Author's Note: Let the dancing begin. These two were possibly the most dense pairing when it came to THOSE feelings, that of course is not going to change overnight.
Thank you again to all those who have messaged and favorited! I'm so excited to keep this story going and hope that you all enjoy where it goes from here.
The Doctor stood over Donna as she slept, his eyes roaming over her face watching for any telltale signs that she was still in pain. Her brow was furrowed slightly, but other than that she lay unmoving as she had for the last 3 days.
He had run exhaustive medical testing on her to make sure that the damage to her mind and body was not irreversible and other than slight bleeding on her brain that had initially worried him, she was finally resting and nearly fully recovered.
She had not awakened more than a few moments at a time, taking a sip of broth or water before falling back in to her deep, senseless sleep once more. He found that he couldn't help stroking along the bond between them, touching her dreams lightly to make sure she was all right before withdrawing once more to let her sleep.
He had finally cleaned himself up, had a good hearty meal and caught up on about 30 hours of sleep himself. The Tardis floated in the void for the time being, a place outside of space and time while her occupants licked their wounds and healed from their ordeal. The deeply, rhythmic thrumming of her systems enfolded the Doctor in a soft sense of contentment while he would he lay staring at the ceiling of his bedroom. He grimly sorted through his experiences in the past few months, because he was pretty sure that Donna would want a blow by blow. He wasn't sure if he could give her a blow by blow, not without truly coming to terms with how far he had fallen. How much he had been willing to sacrifice, just to show that he had been in ultimate control of his own fate.
The flying bus hadn't been that bad, it had been a bit of an adventure filled though with terror as they always seemed to be but even that adventure hadn't tempered that gut churning anger as he had kept on running. So many lives could have been lost, so much could have gone wrong. As usual, he had emerged the Time Lord Victorious. It had set a dangerous precedent in his mind as he had barreled through his next adventures.
It was Adelaide Brooks and his actions on the Mars colony of which he was most ashamed. The sense of euphoric power had been far too intoxicating and looking back, he realized that he had been in very real danger of becoming as bad as the Master or Rassilon or any of the other Time Lords who had been destroyed on that fateful day so many years before. He had never stood that close to the precipice before. He had never let one foot swing over the void in preparation to make that leap into utter madness, and it had truly terrified him.
The last of the Time Lords, free to rule the universe, free to rewrite history as he saw fit. Adelaide had knocked his inflated self-importance down to size and reminded him why he had always traveled with companions, because without them he was the reckless, dangerous and foolhardy being that they had always claimed he had been.
Only this time, with the knowledge of centuries behind him, he would have become the biggest threat to the universe with none who could have opposed him. The vengeful God indeed. It had always been the human touch that had made him remember the code of the Time Lords, before they had been corrupted and driven mad by the need for self-preservation.
Turning from his perch leaning against Donna's door with a sigh of self-disgust, the Doctor made his way back to the console room. He was determined to give Donna as much time as she needed to heal, before he would take her back to face her shrew of a mother. He still didn't know if she wanted to continue traveling with him, sure her words of trust had instantly made him hope that she would choose to do so, but so much had happened. He had changed so much in just the few short months that they had been apart, and she still had to properly regain her trust of him. He couldn't even think to push her in any way for a long while, whilst those shattered bonds were rebuilt.
Somehow he knew that if they did continue traveling, then the damage had not been as bad as he had feared. Or the knowledge she had gained while joined with his mind might temper her fear. He winced as he remembered her slap and the blows from her angry flailing hands, he hoped he wouldn't have to put up with that too much, thank you very much! But if it made her feel better, then he would let her wail away to her heart's content.
There would be time to discover more as they grew together, time to find what they both had been too blind to see. He couldn't even begin to hope in that direction as of yet. He was a broken, shattered man himself and needed time to reconcile himself to that dark place he had fallen headlong in to. Wilf had been right, he had indeed bottled too much for far too long using the never ending disasters in a universe prone to them as a means to keep from having to face himself. Shaking his head as he thought, what a pair the two of them would make! Two broken beings trying to fix themselves while running around in a crazy blue box through the stars.
