Okay, now, seriously... don't judge Donna! I tried to back her into a sort of corner where they need his help, and he's really clever and, well... what's a Companion to say?

Apart from all that, this chapter proved much fun to write. I love scenes like this! Especially one with a quality cliffhanger at the end! ;-)

Also, again I will point out, I don't know much at all about architecture, reading blue prints. Feel free to correct me, but please be kind. (I know that a standard blue print does not show plumbing... more details are in the following chapter.)

Enjoy!

FOURTEEN

Dinner with Colin had been, as expected, brilliant. Hands-down, the best date of her life.

During dinner, they'd begun talking about Madame Tussaud's, so they'd decided to go there after dinner, and walk about. They'd made slight nuisances of themselves, laughing at the wax figures, doing voices, poking a bit of fun.

At Tussaud's Donna had received a text from Martha: "Got the blue prints but can't read them. I'm a doctor, not an architect, hint, hint."

A few minutes later, she received another: "I've saved the PDF to my computer desktop – filename PLUMBING BLUE. Maybe you and C.B. could have a nightcap?"

Donna had been able to step behind a plant briefly, and text back, "Ok," but that was all.

About five minutes after that, she received a third text: "Going to bed now, in the blue box. The flat is yours. Good night, my friend."

After the wax museum, Donna and Colin had wandered into The Regent's Park a block away, and set about a late-night stroll. They then had run across a gazebo where a brass jazz band was playing bluesy, night music, and about fifty people were sitting around the gazebo on blankets or lawn chairs, listening. So they'd stopped to listen for a bit from a park bench, then, when people had begun to dance, they had joined in.

She realised with some measure of regret (though not much) that she had utterly failed to avoid romantic situations with Colin. They'd swapped sitting side-by-side in a dark cinema for dancing cheek-to-cheek in the park. And when he'd leaned in for a kiss a few times, she hadn't pulled away.

Unplanned, but still a bit unwise.

Though not, by any means, unpleasant.

By the time the band was packing up, it was just after midnight. They walked to the high street and hailed a taxi, and arrived at the foot of Martha's front steps about ten minutes later. The two of them got out of the car, and Colin asked the driver to wait.

"I hate to say good night," Colin told her with a sigh. "It means it has to end for now."

Having received Martha's text regarding the blue prints, Donna had known she'd need to find some reason for Colin to come into the flat with her. She realised that there was nothing she could say now, that would end with him coming into the flat with her, that wouldn't result in him reading into her intentions.

In life with the Doctor, we do what we have to do. If I was willing to give my life in Pompeii, I can certainly bite this particular bullet.

She tried to hide her nervousness, and said, before she could change her mind, "Unless you'd like to come in for one last drink. Or maybe tea?"

"Really?" he asked, genuinely surprised.

She gulped, and managed a nod. "Martha's out. They both are."

"Oh," he replied, again, surprised. He looked up at the flat with an expression that seemed to indicate the weighing of options. "Are you certain?"

"Yeah," she said. After a long pause, she took a breath. "Erm, look, Colin, to be honest, I need your help with something. I know we already asked for your help earlier today, but we have yet another thing that needs… well, an architect's eye."

"Oh," he repeated, though his tone had changed to a more accepting, finalised one. "Okay then – lead on."

She could see that learning that she wasn't necessarily out for a first-date shag had put him a bit more at ease. Though she wasn't sure how to her ego felt about that, she decided to view it with her sensible mind, as a fortuitous triumph of communication and practicality.

Upon entering the flat, they turned right and went into the kitchen. Donna noticed straight away that a bottle of Bailey's Irish Creme had been left on the counter. She reckoned that it was meant as a courtesy to her and Colin, a bit of encouragement to get them to sit down, and spend a bit more time. Preferably talking about blue prints.

"What d'you think? Bailey's, or tea?" she asked, indicating the bottle.

"Do I need to remain sharp?"

"Let's go with tea," Donna decided, and she filled the kettle with water, and plugged it in. Actually, tea was her way of being prudent, in a slightly-outside-of-prudent situation.

"So, what do you need help with?" asked Colin.

She spied Martha's laptop on the table by the window, and brought it over to the breakfast bar where Colin was seated. She sat down beside him and fired up the computer, double-clicked on the appropriate icon, and a confusing image of a building popped up on the screen. It seemed to Donna to have about four hundred more lines than needed.

