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raywritesthings · 5 years

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Can’t Bear To Lose 4/?

My Writing Fandom: Doctor Who Characters: Donna Noble, Tenth Doctor Pairing: Doctor/Donna Summary: The DoctorDonna supposedly thinks of things the Doctor never would. Why not a way to fix the metacrisis? *Update can also be read on my AO3*

They’d been to ten planets already, and so far there was no sign. What if she was back on planet number three and had simply arrived the day after they’d left? What if the rocket had malfunctioned? What if she didn’t know how to fly it properly? She could be adrift out there in space and they might never find her until it was too late.

The Doctor’s mind was beginning to chase itself in circles with these questions. He’d thought everything would be alright once they went back to Messaline, yet now all he felt was a fresh wave of guilt and self-loathing.

He had abandoned his daughter. Yes, he’d thought Jenny was dead, but if he’d been able to bring himself to remain for the funeral he would have been quickly disabused of that notion. His policy of not looking back had cost him dearly this time.

He’d been squinting at the scanner readings for the last two hours, trying to pick out the most logical path Jenny could have taken to not have ended up in any of the places they’d yet to take. His eyes were growing irritated from staring at the screen so long and kept trying to close. Or maybe it was just that they needed a break in general...

A hand landed on his arm and he jerked back upright, eyelids blinking rapidly. “What? What’s happened?”

“Nothing. You just fell asleep standing up.”

One of the downsides to Donna suddenly being immortal. She was starting not to sleep as much as she used to, and she was there to see him fight against his own exhaustion.

“Spaceman, you need to rest.”

“I’ll rest once we’ve found her,” he said, shrugging off the hand Donna had moved up to his shoulder.

She frowned. “We don’t know how long that’s gonna take. And I know you’re running on fumes and out of ideas. The best thing you can do for Jenny right now is to rest up and attack it from a new angle in the morning.”

In the very depths of his mind, the Doctor knew Donna was making perfect sense; she always did. And perhaps he might have listened to her in any other circumstance.

But he shook his head. “And what if overnight the worst happens?”

Donna perches a hand on her hip. “You’re just assuming the worst.”

“I’m not,” he insisted, but he knew that alone wouldn’t be enough. Donna wasn’t the type to let these sorts of things go without explanation. Not that he’d expect her to. “You have to understand. This was exactly what I was afraid of, Donna.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you convinced me to accept Jenny. I didn’t want to because, well, partly my own stubbornness. I know that. But also—” He closed his eyes and sighed. “I was never a good father. Before.”

She was silent.

“I loved them, but I suppose I loved the traveling more. Or I wanted it more because I couldn’t have it and have a family,” he confessed. “I was dissatisfied on Gallifrey. And I left them. All of them — well, all except Susan. But even her I left behind eventually. Just like I left Jenny.”

“But that’s not the same,” she said. “You didn’t mean to leave her. We didn’t know she could come back. Martha thought—”

He looked back at her. “Martha was working with what she knew, but I should’ve known better. I let her convince me it was over because maybe I wanted it to be. So I didn’t have to wait and find out how I’d fail later.”

Donna’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t.”

He fell silent.

“I know you feel you’re destined to repeat past mistakes, but isn’t the point of living to nine-hundred-whatever that you learn from those mistakes and move on? It’s not enough to have regrets, Doctor. You’ve got to act on that change you want to see,” Donna said, her tone gentler by the end. “And that starts with taking care of yourself so you can look for Jenny properly instead of staggering about half-dead on your feet.”

The Doctor’s shoulders slumped. “Alright, Madame, you’ve made your point.”

“Good.” She reached down and took his hand, tugging him towards the corridor.

“Er, where are we going?”

“To bed.”

His eyebrows rose high enough it ought to have hurt. “Er, Donna—”

“Oh, not like that, you prawn. Not yet, anyway,” she muttered, and the back of her neck had gone a bright red. She chanced a look at him over her shoulder. “But I doubt you’ll do it on your own, so that’s the way it’s got to be.”

The Doctor harrumphed to himself. “So sorry to inconvenience you.”

Her lips quirked. “You’re grumpy. Sleep will do you some good.”

She led them into her room and directed him onto the bed where she left him for a while as she changed in the bathroom. He barely got a look at Donna’s nightclothes, for she scurried under the covers and turned the lights off almost immediately after emerging from the en suite.

There was a pause as they both considered what to do now, and it occurred to the Doctor that he’d never shared a bed with Donna before.

“Donna, if this is too — I mean I’d rather you not be uncomfortable for my sake.”

She found him in the dark and wrapped her arms around him in a determined sort of way. “I invited you, Time Boy. Wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t want you here.”

He hadn’t been paying too much attention to Donna’s wants the last few days, he realized with regret.

“I’m sorry if I’ve put our, um, relationship on hold somewhat.”

He felt her hands rub up and down his back, which was both unfamiliar and nice.

“Nothing to apologize for. I’m worried about her, too.”

He risked ducking down to press a kiss to the top of her head, letting his face linger there in her hair a moment or two.

“I’ll make it up to both of you,” he promised. “Soon as Jenny’s found.”

With that, he allowed himself to relax in Donna’s arms, which turned out to be far easier than he might have believed.