Chuckling softly, he took off his coat and flung it over the nearest piece of coral and laid down on his little back board before sliding back under the console of the Tardis to repair the damage his girl had sustained while saving both their lives and the universe once again.
Donna rose slowly through the layers of sleep, almost afraid to wake fully in fear of the pain and searing fire that had been her constant companion for what had seemed like an eternity. As each layer of sleep was melted way and the pain did not flare to light, she tentatively blinked her eyes open to find she was laying on a soft bed.
She tried to get her bearings, turning her head slowly because her neck was unusually stiff; she blinked as she slowly recognized the confines of her room on the Tardis exactly how she had left it.
She sat up with a gasp, her hand flying to her head which caused the room to spin dangerously about her. Her stomach lurched and her throat felt like she just tried to swallow the Sahara but other than that, she seemed fine. Eyes wide with her hands covering her mouth, she looked about the room again with tears shimmering in her eyes, waiting for the dream to shatter once more and her mind to close up again. There was a faint buzzing in her head, tickling against the back of her mind almost like something was trying to get her to notice it. The sensation caused the spinning of the room to intensify almost to the point of pain.
She closed her eyes tight as the spinning room threatened to make her empty stomach heave, she took several gasping breaths while memories flooded back in. The frighteningly intimate bond she had shared with the Doctor aboard the Master's ship, the depths of his soul that she had glimpsed. Even with his essence gone, those memories were hers and hers alone. She would always have a picture of her shattered, tortured Doctor deep in her heart, she alone would always know the pain that he carried each and every day.
Her breathing finally slowed enough to allow her to open her eyes once more, she looked about her room with moist eyes. The Tardis thrummed around her, the sound soothing the last of the aches from her head as she rose to her feet. As she thought of the ship with fondness, that buzzing in the back of her mind intensified even more.
She paused, cocking her head, trying to listen to that faint, distant noise. She waited with baited breath, but the sensation faded again and she shrugged before reaching her arms over her head in a long, glorious stretch.
She specifically did not focus on the days she had spent in the Master's clutches, just even brushing against the memory of that agony caused her body to shudder and the muscles in her body to clench tightly in anticipation of its return.
Blimey, but she was in a bad way. Her mind was still disjointed and her memories were still filled too much with things she had felt and learned from the Doctor. Things that she would always retain even though his unique fire was finally gone from her soul. She wondered at his indomitable will, that he was even able to love and care and laugh when he had lost so much. When he had been forced to be the cause of so much of that pain and destruction. Standing at the center of the vortex of time, the guardian of time and space.
The aches and pains in her body all reminded her that she was very much alive, but the dull burn of her muscles still had yet to fade. Her mind, though fragmented and still filled with that weird buzzing, was no longer on fire so she knew that eventually the fire in her body would fade with time.
Sighing softly, she padded into her ensuite bathroom and started the taps running for a truly long and glorious shower.
Letting the warm water poured over her head, it was like she was reborn. The sluicing of the water over her body, washed away the fear and angry regret she had felt for days when she finally realized just what the Doctor had sacrificed to come for her. Just what he had let die once again, so that she and all of this universe could continue on blithely unaware of the sacrifice one man made so they all could live.
Rinsing the suds out of her hair, she grimaced when her stomach gurgled loudly reminding her that she was quite hungry. Good god, how long had she been out for anyways? There was that faint tickle in the back of her mind at that thought, a sound once again just below the threshold of awareness before fading back once more.
She had no memory after the Doctor had finished his medical treatments, she only remembered him telling her to sleep. Boy did she sleep!
She stepped out of the shower, breath catching at the resurgence of all the aches that days of torment had hidden. She looked at herself in the mirror, fully expecting to see a body covered from head to toe in bruises. However, other than some redness and faint bruises around her wrists and ankles where she had struggled so madly against the restraints, she looked none the worse for wear.
She reached for the fluffy towel hanging by the shower and gently toweled herself off, wrapping her hair in the towel before she padded naked back into her room and began to rummage around in the closet. She sighed happily when she saw all of the clothing that she had gotten through their travels still hung neatly within the wardrobe, her fingers straying over the gorgeous gowns she had worn before settling on a simple tank top and jean combination with a light jacket over top. The Tardis had always felt a little cool to her, best to not let herself get ill so soon after her ordeal.
