Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the Who-verse. That honour belongs to RTD and the mighty and glorious BBC. The only thing I get out of this is a warm fuzzy feeling knowing I am trying to put right what once was wrong.
Authors Note: Thank you to everyone who has read this 1,973 hits and 672 visitors to date (Woohoo!). It makes me soo happy. I hope everyone is enjoying my dip into the post-CoE Universe.
I'm going to apologise for this chapter now. When I came to reread it last night it seemed a bit more like filler than I remembered, an excuse to let Donna and Jack have a bit of a life together, and also to set Donna up for the future. Besides it's too tiring lurching from one angsty crisis to the next. Maybe I'll term it breathing space instead. Anyway see what you think. Reviews make me happy and more in the mood to add Janto fluffiness...
Chapter X
So Jack and Donna did the married thing. Donna moved out of her mum's house, Jack out of the cold unfeeling penthouse apartment and together they moved into a house in Notting Hill. Initially Donna had felt a shiver of unease wondering how they could possibly afford it, but Jack had waved her concerns aside and any doubts were soon dispelled by the kick of living in such a trendy area. They bought curtains (dark charcoal grey – his choice) and cushions (deep purple - hers), argued fiercely over wallpaper (for the first time Donna understood about the concept of great make-up sex), and chose crockery patterns (white with black abstract trim – agreed to be the lesser of several floral evils). To Jack it all seemed slightly unreal, so at odds with his life at Torchwood. His trips to Cardiff were becoming more frequent and his daily routine of Weevil hunts and investigating rift activity spikes and alien artefacts was now punctuated with phone calls telling him not be late home for dinner or to pick up some milk on his way back. And Jack loved it. He could see for the first time why Gwen had been so determined to keep Rhys, have some semblance of a normal home life, even if it was snatched between moments of impending alien invasion.
Donna had thrown herself into the role of wife with undisguised relish. Determined to be the perfect wife, she cooked and cleaned, made sure the fridge was stocked with Jack's favourite brand of beer, always made her face up before greeting him at the door every evening when he came home from work, and never nagged him. At first Jack was amused, but as the weeks passed it started to worry him more and more. Donna Noble was disappearing and he didn't like it. The final straw came one night when he got home in the early hours of the morning after a particularly lengthy but eventually fruitful Weevil hunt. Expecting to find the house in darkness he had pulled up outside to see the lights blazing. As he got out of the SUV Donna had opened the door, fully dressed, cold beer in hand as if it were six o'clock in the evening. Donna reached up and kissed him on the lips pushing the beer into his hand.
"Hiya," she said pulling back. "Did you have a good day? Dinner will only be a minute." Her voice was determinedly cheerful.
Jack looked at her askance.
"Donna. It's nearly three in the morning. What are you doing up? I said I'd be late."
"Yes, but I thought you probably wouldn't get chance to eat. Besides isn't this what wives do?" Ah, sarcasm. Albeit a bit watered down, Jack mused. Maybe the Donna he knew was still in there after all.
"Only in Stepford," he commented sharply. Donna's face hardened. Immediately contrite Jack pulled her to him with a groan,
"I'm sorry. I appreciate the dinner, really, but you didn't have to. Come on let's go inside. We need to talk." Without giving her chance to reply he ushered her inside. He fell onto the sofa and pulled her awkwardly down sideways onto his lap so he could look into her face.
"What are you doing Donna?" he asked quietly concern etched across his face.
"I would have thought that was obvious. Trying to be a good wife," Donna enunciated each word through clenched teeth.
"And you think waiting up to three am, making me dinner every night, never nagging and waiting on the doorstep with a cold beer every time I come home means you're a good wife?" he suggested.
Hearing it said like that Donna began to see how ridiculous it seemed,
"No sunshine, it makes me a great wife," she replied with a flash of her old spirit. "And don't you forget it."
Jack grinned, "That's better. I was beginning to think Donna Noble had been replaced by an evil doppelgänger." His face turned serious again. "Look sweetheart. Don't get me wrong, I love it that you want to be the perfect wife for me, but I married Donna Noble, a bolshy..." Donna gave him a warning glance. "...mouthy..." The look was now glacial, her eyes blazing. "...flame-haired goddess," Jack continued quickly aware he was on borrowed time, "...not some insipid Daisy May home-maker. Besides I love arguing with you – well the making-up part anyway."
Donna slapped him affectionately around the head then put her arms around his neck and rested her forehead on his.
"I just wanted to do it right, you know?"
"I know. I love you." Jack gave her a long lingering kiss. "Should we eat that dinner then, since you went to all the trouble of cooking it?"
"I suppose. Not really that hungry though. Too knackered. Some bloke I married kept me up 'till three in the morning."
"I better let you get to bed then. Let me help you upstairs." Jack offered seductively.
"By the way husband dearest, don't think you can charm your way out of paying for that bolshy comment. I have a very, very, long memory and quite an imagination." Donna purred.
"Promises, promises!"
