Have you ever been touched so gently you had to cry?
Have you ever invited a stranger to come inside?
It's only half past the point of oblivion
The hourglass on the table
The walk before the run
The breath before the kiss
And the fear before the flamesGlitter in the Air
Pink
"Donna, what is it, what's wrong? Talk to me, please?"
The Doctor sounded almost frantic now. Donna felt his hand ghost over the pulse on her neck and through her blurry vision she saw his eyes tracking her every movement, his face taut with tension. She dropped the shoe and placed her hand in his, squeezing it warmly, feeling the sand grains move between their palms.
She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling his hand holding hers, allowing herself to accept the familiarity of the touch. Relief and hope were still washing over her, and she knew she could trust him now, that he was really who he said he was.
Her mind was still spinning and the dust and wind whirled around them urgently, mirroring her state of mind; it was too much to come to terms with. She reached up a shaking hand and slowly brought his head closer to her mouth so he would hear her voice without the wind stealing her words.
"Slaves aren't allowed shoes, these took me by surprise, that's all. I'm all right now, let's get out of here."
She released him and he drew back, regarding her questioningly for a moment before he resumed putting her other shoe on, lacing it up as she watched him. She was smiling faintly, but the wind blew cold on her tear-stained cheeks and she was trembling more than ever as she vacillated between falling into his arms and holding herself back.
On some instinctual level she knew she wasn't yet ready to admit to him what she herself had only begun to accept. After so long of being wary around men she couldn't suddenly flip a switch and let her guard down entirely, no matter how much certainty had filled her at the sight of her shoes and the shimmering sand grains in his palm.
So she just clung to his arm wordlessly and with his help she made it to the carrier without incident, only the hollow wind gusts seeing them off. The transport was little more than a large cargo bay, filled with benches and peopled with men, jostling them as they entered the cargo hold. The uniforms were slightly different than those of the guards, more like soldiers.
Donna turned into the Doctor's chest with less reserve now and his arms wrapped around her strongly even as he glared at the men around them until they cleared a path. The tarnished metal of the ship was noticeably different from the dusty planet they were leaving. Even with the abrasive laughter of the soldiers echoing against the metal walls she felt the mental shackles of fear loosen and she allowed herself to believe now that this was not a dream, that she was finally getting free from this nightmare.
Settling her into a far corner the Doctor placed himself between her and the other passengers, then produced a small flask of water, from his other pocket this time. She accepted it gratefully, the cool water washing away the taste of the dusty planet from her mouth.
The walk to the ship had made her feel lightheaded and nauseous, she moved closer to the Doctor, reveling in his warmth. He dipped his head to see her face and raised his eyebrows, pocketing the flask that she handed back to him. Then he held his arms out to her.
After hesitating for only a second, Donna sunk herself into his embrace, closing her eyes as the smooth silk of his tie brushed against her face and the steady rhythm of his hearts beat against her cheek, the long forgotten feeling of safety coming over her. She felt his arms hold her tighter and he shifted her body closer to his, his breath moving her hair as he whispered comfortingly in her ear.
"Try to sleep some more, nothing will happen to you now, I will make sure of it."
She curled up tighter, and kept her eyes closed trying to follow his suggestion, her mind spinning. But sleep would not come, she couldn't ignore that nagging sense of doubt in the back of her mind that something still wasn't right here.
"Did that seem right to you? The way they just let me go?" she finally asked him, unfurling just enough to look up into his eyes.
He looked at her for a long moment and his brow tightened. "Is it hard to accept that you are free now?" His voice was sympathetic, but with an undertone of tension that suggested he was more aware of the enduring danger than he was letting on.
She chose not to answer his question, she wouldn't know where to begin. Instead she pursed her lips and got out a question of her own to deflect him. "What did you pay them anyway?"
He tilted his head. "They have never let a slave be bought out before on Bruwst, it had to be something very valuable to them."
She made a derisive noise that would have been a snort, but the air on the carrier wasn't much more oxygenated than the planet's surface and so she was still having trouble fully catching her breath.
"It wasn't worth it, whatever you gave them, I'm on my last legs me." She shrugged off the emptiness she could hear in her own voice and plucked at her thin smock, looking down.
He moved his hand to palm her cheek and lift her gaze back up. His eyes were intense as he answered her. "I would have paid him anything, Donna, I would have given him the crown jewels of every reigning monarch in the history of time. You are worth more than anything."
