Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Dr Who – Martha and Ten The Inbetweens and Backstories ❯ Chapter One ( Chapter 1 )

Donna Noble was getting into her car, to start her first day as a temporary secretary at her new job in the city. She was good at her job, being able to type one hundred words a minute, and she was clever. She may not have had much of an education, but when she worked at Hounslow Library for six months, she learned the Dewey Decimal System in two days.

Just last month, she had finished a two year contract with a double glazing firm, and had taken a couple of weeks off to `chill out' and relax with her mates by scuba diving in Spain. And then, out of the blue, the agency phoned her to see if she was available for a long term contract at a security firm in the City. `Not arf', was her immediate reply, and was ready to bite their hand off for a chance to work in the City, that's where you got noticed and hopefully where your career took off.

'Jival Chowdry, he runs that little photocopy business in Merchant Street, and he needs a secretary,' Sylvia Noble told her daughter as she fastened her seatbelt. She didn't agree with her daughter having all these temporary jobs and no future prospects.

'I've - got - a - job,' Donna told her in an annoyed tone. 'HC Clements is in the City. It's nice; it's posh, so stop it.' She started the car and drove down the road. When they got to the `T' junction with Ealing Road, she indicated left.

Her mother was like a dog with a bone, and wouldn't leave it, 'It won't take long, just turn right.'

'I'm going left, if you don't like it, get out and walk . . . You think I'm so useless,' Donna said, anything she did was never good enough for her.

'Oh, I know why you want a job with HC Clements, lady, because you think you'll meet a man,' Sylvia said with venom. 'City executives don't need temps, except for practice.'

This struck a chord with Donna, on a number of occasions, she'd terminated her contract early because some executive had wandering hands. 'Yeah, suppose you're right.' She indicated right, and they heard a woman screaming down the road.

'Can you hear that?' Sylvia asked her, as cars heading down the road to the right started to pull up.

'The traffic's stopping,' Donna said.

'Something must have happened.'

'Well, that decides it. I'm not sitting in a traffic jam. I'm going left.' She indicated left again and drove off towards the City, and her new appointment at HC Clements.

She dropped her mum off by the shops, and went on to find a parking place as near to the offices as she could. She had a five minute walk, and walked into the bright, airy reception of her new job.

'Donna Noble, new secretary, one hundred words a minute,' she said to the pleasant girl on the reception desk.

The receptionist looked down a list on a clipboard. 'Oh yes, Miss Noble.' She made her single status sound like an accusation of unpopularity, a curse that doomed her to spinsterhood for the rest of her life. 'You need to check in with Human Resources, which is just down the corridor there.'

'Thank you,' Donna said, pasting a smile on her face and heading in the indicated direction. The door to HR was open, and a number of people sat at desk, answering phones and working on computers.

'Can I help you?' A dark skinned man asked her as he stood from behind his desk.

'Er, I hope so,' she said with a flirtatious look. 'Donna Noble, the new, one hundred words a minute secretary,' she said holding out her hand.

'Oh yes, hello,' he said with a smile. 'Is that typing or talking?' he asked her with a cheeky grin.

'Eh?'

'The hundred words a minute.'

'Hah! Nice one . . . I'm goin' to have to watch you, aren't I Sunshine?'

'I'm Lance Bennett, head of HR,' he said as he shook her hand. 'Have a seat, and I'll make us a cup of coffee.'

Saint Mary's Church, Hayden Road, Chiswick, London.

Six months later.

Geoff Noble linked his arm through his daughters instead of the other way around, so Donna changed it in a bit of a huff. She was nervous, and she wanted this to go right.

'Sorry,' Geoff said, and Donna smiled, he was nervous as well.

The organist struck up Mendelssohn's Wedding March, and Geoff led his daughter down the aisle. Friends and family members looking back and smiling as an obviously happy bride walked past them. There were a few members of the congregation, work colleagues from HC Clements, who weren't that impressed, thinking that Donna only took the job to try and snare a man (as if she would ever do that).

