He sees her walking towards him on the other side of the street. A vision in green. Her fiery hair is like a beacon amongst the giggling brunettes and blondes surrounding her, hanging on her, pumping her for information. He averts his gaze as they pass each other on opposite sidewalks, separated by the width of one narrow street and the cars parked along it. She doesn't notice. She never even looks up to acknowledge his presence. He balls his hands into fists inside his pockets, struggling to keep his pace casual and his expression neutral, though he can no longer hear anything but his own hearts thundering in his ears.
His breath falters, his eyes closing for just a moment as they pass each other and then she's gone. She's behind him. She continues up the street surrounded by her girlfriends, laughing with them, cracking jokes. She seems happy. She's moved on. He nearly turns around, but finds his pace quickening instead. His trainers padding through the dried leaves skittering along the sidewalk. Almost as if his feet have taken on a life of their own.
He comes to an uneasy stop outside her house, loitering in the shadows beneath the autumn hued trees across the street. Their bright orange canopies rustle softly in the breeze as he gathers his long coat around him and takes a seat on the soft sod at his feet.
Presently, the front door opens and a blond haired woman emerges, calling out instructions over her shoulder to the sole remaining occupant of the house. He stands in the doorway, a fringe of silver framing his face, nodding forlornly as she speaks to him as if he were a child. She softly admonishes him for not taking care of himself, even as she relays step by step instructions on the proper heating of his supper.
The Doctor's mouth quirks slightly as he watches her climb into her car and pull away. Some things never change he thinks. He watches the old man stood in the doorway for a moment longer, waving to his daughter as she drives away. His face is a little thinner, a little sadder. He stares wistfully into the distance before disappearing back into the house and shutting the door firmly behind him.
The Doctor abruptly stands, brushing dead leaves and bits of grass from the back of his coat as he stares thoughtfully down the now deserted street. Satisfying himself that the blonde woman is indeed gone, he strides across it, his long coat billowing purposely behind him as he goes.
He stands in front of the door for a moment. He stares at it, his mind returning to the last time he'd been here. It had been raining then, fittingly so, considering his mood. He frowns, mentally chiding himself for being maudlin, and knocks on the door; four sharp raps in quick succession against the painted wood.
He doesn't have to wait long before it opens. He nods slightly at the older looking man staring back at him from the threshold in obvious shock.
"It's you," he murmurs, blinking rapidly as if not quite trusting his eyes, "you came back."
"Hullo-," the Doctor manages, before suddenly finding himself on the receiving end of a very impulsive, very fierce embrace.
"I knew you would," Wilf is saying emphatically, his hands tightly clenched around the Doctor's bony shoulders. "I knew you wouldn't just leave things the way they were. I told Sylvia… I said you'd come back and sort it, but she wouldn't believe me."
The Doctor stiffens slightly at his words, not quite returning the hug. His arms are held out before him, almost but not quite brushing the smaller man's shoulders.
"Wilf I…" he starts, guiltily breaking off, not quite sure what to say; that he has an idea, but it's daft and dangerous and solely for his own benefit that he's even here.
"Well, now," Wilf says, suddenly pulling away from him, his grey eyes moist with unshed tears, "come in come in."
He disappears inside the house and the Doctor slowly follows, stepping into the kitchen as Wilf closes the door behind him.
"Tea?" he asks, "I was just making a cuppa."
"Tea, yes," the Doctor says, nodding once. No ulterior motives in a cup of tea were there, nothing ambiguous, or guilt inspiring, just hot, fragrant liquid and a warm solid cup in his hands.
"Sit," Wilf says, gesturing towards the table as he fills the kettle from the sink. He places it on the stove and turns on the burner, turning around in time to eye the Doctor thoughtfully as he lowers himself heavily into the proffered seat.
"You look…" he says, as if searching for the proper word, "tired," he finishes finally.
"I don't sleep much," the Doctor says, staring at his hands on the table, or at all really since losing Donna. He keeps that bit of information to himself, though. Unsure of how Wilf would react to finding out that Donna shared his bed. Not in a sexual way. Just to be there. The sound of her relaxed breathing beside him soothed him to sleep, her hand on his chest, keeping the nightmares at bay. Now there was nothing standing between him and the blue-green eyes haunting his dreams.
"How is she?" he blurts out suddenly, his voice cracking with fatigue and long buried feelings.
"She's…" Wilf murmurs thoughtfully, "she's okay. She's… making do."
"Aren't we all," the Doctor says, chuckling bitterly.
A touch of steel creeps into Wilf's eyes at the Doctor's tone. "She travels a lot," he says, sharply.
