Helloo, my dears! Sorry about the language, but I am now an old, old woman - It really has been aaagessince I updated. Aww, you're all giving me hackies. How can I make it up to you? An apology? SOOOOOWYYYYY! A cyber hug? *cyber hugs reader* Tell you what, how about a new chapter? Oh, okaaaaay...

If you all still love me enough, I'd adore a gazillion reviews =) Cheers!

Donna xxx

PS Unbeta-d chapter, so if there could be as little grammar-related neck-wringing as possible, that would be fab.

Chapter Nine - She Would

"You got it ready?" The Doctor asked into his earpiece, and there came an immediate reply from Ianto.

"Yep," He said, "I got every computer in the Hub showin' that one bit of corridor downstairs."

"And the sound's workin'?" Rose asked, pulling the Doctor's head towards her so she could speak into his headset, "It's important that she can hear us. Sorry." She added at the Doctor's cry of "Rose!"

"Yep." Ianto replied, ignoring the Doctor, "I can here you, loud and clear. Can't see you two though... the camera's pointed a bit to your right."

"All part of the game!" The Doctor assured him, "We plan to put on a highly convincing performance, thank you very much."

"Whatever," Gwen said hurriedly, "Let's do this. I'll go and distract Jack, make sure he doesn't get in the way. Ianto, be a sweetheart and run and get Donna, and Doctor? Rose? You can... do your vocal warm ups or somethin'."

"Fantastic." Said the Doctor, turning to Rose, "Oka-"

"And one more thing!" Ianto interrupted seriously, "Rose, I'll look into getting you your own headset."

"Another great bit of news," The Doctor muttered, rubbing his neck, before focusing his attention once more on the task at hand.

"Okay then, let's do this!"

xXx

Donna was bored. There was no other word for it, although it was childish - she was completely and utterly bored out of her mind. There was nothing for her to do here, nothing. Well, at least nothing she wanted to do, nothing that was any fun whatsoever.

In fact, not much seemed enjoyable nowadays, even before she'd come to Torchwood. The thrill of travelling around so much had worn off slightly, and Donna found herself longing for something more stable, more constant, as well as being somewhere she could have fun. Fun. She hadn't had any of that in a while. In fact - though she'd never admit it to anyone - the only time Donna was having any fun whatsoever at the moment was when she was with Jack.

Well, she said fun. The banter with the Captain was more fun, at least, than what she was doing now - writing a report on the mission they had done the previous day. And it had taken her a while to find a spot she was comfortable with, to find a single room in the entire place that didn't contain a computer. A hundred words a minute she could type when she needed to, but Donna was an old fashioned girl - and still needed to plan it out with pencil and paper first.

Being out there in the field had been fantastic, given her such a rush of excitement and determination - but in complete contrast, this writing lark was not the fun part of Torchwood. Which was why Donna was so thrilled when a distraction from work appeared at her door in the form of Ianto Jones. She smiled up at him warmly, praying that he'd give her something to do other than writing reports.

He didn't disappoint. "Alright, Donna? I was just wonderin' if you could run down and have a look at my computer - the screen's frozen on a Word document and Control Alt Delete's doing nothing for it. And seeing as you're super temp extraordinaire, I thought..."

"'Course!" she cried immediately, jumping up and joining him by the door. She would have flown the TARDIS to the moon by herself if it meant getting away from that report.

"Cheers!" Ianto called after her, "It's my computer down in the main Hub! I've just gotta run and tell Gwen somethin', but if you could give it a go I'll be down in a minute!"

Donna practically ran down the stairs to the main room - hopefully the Doctor and Rose would be down there for her to talk to while she checked it out. But no, as she jumped down the last few stairs and made her way to Ianto's desk, she found the Hub completely empty. Strange indeed.

What was even stranger was the fact that when she reached the monitor, it wasn't stuck on a blank Word document at all, but a still image of one of the corridors down in the lower levels. The moving number in the top right hand corner told her that it was live CCTV footage, and as she glanced around, Donna saw that every monitor in the room was displaying the same.

Confused, she wiggled the mouse about on the pad to no avail, and was just about to go find Ianto and tell him she couldn't fix it when the Doctor and Rose wandered into view, talking casually. This had to be an accident, and Donna was just about to leave the room, respect their privacy - when she heard her own name.

