Author's Notes: I do not own Doctor Who which is just unreasonable of the BBC if you think about it. Thanks for the reads and reviews, I love getting them. A warning for some serious timey wimey-ness in this series, which I will try to denote, but I think you can keep up. Anyway, thanks for reading and if you wanted to review, that would be great. Happy reading!
John hadn't counted on how efficient Donna could be. She had converted her finely honed secretarial skills into being the most organized mum of four he could think of, probably in recorded history. She kept track of all four kids' schedules, did the household accounts and always remembered exactly how much milk was left without a discrepancy. She was also quite quick at getting four kids back to the car park and into the Land Rover before John could catch up with her.
So, there John was without a ride. He had to catch the tube and a bus to get back to the house. He walked in to find Charlotte and Jack were in the sitting room with the dog, a miniature Schnauzer called Greta, watching television.
"Hi, Dad," said Charlotte.
"Hello." He kissed both kids on the top of the head.
"Did you walk home?," asked Jack, not taking his eyes from the telly. "Mum said you could."
"I made my way," said John. "Where is Mum?"
"Putting the twins to bed," said Charlotte.
John nodded and headed upstairs. Donna was in the rocking chair with the twins in their room, reading their favorite Winnie the Pooh. She cast John a glare as he entered and waited quietly until the book was finished. They both the kissed the twins good night and headed out.
"Jack!," Donna called down the stairs. "Get up here and start your bath!"
"I don't need one!"
"Yes, you do!" She marched into the master bedroom. John shut the door and turned to find Donna. "What are you here for?"
John shook his head. "Are you going to let me speak at all? I don't know that girl! I've never seen her before in my life!"
"Right. She's just some psycho blonde, then?"
"Yes!"
Donna opened the door and shouted downstairs. "Jack! I don't hear water running!"
There was silence.
"Donna," John edged closer to her, taking her hands in his before she could slap him. "Donna, in ten years, have I ever given you any cause to think I was unfaithful? Have you ever seen me look at another woman? Besides, she's not my type."
"What's your type then? That way I can know who to look out for."
"Oh, clever and funny and the best mum in the world..." He leaned in. "Curvaceous. Ginger."
Donna looked at him. He could tell she was softening. "Sorry, I just..." She shook her head. "I've become this dowdy old stay at home mum and you're still sex on legs."
"You're not dowdy or old. You're the sexiest woman I know. Want me to show you where I like the freckles on my type of woman?"
Donna was finally smiling. "I have to get Jack in the tub."
"I'd much rather get you in the tub."
"Then Charlotte has to get to bed."
John groaned. "How many children do we have?"
"Talk like that won't help you," said Donna. "It's not as if I made them on my own. Help me get them to bed and then we can go to bed."
John's eyes widened. He walked to the door. "Jack, you will get in that bath if you know what's good for you!
July 1996
"Hello."
Donna Noble looked up to see a tall, skinny man with silly hair standing in front of her.
"Hello."
"I'm new here. John Smith. You're new as well, aren't you?"
"I'm just the temp," Donna said. She looked back at the computer.
John frowned. "You're not just a temp. You have a name."
She sighed. "Donna Noble."
John smiled. "Donna Noble. I like it."
She looked back at him. "Did you want something?"
John darted his eyes around. "Well, I wanted to talk to you."
"Why?"
His eyes darted around nervously, but he kept the grin on his face. "So I could meet you."
"Why?"
He swallowed a bit. "Because I wanted to get to know you better."
She looked at him. "Why would you want to get to know me better?"
"You want to know? Really?"
"Yes," she said tiring of the game, "really."
"Because I thought you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen and I had to meet you and talk to you and hopefully get to know you well enough where I could ask you out and from there..."
"You're a complete nutter," said Donna.
John nodded. "Yeah, sorry, I get that sometimes. My sister says I need to learn to shut up, I just let my mouth run and run... I'm doing it now actually."
"Yeah," Donna confirmed.
