Title: One more dream, one more goodbye
Author: finkpishnets
Fandom: Doctor Who/Life on Mars
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Donna/Gene (ftw!)
Spoilers: Doctor Who Series 3 and general Series 4, general Life on Mars.
It's completely an accident, the Doctor tells her; a chink in the vortex that ends up leaving them stranded, briefly, somewhere in the Universe. Nobody's fault, just one of those things.
Donna would believe him except Martha's already told her about the time they were stuck in the sixties for months, and she's pretty sure the Doctor said the same thing then.
"So where are we?" she asks, frowning. "It had better be somewhere good."
The Doctor looks momentarily nervous before peeking out of the TARDIS door.
"Ah," he says after a minute.
"Ah?" Donna repeats. 'Ah' doesn't sound good, and she raises an eyebrow in a way that screams 'threat' and 'explain', and the Doctor hurries to do so before she can start shouting which is never, ever fun.
"Um, we're on Earth," the Doctor says, cheerily, in that way he does right before he delivers the bad news.
"Please, please tell me we're not in Cardiff. What is it with you and bloody Cardiff?!"
"We're not in Cardiff," the Doctor says, and Donna sighs in relief.
"Thank goodness."
"We're in Manchester."
Donna takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. When she opens them, the Doctor is looking particularly nervous and rubbing a hand across the back of his neck in a way that everyone seems to think makes him look adorable. Donna just thinks it makes him look like a naughty five year old.
"Current day Manchester?" she asks with a sneaky suspicion that she knows why he's looking so edgy.
"Well, yes, it's the current day here so I'd say it's current day Manchester..." he trails off when Donna crosses her arms over her chest and starts breathing through her nose in the way that makes her look like a dragon about to attack. "But, no, not your 'current day'."
"So when are we?" Donna asks, trying to keep her cool.
"1974, apparently."
The sound of Donna's screams reverberate throughout the TARDIS for the next hour and a half.
Donna now understands exactly what Martha meant when she said the Doctor was useless in these sorts of situations. He'd become so agitated from boredom that he'd actually started going out and looking for trouble. More often than not all he found where some hooligan teens and a few old drunks who, apparently, told very good stories.
It's really no surprise when she gets a call from Manchester CID asking her to come and collect a Mr John Smith from their care. Apparently Mr Smith was caught trespassing on a crime scene and had been kept in for questioning. They may need to question him some more, but he was free to go for the time being.
"What the hell were you doing?" Donna hisses as he walks out into the lobby, cheerfully chatting with a pretty young girl with short, dark hair.
"Oh, just in the wrong place at the wrong time is all," he replies, giving her one of his patented 'I'm innocent' grins that has never fooled her even for a moment.
"I'm sorry sir, but I just need to get you to fill out a few forms before you leave," the young girl says, offering Donna a sympathetic smile, and Donna wonders whether she, too, has someone crazy on her hands.
"Your husband's a bit of a div," someone says, voice somewhere between loud and booming, and Donna spins around to see a tall, wide shouldered man with thinning hair and an ugly brown coat watching her with amused eyes. Attractive, Donna thinks.
"He's not my husband," she replies automatically, placing her hands on her hips and pulling herself up to full height.
"You didn't deny he's a div," the man points out, smirk on his lips, and Donna matches his stare full on.
"Was there something you wanted?" Donna asks pointedly.
"Right, I'm DCI Hunt. I'm in charge of the investigation that your...friend, stumbled into. I'm sure I'll be wanting a word with him again soon, so make sure he doesn't disappear."
"No chance of that," Donna scoffs, and DCI Hunt raises an eyebrow.
"Nevertheless," he says, shrugging, and Donna's very aware that his presence completely fills the room. She thinks that maybe she's supposed to be intimidated. She's really not.
"Mr Smith," DCI Hunt greets with a nod of his head. They're outside the TARDIS, the Doctor leaning against the doorframe with Donna behind him, hiding the inside from view. Incidentally, the men in front of them don't seem to be finding anything odd about the situation (two people inside what should be a very small blue box which they also happened to put down as their current address) and Donna wonders exactly what the Doctor's done to so obviously fool them. "This is DI Tyler," he says, nodding to the younger, better looking man to his right who's almost as skinny as the Doctor and who Donna has the urge to bake large quantities of sugary goods for. "We were hoping you wouldn't mind popping down to the station. Just a few things we'd like to clear up."