Pulling the clothing on, she finally started to feel normal, letting her mind reach out to the Tardis with a soft sigh of thanks and that was when the buzzing exploded into her mind.
The absolute expansiveness of the consciousness of the Tardis exploded through her head, even more disorienting then the strange perceptions of the Doctor. She cried out with the complete overload, before collapsing to the ground in a dead faint.
DOCTOR! The cry exploded in his mind, causing him to sit bolt upright momentarily forgetting that he was underneath the console in the control room tinkering with some minor systems before they got underway. His forehead slammed hard against the underside of the console, and bright white light exploded behind his eyes as he growled to his wayward ship.
"You couldn't just nudge me, could you?" Sliding out from under the console, he tossed his wrench aside as the ship forcefully shoved herself into his mind so he could see what she was so upset about.
Eyes wide when he recognized Donna's form crumpled on the floor of her bedroom, he leaped to his feet. The pain in his head quickly vanished beneath the rush of panic he felt. Feet pounding against the grating of the control room, he pelted down the stairs and corridor to the room that had always been hers.
"Why didn't you tell me she had woken up? I told you she needed to be watched!" He felt the indignation of the Tardis that he would think she would ever leave Donna Noble alone, but her consciousness receded so that he could focus on the ashen woman in front of him.
The Doctor didn't like the pallor of her skin, nor the rapid thrumming of the pulse in her neck. She had obviously been up long enough to shower, he forcefully quashed any stray thought down that very distracting path before he scooped her back into his arms and ran with her back to the medbay.
Her head lolled against his shoulder, her eyes fluttering while she fought to rise above the reeling in her head. Donna looked up at him, unable to find her voice at the sight of outright terror on his face. Her throat clenched closed that there was such raw emotion there for her to see, his steps pounding down the corridor before turning into the medbay and laying her back out on the examination table.
The relief on the Doctor's face as he saw her open eyes was almost painful to witness. His fingers reached up to stroke her temple gently. "What happened Donna? I wish that you had let me know that you were up."
She chuckled hoarsely at that and teasingly quipped. "I'm not an bloody invalid, besides I was feeling all right until…" She placed the heel of her hand against her eyes as she remembered. "Doctor, there was another presence. It was in my head, kind of like you were before but different." A pause while she tried to rummage through the sensations she had felt in that brief moment. The overwhelming knowledge of multiple realities, every dimension and how all the time streams connected into a web so complex it was beyond compare. "So much more alien. Was that the Tardis?" She could barely believe her words, but he had said in the past that the ship was sentient and that he would often be able to connect with her when he needed to.
The doctor nodded with a slightly abashed grin, murmuring. "She's always been partial to you. I guess she just got a little over excited that you could finally hear her." He looked up at the ceiling, and with a very stern voice said. "She WILL be more careful in the future."
Donna almost though that she could feel a sense of apology coming from the ship, but underneath it all was still that alien sense of excitement. "Partial to me? Why me?" She closed her eyes and laid her head back with a sigh, the headache was back and it was blinding. "I'm nothing special."
The Doctor shook his head at that, his finger under her chin forcing her eyes to open and meet his. She felt herself falling in to those depths, everything she had felt from and for him swelling within her until she could barely contain it. Strange thoughts and words tumbling through her mind in a mad jumble as she tried to make sense of the expression on his face.
He let himself just look at her, not even reaching out to touch her mind as he really just looked. It still astounded him that she thought so little of herself, even after all that she had done. She had saved the universe, not once but TWICE. It had been her brilliance that had given him the keys to the puzzle that he needed to send the Time Lords back into the timelock, but she discounted all of that because she thought it was only because she had his mind and memories in her head. She didn't give herself any credit, nor was she about to start any time soon while she was still reeling from all that had happened.
"Donna, you are more than something special. You saved me, you saved the universe, and most importantly you saved yourself when I was too far away to do little more than feel you burn." Her lashes swept down over her eyes, she tried to hide away from his piercing gaze but he wouldn't let her turn away. "Look at me, Donna."
