A/N: Shaking things up a little bit in this one, guys. It's in Donna's POV. It sort of just evolved this way, and I think it's interesting to see an outsider's POV on the Doctor and Hartley's relationship. Plus we unpack a bit of what happened in S3 here, too.
It's important that Donna know everything they went through, and that she's someone Hartley can open up to. She hasn't had that in awhile.
I know that there's no mention of Lucy, but I think there's only so much you can rehash in one sitting when it comes to this sort of trauma. Some things Hartley isn't ready to talk about, yet. It will be addressed further down the line, though, so don't worry. That whole story gets resolved eventually.
Hope you enjoy!
TRUTH AND HONESTY
"Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy
will burn out the pain."
Joseph Campbell
"What's your favourite food?"
Donna jumped in surprise, spinning around from where she was towel-drying her hair to blink at Hartley in bewilderment. "You scared the daylights outta me," she huffed. "I've still got water in my ears."
"Sorry," Hartley apologised. "Enjoy your swim?"
"The pool is heavenly," Donna agreed, still rubbing at her hair. "Shame there's no natural light, though. I'd love a good sunbathe."
"I'll mention it to the Doctor," Hartley promised her. "We can go to Hawaii, or maybe Greece – catch some rays on a quiet beach."
"Can it be somewhere with cocktails?"
Hartley smiled like Donna had cracked a joke. "Of course there'll be cocktails," she said with a scoff, as if that was ever in question. "Go on," she continued, leaning against the wall and watching Donna expectantly, "what's your favourite food?"
Donna frowned, confused. "Why?" she asked as she pulled a big, fluffy robe on over her swimsuit.
"Because I'm making dinner," Hartley told her like it were obvious.
"You cook?"
"Some days," she replied with a secretive little smile. "Go on, name it. Burgers? Salad? Fish? Pasta? By the way, are you gluten free?"
Donna was gobsmacked by the sudden onslaught of options, and she blinked at Hartley in surprise. "Why're you cooking, though?" she asked once she'd recovered. "Can't we just go to any restaurant in the universe? We don't even need to wait for reservations – we can just book one then pop ahead a few weeks to eat!"
But when Hartley got a disappointed sort of look on her face, Donna realised her mistake.
"But if you want to cook, that's okay too," she said quickly, suddenly feeling guilty for her thoughtless words.
Hartley wasn't convinced. "If you'd rather go out to eat..." she trailed off.
"No, no," Donna quickly assured her. "I'd like to try your cooking. I've always been a fan of Italian," she offered.
Hartley lit up, expression shining with light, and Donna knew she'd made the right call. "Okay, great," said Hartley brightly. "Feel like a trip to Italy?"
Donna blinked. "Huh?"
Hartley laughed. "The TARDIS might be infinite, but believe it or not, there aren't any markets hidden on board," she reminded her. "If we want fresh produce, we have to go get it ourselves."
Donna was surprised by the information. "I guess I figured it'd have some kind of fancy food machine, where you just input what you wanted and it spat out some kind of meal," she admitted.
"It does," Hartley nodded, jerking her hand over her shoulder in what Donna assumed was the general direction of the machine. "But all the food it creates is horrible. You can taste how manufactured it is," she shuddered with disgust.
"Home-cooked it is, then."
"Why don't you go get dressed, and we'll meet in the control room in twenty?" she suggested eagerly.
Donna smiled again, her excitability adorable. "Perfect."
Donna took a quick shower to wash the salt out of her hair, then changed into comfortable clothes that still looked a little dressy – so Hartley knew she was making an effort.
When she got to the control room, Hartley was already sitting on the jump seat, her legs kicking underneath her as she snorted indelicately at something the Doctor had said. "What're you two gossiping about now?" Donna asked playfully as she made her way over to them.
"We – we're not gossiping," the Doctor insisted, tugging at his tie with a grimace in her direction.
Hartley only laughed. "Come on," she said to Donna, bounding off the jump seat and making a beeline for the doors. "The Doc's already landed us in the marketplace. It's one of my favourites – they have the best tomatoes you will ever taste in your life."
"That's some big talk," Donna chuckled.
Hartley wagged her finger in Donna's face. "You'll see," she sang, pulling open the door and stepping out into Italy. Donna fell silent as she joined her, barely aware of the Doctor sliding out after them and shutting the door with a quiet click.
