Author's Notes: I do not own Doctor Who. Thanks for the reads and reviews, follows, etc. I appreciate it. Let me know what you think of this one and happy reading!

Donna awoke alone the next morning. Only she wasn't in her bed, she had fallen asleep on the sofa in the sitting room. She had a blanket she didn't remember getting and her eyes were puffy.

She had looked for the Doctor for a long time in the TARDIS, but he was doing a bloody good job hiding himself. So, she fixed dinner and then sat in the sitting room watching outer space soap operas until she must have fallen asleep on the sofa.

What was she going to do with her poor broken space man? What would he let her do?

She wandered the halls and finally noticed a door she didn't recognize. There was some sort of screen for a hand print and a red light was on over the door.

Donna tried the hand print. Each time she did, there was a negative buzzing sound. She sighed and knocked.

"Doctor? Doctor, are you in there?"

There was a delay. The red light went off and Donna was taken aback as the door slid open, revealing the Doctor.

"Yes?"

She looked at him, he had a few days' worth of stubble growing. Tired. Could he be even skinnier? He was in a worse state than he had been.

"Are you alright?," asked Donna. "You've been in there days. What are you doing?"

She tried peering around him at the room. It was white, all white and there was nothing in it.

"I'm perfectly alright, Donna. Did you need something?"

She wanted to scream, but held it back. It wouldn't do any good. "I was just thinking, maybe you ought to get out a bit. Sunshine, fresh air. It would do you good."

"I'm fine here."

"Yes, well, what is here?"

"It's the Zero Room."

Donna shook her head. "Yeah, still don't have a clue."

"It's a Time Lord thing, Donna, you wouldn't understand."

"Well, if you tried explaining-"

The door shut in Donna's face. The light went back on.

Donna fumed. "Being an ass! Is that a Time Lord thing, too?! Because I bloody well understand that!"

She felt the new life inside of her flutter.

"Sorry, sweetheart," she said softly. "Come on."

Donna walked away and ended up sitting on the jump seat in the console room. She crossed her arms and wound up sobbing.

What the hell was she going to do? She did love him, she did. She didn't care if she was a human and he was some Time Lord, it just had never seemed to matter. All her early talk of there probably being laws against it, that was just talk to keep her from having to admit how she really felt. Now, though, if being a Time Lady would help her to get through to the Doctor she wouldn't mind it.

The phone rang.

Donna frowned and picked up the mobile off the console. "Hello?"

"Hello?"

"Martha?," asked Donna.

"You don't know? You called me."

"No, I didn't-" Donna stopped, realizing the TARDIS had played a trick on her. "Sorry, of course. How are you?"

"Just moved."

"Really? Where?"

"Manhattan. I'm working at the UNIT base there. Tom doesn't like it, but I don't see him in London, so what's the difference? Now my mum, she really doesn't like it."

Donna smiled. "Yeah."

"I'm walking around my new neighborhood right now, exploring. There's a lot of bead shops. Never mind my boring old life. What are you and the Doctor up to?"

"Well, not much," said Donna. "We're having a bit of a rest."

"A rest?," Martha asked in disbelief. "Are we talking about the same Doctor? Lives in a blue box, wears pinstripes, talks about Rose all the time?"

"Yes, except for the Rose bit," said Donna.

"Oh. Broken him of that, did you? Good on you. You'll have to tell me how you managed it."

Donna realized how incredibly awkward it would be to explain how she managed that to Martha. "Well, you see, Martha, I saved his life by kissing him in front of Agatha Christie and then he just had to have me... a lot. Oh, also we got married and we're expecting a baby."

She wouldn't want Martha to hurt her head from falling over as she walked.

Instead she said, "What are you up to today? Work, I suppose."

"Well, it's Saturday so no. I'm getting my flat set up and then I thought I might do some shopping."

"Shopping in Manhattan. Sounds like fun."

"You should come," said Martha. "Bring the Doctor if you have to, although, there'll probably be some invasion or sewer monsters then."

"No, he's not really..." She didn't finish the sentence. "Tell you what, I will come. Just what's the date and where do you want to meet?"

Donna got the information and programmed it in the TARDIS. She thought at the very least she would get the Doctor's attention by taking the Old Girl out of the Time Vortex.

She opened the door and had a quick look outside. Manhattan, Fifth Avenue. It looked like 2008.

Donna walked back in and got dressed. She went back to the console room and looked around. The TARDIS hummed inquisitively.

"Oi, I'm just looking for that little cube bit, you know, the one that keeps you from going? I don't want emo boy to get the idea that I'm leaving forever. I'm just going for lunch and shopping."

There was another hum of approval and a panel popped open. Donna spotted the little cube bit she was looking for and put it in her bag.

"I'll get that back to you," said Donna.

Donna checked the time. She still had an hour until she was supposed to meet Martha and just happened to be standing outside Saks Fifth Avenue. She walked in and made her way up to the baby department. It couldn't do any harm to just have a look around.

Everything was adorable, but the prices were mad. There was a lace christening gown that was about the same as the down payment on her old Smart.

"Can I help you find something?"

Donna turned around. She quickly recognized what was happening. The snooty sales woman did not think she belonged here. Well, everyone was in black and had designer bags that cost many thousand pounds, but really, who did this woman think she was?

"I'm just looking around," said Donna.

"Shopping for a gift?"

Donna scowled. "No, I'm expecting." God, that did feel good to say. She couldn't wait to say it to Nerys.

The woman looked her up and down.