"John!," called one of the upper managers. "We're on conference call to Cape Town in five!"
"Be right there!," he called back. He looked back at Donna. "So, uh, right. I'll be off then."
Donna worked hard at her desk the rest of the afternoon, not because she was devoted to her job, truth was she was pretty damn good at it and only needed a quarter of the time to do what she was doing, except for answering the phones. She only dared to pop out to the loo when she was sure John was in a meeting so she wouldn't bump into him. When she went home, she went down the stairs so she wouldn't run into him in the lift. She rode home on the tube, distracted by what had happened.
Okay, to be honest, she was always on the lookout for a husband. Twenty-six might not have been old to a lot of people but as Donna looked around, she realized she was among the last of her friends to get married. It hadn't bothered her at first, but if she had buy one more bloody wedding or christening present while her birthday was completely forgotten, she was going to go mad. It wasn't as if she had a career to account for the lack of a family, just one temp job after another. She sort of preferred it that way, a new world of possibilities, though it just ended up being the same group of people with different names in different offices. She had some dates, but most of the men saw her as a temporary plaything with no complicated office business when Donna's time ran out. She hadn't held out any hope for her latest contract at all. The foundation built schools and orphanages, mostly in various parts of Africa. The place was sure to be full of tofu eating, environmentally sound do gooders with socially conscious macrobiotic children. Donna didn't mind the idea of doing good, but she was sure everyone would see right through her and she'd become the joke of the office. Still, the temp job paid well and Donna wanted to save up to take a scuba diving holiday in Australia and that took quite a bit of money, so here she was.
Okay, it was a singles' tour, but she had always wanted to go there. She did love scuba diving.
She certainly hadn't expected to be noticed. At first glance, she hadn't thought she found John attractive, but now that she thought about it, he was rather... something. Really thin, though. Nice eyes, great smile and he could really wear a waistcoat.
Donna managed to keep up her avoidance of John the rest of the week. She had the schedule for the whole office, she knew when John would have a spare moment and made herself scarce, just trying to get through this job and then she could go on to the next one. She had done it before, but that was usually to avoid a nasty coworker, not a man hell bent on getting to know her.
Still, though, what did he want with her? A bloke like that ought to be able to get any woman he wanted and that office was full of choices.
That just left one thing.
"Look, if you're just out for a shag, you can forget it."
John looked up from his desk, both pleased and surprised to see Donna. After all, she had avoided him all week and avoided even the most simple of conversations with him. That having been established, he was confused at her opening line.
"Sorry?," he said trying to recover from the sudden ambush.
She crossed her arms. "I've seen your type, looking for an easy conquest and frankly, I'm done with it."
"My type?"
"Yeah, you see the fat, ginger girl and think she'll be an easy one. Sorry, not having it."
"You're not fat, though."
She snorted. "Yeah, heard that one as well. Then you won't have sex with the lights on."
"You're not..." He took a breath, trying to consider what would be best to say. "Donna, I'm not looking for a quick shag. I want to get to know you better and then you know, we might possibly shag, at which time, I would prefer the lights to be on."
Donna looked at him in shock.
"Oh, I've done it again, haven't I? My sister's right about that, though, I don't discuss sex with my sister, that would be weird."
"So, you actually want to go out with me?"
"Well, yes, honestly, I thought I'd made that pretty clear."
He actually wanted to go out with her. He looked so helpless and nervous as he said so. What was she thinking? She could do a lot worse.
She had done a lot worse.
"What are you doing tonight?," she asked.
"Sarah Jane!," John said with surprise as he came out of the bathroom, buttoning up his shirt. "What are you doing here?"
"Sorry, you didn't answer the door. I used my key," said Sarah Jane. She was sorting things out of a carrier bag and into the pantry. "Brought you some more groceries."
"You didn't have to do that. I could have done the shopping."
"But you didn't," she chided. "All I found were two bananas and an empty tea tin."
"Thanks."