Modern-day Italy stretched out before her. It was early in the morning, the sky a soft watercolour of oranges and pinks, the air nippy and crisp. They were in a modest marketplace, wooden stalls laid out in the nooks of a small alleyway. The air smelt of fruit, and produce and people stretched down the alley and around the bend.
Hartley wasted no time, making a beeline for the nearest stall, which held a variety of plump looking vegetables. "Ever been to Italy before?" the Doctor asked Donna as they followed leisurely behind.
"Never," she replied. "Not unless you count Pompeii."
It was still hard to think about, however slowly but surely her memories of that day a week or two ago in Pompeii were becoming less vivid; the pain and guilt receding into something like acceptance. It had happened, there was no changing that. There was only learning to live with it.
If the Doctor found it painful to remember, he didn't show it "Hartley loves it here," he told her conversationally. "She'll tell you it's the culture, but it's mostly just the food," he added with a sniff.
As Donna watched Hartley barter with the man behind the stall, something occurred to her. "Hang on, how're you paying for this? You don't have any money," she said, admittedly a little accusatory. "Shouldn't we find an ATM or something?"
The Doctor shook his head, pointing to where Hartley was waving a slip of paper over a card reader. It beeped and the man handed over Hartley's bag of assorted produce.
"What's that?"
"Psychic paper," he told her casually, following after Hartley who walked like a woman on a mission, heading for another stall, this one selling mushrooms. "Can trick almost anything, even machines."
Her eyebrows shot up to her hairline. "You mean you're stealing this stuff?"
He turned to stare at her, offended. "No!" he said vehemently. "It really does act like money. The people get what they're owed. We're not stealing anything."
Donna's eyes narrowed. "How does that work?" she asked carefully. The Doctor opened his mouth to answer, but she quickly changed her mind. "Oh, never mind," she huffed. "I'm just going to call it alien magic and be done with it."
"What's alien magic?" Hartley had reappeared. Donna watched as the Doctor reached out to take her bags from her, as if it were instinct. Something about it was so simple and pure and normal – like they were any other couple down at the markets – that Donna couldn't help but stare, especially when Hartley tilted her head back to shoot him a sunny smile in thanks.
"The psychic paper," the Doctor answered her automatically.
Hartley's nose crinkled. "Yeah, I don't pretend to know how that works. I'm just thankful it does," she said before leaning into the bags the Doctor now held, peering inside. Her lips moved silently as she went through her mental list. "Oh, we need more garlic," she said suddenly, turning away and heading for a small stall at the very back of the marketplace.
Donna watched her go, thoughtful. "She seems happy," she mused.
"She does, doesn't she?" the Doctor hummed, staring after Hartley with the kind of emotion in his eyes that Donna couldn't even begin to describe. She wondered, idly, what she would give to have someone look at her that way. "For awhile there I thought I might never see it again..." he murmured, seeming to almost forget Donna was even there at all.
"What's that mean?" Donna asked, confused by the words.
The Doctor blinked back to himself, turning to look at her in surprise. "Oh, I just mean after, well, there was this thing that happened…" he began to explain, an uncomfortable wince twisting at his face.
But Hartley reappeared before he could finish, and he promptly sealed his mouth shut tight. "I think that's everything," the young immortal said, slipping the cloves of garlic into one of the bags. "We're good to go."
Donna was alight with curiosity – what had happened that would cause Hartley so much pain the Doctor treated her happiness like a precious commodity? – but with Hartley hellbent on her mission to feed them the most authentic Italian meal ever made, there was no time. Donna got the feeling it wasn't the sort of thing the Doctor wanted to bring up while Hartley was there.
Hartley led them back to the TARDIS, unlocking the door with the key she always kept safe around her neck and waving them inside. "All right, it'll take about an hour to make," she said as she shut the door behind them. "Go kill some time and meet me in the kitchen then," she ordered lightly, already making her way into the depths of the TARDIS.
"Bossy," Donna called after her.
Hartley poked her tongue out over her shoulder before disappearing entirely. Curiosity was still lit like a fire in her belly, and Donna turned to the Doctor to get him to finish explaining himself, only to find him heading after Hartley into the TARDIS.
"Oi!" she shouted after him. "Where're you going?"
"To kill some time!" he called back before he turned the corner and disappeared as well.