"Okay, we need to know if there is a pipe that goes from the ladies' washroom on the ground floor, either to or through the conference room on the first floor. Would you be able to tell us, from this blue print? Because frankly, it makes no bloody sense to Martha nor me."

Colin squinted at it for a few moments, and then he looked at Donna with amused suspicion.

"What?" she asked. "Is this not in your wheelhouse?"

"What's going on, Donna?"

She sighed, and buried her face in her hands, momentarily. "I was afraid you were going to ask that."

"Well, can you blame me?" he chuckled. He turned to his right, swinging his legs to the side of the barstool, facing her squarely. "First, tell me one thing. Give it to me straight."

"Okay, what?"

"Promise. Promise you won't lie or sugar-coat or what-have-you."

She took a deep breath. "Okay."

"Do you really like me?"

This had been nothing like the sort of question she'd been expecting. Nevertheless, she answered immediately. "Yes!"

"I mean, it's okay if you don't. I just need to know."

"No! Colin, I do like you! I just… I'm… what's brought this on?"

He smiled uneasily and rested his elbow on the counter, forehead against his thumb and forefinger. "Well, last night you seemed reluctant to see me again."

"I wasn't reluctant to see you again. It's just… being with Martha and the Doctor… I mean, I'm so, so happy for them, but it's…"

"And that's another thing," Colin interrupted. "When you say the Doctor, you mean John, right? Martha's beau?"

Donna looked at him with wide eyes, and a perfect "oh" forming her lips. Then she smiled. "Oh, yes. That's what we call him."

"Okay. Because you mentioned the Doctor, several times tonight… eventually, from context, I sussed out who you meant."

"Well…" she began, unsure of what she might say next.

"Okay, another question: did you and he used to... you know?" Colin asked.

"What?"

"I mean, is he, like, your ex?"

"Who, the Doctor? John?"

"Yeah."

"No! God, no!"

"All right," he said, evenly. "Then, are you three involved in some kind of… trio… situation? Like the three of you are a couple? I mean, I've seen that sort of thing before."

"No!" Donna was practically shouting now. "They are a couple. I am single. Or rather… I'm seeing you. Unless I'm not, unless… maybe I've spoken too soon. Oh… but… oh, Colin, dear God! What's making you ask this?"

"You talked tonight about when you and the Doctor used to travel together, just the two of you. It made me wonder if he's an ex."

"I said that?"

"Yeah."

She gave a slow, hard exhale. She'd got so comfortable with him, damn it, she'd slipped!

"Oh, well… "

"And you were very quick to defend him, when I thought he was perhaps playing too much Cricket, which I admit, I shouldn't have said, because it's none of my business. I just don't like seeing Martha left in the lurch."

"Okay, well…"

"You also mentioned how your mum doesn't trust the Doctor, and neither does Francine, and you said, 'who could really blame them? But he's worth it – he's worth all the trouble.' What the hell does that mean?"

"Oh, God… Colin…"

She mentally kicked herself. Had she had that much wine? She remembered saying a few of those things, but she thought she was being more vague than that. Was Colin just super-clever like Martha, and picking up on things, or had she totally blown it?

"But clearly, he's with Martha. I can see it when they look at each other… But then it seems like you have a totally separate thing with the Doctor."

"It's not a thing, Colin," she sighed. "It's complicated. They are my best mates… especially him. But there is nothing weird going on. At least not weird in the sense that you seem to think."

He paused, then asked, evenly, "Is the Doctor really playing Cricket?"

She sighed, and massaged the back of her neck. Suddenly, she felt very tense.

The kettle went ping, and she stood and did what British people do when they're not sure what to say: she made the tea.

She came round to the stools again, and handed Colin his Earl Grey with lemon. She took hers straight.

"Colin, the Doctor isn't just a Doctor. He's… not what he seems."

"I'm starting to get that. He's quiet, slightly evasive, and the way you talk about him, he has bizarre relationships with women. Or maybe I'm just being old-fashioned."

"You're not wrong. Except about the quiet bit.""

"Look, you are one thing. I like you – I just want to make sure you're available, and not tied up with some other bloke. I'd like to see more of you… by that, I mean, see you again and often."

"Good, thanks."

"But Martha is a whole different matter. I've always thought of myself as something of a big brother to her, and I couldn't bear it if I thought she was in a relationship with someone who's… dodgy, or dangerous, or putting her in danger."

Again, Donna had no idea what to say. The Doctor was all of those things, but of course, she and Martha knew without a doubt that he was good. Flawed in the extreme, but unquestionably a good soul. A good man. A force for good. Et cetera, et cetera.