His touch which had always been cool, was suddenly almost too hot to bear. She couldn't keep her eyes closed at his soft command, lids sweeping up to look once more into the stormy depths. She felt off balance right now, her mind was still scattered and her thoughts were floating through her fingers like so much smoke.
"This is going to take some getting used to." A fleeting look of pain flashed through his eyes as he sat back, trying to find the right words to tell her just how everything had changed. "The metacrisis changed you in more ways I think then either of us realized at the time." A soft sigh puffed through his lips while he rubbed his hand on the back of his neck, still trying to grasp himself how she had changed and how she was going to learn to cope now that there was no reversing those changes.
She struggled to sit up so that she could look him right in the eye, lips pursed while she tried to grasp what he was saying before she finally muttered. "Just spit it out Spaceman. If it's that bad, just get it out the way."
He smiled at that grouchy comment. So typical of Donna to face any problem head-on without beating around the bush. "Your mind was opened when it joined with mine. Every species has some level of ability inherent in them. Some are just more prone to it than others." His eyes took on a faraway look while he searched for the right words to explain. "Humanity has always been especially low on the scale, but there were always remarkable individuals who had a natural talent." His eyes snapped back to her as he murmured. "You are now one of those remarkable individuals. The skill, once awakened can never be turned off."
He waited for the explosion, the fit of weeping or recrimination and he would be deserving of every word of it. Was there anyone left in the universe that he hadn't screwed up?
The touch of her hand on his shoulder caused him to jump, she ducked her head down so that she could meet his eyes all the more quickly. "Hey, time boy, I knew I would be jumping in full tilt when I found you that second time. I won't say that this is exactly what I was expecting, but I touched all of time and space." With a half-hearted laugh, she muttered. "I guess that would surely leave a mark on anyone."
He couldn't help the huge grin that lit his face, the dread melting from his heart as he sat up. "I will of course help you. I won't let you go out there without helping you build barriers to protect yourself. I can also help shore those barriers up when you get too tired."
She held up a hand, the thought of his mind in hers so soon too terrifying to really contemplate right now. His words were almost too much, the daunting thought of the days ahead of her and the pain she would have to endure to learn to control this new ability were nearly overwhelming. Her stomach growled loudly in protest once more and she shook her head at that before murmuring. "Can we please get something to eat first? I'm starving and think I will need the food!"
The Doctor smacked his forehead as he jumped to his feet. "Of course, how stupid of me! Come on, I've got a nice stew on for you."
Helping her carefully to her feet, he supported her all the way to the kitchen before he settled her down by the table and went to the stove where the pot of stew was simmering gently.
Unable to help himself, he reached out to brush against her mind just to make sure she was not pushing herself too hard after that sensory overload she had received before. She seemed fine, but then she always did bounce back far more quickly then he would have ever expected. She shivered at the touch of his mind against hers, it was still a strange and frightening sensation, one that caused her to jump, her eyes flying to his back. How did one get used to this? Better yet, how would she ever be able to forget the feel of his mind and soul so deeply entwined with hers? She sighed softly as she knew that they would have to talk about that and soon.
The Doctor saw the look on her face at the touch of his mind, felt the echo of her thoughts before he wisely pulled away. Telepathy was hard for any being. It would be especially hard for her because she had never had to worry about the ability before. She had only felt the gentle touch of minds when he had personally opened her mind to them. Now, the ability was forever turned on and he knew it would be a hard road to train her to protect herself, but if anyone could learn it was Donna Noble.
He pulled a clean bowl out of the cabinet and filled the bowl with a generous helping of the stew that he had left simmering, and pulled several fresh rolls out of the basket that had been laying on the counter next to the stove before taking both to her. "You need to eat, it has been too long since you've had a good meal." He made no mention of the time she had spent aboard the Master's ship, but he was pretty sure meals then had been more than sporadic.
She sat up as the steaming bowl of stew was placed before her, her eyes flicked to his face when she saw a brief shadow cross his features. Her smile was brilliant though as she took her spoon in hand, and began to eat.
"Speaking of which, how long was I out?" She asked before lifting another steaming spoon to her lips and gently blowing on it.