Lost and just a tiny bit miffed, Donna made her way to the entertainment room, deciding to watch some frivolous reality TV to pass the time. The Doctor didn't tend to like her watching things from her future; but he also wasn't around to tell her off for it, so she turned on a soap opera from the 31st century and lost herself in the fake lives of people from the distant future.
By the time she was making her way towards the kitchen/dining room an hour later she was starving, and the delicious smell wafting out the doors and down the TARDIS' corridors wasn't helping any.
She heard their voices before she reached them, Hartley and the Doctor talking lightly over the muted sounds of some old rock music playing from the jukebox in the far corner.
"Quit eating all the cherry tomatoes!" Hartley said, an unmistakable note of amusement ringing her voice.
"I can't help it," the Doctor whined back. "They're so good. It's a testament to your cooking skills – honestly."
"I haven't even done anything to them," she replied, exasperated.
"...You cut them with love?"
Hartley's ensuing laughter rang out loud and clear.
Donna stepped into the kitchen to catch sight of the pair, both stood at the kitchen counter with their backs to her. The Doctor was hovering over Hartley's shoulder, one hand pressed innocently to her waist and his head bent over the skin exposed by her loose woollen jumper. Hartley was humming along with the music, and the moment suddenly seemed so personal, so tender, that Donna felt guilty for intruding.
Before she could clear her throat to announce her presence, she accidentally ran into one of the chairs at the table. It made a loud sound, its feet scraping noisily against the floor.
Hartley suddenly let out a yelp, flinching away from the Doctor as if he'd burned her, hands coming up to cover her face like it were some kind of deep-seated instinct.
The sound had been jarring, certainly, but Donna was shocked by the force of her friend's reaction.
Hartley quickly lowered her hands, glancing over at Donna sheepishly. "Oh, Donna," she said, pressing a hand over her heart, which was probably racing from the fright. "You scared me."
"Did I? I couldn't tell," said Donna with playful sarcasm. But to her surprise, neither Hartley nor the Doctor cracked so much as a smile. "S'everything all right?" she asked carefully, getting the feeling she'd done something wrong, but having no idea what.
The Doctor turned around with a grin too large to be sincere. "Hartley's been slaving over this Casarecce for hours," he said as though nothing odd had even happened. Donna got the feeling it had something to do with whatever the Doctor had been alluding to in the marketplace earlier. "So, you'd better like it," he finished teasingly.
"It's only been one hour, Doc," Hartley rolled her eyes. "For a Time Lord, he's ironically not very good at judging time," she added over her shoulder.
Donna could tell they wanted to sweep the incident under the rug. She didn't agree, but she'd let it go – for now. "What's Casarecce?" she asked instead, taking a seat at the table.
"Just a kind of pasta," Hartley told her as she began to dish out their food. Breathing deeply, Donna took in the combined smells of the tomatoes, herbs and cheeses that Hartley had used in her recipe. It was downright intoxicating. "You want some wine?" Hartley offered, producing a bottle of aged red wine and holding it out for Donna to inspect.
"Oh, go on then," she said, and Hartley smiled as she poured two glasses. Donna was confused when she got out some kind of fizzy drink as well, pouring that for the Doctor instead without him so much as saying a word.
She wondered how often they did this, that they would have such a routine. If it wouldn't have made the Doctor balk, she might have commented on how domestic it seemed.
"Not a fan of wine?" she asked him instead as Hartley took a seat on the Doctor's other side.
"Nah," the Doctor replied, already picking up his fork and spearing some pasta with an eager grin. "Why would you want wine when you can have Sprite?" he asked, like the question was one that genuinely puzzled him.
Donna snorted indelicately while Hartley gave a smile that was like a crackling fire on a cold winter's day; warm and full of life. It was aimed at the Doctor, fondness sparkling in her eyes.
"Well? Dig in," Hartley prompted her suddenly, and Donna realised she'd been ignoring the bowl of Casarecce on the table before her in favour of staring at Hartley like an idiot.
She quickly took a bite, the moan spilling from her lips surprising even herself. "Wow," she murmured, looking up at Hartley with wide eyes. "It's good!"
Hartley laughed. "Why do you sound so surprised?" she asked playfully as she speared her own pasta, eating with a smile on her face.
"Dunno. Shouldn't surprise me you're so good at cooking; you're certainly the type."
Hartley looked like she didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted. In the end she just rolled her eyes and returned her attention to her food.