"Martha is fully clear about who and what the Doctor is," Donna said. "And no, he hasn't been playing Cricket."

"What's with the plumbing blue prints? And the database inquiry this morning?"

"Colin, if you don't want to help…"

"I want to help," he said. Then he stood up, came round to her side of the counter, and put his hands on her upper arms. "But please understand, Donna. I have been hurt. Badly. Recently. I want to take this risk with you, but I can't, if I think you're just trying to get something out of me."

Her heart sank. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. "I never… I'm so…"

He sighed, smiled a bit sadly, then sat down and concentrated on the blue prints. "Well, obviously, each one of the ladies' toilets has piping that goes into the walls behind, see?" he said, indicating lines on the screen that seemed to represent plumbing. "And the gents' next door has the same. It all leads downward, into… well, you know. And here, you can see that all three sinks have pipes that go upwards into the wall behind, and they meet here, to become one larger pipe. But…"

Donna waited. Eventually, he talked again.

"See, the first floor doesn't have much in the way of plumbing. There isn't a toilet or a sink or anything up there… so why do the pipes go up, not down?" he asked himself. His index finger followed along the screen and he muttered to himself a bit. Then, "Okay, I see. Here's the conference room. There's a pipe that runs under it, and then through an outer wall, and it goes to a faucet on the roof."

"There's a faucet on the roof? What for?"

"Dunno. I saw it once before on a building that was supposed to have another floor on, but the developers ran out of money. That's probably it."

"Okay. Weird. And lucky. Tell me, if I were in the ladies' right now, and I wanted to locate the pipe that connects with all three of the sinks, how would I find it?"

"Looks like it's about, oh, a foot, maybe eighteen inches, to the right of the sink in the middle."

"And it stretches upstairs and runs under the floor of the conference room?"

"Yeah, look here… see that L-shape?"

"Yeah."

"That's under the conference room. It changes direction."

"Is that weird?"

"I don't think so," he told her, shrugging again.

She smiled at him, and threw his arms around his neck. "Thank you, Colin!"

"You're welcome," he said. "Please tell me I didn't just help you, or John, or the Doctor, or God help me, Martha do something illegal."

She sighed again, and sank back down in the chair. "Okay, Colin. I'm going to level with you."

"Thank God. I know I have no right to expect it, but I'm gun-shy, Donna. And…" he smiled sheepishly. "The way I feel right now… I can't believe I just met you last night."

"I can't believe it either," she agreed.

So comfy with you that I'm spilling secrets all over the place…

"First off," she began, thinking of Martha's advice earlier tonight. "I need to tell you this: I need to go slow."

"With me?"

"Yes."

"No problem," he said. "Slow is my speed, just now. Trust issues and whatnot."

"Martha insisted that I tell you that, so that you wouldn't just think I was keeping you at arm's length for no good reason. I thought she was overstepping then, but I can see now that she was absolutely right."

"Martha's clever."

"Someday soon, I will tell you why I need to go slow, but not tonight. We don't have enough tonight for that story. Or, stories – plural. Or enough Bailey's."

"Understood."

"The next thing I'm going to tell you, it's only because I've decided to trust you. Just now, I've decided. I'm trusting you with my heart, almost in spite of myself, so, there are some things you need to know. And you're going to think I'm barmy, and/or lying to you, but I need you not to think that. I need you to give me a chance to prove myself."

"Uh-oh."

She took a deep breath. "I said, the Doctor is not what he appears. Actually, he's an investigator of sorts."

"Like a PI?"

"No," she said. "Alien activity. Temporal phenomena."

"Excuse me?"

"He travels all over, putting out fires. Whenever Earth is under the gun…"

"Earth?" Colin shouted incredulously. "Are you fucking serious? Pardon my French."

"I am... fucking serious," she echoed, steadily. "I told you you'd have a hard go of it, believing me, but please hear me out."

"Okay. Continue," he said, surprisingly calmly.

"Martha travelled with him for a couple of years, helping him… do what he does. Then, she decided to stop, and I came aboard."

"Aboard, meaning… on the payroll?"

"No, literally aboard his… vessel. There is no payroll. He does it all for the greater good, without thanks, without asking anything in return. And anyone who helps him does the same."

"So, he's the saviour of the Earth, and the world's foremost über-philanthropist," he said, scepticism and sarcasm colouring his voice. "So… he's Jesus?"