"My husband and I, we're having our first," said Donna. "A little girl."

"Oh. You're tourists?"

"Well, we travel quite a bit, yes." Donna then thought of a way to really screw with this woman's head because in her experience most Americans knew very little about Britain and thought anybody with an accent was related to the Queen. "He's a lord."

That was true. She didn't need to know it was of Time.

Besides, being the Lord of Time had to take precedence over being Lord of like Shrewsbury or something, didn't it?"

"Oh," the sales woman said, her interest piqued. This was clearly working like a charm. "Why don't I show you some things from our layette collection?"

Donna then realized a massive flaw in her plan as the woman showed her a pink cashmere blanket. Last she remembered, her bank account had about fifty quid in it and her credit cards were all maxed out. Wait, maybe there was that one American Express she hadn't gotten to use before she found the Doctor. She went searching through her bag for it when she found the psychic credit card.

The Doctor had used it to buy his way into a card game in New Monte Carlo in the 72nd century to stop a robot from becoming Space Pope and said quite sternly it was not to be used for shoe shopping. If he wanted that to be a rule, he really ought to come out of his Zero Room.

Donna thought she might have gone a bit far.

She could see it in Martha's eyes when they met outside the restaurant.

"You started without me!," Martha said.

"Oh, these are just gifts," said Donna, motioning at the five carrier bags that held her purchases. "We can get to the serious stuff later."

They went to sit. Martha started updating Donna on the job with UNIT.

"I'm sure I'm boring you," said Martha. "How did the Doctor take it when you said you were going shopping?"

"He was busy," said Donna.

"Busy? Did he go somewhere else?"

"No," said Donna. "He can't."

Donna saw that Martha was confused by what that meant.

"When you traveled with him," Donna started, "did he ever get in a funk? Go off in the TARDIS, wouldn't see him for days."

"No," said Martha, looking alarmed. "Is he ill? Do you think I should go see him?"

"No, he's not ill. He's not like that. Something's just upset him and he's being an ass, that's all."

Martha snickered. "Okay, then."

"You know, that whole, last of my kind, I'm so lonely and depressed and you couldn't possibly understand-"

"I thought you had said he stopped the Rose thing."

"My God! Yes, he stopped the Rose thing. Have you even seen Rose? She's younger than you are, no offense and has too much eye makeup and-" Looking at Martha, she realized she had lost her again. She was becoming as bad as the Doctor.

"How did you see Rose?"

Donna sighed. "It's a long story. I got dragged through time and met a bunch of his regenerations and they were mostly ridiculous."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Well, you can't leave it at that! How were they ridiculous?"

"Oh, you know, one was old and basically called me a tart. There was this one in crushed velvet. One had celery on his lapel. Oh, God, that one with the cat pins!"

"Cat pins?"

"Yes, that one was a total ass." Donna motioned for their waiter. "Sorry, I finished my omelet. Could I get the French toast?"

"We're changing to lunch now."

"Well, could I see the lunch menu?" The waiter left and Donna looked back at Martha. "What?"

"Nothing," said Martha, clearly afraid. It finally occurred to Donna that her omelet had been enormous and she had a side of potatoes, two muffins and a fruit salad. This Time Baby business was no joke. "I'll take another mimosa. Are you sure you won't have one, Donna? They're lovely."

"No, I'm not drinking," said Donna.

"Okay," said Martha.

Great. Now Martha thought she was an alcoholic. When exactly were they going to get around to telling everyone?

"You know what, Donna? I'm jealous of you," said Martha.

"What? Me?"

Martha nodded. "You've got this great thing going with the Doctor. Look at you! Out on your own, making him wait. Best of all, you're not in love with him." Martha laughed. "What a shock it must be for him!"

"Yeah," said Donna. "Total shock."

She really could have used a drink.

Donna spent the rest of the day with Martha shopping for shoes and watching her try on clothes. She didn't think there was much point to her trying on clothes since she would just need new ones in a little while anyway. She walked away with another two bags of shoes then parted ways with Martha as she returned to the TARDIS.

Where the Doctor was waiting.

"You took the dematerialization circuit," he said.

"The cube bit?"

"Yes, the cube bit!"

"Why? Did you need it?," asked Donna. "Thought you could just fly away and leave me for my own good?"

"I got a distress call, a psychic distress call." He looked at the pile of bags. "What did you buy?"

"Shoes, mostly," she said. That was sort of true.

"Did you use the psychic credit card?"

"Might have."

The Doctor sighed. "Well, now we know how the credit crunch of 2008 happened, don't we?"

"You don't get to come out here and start shouting at me about the psychic credit card-"

"I'm not shouting!," he shouted. Donna scowled. "Okay, that last bit was shouting, but I need the dematerialization circuit, Donna!"

Donna sighed and went into her bag, hunting past the endless receipts and bags of sweets from Dylan's Candy Bar. She handed it over. "Will that do?"

"Yes," he said, taking it and popping it back in the compartment where it belonged. He then started walking around the console, starting up the various controls.

"This distress signal-"

"Psychic distress signal," he corrected.

"What makes it special enough for you to get out of your Zero Room and go there?"

"Because," he said as the TARDIS jilted, "it's a Time Lord psychic distress signal."

A/N: Finally! This story has a cliffhanger! In the conversation with Martha, what Donna was discussing happened in my other story "The Letter R." Okay, let me try... Reviews are like Coke that has no calories but actually tastes like the real stuff and every time you drink it, Donna's memory comes back a little more. That one needs work...