"So," began the Doctor as they ate. "Where do we want to go next?!"
Hartley swallowed her mouthful so she could laugh. Donna eyed him thoughtfully. "Always moving, aren't you?" she mused.
"Sitting still is so dull," he explained. "There's just so much to see! Do you feel like swimming? There's a planet in the Jagmar system that's got the most waterparks in the universe. I once spent three weeks there! Of course, that was only because I got lost. Some of their waterslides go on for miles; I got a little turned around."
He continued to ramble, using large hand gestures around his bites of food. But Donna wasn't watching him; she was watching Hartley, who stared at the Doctor with her shin propped up on her fist, doe eyes wide and adoring. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Donna once again wished she had someone to look at her like that, but those thoughts evaporated as the Doctor drew her attention.
"And that's why you should always remember to eat your ice cream before it melts – that park still has me on a lifetime ban," he muttered, a tiny bit bitter, and Donna blinked at him in bewilderment. Where had the story gone while she hadn't been paying attention?
Hartley seemed to have had no trouble following his onslaught of words, smiling fondly to herself as she daintily chewed and swallowed her mouthful. Donna wondered if this was usual for them.
She'd assumed it was all non-stop adventure. Donna hadn't really stopped to wonder what happened between all the trouble. These quiet moments, they were like an insight into another world; one she desperately wanted to become a part of. She figured the best place to start was by participating in conversations, rather than spending them all staring at the pair like they were an exhibit at the zoo.
"Well, I've always wanted to meet Beethoven," she said as she took a generous sip of wine. It was tart on her tongue in the way that told her it was expensive. She didn't bother to ask where they got it from; knowing the answer was probably just as outlandish as any other story they had.
"But I've already met him," the Doctor whined.
Donna was unconcerned by his whines. "So you can introduce us, then," she shrugged.
The Doctor pouted and Hartley smiled again, reaching out absentmindedly to squeeze his hand. The movement was easy and thoughtless, like it were something they spent all day long doing.
"How long have you two been together?" Donna was asking before she'd realised what she was doing. The question had come unbidden to her lips, but once it was spoken she realised it was something she'd wondered for awhile now.
Both Hartley and the Doctor looked up at her in surprise, and she felt the need to elaborate.
"What I mean is – first time we met, you two were just friends," she said clearly, eyes flickering between them thoughtfully. "Now it's clear you're did that happen?"
The Doctor hesitated, looking over at Hartley, a little panicked. From what Donna knew of him, he wasn't exactly the kind to gush about his relationship – that was far too human for someone like him. Hartley smiled and took the reins, which was probably for the best.
"Only a couple of weeks, actually," she answered the question easily.
Donna blinked. "Only two weeks?"
Hartley smiled again. "That surprises you?"
"It's just..." Donna trailed off, struggling to put words to her thoughts.
Hartley waited patiently for her to figure it out while the Doctor just obliviously scoffed down his meal like a starving man seeing food for the first time in months. Donna thought idly that it was rather strange, seeing the Doctor eat. He seemed so otherworldly, it was easy to forget he did something so mundane.
"Looking at you, it seems longer," Donna finally told her. "My mum has this friend, Sarah, and she's been with her husband, Andy, for over twenty years now. They come over for dinner whenever they're in the city and I look at them … and they're happy together … in love, I s'pose, but…"
Hartley cocked her head, still patiently letting Donna gather her thoughts.
Donna wanted to say that it was like her friend's relationship paled in comparison to the connection Hartley and the Doctor shared. That they made her want to believe in love again; even after everything that happened with Lance last Christmas.
But it was so sappy to say, and she knew the Doctor would only roll his eyes and get all uncomfortable. So instead she smiled and left the words unsaid.
"I'm just really glad you two are so happy," she settled for saying.
Donna could tell Hartley knew there was more, but she was nothing if not polite. She gave a soft but blinding smile, lifting her glass and taking a sip. The brightness of her smile made Donna pause, remembering what the Doctor had alluded to earlier.
Curiosity reared its head within her, and as if someone had removed her filter entirely, she blurted, "can I ask what happened?"
The Doctor looked up from where he'd been practically inhaling his food. Hartley lowered her fork, confused. "What happened?" she echoed cluelessly.