Sarah Jane smiled. "I could treat you to dinner. How about a Chinese?"
"Sorry, I can't. I have plans."
She seemed surprised. "Plans? Meeting with some friends? Work? Your running group? The cricket club?"
"No," he said grinning, "it's Donna."
"Donna?," she asked.
"Yes, Donna, I'm sure I mentioned her," he said as he buttoned up his shirt. "She's the temp at the office."
"What's her last name?," asked Sarah Jane.
"Noble. Donna Noble," he said letting it roll off his tongue.
"So, she's one of the secretaries?"
"Is there something wrong with being one of the secretaries?"
"No, of course not. So, what about her? What's she like?"
"She's brilliant, that's what she's like. I've had to work on her quite a bit to get her to go to dinner with me."
"Have you?," she asked with a bit of surprise.
"Finally managed it, though. Want to make a good impression." He motioned at himself. "Do I look alright? Should I put on a tie?"
"You look fine."
John smiled and checked his watch. "Oh, I'm running late. I wanted to get some flowers."
Sarah Jane nodded. "I'll lock the place up."
"Thanks." He grabbed his jacket off the chair. "Wish me luck."
"Luck."
John left the flat grinning.
Sarah Jane looked up at the ceiling. "Why me?," she lamented.
Donna had been through every outfit in her wardrobe. What the hell did John Smith want? Sexy? Conservative? Why had he even asked her out? Why had she said yes? What was she doing here? What was she going to talk about? She had done some checking around at work after she had agreed to the date. Everyone there was convinced John was a legitimate genius. Spoke a dozen languages, in his first month he had figured out a way to leverage the charity's funds into building twice as many schools. That was how he had gotten his office. His sister was his only family and it was through her he had gotten the job. Overall, it was agreed in the ladies' room that John Smith was quite a catch and Donna should count herself as lucky.
He had said she was beautiful, that he wanted to get to know her. No one had ever said that to Donna before.
Then he had ordered their dinner in Thai. He spoke Thai which led Donna back to wondering what the hell she was doing here.
"So, Donna," said John with a big smile, "what do you do when you're not temping?"
"Me?," asked Donna.
"Yes, you."
Donna took a sip of her wine. She was going to have to watch herself, lest she become a complete ass. "Well, I go out with my mates. I go shopping."
"Oh," said John politely.
"I read," she offered vainly. She did read. Usually during her pedicure or on the treadmill, but that was not the point. She did read.
"What do you read?," he asked as if it was going to be the most interesting answer ever given.
"Um, just finished Bridget Jones' Diary..." Not finished per se, but she was really close and she knew Bridget was going to end up with Mark Darcy anyway.
"Is it any good?"
"Yeah, it's sort of girls' fiction, though."
"I just finished Last Orders, a bit like Faulkner. Sort of not to my taste, but very good. Then I reread A Tale of Two Cities..."
"Then?," asked Donna.
"Last night."
"You read that fast?," she asked.
"Yes." He paused, noticing her discomfort. "I've seen you at your desk, though. You must read quickly. You've got to type a hundred words a minute."
Donna shrugged. "I suppose."
He frowned. "Why are you so afraid to call yourself clever?"
She laughed. "Because I'm so definitely not! I never went to university, I don't even have a real job-"
"Yes, you do, you're good at it. You should stay on."
Donna shook her head. "I don't think so. My contract's up in a few months and then I've got this trip to Australia."
His face dropped. "You're not moving, are you?"
Donna smiled. "No. Just a scuba trip to the Great Barrier Reef."
"Oh, that sounds fascinating. Did you know it can be seen from space? All those billions of tiny little coral polyps forming a structure big enough to be seen from outside the Earth."
"No," Donna said, "I didn't know that. I really have to get a guide book or something." She suddenly felt sheepish about the whole singles' When he said it, it didn't sound like just a great place to scuba dive. It sounded like so much more. It sounded amazing.
John smiled. "I could help you."