It wasn't his place to do this. He was just supposed to leave them how they were, leave them to cope, and disappear, because he'd already done more than enough damage to all of them. He shouldn't be here right now, standing on their doorstep in the pouring rain at who-knew-when at night, waiting for someone to hear the doorbell ring and answer him, his usually staunchly upright brown hair plastered to his forehead after making the dash from the TARDIS. He knew these things. He knew he should just walk away and leave the Noble family alone for good. But he just...had to know. If she was okay. If everything was...all right. Because it was his fault.
After what seemed an eternity, and that was an especially long time to a Time Lord, who understood the full scope of the expression, the door quietly swung open a fraction, revealing the suspicious eye of a familiar face -- an eye that widened, as did the gap in the doorway, when it saw who was standing out on the front step. Wilfred Mott, agape in shock, shoved his way outside and firmly shut the door again, leaning against it as if to tell the man before him No. You're not coming into our lives again.
"Doctor," he breathed, pulling his wool cardigan closed against the wind and rain. Wilf's expression as he looked up at the man was -- indescribable. Such a mixture of fondness and caution and anguish and a million other things all rolled into one, each snatch of emotion screaming Donna so loud that the Doctor had to look away, down at his shoes, do anything to save himself the agony of seeing that and knowing he was the cause.
"Yep," the Doctor replied, popping the "p" and rocking back on his heels, hands stuffed in his pants pockets. He was wearing the brown pinstriped suit today, and he'd left his coat in the TARDIS so now the suit was sopping wet. The moisture and cold, though, were the least of his worries. "I just came to--" he began, finally bringing himself to look at the old man. But the words caught in his throat. He sighed and started again. "How is she?"
"Donna?" The question was unnecessary, but asked anyway. The Doctor nodded, so Wilf went on. "Yeah, no, she's -- she's Donna, really. She's still temping. Still a handful." He paused, stuffing his own hands in his pockets and giving the deserted street due consideration before turning back to the Doctor with a solemn look. "Still don't remember you."
The Doctor nodded again, sadly. It had been the only way to save her, the only thing he could think of fast enough, but... It was hard for him to think about. He'd essentially violated her, going into her mind like that and changing everything, taking away her experiences with him -- taking away her power, in truth, because she'd been the most important woman in the universe for one brief, wonderful moment, and now? Now it was back to the prestige of being the best temp in Chiswick, and thinking herself worthless because she had no idea just what she was capable of.
"Good," he said. "Well. Not. But...y'know."
"Yeah. I know." There was an uncomfortable moment of silence, Wilf looking down at his clasped hands while the Doctor swayed uncertainly. One of them was going to fill the silence any second now, and the Doctor had a strong feeling that it'd be him, because...well, because he was him. Bit of a chatterbox, was this regeneration.
It therefore came as a mild surprise when it was Wilf who spoke first.
"But blimey, what sort of time is this to come calling?" he asked in nervous, smalltalk-ish desperation, pulling a pocket watch from his cardigan. "It's got to be past midnight. I'd've thought coming from Didgeridoo or wherever it is, you'd have a better grasp of--"
"Wilf."
It was a quiet sound, barely more than a whisper, and choked with fear, choked with sudden, stomach-churning recognition. Wilfred glanced up in puzzlement; the Doctor's eyes were on his watch. "What?" he asked, almost afraid to know the answer from the expression the Doctor bore.
"Wilf, where... That watch, where did it come from?" He was suddenly intense, grasping Wilf's arms, leaning in urgently and making frighteningly unbreakable eye contact, his light dusting of freckles standing out against his skin, paled as it was from just-seen-a-ghost shock.
"I -- I dunno, do I?" stammered Wilf, and the Doctor broke away in frustration, making a sort of "Gnah!" noise and pirouetting in the street, rubbing his eyes and combing fingers through his hair and carrying on while his Converses splashed in a puddle and the rain, coming down thinner now, pitter-pattered on his soaked suit.
"Think!" he urged. "Come on, this is important -- I need you to think. Carefully.Where, Wilf? Where and when and from who, anything you can remember."
Staring down at the thing, amazed that such a tiny object could cause all this fuss, the old man ran his fingers over its silver surface, tracing the swirling patterns, concentric circles and sweeping strokes that made nothing and meant nothing. Where? It seemed like he'd always had it.
