436To Err is Human (chapter 15)
Author: Lilac Summers
Rating: PG, language
Pairing: Doctor/Donna
Category: humor, romance/angst
A/N: Ah, Doctor and Donna, how you turn my brain to mushy peas! I re-wrote this bit like 4 times before I was happy with it; I hope you are happy with it too!
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Part 15
He was walking away. It would take him ten steps to reach her door. Nine. Eight.
The door would close behind him and if the TARDIS was feeling generous she would help her pack. Donna had brought almost everything she owned on-board.
Ready for anything. Planet of the hats, here she comes.
Ready to travel with him forever.
Six. Five.
Once he walked out that door...
His hand reached for the knob..
"Doctor!" the cry was out of her mouth before she realized it; he froze by her doorway. He turned cautiously to face her, and she had absolutely no idea what she wanted to say.
Only that she needed to say something. Anything.
He was waiting for her to speak, hand clenched tight around the knob of her door.
Donna nervously smoothed down the collar of her robe, unsure what to do with her hands or where to look. She settled for a spot somewhere on his right shoulder.
C'mon Donna! Just say something! Don't be a coward!
Oh god, but she was. In the face of those dark, sad eyes, she was. She couldn't meet them, couldn't bear to see disappointment in there, along with the regret.
He had only ever wanted a mate.
But could she step out of this blue box, leave this mad, wonderful man and the life he could give her? The only life that made her feel worth anything at all, the only life she was actually good at because she was better, so much better with him -
Was she going to let him have the easy way out, slinking off with tail between her legs as he abandoned her like wayward flotsam? After everything they'd been through, didn't she have the right to demand he at least have the decency to acknowledge how irrevocably she'd fucked up?
At least when she was given her walking papers, they always had the balls to tell her why they couldn't keep her.
"I-Is that it?" she stuttered brokenly, anger and self-disgust welling in her throat. She breathed sharply, almost gasping, as waves of contradictory emotions threatened to take her under. "'Thanks for taking care of me, Donna' and that's that?"
His hand around the doorknob tightened, knuckles stark and white. "You have forbidden me to apologize. I don't know what else I can say to you."
The ember of rage in her chest was mostly self-directed, but his flat answer fanned the growing flame and made him a very convenient target. "I don't want your bloody useless apologies!" she cried. "I want you to man up for once and tell me what you really think."
He maintained his silence, looking so sad and resigned and disappointed - the one thing she could not stand -that something in her snapped.
She grabbed the closest thing within reach. Her hand closed around heavy, wrinkled silk and she hurled the crumpled blue dress at his feet. "For fuck's sake, John Smith, you had so much to say before!"
He stumbled back as if struck, his body hitting the door behind him with as much force as if she'd physically pushed him. His face bled to white, knees collapsing and he slid to the floor, back against the door.
"What can I say that will possibly help? You think I don't know exactly what happened?" he demanded hoarsely. "I remember it all, like a film on replay in my head!"
She felt blood rush to her face, as if the paler he got the more she burned, fury and shame fighting for supremacy, painted on her skin.
"I remember every kiss, every touch, every night in your bed. Every time he asked for more, demanded more from you. When I -" he shut his eyes, shuddered, "he took you against the wall. And when you were sick, so very ill, and all he noticed was your body over his."
She stood looking down at him, her body tensing with unspent adrenaline as he soldiered on.
"And I remember every excuse you made, so I," another stumble in words, as he pressed trembling fingers against his eyes, "so he wouldn't go further. The headaches, the long walks away, the mountain of pillows because he, I-"
"Will you settle on a pronoun already!" shouted Donna, overwhelmed and shaking at the memories and how foolish she felt for all of it, thrown in her face now. "You're giving me a headache with all the jumping around! It's fine, you know, to admit it wasn't you. I know it wasn't, that it was all the stupid lie the TARDIS made up and that John was a shadow that thought he was in love with me, poor fool."
The Doctor sat limply, head cocked to the side as he considered her choice of words, then pulled his knees up so he could rest his elbows on them, hands hanging limply and head bowed. "A shadow," he repeated, laughing shortly without mirth. "No, not quite. How terrifyingly simple things would be if it were so - blame it on the TARDIS and we go our merry way." He raised his head sharply, captured her with an expression made fierce with sudden determination. "But no, I can't blame the TARDIS for this."
