Reunion Reprise

Donna woke up somewhere terribly quiet on a threadbare chaise longue. "Where am I ...?" She looked around her. It was an old room and the bit of furniture she'd been lying on was probably worth a bit on the antiques market and if it'd be done up with a bit of reupholstering. With a fresh coat of paint the whole setting would've allowed a tariff of up to two week's worth of casual-loading salary to stay one night. It was failing all that, however, and Donna was in a crusty old sitting room whose owners had fallen short with their household maintenance funds. They couldn't pay her to stay here ... why was she here? Clearly not by personal choice!

Indignantly brushing the dust off her rumpled suit Donna got up and contemplated the huge ancient portrait of the world up on the far wall. At this point she scoped the whole room again and decided for the odd shape it ought to have once been a school room in a past life and the new owners had a thing for geography like the teacher before them. The next most interesting thing to catch Donna's eye was the distant view out the window so she went over there.

She regarded the rolling green hills and the blue summer's afternoon sky. 'Wow. Now there's a view. I must be out in the middle of nowhere. Look at that.' The air was fresh and she opened the dirty window up even more in order to lean out. It was a really enjoyable warm summer's afternoon. "It's lovely isn't-?" All at once as Donna realised there was no one to express her feelings to she felt a twinge of loneliness. She stared to the empty spot she'd unconsciously left for someone to stand beside her at the window. It was like there should have been someone but there wasn't. With a small sigh she turned back to lean out of the window on her own. No, she didn't really need anyone to enjoy things with. All the same some company would be nice.

Movement caught her eye down near the overgrown bushes crowding around the derelict gates. Someone with a long brown jacket and crazy hair was apparently sneaking in to the school. There was a flash of memory of a blue box; a gangly man and an alien landscape. The same gangly man. "Doctor?" Donna smiled, recognising him. 'Oh, there you are, Doctor.' She pulled her head in from the window and hurried to the door. It opened with a creak and, met by no security guards, school headmasters, or toad-shaped washerwomen as befit such a setting she quickly found a bathroom and then hurried down the stairs to meet her spaceman.

Donna didn't notice anyone about in the gigantic old school but she could hear voices coming from a room, echoing across the downstairs tiled hall. There was no reason at all that she could see that she shouldn't just waltz over between all those museum display stands to the front door and open it right up.

So she did.

The Doctor was standing there on the stoop, pointing his little sonic screwdriver at the door. He lowered his hands and the look of determined concentration on his face turned dramatically to abject horror.
"Talk about a slap in the face!" Donna snapped, hurt by his horrified expression at seeing her. "What's that look for, Doctor? Am I covered in mutant green slime? I know it was dusty ..." She looked down at herself in worry, trying to find more dust streaks "the mirror in that bathroom had more dust on it than I did ..." She trailed off as she continued dusting herself off.

"Uh, hi. You don't know me-I'm-er-the-plumber."

Donna stopped in her brushing motions and looked up at him in sheer disbelief. "Oh, now that's real funny ..." Her eyes open wide in horror as she saw the lack of humour on his face. "What do you mean?" She was gaping at him now. "No way, you didn't leave me on my own with my memory wiped!"
"Technically I left you with your m-."
"Why'd-you-wanna-do-that?" She couldn't believe she'd just guessed that right! "You-!"
"No! Donna, you-don't-understand!" He grabbed her wrists.

Donna took a steadying breath. "Alright." She gritted. "I'm sure you can explain it to me, spaceman." A steaming Donna stepped away from the door to let the Doctor properly in.

The Doctor shut the door behind him and passed by Donna. She followed his motions and found herself regarding the litter of display stands in the entrance hall they were in.
"Spoils from her expeditions, no doubt ..." He went about peering at each of the encased objects. "That's a Roman ..."

As she'd seen it all before on her mad dash to the door and was really quite rattled by what she'd learned in the last two minutes Donna's attention couldn't be diverted for too long by neither history nor geography.
"Doctor," she said, calmly interrupting, "You know, if you're gonna be using your sonic screwdriver on a door it'd be more believable if you said you were a locksmith, not a plumber." Donna pointed out impetuously.
The Doctor went quiet and his dark brown eyes regarded her with seriousness.
"So, now that I've got your attention, go on then; what is it? Why'd my memory get wiped?"
"How's Shaun, Donna?"

