Part 5

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The first time it happened Donna was really confused. "Hello Miss Noble! Or shouldn't that be Mrs Smith?" a year ten boy snickered as he greeted her in the corridor.

Donna didn't know him from Adam, so she didn't know how to take that. Instead she merely dismissed him as being one sandwich short of a picnic.

Then two girls giggled together before loudly saying, "There's Mrs Smith!" That one had riled her a bit more.

By the end of the afternoon at least seven more pupils referred to her as Mrs Smith; and Donna was getting close to throttling one of them. What the hell was going on?

The biggest surprise happened when Donna was asked to attend the year eleven assembly on the Friday morning. There were a few members of staff attending that she now recognised so she didn't feel too much like an interloper. She'd been asked to attend because the headmaster was going to announce a significant change to reprographics; and she fervently hoped it was going to be the purchase of a new photocopier. The one they currently had was playing up enormously. She'd been mortified when she opened the thing up the previous afternoon to see where any paper was jammed and the machine had trapped her hand!

Yelling in astonishment, and a few other voiced emotions, fortunately someone had rushed in and rescued her. Unfortunately it had been John.

Why did it have to be John who rescued her? She had to endure him being sweetly sympathetic as he pressed up close; close enough to see every freckle, every bit of stubble on his chin in fine detail, and smell his gorgeous aftershave. He really did smell wonderful! 'Martha is one lucky girl', she couldn't help thinking.

Whatever John did, he managed to press and poke the photocopier in a few places, and before she knew it he was tenderly caressing her ex-trapped hand.

John had been heading for the staffroom during a rare free lesson when he'd heard the cries for help coming from the office where Donna was based. Without a thought about whether his presence was welcome or not he barged straight in, and found Donna trapped in the photocopier.

"It's okay, don't worry, I'll soon get you free," he immediately soothed her. He peered in and instantly saw what the problem was. "I'll just press this… and adjust this… and there you go!" he exclaimed with delight. His delight increased as he found himself holding Donna's hand, and she let him, so he resolved to make the most of this moment.

Should she care in this precious second that he was off limits? She really didn't want to. "Thank you, John. I might have been trapped here for hours at this rate," she breathily expressed her gratitude.

He continued stroking her offended hand. "You're welcome, Donna. You will always be welcome," he said sincerely.

She tried to gulp back on her emotions, so she asked, "How's Martha?"

He sighed. Not this again! "Donna, I wouldn't generally know," he softly stated, not wanting to break this peaceful moment between them. "She and I aren't involved in any way. We're neighbours and we're good friends but please believe me when I say it doesn't go beyond that."

"So you're not an item?" she tried to clarify.

"No," he confirmed, moving his stroking caress to include her wrist and fingers.

Tilly walked in at that point, and started when she saw them together. "Is there something I should know about?" she immediately asked.

"It's the photocopier; it was playing up," Donna explained.

John smiled conspiratorially and added, "I had to come in and rescue her from becoming part of it."

"I see," Tilly remarked, wondering why the pair of them were still standing together like that. Well, she had her suspicions as to why, and it looked like all those rumours might be true. "I'll leave you to it then," she stated and left the room.

"Shall we try starting again, me and you," John suggested, with a broad grin. "Hello, I'm John Smith. Single history teacher who lives completely on his own and would love to get to know Donna Noble a little better. I'm a bit of a berk, but nothing dangerous."

Donna giggled at his absurdity. "Hello John Smith. I'm Donna Noble, single, currently living back with my mum to help look after Dad. I have a gold medal in jumping to conclusions and an A level in putting two and two together to make five. The getting to know better part is beginning to sound really good."

They smiled goofily at each other.

John spoke first. "Then perhaps we should arrange a date?" he asked hopefully.

Donna nodded enthusiastically. "I like a man with a plan."

Donna was thinking about this as she took a staff chair at the side of the school hall as the children waited expectantly for the headmaster to arrive. She caught sight of John across on the other side of the hall and shared a brief smile.

The headmaster appeared soon after, made his way to the school stage and began his spiel. It was the usual stuff that she remembered from when she'd been at school; a lot of blah blah about how good they were, how they represented the school followed by a bit of moaning. It was the next item that caught her attention, enough to make her heart beat faster.

"While we are on the topic of up and coming events in this all important term, I have something to announce regarding the reprographics department," the headmaster told the assembled year elevens. "I'm sure you all know Miss Noble by sight by now. If you could come up here please, Miss Noble."

All eyes swivelled onto her. Donna did a 'who me?' in response before other staff gestured for her to make her way up to the stage. Hesitantly, she made her way to stand by the headmaster, smiling nervously.