She swallowed, finding it hard to see herself through his eyes, to see herself as having any value to anyone beyond how many tart fruits she could shell in a day, and how fast she could keep the production line moving. So she fidgeted a little, breaking from his gaze and looking down at her work-worn hands — a testament to the long hours she had endured in order to stay alive — and changed the subject again, still trying to put her finger on whatever it was that seemed strange about the deal.
"They got us on a carrier awfully fast."
"Possibly they didn't want me to change my mind about paying them such a high price, plus I won't release the coordinates of the payment until we set foot on the neutral territory of the moon, so they are keeping things moving quickly." He was smiling now, obviously trying to keep his tone light.
"Nothing to worry about!" he added cheerfully. She knew he was not telling her everything as she watched his eyes shift over the soldiers.
Her eyes scanned the room again and she shifted closer to him. His arm moved further around her shoulders, giving her a sense of feeling protected, and his fingers brushed her cheek. The gesture felt more than protective though, it felt possessive.
"Donna?"
She studied his face, trying to read his emotions, wondering how she could ever have doubted it was him. When she didn't acknowledge him, he tried again and she guessed from the tentative tone of his voice that he wanted to talk about something that would make her uncomfortable.
"Donna…" He licked his lips. "You seem more relaxed with me now. Are you… do you know that it is me?"
She turned to him, her eyes going wide, fear coursing through her veins and almost drowning out his words, her heartbeat loud in her ears. He had broached the subject she herself was doing mental cartwheels to avoid.
She knew it was him, and yet allowing herself to accept that this was really the Doctor was somehow even more terrifying than the idea that he was just some slave trader duping her into trusting him. Slave traders she understood, bad men made sense, and for as long as she was telling him she was just going along with his "ruse" of being the Doctor, well then, she was just doing the best she could to keep herself safe, just making the best of a bad situation, the logical thing to do.
But this sweet, kind, protective man, with his broken eyes and soft touches, if he was really who she knew him to be in her heart… well, she couldn't let herself admit it out loud because if it somehow turned out that he wasn't real then she knew that would be the last straw for her sanity. She had to protect that dream that she had been clutching to herself all those long nights.
He must have picked up on her turmoil because he brought his hands up to cradle her face, thumbs stroking her cheekbones, whispering softly.
"Hey. It's alright, Donna. Please, just trust me, right now I just want to get you back to the safety of the TARDIS, everything else we can sort out later."
Tears filled her eyes again at his gentleness and she buried her face in his chest, hoping that would be enough of an answer for the time being, and it seemed to satisfy him as he drew her close and rocked her in his arms.
She stayed that way for while, trying to process the physical affection that was still so startling in its tenderness. She had not known peace like this since she had been separated from him, and the way he was holding her, the soft sounds he uttered that made no sense and made perfect sense, it was all so familiar, like a long forgotten dream. Or perhaps it was simply that she hadn't known this feeling outside of her dreams in so long, and even then in whatever life she had before… the details were still foggy.
But after awhile it was overwhelming, she couldn't tell where she ended and he began, so she pulled away and huddled into the corner. His eyes followed her but he made no move to stop her retreat from him.
"Okay?" he asked quietly.
She bit her lip and tilted her head. "Can you tell me a story?"
He looked surprised at that, so she went on, "I need to know about you if I am to be with you."
She felt like she was drowning, fighting to reach him, struggling to stay afloat in a world where he was real and yet everything felt so dreamlike.
His lips pressed into a thin line, his disappointment palpable, and his hand came to wrap around the back of his neck as he dropped his head down.
"You still think I'm still a slave trader," he said, his tones clipped, his efforts to control his emotions evident. "I wouldn't… I won't force you to stay with me against your will."
She waited until he looked at her again, then very slowly she shook her head, denying his last words. Seeing the pain her words had caused him, Donna could barely breathe, but found herself nonetheless incapable of telling him what he wanted to hear. She needed breathing space while her mind tried to come to terms with him, she wasn't ready for the shock of closeness and complete trust he would then expect from her if she admitted she knew who he was.
"Please, Doctor," she whispered, using his name aloud for the first time since he had shown up in her life again.
He looked at her sharply and she reached for his hand.
"I'm so tired but when I close my eyes all I can hear is their voices, hammering on at me like the machines, stilted, angry, yammering on and on. I just want to hear your voice instead, then maybe I can sleep." She rubbed her eyes.
His eyes softened and his hand covered hers as he began to speak.
"I have a best friend. We shared many adventures together, we helped a lot of people. Some of them heard that I lost her, and they helped me to find her again. Do you remember the first time you met the Ood?"