"Three days." The spoon fell into the bowl with a clattering splash while she spluttered up at him.
"Three DAYS?" The panic in her eyes was almost painful to see, she wailed. "Doctor, you promised to take me to see my family! They must be sick with worry about me." She began to push away from the table, and growled up at him when he tried to keep her in place. "Hands off, Spaceman! I've got to let gramps and my mum know I'm all right."
"Donna, LISTEN TO ME!" He snapped. She stopped dead at the tone in his voice. "I told you I would, but there is no way I am taking you back to deal with them while you are this distraught and ragged. Master of Time and Space remember?" He flicked his fingers towards himself with a devil may care grin. "I will take you back, when you are good and ready to go back and for them only a few short moments will have passed. My first responsibility is to you and YOUR care. You nearly died on me. You should have died many times over during those days and yet you held on." He hated to be so blunt with her, but it was the only way to get through to her.
Of their own accord, his finger rose up to trace the curve of her face as he murmured. "I felt you. I felt everything you did, and I was driven mad with the helplessness of not being able to stop that pain." The tears were shining in his eyes as he touched her, as he relived the terror of those days running and searching. "You were my anchor, and after I had lost you I was so adrift. So alone, then I was losing you again. It was almost too much." With a faint smile towards the walls, he murmured. "If it hadn't been for the Tardis, I would most certainly have gone mad."
She turned her cheek into his touch, her body shivering at his words before one thing stuck out for her. "Alone? What do you mean alone, Doctor? I thought I told you to find someone, you always need someone with you."
Her words pierced him even as her eyes bored into his, he had not expected to have this discussion this soon but it looked like once again events were running out of his control.
"After what I did to you, I couldn't. I just couldn't risk destroying anyone else."
She slapped at his arm with a muttered curse. "Stupid, idiot time boy. What'd you go do that for? You always need someone, if for anything to keep you out of trouble."
The look of stricken anguish that crossed his face at that, caused her to lean forward abruptly. Her hand reaching out to grab hold of his, just as she had so many times in the past. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I didn't mean to sound so harsh."
He sat back with a huff, his whole body vibrating with a nervous tension that had not been there just moments before. "No, you're right. I did need someone. Still do actually. Without help, without guidance I became something…" His voice cracked for a moment, his mind overwhelmed with memories. "I became something terrible, and I nearly destroyed all the future of humanity in that moment."
Her hand came to her mouth to cover the gasp as she felt the anguish and rage once more pouring off him in waves. "Tell me Doctor. Tell me what happened."
He looked up at her, licking lips gone suddenly dry before he nodded.
Nervously rising to his feet to gain his composure, he busied himself around the kitchen preparing two cups of tea as she finished her meal. She knew that he would talk now, but that he felt whatever had happened would destroy how she felt about him. She seriously doubted that. She had seen the pits of his soul, she knew the depths to which he could sink. Whatever had happened though, was bad enough for him to have truly been shaken to the core of his being by it.
When the kettle whistled, he filled both their cups and turned back to her. Like a man steeling himself for his final walk to the gallows, he took a deep breath and placed both their cups on the table. Sitting down in the chair next to her, he finally, haltingly began to talk.
"The Tardis took me to Mars in 2059, although I didn't realize the year at first." She sat back in her chair, hands wrapped tightly about the steaming cup of tea while still trying to wrap her mind around the year 2059 being considered past tense for him. Thus was life with the Doctor, the future was the past, the past was the future. It was still overwhelming at times to her.
"I had scanned a power source on the surface when the Tardis first landed, so I knew that there was habitation of some kind on the surface. I just wasn't sure what or who it was. So of course, I went exploring." At her sharp look, he nodded. "Yes, Donna I was very much alone." He shook his head at her softly muttered insult before plunging on.
"Anyways, I was very quickly apprehended by a rather annoying robot and taken in to the base for questioning." The dark brooding look had fallen over his face when he lost himself in the memory once more. "It was Bowie Base one." He stated that as if it should have some significance for her, but at her blank look he supplied. "The first Martian colony ever, and also the most important in the history of humanity because it supplied the spark that your race needed to expand in to the stars."
