"You've been quiet today," Donna crunched on her granola conversationally.

The Doctor looked at her from across the table, looking lost for a moment, then pulling the corners of his mouth up into the tiniest, fakest smile Donna had ever seen. She sighed. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing."

"Mm."

"Really, it's nothing."

"Sure, Spaceman."

"Donna," he whined, fidgeting in the kitchen chair.

"Doctor," she whined back, miming his face. He scowled.

"I think I'm homesick," he mumbled, pushing his bowl across the table, away from him.

"Homesick?" Donna immediately made a worried face. She reached across the table, taking his hand. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I don't think there is," he said. "I'm really not sure." He slumped in his chair.

Donna thought for a few moments. Then she stood up. "You find us a pen, and I'll find some paper."

The Doctor looked confused, but nevertheless stood up with her. "Why?"

"We're going to try something."

"What are we going to try?"

"You'll see."

They moved about the house for some minutes, leaving the twin bowls of granola forgotten on the table in the kitchen. Time passed. They met back up in the living room, and at Donna's insistence, sat side by side on the floor, the Doctor proffering his pen dutifully to her. She took it from him with a smile and laid a piece of paper in front of them.

"What are we trying?" the Doctor repeated.

"I read a story once, a year or two ago, about a blind man who didn't know what a cathedral looked like. So he had a man help him to understand – a man who had seen cathedrals – by drawing them out on paper for him. That's what we're going to try."

"Drawing cathedrals?" The Doctor looked beyond lost.

"Drawing home."

"Oh."

"You said you were homesick."

"I'll be fine, Donna, really – "

"Just… humor me on this, all right?"

He sighed. "Fine. Where do we begin?"

Donna smiled gently at him. "Hold your hand over mine on the pen, like this-" he wrapped his hand around hers so they were both holding the pen – "and set it on the paper."

"Only one of us can draw at a time?" he asked, still lost.

"That's the plan, Spaceman."

"But we're both holding the pen."

"Just be patient. Now, I'm going to close my eyes-"

"But you won't be able to see what you're doing!"

"That's the point, innit? The blind cathedral man. He was blind. It will help if I can't see what you draw."

"I'm drawing?"

"Yes."

"Um. All right…" The Doctor guided Donna's hand in a few helpless circles.

Donna sighed. "Spaceman, you're supposed to be drawing your home."

"Oh, I see."

"Just trust me on this." They locked eyes for a moment. The Doctor nodded hesitantly, and Donna closed her eyes, letting her alien completely control everything that went on the page. "Maybe try explaining what you're drawing while you do it. It might help," Donna added.

"All right…" The Doctor worked their hands in two small circles at the top of the page. "Here are the suns… Gallifrey had two suns." His hand came down, and drew a larger dome at the center of the page. "And this is the dome around the Capitol."

Donna nodded, eyes still closed, encouraging him to continue.

He shifted their hands to the inside of the globe, where he drew some tall, spiky shapes. "This is where the Time Lords lived and worked. My home, where I grew up, was outside the dome." He drew a long, slanted line at a diagonal from the dome. "I grew up in the mountains."

He paused, unsure of how to continue.

"Is this helping, Doctor?"

He nodded, then remembering that she couldn't see him nod with her eyes closed, he said, "I think so."

He continued without further prodding, drawing another slanted line coming off of the first. "This was Mount Cadon. I climbed it often in my first regeneration. A man called the Hermit lived there." The Doctor drew a stick figure at the top of the slant to represent the Hermit. "He'd tell us all stories of legendary Time Lords, ghost stories, epic stories… all kinds of stories."

"Sounds like a lovely man."

"Half those stories gave me nightmares."

"If they were ghost stories, isn't that the point?"

The Doctor laughed. "I suppose it was."

"How many moons were there?"

"Two. Two suns, two moons." He worked in two smaller circles next to the larger sun circles. "This one-" he tapped the bigger one- "you could see during the day. It was always quite lovely. My mother always said…" he trailed off.

There was a pregnant silence for a few moments. This was getting into personal territory for the Doctor.

"Your mother?" Donna asked as gently as she could.

The Doctor drew in a ragged breath. "She said as long as you could see the moon in the sky, day or night, you knew someone was looking out for you."

His hand had gone rigid.

"You okay, Spaceman?" Donna cracked one eye open to look at him.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"You want to stop for a while?"

He looked at her gratefully. "For a few minutes…?"

Donna nodded, and set the pen down. "Is this still helping?"

The alien thought for a moment. "You know, I think it might be."

"Even when it hurts?"

"Probably because it hurts."

Donna nodded, satisfied. She was glad her idea had worked. She hadn't wanted to bring back painful memories for the Doctor, but she had finally gotten him to open up to her in some small way. It was a start, if nothing else.

She reached out to lay a hand on his shoulder. He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. "You remind me of her," he said softly.

"Your mother?"

"Yes."

Donna considered this for a few moments, then pulled the Gallifreyan close to her. "Is that a good thing?"

The Doctor buried his face in her neck, breathing in her soft scent. "A very good thing."

"Someone to stop you?"

The Doctor said nothing, but his breath hitched.

Donna, feeling his emotion, placed a gentle hand on his head. She smoothed his hair.

"Gallifreyans… as a race, we didn't feel… we didn't have love, as an emotion. Respect, yes. Friendship, maybe. But never love. My mother… she was different." He was whispering now; Donna had to pay close attention to catch each thing he said. "She cared about me… so much. And I cared about her. I would have done anything… anything to save her…" his breath caught again, and the tears started.

Donna shushed him softly. "It's all right, Spaceman." She kissed the top of his head softly. "You did what you could. I'm sure she knew that."

He snuffled. "Yeah…"

She peeled him off of her after a few minutes, and gave him a kind smile.

"Would you like to continue the drawing, Doctor?"

He looked at it for a moment.

"You know… I rather think I would."

A note:

The story that Donna read is called "Cathedral," written by Raymond Carver in 1983. It is a short story, and a quick read. It is also very beautiful. I highly recommend it.