Scary Spiders
Prompt: "fear"
From: abbytemple
Words: 631
As someone who lives on the snowpocalyptic East Coast of the US, I am sick of snow.
Donna, no matter how many she saw, always marveled at alien planets and different times. She suspected that the Doctor did too, no matter how flippant he acted.
They were, at the moment, in a market ("Donna, it's called a 'bazaar'!") in the Andromeda Galaxy (or something like that). It didn't look much different from Earth markets. It was bustling with aliens ("We are the aliens here, Donna!") who ran to and from tents with merchandise.
Donna followed the Doctor through the crowd. It wasn't always easy to see him, but Donna managed to keep track of the Timelord due to the flurry of activity that always seemed to be around him, busy market or no busy market.
The aliens ("They're aliens to me, Doctor!") we speaking different languages, but Donna suspected (and was later told by the Doctor) that most of them were just variations of the same one. Amidst the chattering, at regular intervals, she heard the Doctor yell her name, checking if she was still behind her.
The Doctor never stopped. He never stopped running, he never stopped bouncing on the balls of his feet. His hair also seemed to be in constant motion. It almost fizzed and crackled with the Doctor's excitement. Even his coat had a life of its own. Always billowing and getting out of sticky situations (Donna would know—she helped clean it).
And Donna, like so many others before her, always ran after him. She was hot on his heels, eagerly listening to all he was saying, no matter how ridiculous it is. She was following him so well, she didn't even notice that he stopped.
Donna ran right into the Doctor's back, and fell flat on the ground behind him at the impact. He didn't turn around, or apologize offhandedly. His back, Donna now realized, was stiff as a board (and not the ones found on Raxicoricofallapatorius) and his hair was moving rapidly. At first she thought that the movement was a usual one, but Donna was wrong. His hair, if it could be described as such, was shaking with fright.
"Doctor?" she said hesitantly, standing up and brushing off her dress.
"Let's go!" he cried.
It was, to a casual observer, a cheerful response. It was what most expect from the Doctor, it was an enthusiastic cry, a happy one. It was a cry to get back to normal.
But Donna, being Donna, wouldn't let that pass. She brought her gaze to what the Doctor was looking at before. At first, she couldn't see it. Then, she did.
Sitting on a ledge of a building, was a tiny spider. It was black. At least, that was what it looked like to Donna. It wasn't all that menacing, really. But then again, Lance had been afraid of roosters, and Nerys wasn't good on anything higher than an office chair.
It was only fitting for the Doctor to have a fear, too. But Donna supposed it was more of a phobia. Either way, he was terrified.
"Sure," she sighed.
But the Doctor was hesitant to move. That, or he couldn't. He looked like he wanted to, but to Donna, it looked like he was stuck to the floor. His face was twisted, like he was trying to smile, to look confident, but the muscles refused to work.
Donna reached toward him. The Doctor wasn't against touch, but he was usually the one that instigated it. When her hand made contact with his shoulder, the Doctor gave a little startled gasp. He looked at Donna with a surprised smile. It was small, but real. Donna's hand slid down the Doctor's arm, and grabbed his.
And then they were running. Where to? Where from? They don't know. But they're running, and they're never going to stop.