He plunged on after that, pouring out all that he had done during that fateful trip to the red planet. He didn't gloss over anything like he had with her grandfather, but laid it all bare in brutal, cold detail. He spoke of the frightening sense of euphoria that had made him demand that the laws of time would obey HIM while maneuvering the clumsy controls of a robot to remotely bring the Tardis to the base. All so he could save the three people who were left after the creatures in the ice had isolated them in a final attempt to take over their bodies and leave the prison that the red planet had become.
He spoke of Adelaide, and the wariness with which she had always treated him even in light of the strange creatures that were taking over members of her crew. In a strange way, she had been trying to reign him in, much as Donna would have done but he was too drunk with power to realize what she was doing. Worse, he had been too blind to his own actions nor would he have cared anyway what effect it had on the timeline.
"I had lost one too many people, and my moral compass was gone. I was the Time Lord Victorious and for once, I would make the laws of time and space obey ME." He was lost in his recounting of those events, living and breathing them as if they were happening right at that very moment.
Donna sat in stunned silence, listening to him and feeling the rise of that mad rush of power swelling within him once more. She had felt his actions in his own mind in the past, she had felt the regret and anger that he had over them but none of those memories prepared her for the raw, raging Time Lord she saw before her now. He was right. He had been cast completely adrift after he had snatched her memories from her, worse he had seen the assault at his hands as exactly what it was. A betrayal of trust of the worst sort, a betrayal which had sent his world spinning into blind chaos and had set him on that dark and terrible path.
"I saved Adelaide and Mia and Yuri at the last possible second." He seemed to be coming out of his reverie, the words filled now with only a dull pain as he revealed the true depth of his actions. "Mia was completely devastated and traumatized, she ran off in to the night without even thanking me." A mirthless snort at that. "I remember actually being offended that none of them thanked me for saving their lives. But I had made the grievous error of telling them all how important their deaths were for human history. I'd never done that before, purposefully polluting the timeline with fore knowledge. Sure it had happened by accident in the past, but this was deliberate. I had told them how important they were and then I recklessly snatched that away from them."
He ruefully shook his head as finally his eyes seemed to come back to the present, finding hers and locking on. "She reminded me of you actually. Adelaide did. She did not hesitate to tell me how she felt. I merely responded with a simple word." He shuddered even as he thought about it. "When she railed at me for stealing her legacy that would help change the history of humanity, I simply told her, TOUGH. The laws of time and space were mine to command, and for once I wasn't saving some little person. I had saved someone really big!" His voice dripped with self-deriding scorn. "Oh man, I was GOOD. And I bloody well knew it."
Donna snorted at that, but he barely heard her as he continued. "I basically forced her to walk to her own death. She refused to go quietly and let me destroy what she knew would be her legacy." His eyes clouded once more with pain at that. "The Time Lord Victorious is wrong she said." A pause, the memory burning through him with such intensity she couldn't help but feel the burning shame it engendered. "She was so very right. I may as well have pulled the trigger of her blaster myself. The universe would not allow that moment in time to be changed, but I stole her proud legacy and reduced her to a sad footnote instead of the heroic woman she had been. I destroyed that part of her legacy, and I was wrong to do it."
He dropped his head back as he finished with a rush, only whispering. "Then I ran, because I realized in that instant what I was becoming and that I had indeed finally gone too far."
She sat in silence for a long time, digesting all that he had told her and all that he had left unsaid. She had worried that he would fall into a dark place when she had first declined to travel with him, which was why she had admonished him to find someone. Then when he had struck so swiftly to take her memories before, she hadn't had the chance to remind him to not travel alone. Look where that had taken him, look what he had done. Look at what he had nearly destroyed all because he had no one to reign him in, to help him see the good in things and in people and to remember what it meant to live by a code. Even though the people who had embodied that code had long since abandoned it and, in the end, been slaughtered by his own hand.
She moved her chair closer to him, letting her fingers brush his knee as she finally found her voice. "Hey."
That was all, nothing more. She waited for him to haul himself out of the pit he had fallen into, waited for those dark, moody eyes to rise to meet hers. He took a deep breath, almost as if he had been granted a reprieve before the noose closed tight. "Hey."