"Good!" the headmaster declared when she joined him. "If Mr Smith could now come up."

There was a flurry of whispered comments as a bemused John made his way up onto the stage. "Headmaster," he greeted him with a nod.

The headmaster quietened the pupils. "Now I'm sure you've all seen these two new members of staff about the place. They have already made a favourable impact with their presence. What you may not know about them is that they tried to get married!" the headmaster announced. "So we'd all like to wish you both every happiness!"

Both Donna and John stood shocked at this 'news' as the assembled pupils enthusiastically applauded and cheered them. How embarrassing was that?

But it was about to get worse for them. "You can do better than that," the headmaster chided them. "How about a kiss for the bride?"

John balked at that; he'd been planning their first proper kiss very carefully and the plan had no mention of an audience made up of three hundred sixteen year olds!

"Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" chanted the kids.

There was no other way out of this predicament. John took the bull by the horns, or should that be Donna by the shoulders, and leaned in. It was no surprise that Donna was trembling apprehensively. "Try and pretend you like me," he bravely whispered, and pulled her close.

Before she knew it his lips were on hers, dramatically kissing her. As the kids roared their glee she decided to go for broke and kissed him back.

The headmaster tapped John on the shoulder to say, "You can stop now."

Slightly dazed, John released Donna; and all the kids giggled. "Alright?" he anxiously asked her quietly, holding onto her hand for all it was worth.

"Yeah," she softly answered.

When the news reached Martha she almost went into a blind panic. What the heck was she supposed to do with an engaged Doctor? She had to ignore her gut instinct reaction of wanting to go to the TARDIS, but she knew she would have to go and consult the instructions the Doctor had left as soon as the day ended.

John rushed out of the hall and didn't make straight for his classroom; instead he followed Donna into the reprographics room.

"What the hell are we going to do about this?" she immediately demanded to know as they spoke in hushed whispers.

"I don't know! I've never had anything like this happen before. At least we're in it together," he tried to lighten the conversation.

Donna still looked overly worried. "But they think we're getting married! Had already tried to get married! Where the hell did they get that idea from?"

John grabbed her hands to try and calm her down. "I have no idea. I can't get my head around this. One second I'm being accused of having a relationship with Martha and the next I'm getting hitched to you! Not that getting hitched to you is a horrible thought but bloody hell, Donna! How did we get into this mess?"

She couldn't help laughing then at the ludicrousness of their situation. "It's one thing after another with you. Is it always this mad?"

He laughed with her. "It must be, but I don't remember anything vividly. Tell you what, let's discuss this later and for now we'll have fun with this."

"Fun? What sort of fun?" she queried with interest.

He winked mischievously at her. "A spot of this…," he said, lightly kissing her. "And a spot of this…" He placed another kiss and then wrapped his arms around her waist. "And maybe a spot of this…" He tenderly kissed her mouth.

"I see what you mean," she replied as though they had been hotly debating a topic. "You do realise I may want to see your research later."

"You can see whatever you like," he answered. "But for now I have thirty year sevens waiting for me."

"You can do it, John! You can lead them on to educational enlightenment," she cheekily gushed.

His expression was a mixture of amusement and fondness. "If you don't behave yourself properly I shall have to hold you in detention."

"Ooh yes please!" she enthused saucily.

"Then I shall see you later," he huskily told her as he left.

Martha pressed and twirled various dials. "Come on," she muttered to herself. "There must be something on here." But clearly there wasn't as she reeled through the TARDIS tapes the Doctor had left behind. There was nothing there at all to help her! Nothing that said anything about what she should do in case he went and fell in love, how to stop him from being a fool or how to save him from being disillusioned. She would have to sabotage his relationship to save him from himself. Damn!

"Hello pretend wife!" John greeted Donna on the phone. "Or would you prefer the title 'wifey'?"

"You saucy sod! At least you didn't call me 'her indoors' I suppose," Donna replied. "I could call you 'little John' if you like?"

"Why 'little'?" he wondered.

"Why not?" she countered.

He made a disgruntled face. "Anyway, moving on, are you still coming over for dinner? I thought we could choose a take away, watch some telly together, have a cuddle… and you're suddenly not saying anything! Are you there?"

"Stop whinging! I was drinking my cup of tea. I'll meet you later at the Tesco Metro as we arranged," she chided him.

"Should I wear a red carnation so that you can recognise me?" he offered.

Prawn! "Just bring your head and I'll wing it from there. See you later at 7pm!" she called out, and shut off her phone with glee.

A/N: I'm off on holiday for a few days so I won't be updating this for a whole week. Sorry about that.