"What?" Donna's expression froze, "Shaun? Who's Shaun?"

The Doctor suddenly had a scared look on his face. "You don't remember? You married him not long ago? Nice fellow. Fairly bland. A bit more meat on him than I have ...?"
"Married? No way." Donna looked down at the fingers on her left hand. "Nope." She double checked her ring finger, "If I have been married it's been a while since I last wore my wedding ring-oh-my-gosh could I be pregnant? Do-I-look-pregnant?!" She shrieked.
He glanced down at her. "No, I don't think so. You've lost weight if anything. Nice outfit. You' been somewhere dusty? How can you not remember Shaun? What else don't you remember?"
"Thanks. Yeah this place is filthy-you'd think they could've at least put some sheets on the furniture to protect it and hang-on-a-minute ... Are you seriously asking me what I do-not-remember? Seriously?" Donna felt a wave of frustration in amongst her enjoyment of the rolling conversation.
"No, Donna," he explained in a voice of reason, "I'm not really asking you but it's certainly the question that we need to find an answer to."
"Well alright then ..."

Donna had a thought, "I got it!" She announced excitedly, "why don't you ask me something else and see if I can remember that then?"

"I ... don't know if I should." He looked doubtful and a bit worried.
"Why? What?" Donna asked. The feeling of nervousness was starting to take her over yet again. The Doctor wasn't usually one for tap dancing around the truth. Not unless it might hurt someone ... "If I remember the wrong things will my brain implode of something?" She teased but the look on his face dashed any trace of a lighter moment. "Oh-my-god!" She clasped her fingers to her temples. "Maybe I don't want to remember?"
"But what do you remember, Donna?" He asked with a delicate tenderness.

Donna took a deep breath, searching through her memories. "I live in Chiswick, Gramps always goes up the hill to look at the stars, Mum's always on at me to get a job, Dad plays football, Neris drives me barmy, and you're the Doctor and you save people."
"Your Dad?" He repeated doubtfully.
"Yeah, he's in the Premier League. What about him?"
"Uh, nothing, never mind." He discounted hastily. "What do you remember about where you've been?"
"You mean like being under the Thames? And we climbed out and it was completely drained."
He stared at her.

"Or ... wait a minute," she laughed, "what about the time you took me to the planet of the hats?"
"What ... planet of the hats? What happened there?"
"Well it wasn't anything I was expecting because the people were the hats." She laughed, "oh go on, you gotta laugh at it."
"Donna ..." He swallowed nervously, "You can't be remembering that. What happened? What places did we visit while we were there? What are the names of the people we talked to while we were there?"

"Well, there was ..." Donna struggled to remember actual individuals from that planet and couldn't. She tried to remember specific things they'd actually done. She couldn't. "... I don't remember any of those things!" Her voice came out in a squeak. "What's wrong with me?"
The Doctor grabbed her hands, wrapping his fingers around hers. "It's okay, Donna, I think I know what it is. Your memories have all been re-filed. They've been taken out and put back in again, some added, some taken away."
"I've-been-reprogrammed?" Donna squeaked, slightly disturbed. "Why would anyone want to do that? Am I a robot version of myself or something-please-don't-tell-me-that-I'm a robot."
The Doctor mouthed, "w ... you were very sick, Donna."
"And I'm not now?" She eyed him suspiciously, he didn't have a hand in any of this but it seemed like he was agreeing which was really rather bad enough. "Oh-my-god."

She sighed in resignation. "I really am a robot."
"No." He countered strongly. "I don't think you are."
She pursed her lips in scepticism so he pulled out his stethoscope and checked her heart.
"You're perfectly human, Donna." He reported. "This might actually mean you're not sick anymore!" He added happily. "Think of that."
"Because whatever's been removed was causing me damage? That explains that then." She looked down at her vacant wedding ring finger.
The Doctor took hold of her hands again in reassurance.

"What explains what?"