After all, it was Lance that had come on to her, making her a coffee, her, a temporary secretary. Nobody makes a secretary a coffee, not unless they fancy them. And him being the head of HR! He didn't need to bother with her, but he was nice . . . he was funny. And so, here she was after six months of courting, he'd finally seen sense and realised that she was the woman for him.

Well, to be fair, Donna told him she was the woman for him, and asked him to marry her. `Go on, just think about it, we'd make a great couple, and I'd get rid of the dog, and we could do up that back bedroom', she had told him. Lance didn't seem that keen at first, but she talked him around. `Please? Oh, please? Please? Please, please, please, please, please', and he said yes.

She saw him nervously look at her over his shoulder and smile, not long now. She was halfway down the nave, when she felt butterflies in her stomach. "Wedding day nerves" she thought, but what was that golden light, had the church got some special spotlights for filming the video? Everything was going fuzzy and echoey, she started screaming.

TARDIS Console Room.

'You're dead . . . officially, back home. So many people died that day and you've gone missing. You're on a list of the dead.' Tears started to well in both their eyes. Rose lost it first and tears started to roll down her cheeks.

He smiled at her, willing the tears to stop. 'Here you are, living a life day after day. The one adventure I can never have.'

She had picked up on the finality of that sentence. 'Am I ever going to see you again?' she asked him, openly crying now.

'You can't,' he stated simply.

'What're you going to do?' she wailed.

His mouth was smiling but his eyes were now crying along with Rose. 'Oh, I've got the TARDIS. Same old life, last of the Time Lords.'

'On your own,' she asked. She couldn't bear the thought of him being on his own. Who would look out for him, keep him in check?

He silently nodded at her. He couldn't speak.

'I . . .' The words caught in her throat. 'I love you,' she cried, covering her eyes to try to hide her tears.

He wanted to see her smile one last time. 'Quite right, too,' he said, and those beautiful lips formed that gorgeous smile that he missed so much.

The TARDIS on the other hand gave him a mental version of a kick on the shin. She was urging him to say it. Even if she knew it, Rose needed to hear it, and it was the least she deserved.

In an instant he knew that the TARDIS was right. He looked into Rose's eyes. 'And I suppose, if it's one last chance to say it,' he started, summoning all his courage and love for this extraordinary human standing before him. 'Rose Tyler, I love you.'

The image of Rose had faded but he carried on. 'I think I loved you from the moment I first held your hand and our time lines became fixed. And I definitely loved you when you risked yourself to save me on Satellite 5.'

He blinked away the tears and sniffed, walking around the console and setting the controls as he went. Where would he go? He didn't want to go anywhere without Rose. He'd had other companions that he'd travelled with and had adventures with, but Rose was different, she'd shown him how to have fun again, shown him how to love again, and now she'd shown him the pain of loss again.

He looked up from the console to see a red headed woman dressed like a ghost, complete with a veil.

'What?' Was his grief causing him to hallucinate?

'Who are you?' his hallucination asked. It wasn't a very good hallucination if it didn't know where it was.

'But . . .' `if you're real, you can't possibly be here', he was going to say, but was interrupted.

'Where am I?' the ghost that couldn't possibly be there asked.

'What?' He was struggling to keep up, he'd just said a final goodbye to his soul mate, and now this, was he going mad?

'What the hell is this place?' Ooh, the hallucination was getting a bit tetchy now.

'What . . . ? You can't do that . . . I wasn't . . . . We're in flight. That is . . . that is physically impossible! How did . . .'

'Tell me where I am. I demand you tell me right now where am I?' the ghost said forcefully.

'Inside the TARDIS,' he told her honestly.

'The what?'

Was she deaf? 'The TARDIS.'

'The what?'

Was she daft? 'The TARDIS!'

'The what?'

Oh, she was a human. 'It's called the TARDIS.'

