Disclaimer: Hahaha, no.
A/n: Sorry for not having a chapter up yesterday, I had a drum show...concert...thing that I was playing in. Let's just say I was busy and leave it at that, yeah?
000
She still has trouble believing it. He had a friend (though from the looks of it they're a bit more than that, and good for him) that he lost and somehow completely forgot about, and now he's found her and has to help her get sane again by going inside her mind and rebuilding all of her memories and personality and everything that makes her herself without changing anything.
Her life was so simple before she met that man.
But now everything's complicated. Because she can see that the Rose girl is hurt, badly, and there's nothing she can do to help, and she can see that it's killing him inside and there's nothing she can do to help that either. What good is she if she can't help her best friend and his long-lost girlfriend? She's only a temp, she doesn't know medicine or therapy or anything.
She's useless.
Oh, she's always known that she'll never amount to anything, that she'll never be anyone important, but she's always been able to pretend. She distracts herself with gossip and friends and anything that isn't her boring life. It got even easier to pretend when met the Doctor, looking for him and then traveling with him, always something strange or dangerous to deal with. Somehow, he never realized that he would be better off with someone else, that she was just some stupid temp from Chiswick.
But now she can't pretend, and she knows that he'll notice how unhelpful she is eventually. The only reason why he hasn't dumped her back home is because he's been too worried about Rose to think of it. He will though, once she's better and he remembers how amazing and accomplished she was, how much better than Donna.
Every day the Doctor has been in the medical bay, sitting by her side or helping her eat or fluffing her pillow, always with her, always doing his best to make everything that much better. She knows she sounds jealous, and maybe she is. He barely speaks to her, now. Rose is so much more important to him that he doesn't have time for her anymore.
No, that's not right. He's just got a lot on his mind, that's all. Every other time she walks in to check on him, he's got his hands on Rose's temple, fixing whatever went wrong in her head. He feels so much guilt about what happened, whatever it was, that he can't help but try to make everything perfect for the girl to make up for it as much as he can.
She walks into the medical bay, carrying the tea she made for him and Rose, if she's lucid enough to drink it on her own, and sees him sitting in a chair next to Rose's bed, slumped over, head resting on his arms fast asleep. She doesn't know if he's slept at all since they found her, and seeing him like this erases every angry thought she's had about him abandoning her or ignoring her. He's exhausted, but his stupid conscience won't let him take a few hours for himself and get some rest.
He starts awake when she puts the tea down on a small, conveniently placed table, and she sees that his eyes are red, from crying or sleep deprivation she can't tell. He looks like a right mess, either way, and that makes her mind up. "You go rest," she says in the tone of voice her mum always used whenever she was sick as a kid and refused to get in bed.
He looks up at her, all lost and confused like a sad puppy, and he can barely form a complete sentence. "I can't—I have to—she needs me, Donna, I—"
"Shhh, I'll watch her, go sleep. You can take care of her better if you aren't too tired to think straight, so go." She sort of pulls him up out of the chair and he complies simply because he's too tired not to. She manages to get him to the door before he starts to protest again.
"Donna, what if—"
"Doctor. I'll take care of her. If anything happens, I'll shout. It's just for a few hours, now go on." She pushes him into the hallway, and being outside of the medical bay is enough to get him walking on his own. He probably won't sleep as much as he needs to, but even a little is better than nothing.
He turns back to her, suddenly. "Yeah Doctor?" she asks, because he looks like he needs to say something but can't quite figure out how to begin.
"Thank you. I know I'm not—thank you." With that, he turns back and stumbles forward into the depths of his ship.
She doesn't know where that came from but it warms her heart all the same. He needs her, still, and she can still do something to help him, to help both of them. She turns back and sits in the chair he so recently vacated. Maybe she isn't anybody special, but she can still help in little ways, keep things running, and that's what's important right now.
000
A/n: In The Stolen Earth when Donna first sees Rose, I thought she looked almost sad. That was the inspiration for the first half (ish?) of this chapter, because I imagine that she must have been thinking something similar.