The TARDIS, quiescent up to this point, rumbled smugly underfoot. Donna stomped her foot on the carpet in retaliation, unable to deal with the ship's antics. Not when she was reading quite clearly between the lines that if the Doctor didn't place any of the blame on the TARDIS then the only person left was Donna.
"I know I could have tried harder," mumbled Donna, voice cracking. "Okay? I know my excuses where rubbish and that I could have found other ways to keep you - John, whatever- away. And if you want to take me home because I messed up, I get it. I just thought after everything else you would at least give me a chance to explain..."
She trailed off, because the Doctor was staring at her with something like dawning realization, quickly morphing into horrified understanding.
He was on his feet in a blink of an eye, so fast Donna's mind couldn't even process how he'd gone from slumped against a door to mere inches away from her, hands wrapped tight around her upper arms.
"No, no, oh Donna, no. Is that what you think? All this time, did you think I blamed you?"
Donna squirmed away, fighting for a spare few centimeters of space between them. "Who else is there, if not the TARDIS? All that's left is me!"
The Doctor moved as if to reach out for her again, hands left grasping as he seemed to stop himself mid-motion. "Oh, Donna. How could you have done more? All the lies you tried, the pulling away and keeping secrets; you all but broke John's heart. But what else could you do, under those circumstances? I'm the one who put you in a situation where you felt compelled to cross a boundary you obviously never wanted to cross. And after, in the cottage, for me to so completely lose control - I know my apologies are useless, but they are all I have!"
"I told you I understood," said Donna, stiffly. "You thought you were John Smith and John Smith thought he was in love with me."
The Doctor's jaw clenched, hard. Donna watched the muscle there tick briefly and wondered what she'd said this time, before he seemed to come to some internal resolution. "No, Donna, John Smith was in love with you," he corrected.
"That's what I said."
"You said he thought he was in love with you. But he didn't just think it, he was."
Her brow furrowed. She really wasn't up to arguing semantics with him."I don't understand the distinction."
"The TARDIS created the memories, but she can't give anyone emotions. Those were his own."
Donna stared at him for an endless moment, then forced her brain to understand. "So what you're saying is that over the months we were together, the ideas the TARDIS implanted became reality?"
The Doctor just looked away, hunted and uncomfortable. "No, that's not what I'm saying."
Something was jiggling uncomfortably in her stomach, something akin to panic. She tamped it down, took one more careful step back as she noted how close they seemed to be standing again. "Doctor, you're going to have to break it down for me if you're trying to get me to come to some grand conclusion, because I don't understand the point you're trying to make," she sniped at him, discomfited at the niggle of fear she couldn't name.
He did not crowd her again nor did he meet her eyes; his gaze seemed to be captured by the line of small bruises on her neck. He took another deep breath and expelled it in a rush of words. "At the cottage, after...after the watch. That was me. I knew I wasn't John Smith anymore."
"I know that," she whispered.
"And I still – Donna, that was me."
"I know that. We were in a bit of strange, compromising situation, Doctor, so don't you start apologizing again."
"NO! Goddammit Donna, you're not listening."
Donna goggled, dumbfounded. It was almost exactly what John Smith had said to her. "It's because you're not saying anything, Doctor!"
The Doctor buried his hands in his hair and pulled in frustration. "The TARDIS, that day I used the Chameleon Arc,I didn't know she was going to make us 'married.'"
She blew a harried breath up to ruffle her damp bangs. "I am well aware. You're not telling me anything I don't alread-"
"Shush. Just listen to me," he cut in impatiently. "I didn't know, but remember when I said the TARDIS would make up a story that made sense to me?"
She nodded.
"She made us married because it made sense to me."
And Donna GOT IT. Of course she did, but it was so unbelievable she had to be wrong. "You mean, 'sense to you' as in the 'well, duh, it's 1913, easiest thing to have us be is a married couple coz it's safer' way. That's what you mean, right?"
"No. Sense to me as in the 'well, duh, I love her so we should be married' way."
Donna blinked, sure she had somehow misheard that entire sentence.
"John Smith loved you because I love you. He wanted you because I want you."
And thus repeated, she could not fool herself into thinking she'd heard otherwise.
Her universe stopped for one instant. For one millisecond planets stopped spinning and suns stopped burning as her cosmos teetered on the edge of an event horizon. For that one moment her reality narrowed down to the feeling of her heart beating one slow, long beat. Hope and longing blossomed, unfurling where she kept them so well hidden, reaching for the impossible.
The utterly impossible.
Time resumed and her legs failed her so she sank ungracefully onto the bed.