'That's not even a proper word. You're just saying things,' she said angrily.

'How did you get in here?' he asked her, she appeared to be real, and not a ghost as he'd first thought. His grief was messing with his head.

'Well, obviously, when you kidnapped me. Who was it? Who's paying you? Is it Nerys? Oh my God, she's finally got me back, this has got Nerys written all over it.'

'Who the hell is Nerys?'

'Your best friend,' the ghost said cryptically.

So, this wasn't a ghost, it was a human. 'Hold on, wait a minute . . . what are you dressed like that for?'

'I'm going ten pin bowling. Why do you think, dumbo? I was halfway up the aisle! I've been waiting all my life for this.' The Doctor ran back to the console and adjusted some more of the settings. 'I was just seconds away, and then you, I don't know, you drugged me or something!' she said accusingly.

'I haven't done anything!' he declared, as he carried on adjusting the console controls.

'I'm having the police on you! Me and my husband, as soon as he is my husband, we're going to sue the living backside off you!' She ran down the ramp to go outside to find a telephone to call the police.

He looked up from the console and saw her running for the doors. 'No, wait a minute, wait a minute, don't!' he called to her, but she wasn't listening. She opened the door and stopped in stunned silence, looking out over the nebulous remnant of a supernova, the energy from which he had just used to contact Rose.

He wandered down the ramp, hands in pockets, and stood beside her 'You're in space . . . outer space . . . . This is my space . . . ship. It's called the TARDIS.'

'How am I breathing?' She asked quietly, obviously in shock.

'The TARDIS is protecting us.'

She tried to gather her thoughts. 'Who are you?' Seemed like a good place to start.

'I'm the Doctor . . . You?'

Who was she . . . ? Hang on she knew the answer to that one. 'Donna.'

He looked her up and down. 'Human?'

'Yeah.' Hang on; what kind of question was that? 'Is that optional?'

'Well, it is for me,' he said quietly.

She let that last comment sink in. 'You're an alien.'

'Yeah.'

'It's freezing with these doors open,' she said, trying to bring some normality back to her life.

The Doctor closed the doors quickly and ran up the ramp towards the console. 'I don't understand that and I understand everything. This, this can't happen! There is no way a human being can lock itself onto the TARDIS and transport itself inside. It must be . . .'

He picked up an ophthalmoscope and used it to look into Donna's eyes. ' . . . Impossible. Some sort of subatomic connection? Something in the temporal field? Maybe something pulling you into alignment with the Chronon shell. Maybe something macro mining your DNA within the interior matrix. Maybe a genetic . . .'

SLAP!

'What was that for?' Why was it that since he'd met Rose, women just wanted to slap him?

'Get - me - to - the - church!' she demanded.

Well sod this for a game of tiddlywinks. 'Right! Fine! I don't want you here anyway! Where is this wedding?'

'Saint Mary's, Hayden Road, Chiswick, London, England, Earth, the Solar System,' she said sarcastically, and then noticed a purple ladies hoodie, left hanging over the handrail. She rushed over and grabbed it as evidence of the Doctor being a kidnapper.

'I knew it, acting all innocent. I'm not the first, am I? How many women have you abducted?' she asked as she held the hoodie up for him to see.

The Doctor looked at it, a sad expression on his face. Only a few hours ago, she'd been in here, wearing that very top. 'That's my friend's,' he said sadly.

'Where is she, then? Popped out for a space walk?' she said sarcastically, unaware of the unbearable sadness in his heart.

'She's gone.'

'Gone where?' she shouted.

He looked away, trying to stem the tears that were welling in his eyes. 'I lost her.'

'Well, you can hurry up and lose me!' she shouted, but he didn't react, didn't respond at all. It was then that she noticed his sadness, how had she missed it? It was like a howl of anguish emanating from his very soul. 'How do you mean, lost?'

He took Rose's top from her, as though it was sacrilege that anyone but him should hold that which belonged to his love.