She smiled at that response, like he had given so often in the past. She thrilled at being able to remember that even as she gathered her thoughts. "I can't begin to say that I agree at all with everything that you did. Matter of fact, I never would have gone down that road that you did." She placed her finger on his lips as he was about to protest. "Shh. Let me finish."
Her finger quivered against his lips while she waited for his silent nod, for once not even trying to reach out to him as this was her world. The world of words and care and understanding that she alone had always been able to give to him. "I didn't say that you were hopelessly lost because of that, remember I had you here." She tapped the side of her head before continuing. "You needed someone, you always have. That's why in all your memories, all your long life there were such few times that you were truly alone. When you were is when it all became too much to bear, and then finally you thought you had a chance to make a difference even when you felt that you had failed so much in the past."
She sighed softly, drawing her hands back into her lap even as she whispered. "Like you felt you had failed me." At his flinch, she murmured. "I won't lie when I say I am scared, Doctor. I am terrified of you, and all this change that has suddenly been thrown at me." Her eyes glimmered with that, thoughts of the life she had on earth, the life she would soon be leaving once more. "I need time to grow, to heal as I know you do, and we can do it together. But that trust, though shaken, is still there as strong as ever because in the end. You came, just as you always promised you would. Even though you knew you were most likely coming to your death, you still came."
The Doctor leaned back with a soft growl, his hands rising to run tiredly over his face as once more, Donna amazed him to his very core. Once again, just like that she looked into the darkest part of him and told him that she understood why he had done what he had done. No recrimination, no angry shouts. Just as she had done beneath Vesuvius' dormant slopes, she let him know that she was there to shoulder his burden with him.
"Oh, Donna. My amazing Donna Noble. What was I ever thinking to leave you behind and alone? I was such a fool."
She laughed a little forcefully, at that. "Well, you do have your moments Spaceman. Time Lord Victorious? Really?" He winced at her laugh, before ruefully grinning back.
"Yeah, I did get pretty cocky. Well, moreso than usual."
She snorted at that, before meeting his eyes once more. "But not always the fool." Her voice dropped at the last comment as another memory flashed through her mind, and with it the rush of unrelenting sorrow she had felt from him at that moment.
He cocked his head when she looked at him with strange, fathomless eyes for once her mind strangely closed to him. "What? What is it Donna?"
"I was just wondering Doctor. That woman, the one who cried out at the end there, who was she? Who was she really?"
Just like that, the tentative peace that had settled between them was shattered and he was back on that ship, reliving the anguish when he had had to turn his back on her one final time. His throat clenched tight even as he knew she had blessed his actions, clenched tight as he thought of the hell he had sent her back to endure for all eternity. The gentle goodbye touch while she had faded back into the never ending torment he had consigned them all to, a touch that he hadn't felt in centuries and that had ripped open the wounds in his heart with ruthless abandon. Scrubbing his hand over imaginary tears, he murmured. "She was my mother." A hollow smile as he whispered. "She knew what I had to do, and she let me know she understood. That she understood and supported me completely even though I had to turn my back on her and on all my people once again."
Donna closed the distance between them and took hold of him in her arms, holding him tight as the dam finally burst and he wept against her fiery hair. "I'm so sorry Doctor, I'm so so sorry. That you had to do that again, that you had to…" Her voice cracked at the pain she felt pouring from his soul, the gut wrenching cries seeming to finally heal something within him. Something that had needed to heal for a very long time.
Finally he pulled away from her, the soft smile at the echoing tears burning down her cheeks that he reached up to wipe away. "We're a sad sight, aren't we?" The light hearted comment his way of letting her know that he would be all right in the end.
With that, she gave a hiccupping laugh. "Yeah, two peas in a pod, er a Tardis rather." She felt the burst of affection from the Tardis as the ship tentatively reached out to her, afraid of overwhelming her once more. Her eyes found his and she grinned at him. "Where do we go from here Spaceman?" She asked in a rush before the courage deserted her.
The Doctor looked at her at that question, at all the possibilities that were looming before him as he smiled. "We go forward, Donna. Together. Equals. We both have changed, but I think in the end it will be a change for the better." He stood up, his hand extended to her in a promise to explore that world with her.