She would have been less dumbfounded had he forcibly pushed her out of the TARDIS while they floated in the vortex. But this? How could she have been so wrong about something like this?
"Donna? Donna, please say something."
She opened her mouth several times, sentences pressing up against her lips that she discarded as soon as they tried to form on her tongue: you hit your head, you've gone straight 'round the bend, the TARDIS is fucking with your brain; are you sure there isn't some hallucinogenic in the air like love pollen, sex pollen's romantic cousin.
A burble of hysterical laughter escaped her lips and she clapped a hand over her mouth, wide, unseeing eyes trained on an increasingly distressed Doctor.
"Donna..." he eased closer again, sank to his knees beside the bed so he could put one tentative hand on her leg, nudging it briefly. "Donna, you're starting to frighten me."
She swallowed loudly and forced vowels and consonants together into some semblance of sense as her mind finally settled on a feasible explanation. "I think...I think you're confused," she admitted softly, and when she re-focused on him her expression was one of anguished sympathy. "I can't imagine what it must be like to live thinking you were someone - something else and then have all that changed on you. Actually, no," she tried a tired smile, "I can. It must have been like the Library for me."
His lips compressed into a hard, tense line and she fidgeted. "I mean, you had all these memories of stuff that never happened - of romance and shared history and I... what I'm trying to say is I understand and I don't blame you, Doctor."
She wrung her hands under that intense stare, feeling it laser through skin and bones to the center of her. Slowly she edged away on the bed, his hand falling limply from her knee, and then stood up and turned aside. She couldn't concentrate with him so near, and it was very important to be clear now that she was finally taking responsibility. Because she couldn't let this sham continue; couldn't allow herself to dwell in castles in the sky when a more realistic explanation was at hand.
Stepping to the quaint dressing table, she seated herself on the little bench, fighting for a semblance of calm and certainty she didn't feel. The same heavy brush she'd been using for the past two months lay before her so she picked it up to keep herself busy, rubbing the smooth wood between her fingers. She raised her head and resolutely focused on her own reflection. "I was in charge of you, of making sure you were safe as John. I knew that, and that John was just a construct; not really you, or at least, not all of you. But...but it got confusing and then John started to look so hurt and suspicious. It was hard being the cause of that."
She dragged the brush through her wet hair fiercely, forcing it through the tangles. This was all so humiliating.
"And well, I should have stopped you and I didn't. So it's my fault, not yours. Which is why I don't want your apologies."
Donna forced herself to meet his eyes through the mirror. "You don't have to rationalize your actions or twist your feelings to make me feel better about it."
He stood abruptly and she was almost certain he was going to leave. But instead of heading towards the door, he came her way, stilling only when he stood behind her.
"Here, let me do that," he stated, plucking the brush from her nerveless fingers. Before she could protest he was running the soft bristles through her hair, deftly smoothing out tangles.
It was so completely unnerving, to be sitting here in the present (or future, or whatever) watching the Doctor brush her hair in exactly the same way John Smith had done.
As if he read her mind he stated, "You think this is all in my head. Would it make more sense to you if I did everything John did? Does this make it more clear? John brushed your hair because I wanted to brush it; he just had the guts to do it. I've always wanted to do this."
He held her gaze in the mirror, her mouth a small 'oh' in disbelief. "That wasn't really you," she argued.
The Doctor sighed, frustrated. "I don't know how else to describe it to you, Donna. You are right and yet you are completely wrong. John was an intellectual with the memories of being brought up in the early 20th century, and the socialization and ideals of such. I am, obviously, so much more than that. But the emotions, the needs...those were the parts of me that remained, don't you see? That was me, pared down to the basest needs and wants."
"But, he was training kids to be soldiers. You would never do that!"
"Wouldn't I? What is it you think I do, Donna? I take people - good, brilliant, kind people - and I make them soldiers in this never-ending war I wage against the universe." His reflection was dejected as he smoothed out a red curl. "It's what I did to Martha, what I've done to so many in the past. I like to tell myself I'm not a soldier, but Jenny knew better."
"Doctor..."
He shook himself briefly, forcing the thoughts away and closing the topic. "The point is John was honest where I could not be. He wasn't weighed down by fear of messing everything up; he wasn't constrained by the idea of some larger responsibility and that made him brave where I'm not."
"Don't. You're the bravest person I know."
"No, I'm really not. I can bring down civilizations, I can make the big decisions but when it comes to those I love..." He faltered, stared at her pleadingly through the mirror. "When it's about people, and the idea of losing them, I'm a coward."