The Doctor seemed to sense where she was going with this, and he opened his eyes wide as if to tell her 'warning, do not proceed'. But Donna was stubborn to a fault, and she wanted to know exactly what it was she was meant to be avoiding.
"Something bad happened to you before we found each other at Adipose," she said, laying out what little she'd managed to glean since coming aboard the TARDIS.
Hartley didn't seem to react badly, as such. There was just a slight tightening of her eyes and she lowered her fork, putting it back in her bowl and pushing the whole thing away from her like she'd suddenly lost her appetite. The Doctor was frowning down at the table, but Donna couldn't have even begun to describe the look on his face.
She felt a little bad for bringing it up, but her curiosity outweighed her guilt. As far as she was concerned, she had a right to know.
Hartley looked over at the Doctor who tore his stare from the table to look over at her with sad eyes. She nodded once, a forced smile on her face as they communicated in that silent way only the closest of partners ever could, before she turned back to Donna bracingly.
"It's a long story," she began in warning.
"It's a big meal," Donna replied, picking up her fork and eating some more of the pasta.
This time it was Hartley who needed time to gather her thoughts. When she finally knew how to explain she began to talk, voice low and trembling. Despite the fear in her voice, her chin was tilted up bravely, like she were trying to prove something to someone. Donna wondered who that was.
And then she told the tale of the Master and his Year That Never Was. Donna didn't interrupt, she just slowly ate the food that became tasteless in her mouth as she listened.
"You're telling me there was a whole year the world just forgot?" she finally asked once Hartley had finished speaking, watching as she toyed with her food, her appetite evaporated into nothing. "A year where nearly every human on Earth was killed by a rogue, psychotic Time Lord?"
"Well, it never happened, now," said the Doctor like it were that simple.
To Donna, it was anything but simple. She didn't understand, exactly, how an entire year could be wiped from existence, but she was doing her best to keep up. She glanced over at Hartley whose eyes held a shadow of pain.
"But, what were you doing in this year?" Donna asked, confused about the agony in her friend's expression. Because she'd explained what had happened; who the Master had been and what he'd done to the Earth, but she hadn't explained what she'd done during that time. She'd glossed over it like it wasn't important to the story. Donna couldn't help but think it was.
Hartley shrugged like it were inconsequential, but Donna could see in the Doctor's old eyes that it was anything but. "I was there, in the heart of the storm, with the Doctor and Jack," she said quietly, toying absently with what remained of her food.
"Doing what?" Donna pressed stubbornly.
"Donna, maybe we should-" the Doctor began to say, but Hartley reached out and grasped the hand that sat limply on the table. He looked over at her, watched as she slowly shook her head, telling him without words that she was all right; that she could do this.
Donna found her brave, even without knowing what she was being brave about.
"The Master kept me in a room," she began slowly, gripping the Doctor's hand so tightly her knuckles went white. Donna pretended not to notice. "An entire year, I never saw the sky, or the earth, or any face other than his."
Donna's insides swooped, and Hartley smiled sadly, like she knew the exactly what Donna was feeling. She did that a lot, Donna found, reacted to something that hadn't happened out loud. Like she knew Donna's thoughts and feelings – almost before she did herself.
"What did he do to you?" Donna asked, voice a mere whisper, like anything louder might shatter her fragile friend into nothing. Looking at her now, it didn't seem such a ridiculous concern.
Hartley looked away, carefully chewing on her words. Donna wondered what could be so bad that she couldn't just say it, and then changed her mind. She didn't need to wonder, not really, and suddenly she wasn't sure she wanted to be told at all. But Hartley spoke anyway, eyes glassy and distant, like she weren't seeing them and the TARDIS' large kitchen but rather something else that no one else could.
"He beat me, mostly," she revealed in a faraway voice. Donna got the feeling she wasn't there with them, but rather in the difficult past, reliving something she should never have to. Donna suddenly regretted asking anything at all, thinking that maybe some things should stay buried. "He just came in, taunted me day after day. Asked me to tell him things about the Doctor and our life together; got violent when I didn't. He was fascinated by the way I couldn't die. Said he wanted to try to kill me every way possible, just as an experiment..." she trailed off distantly.
By now Donna's throat was tight with emotion. "Hart..." she whispered, pain and horror warring in her chest. "I can't even..."
"The dying wasn't so bad," Hartley continued like Donna had never spoken. "It became a sort of relief from the pain. The worst part was the things he said; the things he told me he was doing to my friends, or to the planet, or would do to the universe. I think I became sort of like his personal diary..."
