seemed appropriate. Granted, she still had things to live for, but it wouldn't do to stay in denial. Ella was still in a state of denial. Whenever Donna would get snappy with the nurses or the doctor, Ella would brighten seeing it as an improvement; her mother was returning to her fiery self. She didn't seem to understand that the more a fire blazed, the quicker it went through the kindling. Joshua knew though. Donna could see it in his eyes even when he would smile. Maybe it was because he was the one that found his father wrapped in his mother's arms that he was more prepared to find his mother wrapped in a white bed sheet. She didn't want to go, but when you reach the end of the line there isn't much else to do but get off the train.
Donna was tired, so tired. Joshua and Ella should be coming soon though. She would talk to them then and hopefully prepare Ella. Her daughter would fight her saying that she couldn't just give up like that; but Donna still had to try and help her understand that she wasn't giving up her life, she was accepting death.
She could finally see the first pinpricks of light in the night sky. She wished she had Gramps' telescope to see them better, just one last time. No. No negative thoughts, it wouldn't be the last time. Donna would ask Joshua to bring the telescope for tomorrow's visit. Yes, that's what she would do. Then she could get a better look at the stars night after night because this was most certainly not her last.
She closed her eyes, her lids suddenly too heavy to stay open.
She was standing now but she wasn't sure where, her eyes were still closed. She didn't want to open them. To see where she was was to admit that it was real, that she was dying, even though it wasn't. She knew it was all in her head. Taking a deep breath, Donna took in the surroundings that she could feel: the cool air of indoors, a heavy dress, and her fringe. Fringe? Her eyes flew open at the realization. Donna hadn't had a fringe in forever, since before Shaun.
Facing her were strange yellow walls with odd porthole-like fixtures, but she paid them no mind, she was looking down at her dress.
It was her first wedding dress.
There were no sleeves or pockets. Her mother never understood why she wanted pockets in her second wedding dress, but Donna hardly did either, there was just a strange feeling that she needed them. But why was she in this dress? Lance left her at the altar, why would she want to remember him? A stray thought entered her mind: her first wedding wasn't at St. Mary's, it was on a lonely rooftop overlooking the city with only a smoking phone box to bear witness. What? She looked down at her hand, but there was nothing there. Yet. With this ring I thee bio-damp. She had the sudden feeling that she had lived this moment before.
With a sense of fear and an inexplicable jolt of excitement, Donna turned around, her dress swirling in familiar movement. There, at the large console, was a man with a smile and a brown pinstripe suit. She bit back the question she was about to ask, the question she had asked so long ago. She already knew.
"Doctor!" she cried out to him.
Choking a sob, Donna ran to him as he held open his arms to her, his grin held just as wide. She held on to him, laughing even as tears streamed down her face. He came back for her for one last adventure.
"As you can see her brain activity is decreasing and her heart rate is slowing down; she's comatose. And in all likelihood she will not be coming out of it. I'm so sorry," the doctor told the distraught red-haired woman sitting bedside.
"I don't understand, she was getting better. She was snipping at the nurses just last night, she can't leave us," she said softly.
The man leaning against the wall next to her patted her shoulder, "It'll be all right, Ella. Mum will be with Dad and Gramps and Gran."
"It will not be all right, Josh. It's Mum, she can't die," his sister responded harshly as she pushed his arm away. She swiped angrily at the tears falling down her cheeks while he tucked the offending arm against his chest, bowing his head to keep from retorting at her irrationality.
The doctor interrupted the grieving siblings, "Mrs. Temple-Noble has been in and out of hospital for months now. You must have prepared yourself for the eventuality that she would pass on. She has lived a long life, but no one can live forever."
There was a sudden, loud beeping from one of the monitors.
"What's that?" Josh's head whipped upwards at the sound.
The doctor rushed to the elderly woman's side, "Her brain activity, it's increasing. Exponentially," she added in shock, then looked down confusedly, "But she should be awake now. There's enough- No, I've never seen anyone with this much- This is too much." Panic could be heard creeping into her voice.
"What's happening?!" the young woman cried out. "Mum? Mum?!" she called grabbing onto her mother's hand.
"Doctor." It was said softly, but with such rapturous delight it seemed to echo in the room. Donna Temple-Noble's dying word.
The loud, impossibly-fast beeping reached a crescendo before instantaneously cutting out with sparks that somehow shot out from the back of the monitor. The zigzagging lines that had scrawled across the screen in quick stabs cut out as the monitor died. The machine had short-circuited. Josh pulled back his sister, clutching her as she wrapped her arms around his waist sobbing. They could hear the monitor reboot itself, turning over to emergency power, before the room was filled with a long mournful noise.
"No brain activity," the doctor stated a bit dazedly, she'd never seen anything like that before. "Her brain, it's, it's like it short-circuited. She's gone. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"But her heart, her heart's still beating. She's still alive," Ella said desperately.
"But her brain isn't. For all intents and purposes, she's dead. Her heart will only be able to hold on for so long." She motioned toward the heart monitor on the other side of the bed, "Its beat is already sluggish. I doubt her body will live the night, but her mind is already gone. And without that," the doctor continued, trying to help Ella understand through her grief, "she'd hardly be Donna Temple-Noble."
A/N2: I just had this idea that what if Donna remembered on her own? She unlocked her own memories because she's a strong independent Companion who don't need no Doctor. I mean, she's dying so she's kind of retreating into herself, and what's inside her head? All the memories of the DoctorDonna locked away for her own safety. And at least in this version she can see her best friend's face instead of a stranger with a different personality, even if he is the same person. Also, the Doctor is rubbish at showing up at the right place at the right time.