Donna smirked and allowed herself to be carried upstairs. It would be worth the price of the new casserole dish she would have to buy tomorrow.
A couple of days later Jack got home to find Donna, perched on a stool at the kitchen counter, a pile of brochures in front of her. Her hair was wound in an untidy knot on the top of her head secured with a pencil, and a second was clamped firmly between her teeth whilst she scribbled on a pad with a third. Her back to him, she was unaware of his presence and he stood for a moment smiling, committing the scene to memory. Then he strode over, his movements silent and catlike, leant down and kissed the exposed back of her neck. Donna shrieked, the pencil clattering onto the counter, and span round on the stool accidentally smacking Jack across the side of his head with her hand.
"Ow!" Jack yelped, stumbling backwards clamping his hand to the injured side of his face.
"Serves you right, you stupid git, creeping up on someone like that," retorted Donna rubbing her hand briskly. "I thought you were a bloody burglar."
"I doubt a burglar would have kissed your neck." Jack argued, his face smarting.
"Depends on the burglar I would imagine." Donna pulled his hand away and looked at Jack's face critically. "Well I can't see any damage, no scars to mar the perfection of your face." She rolled her eyes. "My god, you are so vain. Anyway I think you'll live."
Jack's stomach gave an uneasy lurch at the comment but he smiled. "Guess so. So what were you so engrossed in. Love the new look by the way. Very studenty."
Donna narrowed her eyes defiantly.
"They're college brochures," she admitted. "I've been thinking about what Gwen said and I'm going to do it. Go back to college I mean."
Jack's face lit up.
"Donna, that's wonderful. What do you want to do?"
"I want to train to be a teacher. Don't you dare laugh!" she warned, her eyes bright, challenging his.
Jack took her hands in his own and kissed them. "I think it's a brilliant idea. You'll make a fabulous teacher. What subject?"
Donna looked sheepish. "Now you really will laugh. Either that or think I'm crazy. Maths."
Jack couldn't help it. He looked at her incredulously. To his surprise she didn't berate him, or slap him, or subject him to any other form of Donna Noble reprisal.
"I said you'd think I was crazy. I used to be crap at maths, I mean I could do the necessary but I could never get my head round all that algebra and stuff," Donna explained. "But since I had that episode I told you about, it just seems to have clicked in my head. I didn't really notice it at first, just when I was watching Countdown repeats and found I getting the maths challenges right every time, or there was some financial bloke on talking figures and I knew how to get the answer. But then I got curious, so I went to the library and got out some maths text books. And I understand them, Jack, I actually get it now. So I thought I should make use of it." Donna grinned at him triumphantly.
Jack forced himself to grin back at her as he felt a very real frisson of fear run down his spine. It didn't take a genius to guess where Donna had got her new found maths knowledge from. It would take a genius to answer the question of whether this meant she was starting to remember her past. The frisson of fear became a tight knot in Jack's stomach as he realised there might be a very real chance he could lose her. He needed to contact the Doctor. Now.
Leaving Donna pouring over the brochures once more, Jack ran upstairs two at a time and locked himself in the bathroom. The phone was out of his pocket and the number dialled even before he'd finished locking the door. He slumped down on the toilet seat. On the fourth ring the Doctor picked up, no answering machine this time, Jack thought gratefully.
"Jack!" the Doctor chirruped. "How's married life? I'm just taking tea on Veltraxia. Lovely planet, seven moons one for each colour of the rainbow. Makes for a fabulous night sky..."
The Doctor would have gone on but Jack cut him off.
"Doctor. It's Donna". The Doctor immediately fell silent and Jack could sense the sudden concern about what he was going to say.
"She's good at maths." Jack blurted out aware of how inadequate a statement that was. "I mean since you wiped her memories" he clarified. "Is she starting to remember?"
The fear in Jack's voice was very real, the Doctor noted, as he let out a woosh of air in relief. That was a good sign, much better than he could have ever hoped for.
"She's fine Jack," he reassured him. "It was inevitable there would be some residual increase in intellect. After all it was a Time-Lord mind she absorbed. Some basic Time-Lord knowledge would have imprinted itself over existing knowledge making it impossible to erase, things where both species might have the same kind of knowledge – like basic maths."
The Doctor heard Jack let out an equally relieved sigh.
"So it won't trigger her memories?" Jack persisted. He had to be sure.
"Definitely not. Completely different bit of the brain. She's safe. By the way, how come you're suddenly so interested in her maths ability?"
"She wants to teach. Go back to college and become a maths teacher," explained Jack, the pride evident in his voice, now his fears had been laid to rest.
"Absolutely brilliant!" the Doctor crowed. "Donna Noble – Maths teacher!"
"That would be Donna Harkness," Jack corrected him.
"Yes it would!" the Doctor agreed smugly.
Honestly that Doctor! I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him. Well end of breathing space. Chapter 11 is coming soon. A hint of Janto fluff, Jack doing his impression of a guppy. Oh and 'to wit a major plot point commeth' (Favourite Moonlighting quote from the episode Atomic Shakespeare).