She shook her head suddenly, as if coming out of a stupor. She finally met Donna's eyes again, a weak smile flickering to life on her face.
"Coming out of that room was harder than going into it," she confessed. "He stripped me bare in there. Made me feel like I wasn't a person anymore. Becoming human again … it took some time."
"But you got there in the end," said the Doctor, soft and tender in a way Donna had never seen. He gripped Hartley's hand, looking at her like she were everything, and Donna thought that in that moment, she really was, to him.
As if suddenly realising he were gazing at Hartley like an idiot, he turned to look at Donna, sniffing indelicately.
"She has violent reactions to some things; sudden loud noises, small spaces, emotions she senses," he explained, glancing back at her. "But she's getting better every day," he said proudly.
Hartley smiled, but it was weak at best.
"What d'you mean 'emotions she senses'?" Donna asked, confused by the statement.
"I'm an Empath," Hartley confessed, seeming to have recovered somewhat from her stupor. Donna could see the Doctor was right; she was getting better every day. "I can sense and manipulate emotion," she told Donna carefully, as if scared about how she might react.
"You can?" Donna blinked. As if being immortal wasn't enough for the poor woman to handle, she thought wryly.
Hartley's cheeks were a little bit pink as she nodded. "I can't really control it – especially after that whole year being locked away from other humans. I don't mean it to be an invasion of your privacy-"
"Hart," Donna smiled. "Calm down. It's okay." Hartley fell silent, sheepish. "I don't mind you knowing how I feel. If there was one person in the universe I'd pick to know, it'd be you."
Hartley smiled back, expression growing more genuine the longer she held it there. "You wear your heart on your sleeve anyway," she admitted. "There's not much you feel that you don't show."
Donna shrugged. "Nothing worth hiding."
Hartley was quiet a moment, watching as Donna ate some more of her cooling pasta. "I don't want you to treat me like I'm fragile, now," she said suddenly. "I'm still exactly the same," she added, like she were trying to convince herself. And Donna thought that was rather sad.
"I won't, Hart," she swore. "Honest."
They finished up dinner, and Donna immediately got up to clean up. It said a lot about the toll the conversation had taken on Hartley that she didn't even complain.
"I think I'll head to bed," Hartley said after draining the last of her wine. "Thanks for eating with me."
"Thanks for cooking," Donna replied from her spot at the sink. "I wouldn't complain if this became a regular thing," she added playfully.
"Dinner: yes. The conversation: not so much," Hartley replied, and Donna was rather surprised she could joke about it. Then she felt bad for underestimating Hartley. She was strong in every other aspect of her life; why should this be any different?
"Do you want me to walk you to your room?" the Doctor offered.
"Nah," said Hartley, and Donna politely looked away when she leaned in to casually brush their lips together. "I'll be fine, Doc. See you in the morning – let's set it to random; see what happens?"
"But you don't even like random!" the Doctor argued, as if suddenly suspicious his human had been kidnapped and replaced by a convincing copy.
"I can be convinced," she replied lightly, giving him another gentle kiss before standing to her feet, moving to Donna and squeezing her shoulder in farewell. Donna waved a soapy hand in reply and then Hartley disappeared out the door, leaving Donna and the Doctor in a weighty silence.
Donna kept washing the dishes, frown creasing her brow as she considered all her friends had just told her.
"It means a lot that she told you all that," said the Doctor, and Donna glanced over her shoulder to see him approaching, the last of their dishes in his hands. He put them in the sink with the others and swiped up the clean dishtowel from where it lay over the oven handle. He began taking the dishes she'd washed, drying them and putting them back in their cupboards.
"You'd think a box this fancy would at least have a dishwasher," complained Donna.
The Doctor smiled like she'd said something adorable. "Hartley likes doing them by hand," he explained, and that certainly explained the expression.
"What, so you didn't have one installed?" she asked sarcastically.
"So the TARDIS took it out of the kitchen," he replied with a shrug. "It's always been particularly fond of her, seeing as she was born on board."
Donna nearly dropped the wine glass she was washing. "She what?"
"It's a long story," he waved her off.
"You've known her since she was born?" Donna gasped, staring at him, aghast. "Way to be a creep! One minute she's a kid and the next you're gazing at her like you wanna rip off her clothes and go at it on the TARDIS console?" she squawked.