But... oh.
"Donna," he said, remembering. The Doctor halted in his pacing and dashed up the porch steps again, his eyes boggling madly as he listened. "Our Donna gave it me, didn't she? A long while ago. She was just a gel. Five, maybe six years old?" Narrowing his eyes, he added, "Why?"
Both hands flew absentmindedly to the Doctor's hair this time, tugging at it, wringing the worst of the water out as he stared into space and time and his mind raced. "It's --" Then he stopped mid-sentence and mid-hair-ruffle, freezing there breathlessly, his eyes ever so slowly coming to rest on Wilf's face. This was bad. This was...catastrophic, in fact, and worst of all he'd be doing it again, tearing their family apart because the Nobles just happened to get in the way. But he had no choice. Just like last time, this was the only path he could take, because letting it be might mean condemning countless people to their deaths. He had to say it.
"Donna's not your granddaughter, is she?"
Wilf's face screwed up in incredulous anger. "Now, I don't see what business that is of yours! And I'll have you know she's as much mine as Sylvia's my daughter, no matter what you say, Doctor!"
"But she's not, though. Not technically," he rephrased it. "Biologically. Is she? Come on, Wilf, this is important!"
The old man relented, but he was still angry at the implication, however unintentional, that Donna wasn't his to be with, to care for. "No. Not technic'ly. Sylvia can't have kids, medical condition she's got. Donna was adopted as a little babe."
The Doctor looked shattered, even paler than before. "And I bet her parents were unreachable, weren't they? Gone without a trace, eh? Only thing left behind with little Donna was that. Watch." He nodded to it, causing Wilf to clasp his hands around it more tightly, protective and instinctive. Whatever the Doctor was thinking, he didn't like the look on the Time Lord's face.
"That's right," he answered guardedly, and left it at that.
"Wilf --" The Doctor faltered. He didn't know what to do, honestly, and that was the most horrible feeling -- there was another one, another one, after the Master had allowed himself to die and Jenny had been shot and the Doctor had had to go on thinking he was the last, knowing that sensation of loss anew for a second time, and now there was another. And he didn't know what to do. Should he be happy? Scared? What?
And then one thought eclipsed all the others clamouring for attention in his mind: It's Donna.
A Time Lady she may have once been, but she didn't know that. She could have even turned out to be Lady President Romana, for all anyone knew. But it wasn't her anymore. Now, she was Donna Noble, the most important woman in the whole universe whether she remembered it or not, and enough terrible things had already been done to her because of the Doctor's influence on her life.
No more. Not ever again.
Holding out a hand, the Doctor's mournful eyes met Wilf's. "Give it to me. Please. If you don't want anything else to happen to your family, you've got to give that watch to me. And then I'll go, I will, I promise you, and I won't do this again. Just -- please, Wilf. All right? Please."
Still clutching the watch as though the Doctor might try to snatch it away at any moment, Wilfred Mott took a long, long look at this mysterious, otherworldly man who'd come to his Donna, who'd shown her exactly what she could do, that she could really mean something, and then had taken it all away from her. And he saw something in the Doctor that he recognised, as hard as it was to admit; the man cared for Donna. He wanted to protect her, just as Wilf did, and this time it wasn't some big, awful, life-ruining mindwipe, it was just the simple act of taking a pocket watch, leaving and never looking back.
Therein lay its true appeal: never looking back. Because as much as he didn't really blame the Doctor -- it had been to save Donna's life, after all, and Wilf didn't want to imagine what his world would be like without her in it -- he was just tired of it. Tired of everything. He wanted the Doctor gone.
Slowly, taking a moment to give it one last, utterly confused look, Wilf handed the watch over, pressing it gently into the Doctor's palm and whispering without so much as a glance up, "Now go."
He went. The suit and trainers disappeared into the blue box, and the blue box, with a vworp-vworp-vworp, disappeared into nothingness.
Wilf stood there on the front step, miserable and baffled but at the same time oddly satisfied, the wind blowing the last flecks of rain into his face, for a long time. He didn't know how long since, he reminded himself distantly, he didn't have a watch anymore. Then, with a sigh, he turned around and went back inside.
Fin.