—-

The next day found them at much the same routine as before. They’d stopped on a smaller planet she’d scarcely had time to hear the name of before Spaceman was leading them around asking the locals if they’d seen someone like Jenny.

“She would have come in on a rocket. A kind of ship. Do you know—?”

“No ships have come in. But there was, out in the grove, something came down.”

“A ship?” Asked Donna. “Has anyone arrived in town since?”

That got a shake of the head. “Nothing comes out of there.”

“Well, we will,” the Doctor decided. He turned tail and Donna was left to give a rushed goodbye before hurrying after him.

“Do you think it’s her?”

“I hope so. If not, someone’s out there and probably needs help.”

“Right,” Donna agreed.

They left the town and entered the tougher terrain of the grove. Well, grove was putting it nicely. Sharp looking bushes that rose up to the knees at the shortest stretched out as far as the horizon. She was glad she’d opted for jeans and long sleeves, that was for certain!

“Looks a bit rough,” she remarked as they exchanged a look. “Still.”

Spaceman nodded. “Still.”

With that, they plunged forward. It was just as prickly and unpleasant as she’d been expecting, but Donna resolved to keep her complaints to herself for once. If it was Jenny out there, she could brave a little discomfort.

“You know, it’s good she didn’t change.”

The Doctor glanced back at her. “How do you mean?”

“I mean cos if she’d changed we could walk right past her and never know.”

“Well, she’d know us. Do you really not like the idea of changing?”

“Well, you don’t seem to,” she retorted. “But don’t get all nervous. I’m not about to up and leave you. I’ve already put up with Victorian you.”

“That wasn’t even me.”

“Yeah, well the point is,” Donna huffed as she swung her leg over a particularly high bush. Her hand was caught by the Doctor, who’d reached out to keep her steady as she worked her way across. “You can change fifty times over and I’m not leaving.”

“No, I can’t.”

“What?”

“I’ve only got one more regeneration left,” he stated, perfectly calm.

“What, there’s a limit?” She demanded.

“Twelve times, yeah.”

Donna let go of his hand and stopped walking. “And how long does one usually last?”

“Oh, it varies. Time Lord bodies age much slower than humans, for one thing. And if you avoid accidents — in my first body I nearly made it to five-hundred alone.”

“Yeah, and what about the last body?” She asked, feeling rather sure she wouldn’t like the answer.

“Well...not nearly so long,” he admitted.

“Right.” Donna paused, then started walking again. “And poor Jenny’s already lost one. We ought to find her sooner than later so you can explain all this to her.”

The Doctor hummed an agreement and was on the move again as well. She let him go, not really wanting him to notice her troubled expression.

She’d assumed, this whole immortality bit, that he’d be there. But now he was telling her there was a limit, and a fast-approaching one by the sounds of it. Donna wasn’t prepared to imagine a forever that didn’t have him in it.

She wasn’t sure how long they walked on in silence. The Doctor was keeping just a few steps ahead of her, though he kept slowing and then starting back up again. Donna had to wonder how much good that rest the previous night had done him. She’d rather be curled up and bed with him at the moment regardless.

She was pulled from that more pleasant recollection as the Doctor abruptly shucked his overcoat and dropped it onto a bush before marching onward.

“Oi! This isn’t the TARDIS. You can’t just toss things to the side and expect them to be in your closet the next day.” She waded over to the right and scooped the coat up, careful not to poke herself with the brambles that clung to it.

“Keeps getting caught,” the Doctor called back in explanation. “And it’s too hot besides.”

She could agree with that. Her bangs were sticking to her forehead with sweat, but Donna plowed on ahead to keep up.

It wasn’t so hard as usual. What was unusual was him admitting at all that he was uncomfortable. Did he just feel less pressure to seem invulnerable now that she wasn’t the same, fragile human she once was? Or was something more going on.

Donna jogged a few paces to come up to his side. “Doctor, what do you think they meant back there, that nothing comes out of here?”

“Doesn’t matter.” His eyes were fixed dead ahead. “Nearly there.”

She followed his gaze and saw one end of a familiar looking ship rising up from the branches in the distance. “It’s the rocket. Oh, that’s got to be her!”

Her heart suddenly felt much lighter, and she stomped over the next few thickets, uncaring of the scratches they managed to leave on her hands — but she faltered at the sound of something falling over behind her.

Donna whirled around just as the Doctor landed hard in some bushes, sprawled on his side.

“Doctor!”

“Got to...keep…” he mumbled as his eyes slipped shut. Donna looked about in a panic — had some unseen foe attacked them? — and her eyes caught a flash of green and blonde.

“Jenny!”

The girl they’d been searching for was lying not five feet from her, prone and unconscious like her father. It looked as though she, too, had been trying to make her way through the thick growth covering the landscape.

The plants...had that warning been about them? She turned her hands over, examining the scratches, but couldn’t tell anything about them that might make them more dangerous. Either way, she clearly hadn’t been effected, which meant it was up to her to get them out of this mess.

Donna looked between the two fallen Time Lords. What did she do?

#ten x donna #doctor x donna #donna noble #tenth doctor #doctor who #the doctor #my writing

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