"Does she?"
He nods. "Takes an office position somewhere just long enough to save up a few quid, then off she goes again. Almost as if she's searching for something. Her real life maybe."
"Alone?" the Doctor asks.
"Oh there have been plenty of blokes," Wilf says, flatly, "one bloke in particular actually, Shaun Temple he's called. He's asked her to marry him."
The Doctor looks up sharply at that. "What did she say?" he asks.
The corners of Wilf's mouth turn down in a slight frown. "She told him, she needed to think about it," he says.
The Doctor slumps slightly in his chair, going back to staring at his hands on the table. "Does she love him?" he asks.
Wilf sighs. "No," he says, "I think you and I both know there's only one bloke in the universe for her."
The Doctor's mouth quirks slightly at that. "We're just mates, Wilf," he says, "best friends."
"Yeah, funny how that works isn't it," Wilf says softly, "Donna's grandmother and I were best friends for the better part of sixty years."
A loud breathy whistling fills the air suddenly. "Kettle's boiling," Wilf mutters, turning back towards the stove. He collects a couple of cups from the cupboard above the sink and sets one down on the table in front of the Doctor, filling it with steaming amber liquid.
"If it were up to Sylvia," he says, taking a seat beside the Doctor at the table, his own steaming cup in hand, "she'd have her married off tomorrow."
"She just wants to see her happy Wilf," the Doctor says, spooning sugar into his cup from the bowl on the table, "and so do I."
"She was happy with you," Wilf says emphatically.
"I want her safe," the Doctor says.
Wilf's eyes narrow slightly at that. "It's her life," he says, "don't you think it should be her decision?"
The Doctor's eyes stray thoughtfully to the steaming cup in his hands.
"What about you?" Wilf suddenly asks, "still traveling?"
"Always," the Doctor says, softly.
"Alone I take it?"
The Doctor nods, somewhat absently. "There was a woman," he says, "Christina her name was. She was… well she was brilliant. A bit amoral perhaps, but other than that, completely brilliant."
"So why aren't you two traveling together?" Wilf asks.
"I'm through with all that," the Doctor says flatly, gingerly taking a sip from the steaming cup in his hand, "besides, she called me Spaceman."
"Well, aren't you," Wilf asks, confused, "a spaceman I mean?"
The Doctor eyes him in silence for a moment. He can't expect Wilf to understand. Only Donna called him Spaceman. "I suppose so," he says, finally.
"Isn't that why you're here?" Wilf continues, "because you came up with a way to put things right with that big alien brain of yours?"
"To tell you the truth Wilf," the Doctor says with a heavy sigh, "I nearly didn't. I nearly went to Mars instead."
"Mars," Wilf says, pulling a face, "why? What's on Mars?"
Nothing the Doctor thinks, that was the point. There was nothing on Mars but isolation and beautiful desolation, or there wasn't until 2079 when humans started populating it anyway. Actually now that he's thinking about it, it might have been 2069. It didn't matter. When he'd been setting the coordinates in the console room, his eyes had strayed to the chameleon arch hanging like a golden spider over his head and that's when the idea had struck him.
He'd spent the better part of a day reconfiguring it to rewrite and repair fragile human DNA without pain; rewiring the synaptic engram transference unit to recognise and extract Time Lord memory engrams without destroying the human memory engrams surrounding them, or that was the theory anyway. Without a human subject to test it on, there was no way of knowing whether the device would work or not.
"It doesn't matter," he says, his thoughts returning to the man sat next to him, "I came here for a reason."
"To fix our Donna," Wilf says, his voice so hopeful, the Doctor has trouble swallowing past the sudden lump in his throat.
"No," he says tightly, "she doesn't need fixing. She never did, but I may have come up with a way to give back what I took from her. If you'll allow me to try."
"Yes," Wilf says simply.
The Doctor's lips quirk wanly. It would be so easy just to leave it at that he thinks, but he can't. Donna would never forgive him.
"It's dangerous, Wilf," he says, "what I'm planning. It's delicate work and I'm not exactly…" he breaks off, wearily scrubbing his face with the palm of his hand, "if I… if something goes wrong, then she could…"
"She could what?" Wilf asks sharply. "She could die?"
"It would be completely painless," the Doctor explains softly, "she'd just… never wake up; actually, neither one of us would."
Wilf swallows. His eyes holding the Doctor's gaze. "I know you'd never let that happen," he says, "whatever…" he says, clearing his throat, "whatever you think's best. I trust you Doctor."
The Doctor swallows and nods. "I know," he says, simply. To be honest, it's exactly what he'd been counting on.
~END~