Donna looked up at him suddenly finding this all rather fun again. "No Shaun." She answered, "funny; I don't even remember having any boyfriends. How about that for a selective lobotomy?"
The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her. "Were they all traumatic experiences then?"
Donna shrugged, "must've been. I mean; if your theory of benevolence is all that it's cracked up to be. I mean; what a treat? How many girls wish they could just forget all about their exes?" She sighed, "but am I really that tragic, though?"
"Oh, no, Donna." He answered feverishly. "You're brilliant."
Donna felt a warm glow from his words. A very warm glow ... was it her hormones? Maybe it was the fact that he didn't seem to want to let go of her hands. "So, what about us? I mean, I don't remember anything ... did we ... I dunno ... do it? Is that why you took my memory away? Was it that bad?"

That got him to drop his grip super quick. He backed right off. "Where did you come up with that idea from?" He looked at her with an expression of complete shock. It was almost as though he'd been betrayed. "You described me as 'a long streak of alien nothing'."
Donna felt a twinge of mortification and guilt. Also the hand holding bit was an instant miss. 'That was callous of me.' She chided herself. "Sorry." She felt herself blushing, "you must've copped a bit of fallout from an ex there." She paused.

He looked a bit lost and confused.

"So what happened with the last tall skinny alien I dated then?" She quipped, an effort to ease up the tension. "Have I told you about any other boyfriends I might have had?" She stopped, remembering the space she'd made at the window for that second person. "It doesn't feel like I've always been dateless."
"There was someone called Lance." He answered carefully. "Can you remember what he looked like?"
"Lance ..." Donna searched her memories. "I do remember meeting someone on the Library planet. But he was a hologram and his name wasn't Lance."
"You remember the Library?" The Doctor was instantly recharged, "with River?"
"I do." She answered. "And the planet of the Ood."
"How much do you remember of that place?"
"We set the Ood free." Donna smiled. "And I could hear them singing."
"What about the Daleks?" He asked incisively. "Anything on them?"

Donna filtered through her memories. "Nope, sorry."

"No Daleks ..." That information earned a wide smile from the Doctor. "You wanna come with me again?"
Donna was overjoyed, "oh, yes please! Always." She tried to figure out if it was appropriate to hug him given the rather blurry line of friend and fellah currently going on in her head but in the end it was he who grabbed her into a tight hug.

There was something desperate and needing in his hold around her. "Oh, Doctor." She said quietly, rubbing his back for several moments, "it's alright." She hushed consolingly.

The double doors to the assembly hall burst open. Donna and the Doctor broke apart and looked over at the man with the untidy beard and the black garbed M.I. uniforms flanking him. A boy, perhaps about seventeen ducked around behind Donna and the Doctor. Donna craned her neck, watching the kid in suspicion.
"Captain Graham, isn't it?" The Doctor asked. "I'm told that white van belongs to you?"
The boy tried reaching into the Doctor's pocket and Donna snapped fiercely at him. "Oi! Doctor!"
The Doctor instantly grabbed the boys arm on her alert and the sonic screwdriver landed on the floor. "I'm sure you could do other things with your life other than being a pickpocket." He let the boy go with a condemning disapproval in his voice. "Have you ever thought maybe dressmaking, or computer support? What about getting ships into those little bottles? You know the little ships in bottles right, Donna?"
"Yeah," she joined in quickly, "Y'gotta be real dexterous to handle them tweezers alright. Need a good eye for that."

Captain Graham cleared his throat. "I didn't really want to interrupt this er ... happy reunion between the two of you but Angel One doesn't want you running around loose when she uses the device again."
"Device?" Donna asked, personally interested as the boy silently skirted around and picked up the sonic screwdriver from the floor. "What device?" She regarded the Doctor and back to Captain Graham again. From the looks on their faces everyone but her seemed to be in on one very important detail. "What did it do to me?"
"If you two would be good enough to walk this way you'll find out, Mrs Noble."

"Mrs!" Donna halted mid-step, "why do you say Mrs? Do I look married to you? Do I have a ring on my finger to say I'm married?"

"Donna," the Doctor groaned, "just ... come on."

Donna huffed loudly in objection and did as the Doctor told.