Now the Doctor looked especially uncomfortable. "Blimey, Donna," he huffed. "No, I met her when she was twenty-five, and it was only recently we discovered she was born on the TARDIS."
Donna was only more confused. "How the bloody hell is that meant to work?" she demanded.
He sighed the sigh of a troubled man. "Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey," he muttered, and Donna decided it was just best not to ask. "I meant what I said," he continued, and she looked up from the plate she was scrubbing, eyebrows raised. "It really does mean a lot that she was so honest with you about all this."
"I figure it's not something she finds easy to talk about," she said thoughtfully, handing him the plate and reaching for the last glass.
"It isn't," he agreed. "It causes her a lot of pain."
A question weighed on Donna's mind, persistent and annoying, and she knew she had to ask. "How does she cope?" she wondered.
The Doctor's shoulders slumped, and when she looked at him Donna saw a man much older than he looked – he suddenly seemed almost as old as he claimed to be. It was all in the eyes, she thought, so ancient and unfathomably deep.
"I suppose she copes with it the same way I always have," he murmured, glancing up to meet Donna's eyes. "She runs; as far and as fast as she can."
Donna frowned. "That doesn't sound healthy."
"It's as healthy as it gets," he argued. "Moving forwards? Plunging yourself headfirst into the future? What else is she meant to do: sit and stew in memories of her past?"
Donna thought she understood the both of them a little better, just with that one sentence. She saw them clearly now, for all they were. So similar, yet their own people entirely. They really were made for one another.
"It's healthy to move forwards," she allowed. "But I think she needs to deal with her past properly if she ever wants to truly move on."
And she could tell the Doctor knew she had a point, even if he didn't say it out loud.
"Thanks for coming with us, Donna," he said instead. After letting the soapy water out of the sink, she look up at him in surprise. "You were right that night we first met. We need someone else."
Donna smiled. "Well, it wasn't entirely a selfless act for me, y'know?"
"I know you didn't come find us just for our sakes," he assured her. "Who can blame you for wanting to see the stars? It just works out well. You're exactly what Hartley needs right now."
"I am?"
"She needs a friend who isn't me," he admitted. "Someone she can talk to about these things."
And Donna understood. She wasn't complaining about that when she asked, "why can't it be you?"
The Doctor winced. "Because the Master was my friend," he confessed, the words weighty in a way she hadn't expected. "And in the end, I was the one who forgave him – even after everything he did to her." He shuddered in something she thought might have been self-hatred, but she couldn't say for sure.
"There was more to it, wasn't there?" she asked, barely even a whisper, the thought almost too horrible to voice. "More that she isn't saying?"
The Doctor shut his eyes and looked away. "I don't know," he told her. "If there is, she won't tell me."
Donna sucked in a breath. "Do you think it's possible?"
The Doctor sighed. "I wish I could say no and be certain," he said, and she supposed that was answer enough.
The look on his face was dark, like a bank of oncoming storm clouds bringing the promise of thunder and chaos. She could tell that if she didn't try to dig him out of the hole he was sinking into, it might very well swallow him entirely.
"Wanna go play some chess?" she offered, because she could tell it was the sort of thing he enjoyed.
The Doctor glanced up from where he'd been frowning at the floor, surprise in his eyes. "You don't play chess," he said, even though she couldn't remember ever telling him that before. If things hadn't been so tense, she might have been offended by the assumption. Besides, it was true.
"Well, I've always wanted to learn," she told him, a lie, but a white one, so it didn't count. "You could teach me."
And then the Doctor smiled, shaking his head in exasperation. "I'll do my best," he said slyly, and she gave an indignant squawk that made him laugh.
And she knew then, without question, that this was exactly where she was meant to be. In the TARDIS with the Doctor and Hartley. And it was where she was going to stay for the rest of her days.
A/N: A bit of a shorter one than usual, but I hope you enjoyed. Really more of a small glimpse into their domestic dynamic, plus it was important Donna knows about Hartley's PTSD.
Also, I didn't say anything last chapter because I just completely blanked, but we're at 50 chapters! I feel like it's kind of an exciting milestone. Thanks for all your reviews. They really mean the world, even just a short note to say you like the story fuels me and makes me giddy for days! I'll see you guys next time!
Coming up next: Planet of the Ood