"Of course," the Doctor agrees, amiably, although the look he gives DI Tyler is a bit odd (well, odder than usual).
As they turn to leave, DCI Hunt looks back. "You're welcome to come as well, Miss...?"
"Noble," she answers. "Donna Noble."
"Why do you keep looking at DI Tyler like that?" Donna asks as she follows the Doctor's gaze. "D'you fancy him or something?"
The Doctor splutters and turns to look at her incredulously. "No! What?! No!"
"Then what?" she repeats, giving him the look that says 'you're acting like a complete berk'.
"He just looks a lot like someone I used to know," the Doctor says after a few minutes, voice unusually grave and Donna realises that they're on serious territory, the one that the Doctor only enters into occasionally, and usually only where death, his past, and Rose are concerned.
"Could he be the same person?" Donna asks. She's still not exactly sure how this whole time thing works, and the Doctor's impassioned speech about timey-wimey stuff was no help whatsoever.
"No," he sighs, his gaze still fixed on the young detective, "I thought, at first...but no. I did a quick check, just in case, but he's definitely not." He grins, the one that's nothing but fake reassurance, and Donna just fixes him with a stare until it slides off his face and he rubs his temples instead. "Hell of a coincidence, though."
"Coincidences are what you and I do best," Donna says, smiling widely and nudging him with her elbow.
"Yeah," he laughs, and finally it's sincere.
The Doctor's lead away to be interviewed, ushered into a room that looks suspiciously like it's labelled 'Lost & Found' (an irony that Donna doesn't particularly want to think about), and she's left sitting in the cafeteria drinking weak tea and listening to the cleaning ladies gossip about DS Carling's date with Cynthia and Margie's latest fashion feux-pas. Donna's momentarily glad that she shoehorned the Doctor into taking her shopping when they first arrived.
"How's the tea?" DCI Hunt asks, dropping into the chair opposite her.
"Awful," she replies, taking another sip.
"How about a real drink?" Hunt asks, and Donna's heart skips a beat before she chides herself for reacting like a school girl.
"Brilliant," she grins.
He helps her on with her coat. It's been years since anyone's done that.
The Railways Arms is exactly like a thousand other pubs Donna's been to in her life. The bar tender, who Hunt tells her is called Nelson and is a 'good bloke', greets them both with a friendly smile and begins pouring the DCI's drink automatically.
"What'll it be?" Hunt asks her, and something in his eyes makes it feel a bit like a challenge.
"A pint of bitter," she answers, inwardly smirking when Hunt's grin widens.
He slaps his hands down on the bar, leaning forward before saying, "and a pint of bitter, Nelson, my good man."
It's been a while since Donna's sat in a pub, having a drink and not being surrounded by purple skin and tentacles. She's missed it a bit.
"So, Mr Hunt..." she begins.
"Gene," he interrupts, leaning back in his seat.
"Alright," she says, "Gene. Was it really necessary for you to bring the Do...Mr Smith in for questioning again, or did you have ulterior motives?"
"Ulterior motives?" Gene repeats looking nothing short of amused. "Like what?"
"I don't know," she says loftily, waving her arms to help her point. "If you lot are half as good as you like to think you are, then you'll be perfectly aware that this has nothing to do with him at all. So why did you need to question him again?"
Gene watches her for a few moments, taking a large gulp of his neat whisky and pursing his lips in a way Donna takes to mean he's thinking.
"You're right," he says eventually with a shrug. "We know he has nothing to do with it."
"So why did you bring him back in?" she asks, wondering whether to start getting annoyed on the Doctor's behalf or not. In all fairness, he did bring these things on himself.
"Two reasons," Gene tells her. "One: Tyler was being a prat and wanted all the paperwork filled out properly, and two: I was hoping to get you to have a drink with me."
"Oh," she says, a little stunned, letting his answer sink in. "Well, you can think again if you reckon this drink means anymore than what it actually is."
"Wouldn't dream of it," he says, looking bizarrely pleased at her reaction.
"I should hope not," Donna replies, wondering why the hell she's suddenly discovered the ability to blush. She's Donna Noble and she bloody well does not blush!
Gene smirks and Donna bites back a defeated groan.
Rumpled sheets and sweaty limbs later, Donna wonders when she became the kind of woman to fall into bed with attractive manly strangers. Gene's asleep next to her, one arm thrown across her stomach in a way that seems a little possessive and a little protective, and snoring a bit too loudly.