She skewed her gaze away, settling on where her hands twisted anxiously in her lap. Her heart was thrumming like a wild thing, trapped and aching to escape. "Well, you seem plenty brave now," she croaked, trying to convey wry humor and failing miserably. A warmth was rising inexorably in her chest, and try as she might to temper it with reality, it was refusing to stay down this time.
He set the brush down carefully, preferring to comb her hair with his hands. He wrapped the rich strands around his fingers, pulling gently until her eyes flew to meet his once more. "Because I'm terrified that if i don't explain, that if I don't fix this, you'll want me to take you home," he choked, babbling desperately. "I have needed you for so long now, Donna, it's become second nature to deny myself. And as John, I had an excuse to stop denying myself and take, selfishly and thoughtlessly. And now I know how it could be and I want that. God, Donna, I want that so much but I won't ever ask more of you than you can give - not ever again - and if you want to be friends, if you just want to go on as we have then I can do that, I swear I can just...just don't make me take you home."
Tears inundated her eyes, drawn by relief and a roaring tidal-wave of emotion she could no longer refuse. "I thought I failed you," she whispered, lips trembling. "I thought you would blame me, think I'd taken advantage, and that you couldn't wait to get rid of me, to dump me back in Chiswick and I'd go back to being the same thick Donna."
He folded over her, gripping her tightly, "No no no no no. I'd never. I want you here. I thought you'd hate me for acting the part of your husband, and that you would leave me."
She laughed wetly, tugging playfully on the hair that tickled her cheek where he rested his head against her shoulder. "You'd have to drag me kicking and screaming to the door, and I'd still cling to the side of the TARDIS until you made her shake me off. I came to see the universe and by god, I'm not leaving until you show me every inch of it."
"I'll hold you to that," he murmured against her neck, resting briefly, expectantly, against her skin before straightening abruptly, eyes unnaturally bright as he released her and stepped back. There suddenly seemed to be yards of space between them, when before she'd been fighting for even a spare inch.
"So then!" he exclaimed in mock cheer. "Three months of being stuck in the same place couldn't have been fun for you - wellll, 2 months, 1 week, 3 days and 7 hours but who's keeping track, right? I don't think we'll count this one as a proper part of your tour of the universe. Where do you want to go next? Coral reefs of Kataa Flo Ko, believe I promised you those. Or shopping? Good old shopping trip, that's what you'd like."
She scrubbed her hands impatiently over her eyes, banishing the wetness. No more need for tears, not with the wonderful glow seeping through her blood. Emboldened, she turned around in her seat so she could face him properly and appraised him curiously, head tilted. "That sounds lovely, but Doctor?"
"Yes, Donna. Already ahead of you, know what you're thinking, you're going to be wanting some tea before the 'running starts' though I promise no running and this time I mean it!"
"That would be stellar, too. But hey, Spaceman-"
"Right, right! Maybe a visit to your gramps and mum before all that; we need to restock the biscuits anyway. Mind you, a quick visit, eh? In and out, no dallying, and no we absolutely can't stay for dinner. Welll, unless you really really have your heart set on it, that's my final wor-"
"Oi, MARTIAN!" she finally roared.
He shut his mouth mid syllable, teeth making an audible click.
"Finally!" huffed Donna. "I thought you'd never shut up. So this is it, eh? Now that you know I'm not scampering off, you gonna pretend you didn't tell me you loved me and all that? Business as usual?"
The Doctor shoved his hands into his pockets, gracing her with a kind smile that didn't quite reach his ancient eyes. "It's okay, Donna. You didn't say anything back to me and you don't have to, I get it. You came with me to see the universe and be my mate and I swear to you we can go on as we have and everything will be fine. I'm fine."
Donna stood from her perch, cocking a hip as she narrowed her eyes at him. "Glad to hear it. It's fantastic, it truly is, that your humongous Time Lord brain has suddenly developed these amazing mind reading powers and that you know exactly what I want without me having a word in edgewise," she drawled as the Doctor fidgeted miserably by her door.
"And since you're a super-duper brain-reading genius now," she continued, fingers playing restlessly with the belt of her robe, "I figure you can tell me what I'm thinking now."
She tugged the belt free.
Next Part - the TARDIS is a voyeur
Reviews are like the Doctor joining you in the bath (which is what I wanted to do in the last chapter, but angsty angst forbade it.)