"No way, Rose!" the Doctor was saying firmly, "I know Donna well, and I know she's too proud to appreciate something like that. She'd just be scornful of it."

Now this was interesting. What wouldn't she appreciate? Well, if anything gave her a right to eavesdrop their conversation, this did. Donna leaned closer to the screen, listening intently to their words - and what shocking words they were.

"But you're absolutely sure that Jack loves her?"

Donna jumped back from the monitor in surprise, her hand flying to her mouth. That was the last thing she'd expected to hear. Jack? Love her? She had to hear more of this.

"S'what I've heard from Gwen and Ianto," the Doctor continued.

"Did they think we should tell her about it?"

"Well. They thought I should, but I managed to persuade them against it. If we care about Jack, best to let him get over this himself, not to bring Donna into it at all."

And why, exactly? Donna wanted to scream. How could she have missed this, when everyone else was so clued up and making huge decisions about her life? Why on earth hadn't they told her? Precisely, it seemed, what Rose wanted to know next:

"Why would you say that? Wha', you don't think Jack deserves her?"

"No, not at all!" The Doctor cried, "Jack's a great man, god knows he deserves someone special! Donna's special enough, alright, but I know her too well - I know her pride gets in the way of everything. I mean, I love Donna dearly, but there's no denying the girl's selfish. What she cares about is showing off, about being the wittiest in the room, the cleverest. There's far too much scorn in her to be capable of loving anyone."

Tears came to her eyes at that. What kind of person did everybody think she was? A cold-hearted statue, some horrible scornful witch incapable of any emotion? Was this where her years of mouthiness and pointless bickering had landed her? Because that hadn't been her intention at all. It was an awful blow, but Donna just had to keep listening.

"I know, I know. I just think she has the right to know, that's all. It is her life."

"Rose, I go to Donna now and tell her that Captain Jack Harkness is in love with her and she'll die with laughter. Not at me, that I can handle - it would be aimed at Jack. You've seen the way she insults him now, you just imagine how cruel she'd be if she found out something like this."

"She might not do, you don't know! Doctor, we have to tell her."

"We can't Rose. You know, deep down, that we can't. It would kill him."

A small smile appeared on Rose's face as she said, "Or rather, she would." The Doctor grinned, and their happy voices faded as they left the shot, leaving Donna, dumbfounded, staring at the perfectly still screen.

She couldn't believe this was true. Her mind was in turmoil... but slowly, surely, she reached a decision. This was where her disdain had got her, her scorn, spite and witty comebacks - so this was where those things ended. From now on, Donna Noble was going to change. She'd show them all that under her defensive exterior, she had always been a kind, warm person.

Incapable of love? Pah! It was her fire and her passion that enabled that love, that enhanced it and made it so, so much better. They were questioning whether she could love at all, but if anything, Donna loved more than anybody else, she always had...

And it was now that she realised who it was all this passion inside of her was aimed at. The person she had been covering it up from for so long, in front of whom she had bad-mouthed the concept as a way of denying the fact...

Donna was in love with Captain Jack Harkness, and she always had been. It was that simple.

That was what it all semed now: simple. Everything had suddenly clicked into place in her head, and Donna was wondering how she could have ever have missed this. All those years of fighting, the insults flying back and forth, back and forth, neither of them ever realising, when they could have been- no. It hardly beared thinking about. But it was fine, because soon, Donna was going to put everything right.

Soon... but maybe not straight away. Because right now, she could hear Ianto and Gwen coming, and Donna was panicking - Until she glanced back at the screen, and saw that it had gone black, along with every other monitor in the Hub.

"No luck, eh?" Ianto asked casually, and if either of them noticed the colour of Donna's face, they didn't show it. All of a sudden she felt dizzy, sick, after having such a major breakthrough all at once. The small, computer-less, solitary room that she had been so bored of all day was suddenly starting to seem very, very attractive as a place to clear her head.

"What?" She managed to mumble as she tripped over to the stairs, "I, um... no. Just got to, erm... finish 'e... report..." And she was off up those stairs as fast as lightning, her head spinning from her sudden realisation. And as soon as Donna had left the room, the Doctor and Rose came wandering in , looking immensely proud of themselves.

The Doctor cleared his throat, "So..." He even managed to sound casual - before the four of them took one look at each other and simultaneously collapsed in fits of laughter.