'Right, Chiswick,' he called out, and ran to the console.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

'There we go. Told you she'd be all right. She can survive anything,' the Doctor said as they stepped out of the TARDIS, across the road from her house.

'More than I've done,' she replied.

The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned her from head to toe. 'No, all the Huon particles have gone. No damage, you're fine.'

'Yeah, but apart from that . . . I missed my wedding, lost my job and became a widow on the same day . . . sort of.'

'I couldn't save him,' the Doctor said in self accusation.

'He deserved it,' she said, nodding as if to confirm what she was saying. The Doctor looked at her as though he didn't believe her.

'No, he didn't,' she admitted sadly. 'I'd better get inside. They'll be worried.'

'Best Christmas present they could have,' he said looking through the front room window as her parents hugged. 'Oh, no, I forgot you hate Christmas.'

'Yes, I do,' she declared.

He reached inside the door of the TARDIS. 'Even . . . if it snows?'

He pulled a lever and the TARDIS lamp turned yellow, firing a bolt of energy into the sky, which caused an instant snow shower.

Donna started to laugh in disbelief. 'I can't believe you did that!'

'Oh, basic atmospheric excitation.' They stood there, looking at each other.

'Merry Christmas,' she said.

'And you.' He looked up at the falling snow. 'So . . . what will you do with yourself now?

'Not getting married, for starters . . . . And I'm not going to temp anymore . . . . I don't know . . . travel . . . see a bit more of planet Earth . . . walk in the dust . . . just go out there, and do something.'

'Well, you could always . . .' He left the sentence hanging in the air between them.

'What?'

'Come with me,' he said quietly.

'No,' she whispered, shaking her head.

'Okay,' he said a bit too quickly.

'I can't,' she sighed.

'No, that's fine.' Again, he was a bit too quick with the reply.

'No, but really, everything we did today . . . do you live your life like that?'

He remembered all the good times with Rose. 'Not all the time.'

'I think you do . . . and I couldn't.'

'But you've seen it out there . . . it's beautiful.'

'And it's terrible. That place was flooding and burning and they were dying, and you were stood there like, I don't know . . . a stranger . . . and then you made it snow, I mean, you scare me to death.'

What had he become, now that Rose wasn't here to hold his hand, was he that scary? 'Right,' he said, resigned to a life without a friend, a life without Rose.

'Tell you what I will do, though, Christmas dinner . . . Oh, come on.'

'I don't do that sort of thing.' Not anymore, not without Rose, it wouldn't be the same.

'You did it last year, you said so.' Damn, he'd been busted. 'And you might as well, because Mum always cooks enough for twenty.'

He hesitated, how was he going to get out of this one? 'Oh . . . all right then . . . but you go first . . . better warn them. And don't say I'm a Martian. I just have to . . . park her properly . . . she might drift off to the Middle Ages. I'll see you in a minute.'

Donna started to cross the road, and the Doctor snuck into the TARDIS and started the time rotor.

Donna turned at the sound, realising that he was trying to sneak away. 'DOCTOR! DOC-TOR!'

The TARDIS fell silent, and a moment later the door opened. 'Blimey, you can shout.'

She smiled at him. 'Am I ever going to see you again?'

'If I'm lucky.'

'Just . . . promise me one thing . . . . Find someone.'

'I don't need anyone,' he said arrogantly.

'Yes, you do. Because sometimes, I think you need someone to stop you.'

'Yeah.' She was right, and that someone was lost in another universe. 'Thanks then, Donna. Good luck. And just . . . be magnificent.'

'I think I will . . . yeah.' The Doctor went back into the TARDIS and closed the door. 'Doctor?' She called.

'Oh, what is it now?' Feigning annoyance, but smiling at her.

'That friend of yours . . . what was her name?' She realised that his missing friend was probably the one who used to stop him.

'Her name was Rose.' He went back inside, the noise started, the TARDIS started to fade, and then it shot up into the air and disappeared.