"Colin, please," Donna sighed. "After I came on, there was a thing that needed sorting in Mallorca, and Martha got involved again, and that's when the two of them sort of… reconnected."

"He's not a hospital administrator at all?"

"No, it was just a lie they told, to explain how Martha might have met him."

"How did she meet him? What, was she attacked by aliens?"

"Yeah, sort of. And so was I, that's how I met him, too."

He looked at her with cautious scrutiny, and Donna was beginning to regret having told him any of this… and she hadn't even told him the weirdest bits yet.

The Doctor is an alien, and he travels through time. Martha and I have been to outer space with him. Cue sectioning.

She stared down at the floor. "You don't trust me anymore do you?" Donna asked him.

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "I know you asked me to give you the benefit of the doubt, but…"

"You don't believe me."

"It's not that I don't believe you," he said. "I can believe that most of it, if not all of it, is true – that there are people who investigate this sort of stuff. It's just that I think it all sounds really dodgy. And I can't believe my cousin involved in it."

"It's not dodgy," she said. "It's real."

"You'll forgive me if I have a bit of trouble with this, Donna."

"Yeah," she sighed.

"So… what exactly am I helping the three of you do, with my architecting brain?"

"There's a supposed mergers and acquisitions firm that's involved in something potentially bit, and potentially hazardous."

"Something alien?"

"Maybe, but almost definitely something temporal."

"Something to do with time?"

"Yes. It's kind of the Doctor's bread and butter. Time."

"Whatever that means. Go on – what about this firm?"

"Well, we don't know quite yet what they're up to, just that it's not good. On Monday morning, they're having a meeting, and I'm supposed to eavesdrop. The only way I can do that without being detected is if I don't go in there with any tech. Only this device that the Doctor made, in order to listen to people via the plumbing."

"Is it dangerous?"

"Maybe," she shrugged. "Life with the Doctor tends to be. We accept it."

"We?"

"Martha and I. And the Doctor, actually. He could stop trouble-shooting and fixing things, but… well, no he couldn't, really. He could never sit still, and he could never not be a hero." She laughed just a bit, thinking about it – the Doctor's sometimes silly disposition and goofy look, juxtaposed against the dark side of him that she and Martha had discussed. The side of him that had blown up stars and planets, killed innocents, and yet tried every day to atone and make the universe a better place.

"Donna…"

"Look, I understand if this is too much. I understand if you don't believe me. But, before you get up and leave here tonight, and call in the Butterfly-Net Brigade, will you let me show you something?"

"What?"

"Something that will convince you that everything I've said is true. That the Doctor, Martha and I work against real alien threats, and do stuff that's nearly impossible to believe."

"I'll let you show me. I make no guarantees, however," he told her, with a smile.

"Now, I have to warn you… it might, well, blow your mind... just a bit," she said. "Also, it might make the Doctor murder me, but… at least you're Martha's cousin, and not some hapless bloke off the streets. And you've helped us out now twice in his absence… so it's okay. Isn't it? Yes, I'm sure it's okay."

Rationalising was a bad idea, she knew, but Colin honestly was someone who had great potential to become very important to her. And no matter how hard she tried, she was never going to be able to cut ties with the Doctor, even if she did decide ultimately not to do the TARDIS thing anymore.

"It's that secret, eh?"

"Sort of, yeah," she said. "And again, I have to warn you… this is big."

"I can take it."

"Big… and also, as it happens, small."

"Donna."

"Okay," she sighed. "Blimey, this is mad. I just hope I can be forgiven. Come with me."

She took him by the hand and led him to the back door.

When she opened the door however, she let out a loud expletive. Colin leaned out the door to see what she was cursing about.

"It's not here!" she cried out.

"There's nothing here. What are you shouting about?"

"It's gone!" she practically shrieked, and she walked through the area where the TARDIS had been parked, last she saw it. "It was right here!"

"What was?"

"The TARDIS! Which means… oh my God! Where's Martha? She said she was going to sleep in there tonight…"

Donna ran back inside the house and up the stairs. She threw open Martha's bedroom door, and found no-one there.

Colin remained at the bottom of the stairs. "Donna, what's happened?"

"The Doctor's been arrested, the TARDIS is gone, I don't know where, with Martha inside! What the hell am I supposed to do now?" she cried at him.

"What's a TARDIS?" he asked. Then his expression changed. "Oh my God, you're really panicked, aren't you?"

Uh-oh!

What are your thoughts?