She gazed up at him, feeling all the wrongs slowly melt away at the promise blazing in his mind and from his eyes gave her hope for the future once more. "Together, Timeboy" She said as she rose to take his hand. He couldn't help the goofy grin at the familiar nickname, for some reason he knew in the end it would all be all right.
"Blimey, what are we going to tell my mum? She really didn't like you, you know."
He winced at that reminder. "Thanks for spoiling the mood, Donna." He couldn't help but tease even as he pulled her from the kitchen towards the control room. "We tell her and Wilf the truth, and that we're going traveling again!"
Her face fell at that as reality finally came crashing down. "Oh my god, Shaun!"
He looked at her, his breath leaving his lungs in one fell swoosh as he remembered Wilf telling him that she had gotten engaged. "What are you going to tell him?"
Her forlorn sigh was all the answer he needed. "I have to tell him the truth. He was a good man to me, far too good when I was not in return to him. But I never could truly be totally present in our relationship, and I think deep down he knew it. I was always dreaming for something more, though I didn't know what it was at the time."
He just nodded and wisely held his silence at that.
She slapped at his arm teasingly, "What? No witty retort timeboy? Are you going to leave me to face the music all on my own?"
He stopped at that and looked her square in the eye. "You know I would never do that. I never have done that." At her arched brow he corrected quickly, "Well not too often anyways." Rubbing his hand over the back of his neck in that nervous tick he had always shown when he was uncomfortable or on uncertain ground. "I will be there with you Donna. I basically dumped you on them, telling them that you could never remember me or you would burn." He made a weird face at the thought, wondering indeed how he could've been so thick to think that her role in events had been done. Idiot, Idiot Time Lord. "Now I'm showing up and taking you away with me again, there will definitely be… difficulties."
She huffed at that. "Difficulties, you prawn? That's putting it mildly!"
He couldn't help but laugh, knowing all too well that in the end reason would prevail but not before his sanity had to pay a heavy price for it. This was truly the first time she was saying goodbye to them properly before setting out, before she had been ripped away by the huon particles without so much as a by your leave. Then she had run off with no warning, when she had found him again after that fiasco with Adipose Industries. Maybe she had always known that there would be trouble if she had tried to talk to them, but for once it was time she acted like the grown woman she was.
They stepped into the control room, the gentle hum of the ship reaching out to envelope them in a soft cocoon. The Tardis was eager to be off again, and like a child she was not too shy to tell them.
"You are still weak, and your mind is still painfully open. But I know how much you need to see your family again. There is time enough to learn how to better protect yourself." He paused, "Time enough for everything."
She smiled and leaned up to brush a soft kiss against his cheek. He turned and grabbed hold of her shoulders, his eyes blazing in to hers as he whispered. "You have to be sure Donna. It's not going to be like it was before, it can't be."
She shivered at his words, the intensity she felt in him was frightening as she felt everything she knew to suddenly be changing and shifting. Her tongue darted out to moisten suddenly dry lips, his meaning all too clear and crashing over her too fast as she murmured. "I guess it's kind of pointless to hide now, huh?" Her eyes stayed locked with his as he mutely nodded.
"Yeah, it is. I've felt you Dona, more importantly, you've felt me. It can never be the same. You need to know that's what might come of your agreeing to come with me again."
She looked into his eyes, even without their bond his intent was clear. The burning purpose in his soul, the heat of his body so close to hers as he waited tensely for her to make her decision once and for all.
"I know, Doctor. It hasn't been the same for longer than we were willing to admit." Her fingers rose up to touch his lips in that strange habit she had developed, when he looked like he was going to interject. "I need time though Doctor. I need time to adjust to everything."
His mouth closed and he nodded, having expected no less before pulling her close for one more hug. "Time, Donna is one thing I have in spades."
Setting her back from him, the brooding look gone from his eyes when he looked up at the time rotor. "Let's go face the music."
She nodded softly, watching as he moved about the console, throwing switches and grinning over at her as he pulled the final one, shouting out "Allons-y!" Before the Tardis shuddered and faded out of the void on its way back to Chiswick.