She smiled brokenly as she felt herself tear up again, and nodded slightly, leaning back against the wall and drawing her knees up to her chest. She kept a firm grip on his hand as she closed her eyes and relived all the tiny details, getting lost in a past that she had stopped thinking of as real.
She was surprised at how well he recalled even the smallest thing, from his chagrin at her comparing the TARDIS to a Ferrari, to his fear for her safety high up on railings as he placed her body behind his, and how scared he had been that the danger would be too much, and that she might ask him to take her home again.
He paused finally and asked her if she remembered. She looked at him, and all at once the hollowness in his eyes overwhelmed even her own fears for her sanity. She could see how much it hurt him that she did not know him, that she could not accept that he was real.
"Do you remember, Donna? Can you trust that this is me?"
Tears were shining in both their eyes when she nodded.
He made a small choking noise and unable to bear seeing him like this any longer, Donna finally gave in to the hope that this was real. There was no doubt left in her mind and she fell into his arms as her last defenses crumbled. They clung to each other as he cried out her name into her hair, over and over, and she sobbed his name in return.
After a while of just holding each other, Donna sneaked another look up at him, noticing for the first time the exhaustion in his features. The fine lines around his eyes were deeper and even his hair seemed to have lost its usual vigor for standing on end. He smiled warmly at her, his shining eyes closing as he allowed his head to fall back against the curved metal wall of the carrier. She could feel the tension leave his body despite how securely his arms were wrapped around her.
Donna dragged her eyes away from his face and swept her gaze around the room again, watching as the soldiers talked amongst themselves. Even with all of their banter their eyes never left where she and the Doctor were seated. Something didn't feel right, and the more the man holding her allowed himself to relax, the stronger the feeling of foreboding inside her grew.
She took in the hostile sneers of the men as they stared back at her, unabashed contempt in their eyes, and something else too, some kind of anticipation that made her stomach roil. They were congregating in a loose semi circle around the place where she and the Doctor were sitting. She had seen the natives of this planet both at rest and on alert: these men did not look restful in the slightest.
This was the first time a slave had been bought out of servitude on this planet the Doctor had told her was called Bruwst, and yet these men didn't look like any sort of concession had been made at all. Were they just laughing at the price the Doctor had paid, smug in the feeling of having ripped him off? Was she just panicky and over-reacting?
No, neither explanation felt right. In all her time planetside Donna had learned to read these kind of men like a book, and while she trusted none of them, she had learned to trust her own instincts implicitly. Her life had sometimes depended on not pissing off the wrong guard at the wrong time, or attracting the wrong sort of attention.
That was it, she realized, these men had sickeningly predatory looks in their eyes, as if there was a battle still left to win, and spoils for the taking.
She sat up slowly, her movements faltering as the fear in her bones sent tremors down her spine. She felt strong and sure hands travel up her arms to cradle her shoulders and she tore her gaze from the malevolent stares of their fellow travelers to look instead into the warm brown gaze of the man she belonged to. No, wait, she caught herself, belonged with.
"Alright?" His hand was on her back trying to gain her attention, and she could feel him tensing up.
"Donna?"
His thumbs brushed soothingly over her collarbone and he pulled her so close to his body it felt proprietary, which was both confusing and wonderful. As well as being the Doctor she was so well acquainted with, there was an intimacy to his embrace now that he wasn't holding back, and it took her breath away.
She let him hold her close and squeezed her eyes closed, trying to find a way to articulate her fears so he would take her seriously as his equal again, so that he would know she was looking out for them both just as he was.
She lifted her mouth to his ear and with a shaking hand drew his head down to hers.
"These men… something is wrong here, the way they are looking at me…"
He brushed her hair back from her forehead and took her face gently in his hands.
"It's alright, Donna, no one will touch you now, I owe them coordinates to an ore that is so valuable they wouldn't be able to mine that themselves with a thousand slaves in a thousand years."
"Then they would have given you anything to get it," her whisper was more urgent now, "I know this lot, they would have promised you anything. But Doctor, you said they have never sold a slave before, that it was like a pride thing for them. And I keep thinking, trying to understand what I heard in their voices, and now I realize — it isn't what I heard, it was what was not there: nobody was giving anything away, no loss of face, they're having us on."
His eyes searched hers and he opened his mouth again but before she could hear his soft reassurances she cut him off, her hands fisting in his shirt.
"I have seen them work a person to death but I have never seen let someone go alive. They still think I am theirs, Doctor. I have spent months learning to read the way they are looking at me, I've had to learn to gauge them to avoid their… attentions. You have to trust me, there is no way they are going to let us leave that moon alive."