He'd seemed thrilled when she'd walked out of the pub and into his bronze coloured car, crossing her arms and looking straight ahead in way that was perhaps more determined than seductive, and even more so when she'd reached up and kissed him before he could even get the key in the door. He tasted of cigarettes and whisky and, as Donna tugged fiercely on his tie, pulling him towards stairs she'd never seen before in her life, he'd moaned in a way that sent tingles down her spine.
Now she isn't quite sure what to do. She could try sneaking out, grabbing her clothes and acting in a guilty, regretful way, only she isn't guilty or regretful so that seems a bit silly. Besides, it's been ages since she's had such mind-blowingly fantastic sex, and she's sort of hoping that if she stays where she is and fakes sleep, there'll be the chance of another round when Gene wakes up.
After all, missed opportunities and all that...
Gene doesn't disappoint.
"Where have you been?" the Doctor asks when she finally gets back to the TARDIS. Apparently the police had finally decided to let him leave, DI Tyler thanking him for his time and apologising for the inconvenience, to which the Doctor had smiled and told him it was no trouble, no trouble at all. Donna knew he was just glad for the distraction from boredom.
"Nowhere," she says, a little too quickly, and the Doctor's eyebrows rise in that way where Donna's never positive he's not reading her mind.
"Right," he says, eyeing her carefully, and Donna's ashamed to realise that she's blushing again. Bloody Gene Hunt; she'd never blushed before him! "Anyway," the Doctor continues, humongous grin on his face, "the TARDIS is up and running again!"
Donna cheers, throwing her arms around the Doctor's neck, and the two of them spend a couple of minutes jumping around like children.
"Brilliant. So, where to first? The diamond cascades of Pregorosa? The violet beaches of Beal? Oh, I know! The island of Narouge! Gorgeous place; built in the seventy third century entirely out of rubies."
"Anywhere," Donna breathes. She's missed this feeling, the excitement that comes with the unknown.
"Off we go then," the Doctor laughs, hopping over to the console and beginning to tap away happily.
"Hang on," Donna says quickly, "um, could we just wait, like, half an hour? There's something I have to do first."
The Doctor looks up, and Donna's suddenly aware that he probably knows exactly what she's been up to. He doesn't look judgemental or amused; he simply nods his head, gives her a small smile and tells her he'll see her when she gets back.
"You won't leave without me?" she says with a chuckle that sounds forced even to her own ears.
"Promise," he says, seriously.
"You're leaving?" Gene asks, face neutral.
"Yeah," she agrees, and she wonders why the people she finds herself falling for are always the ones just out of her reach.
"Are you coming back?" he asks and she can tell that he's not really surprised by any of this.
She thinks about lying, saying that she might be back in a few months, but she can't bring herself to do it.
"No," she says, and he offers her a small smile.
"It was fun though," he grins, and she mirrors it gladly.
"Yeah, it really was."
"You're quite the mystery, you know that Donna Noble?"
She throws back her head and laughs, and wonders why it's this man out of all the men in the universe that could be the one she really, really loves.
"Not really," she chuckles. "I'm just a temp."
"You're not 'just' anything," Gene tells her, face uncharacteristically gentle but completely serious, and for the first time Donna can feel herself believing it just a little bit.
"Thank you," she says, leaning up to kiss him. It's intended to be soft and gentle – a parting goodbye – but instead it ends up fierce and passionate and Donna tries to memorise it so she can keep it for the rest of her life.
"Donna," he nods as they part, smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"Gene," she says, looking him over one last time.
As she walks away she can feel tears prickling at her eyes.
She doesn't let them get any further.
She smiles instead.
"You alright?" the Doctor asks as she shuts the TARDIS door behind her.
"Yeah," she says, blinking softly, "yeah."
The Doctor watches her for a moment before nudging her side.
"Come here," he says, wrapping her in a huge hug and she giggles a little desperately into her shoulder.
"Thanks," she sniffs after a minute, ignoring the wet patch on his jacket.
"What are best friends for?" he says, offering her a smile that's completely genuine and she knows then that there was never, ever a choice.
"So," she laughs, "the ruby city of...wherever!"
"Right!" the Doctor grins, hitting the console in several (supposedly) strategic places.
He doesn't let go of her hand until three planets and lots of danger later.
Donna's glad.