Part 15

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She was utterly furious with herself for feeling jealous. How could she be so stupid? And John needed to do his job, she reminded herself, which still included being her bodyguard. So, Donna stopped and waited for him to catch her up. "Sorry, had a bit of a mad moment," she muttered, averting her gaze.

His nudge on her shoulder jerked her head back up to look at him. "Thought you'd gone nuts for a second," he whispered and then more loudly introduced his friend. "Jack, I'd like you to meet Donna Noble. I've been assigned to look after her."

Donna keyed herself up to meet indifference, but she got something else entirely.

"Nice to meet… Hang on a second," Jack retorted and turned to gape at John as the memories stirred in his head. "I remember her. She's the one. That's the redhead you used to moon over. Oh, this is priceless!"

"No, it isn't," John immediately denied, his cheeks reddening. "I did no such thing."

"Believe me, he did," Jack leaned in to aim at Donna, who looked none too pleased at the reference.

"Two members of Kasterborous. Our luck seems to be in tonight," Rose commented.

"Your luck could be in generally tonight," Jack schmoozed. "After the show, how about we go for dinner together."

She turned and slyly asked her bandmate, "What are you thinking, Mickey?"

"Why not?" Mickey replied, grinning at Jack. "Fancy reliving a little bit of the old magic?"

"Oh no, I can't steal a place on your tour," Jack politely declined. "I don't know the words to your songs."

"Then how about we perform one of yours?" Mickey suggested. "Just the one song though."

"And we can all meet up for dinner later," Rose added, loving this new turn to the evening.

Jack, however, was still being politely wary. "I only came here to catch up with John."

"A song and a proper catch up later over dinner sounds fine to me," John assured them all.

"Then that's agreed," Mickey announced, clapping his hands together. "Jack can come on just before the finale."

Rory nodded. "What song of theirs shall we sing?"

"I know just the one," Jack supplied as he gazed intensely at John.

Giving his guitar a melodious twang, Mickey spoke into the microphone. "In honour of having the legendary Doctor with us tonight, we thought we'd pay tribute to Kasterborous with a special song."

The crowd suitably cheered as the opening notes to one of Kasterborous' most famous hits vibrated through the loudspeakers. And then the crowd roared in delight as the voice of Jack began to sing the words. " The girl of my dreams is with me tonight "

When he actually climbed on stage, the wall of noise as the crowd reacted would have warmed any heart, and Jack was keen to milk this moment back in the spotlight, stretching out his arms covered in a sparkly outfit. He moved gracefully across the space to stand next to Rose as she sung with him, a beautiful duet of an old familiar song.

But Donna's eyes were on John instead. Was he happy with the way this reunion was playing out? He'd said welcoming words, but he hadn't seemed overly keen to offer Jack a spot with them.

It wasn't until John turned to look at her as Jack sung the words " My life is yours. Just take my hand " did she feel he was truly okay.

To her delight, John edged closer and sung along to the next line, in her direction. " Be mine for all of time "

Soppy fool, she thought as the ballad continued. He was far too gorgeous for his own good. Or hers. Yet it wouldn't hurt to make the most of this wonderful feeling whilst it existed, so it took little effort to sing back to him.

Within moments, Mickey steered the song into a loud, rambunctious rending of The Companions last hit, to end the show. Ending on the bam of the last chord, accompanied by exploding confetti cannons onto the audience, the troop took their curtain calls, and eventually left the stage.

There was a brief, snatched exchange between Donna and John, to confirm that everything was okay, before he was whisked away by the boys into their dressing room, to loud raucous laughter.

"You've been left behind," Martha noted as they walked together along the backstage corridor.

"It was inevitable," Rose mischievously added. "Bound to happen. Can't trust men to stick around."

"Not men. Boys," Martha criticised. After all, she'd been left behind too.

"Yeah," Donna pretended to agree, her thoughts somewhere else entirely. "Did you happen to hear what Jack said before we went onstage? When he first arrived."

"Yes," Rose answered. "Dirty flirt. I bet he's had more women than hot dinners."

"I heard he's bisexual," Martha commented. "Might spoil that figure."

Rose merely grimaced. "Doesn't mean that half the people he's slept with are women. There's probably a biased."

Okay, they probably hadn't heard what Jack had said about her, but it brought up an entirely different question. "Is that why he's sought out John tonight, do you think?" Donna wondered.

"You clearly have competition," Martha stated, and gave Donna a consoling touch. "Make a grab for him, while you can."

"But I…," Donna started to deny in protest, but Rose couldn't resist teasing her.

"If you don't, I certainly will."

Watching her friends saunter away to get changed before heading for their temporary home, Donna had plenty of food for thought. Had she been John's crush? Would he now go after Rose? Was Jack there to win John's heart? And was she merely a pawn in it all?