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z_ficLet's Forget We're Running (Out of Time)
Pairing: Doctor/Donna, Donna/Lee
Rating: R?
Spoilers: Through Journey's End.
Let's Forget We're Running (Out of Time)
Donna first notices him among the shoes. He’s watching her browse, a thin man in a brown suit. Funny hair. He looks a little familiar and she wonders if she’s seen him before. At the office, or maybe at the new pub Veena’s been dragging her to. Somewhere.
She sees him again two days later as she’s walking across Trafalgar Square. Same suit and so obviously watching her. She turns ninety degrees as a test. He follows a short distance behind, stops when she stops.
Great. The last thing she needs is a stalker.
“You,” she yells. She points at him and starts walking in his direction.
He stops short, his eyes wide. His pointy hair just completes the surprised look. He points at his own chest and mouths “me?”
“Yeah,” she shouts. “You. Wait a minute.”
He looks like he might bolt, make a run for the nearest statue, something. In the end he just stands there with a daft expression on his face.
She catches up with him and looks him up and down. He’s tall and skinny, with a suit that’s too tight and looks off, a little too feminine, like he purchased it in the ladies’ department. She frowns and pokes at his chest. “I saw you watching me in Henrik’s, and now here you are again. You’re following me.”
“I was just shopping,” he says. “Christmas shopping.”
She scoffs. “Right. No bags. And it’s August.” She’s seen him before, she knows she has. Before Henrik’s. How long has he been following her? She pokes him again, hard, and watches as he makes a face and rubs at the spot where she poked his girl suit. He’s tiny and she’s been taking Tae Kwon Do with Veena every Thursday. He also looks terrified of her. Anyway, they’re in public. All she has to do is shout.
“Window shopping,” he clarifies. “I like to start early.
“I’ve seen you before,” she says. She’s sure of it.
“You haven’t,” he says immediately. Too quickly.
She squints at him. He refuses to look her in the eye. He looks down at his trainers, possibly realizing they’re a little too casual for the rest of his buttoned up look. And then she remembers.
“Wait, I know you. I met you in my living room. Right after that whole thing with the planet moving. Why are you following me? What are you trying to sell?”
“I’m not – I’m not selling anything,” he stutters at her. “And I’m not following you – I mean, I was. I was following you. But only because I thought I recognized you. We met in your living room, you say? That must be it then. I couldn’t place you and I was trying to figure it out – so yes. I was following you. I’m – yeah. Sorry. I’ll be off then.”
“Oi,” she calls after him, grabs at his arm. He flinches a little at her touch and turns back to look at her. “What did you say your name was? Last time, you told me your name.”
“John Smith,” he says. “John.”
“That’s a bit boring, isn’t it?” she asks. She’s not a complete moron. If someone wanted to give her a phony name, John Smith’s the exact sort of thing they’d come up with.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “I suppose it is.”
He stares at her, his face blank. She thinks he’s a nutter, bonkers, clearly off his rocker. A skinny twig of a man in a woman’s suit. And then he shakes his head and says, “Are you hungry?”
She shrugs and says “God knows you could use a good meal,” and is following him across the square before she even has time to think about it. And when she does she thinks that maybe she’s the one that’s a bit bonkers.
**
As they sit down at the table, John – or whatever his name is – still looks completely conflicted. Scared, really.
“You don’t ask strange women to lunch a lot, do you?” she asks. He’s not her type. He’s not her type at all, but maybe if he was (and if he wasn’t a lying stalker), this would be kind of cute. Endearing.
“This isn’t a date,” John clarifies immediately, eyebrows raised. “This is just lunch.”
Gay, then. That explains a lot. Well, it explains the suit at least.
“Yeah,” Donna agrees. “I wouldn’t be here if it was.”
He nods like he expected as much and pulls a pair of battered glasses out of his pocket, slides them on and opens his menu. He’s antsy and tries to make small talk. He’s not very good at it. She’s starting to wonder if there is anything that he is good at.
“Do you eat roast beef?” he asks. “I love roast beef.”
“Sometimes,” she says, and orders fish. John, shockingly, orders a roast beef sandwich.
He tries to talk about the weather, about the rain that just finally stopped the week before, then mentions something about the planet being kidnapped, then stops himself short and just says “Well.” The longer they sit there, the more anxious he seems to become. Their food arrives and he begins pulling the roast beef out from the bread with his fingers. He notices that she’s watching and switches to a fork.
She decides to take pity on the weirdo.
“What do you do?” she asks.
“I – well, I travel,” he says.
She nods and waits for him to continue. When it becomes obvious that that’s it, that she’s failed to start a conversation, she frowns and sets down her utensils.
“That’s it? You just travel?”
“No,” he says.
“Like as part of a traveling circus?” she prompts. “Are you a trapeze artist or a lion tamer or, I don’t know, the bearded lady?”
John rubs his chin and says “Of course not. I travel for work – for the – for a company. I mean, for a company that banks. The bank. I travel for the bank. That I work for.”
She nods. A gay man who lies about his name and his job asks her out in Trafalgar Square and she says yes. Yes. It sounds like the start of a joke and here she is waiting for the punch line. She must be bonkers.
“I would have said airline pilot,” she suggests.
“Yeah,” he sighs and finishes his drink.
“How do you know my family?”
“Your family?”
“We met in my living room. You must have been there for a reason.”
His mouth opens and then closes. He’s at a loss for words.
“It wasn’t that long ago,” she prompts. “A few months?”
“I know,” he says. “I know your – I know Wilf. We share a common interest. The stars. I’d met him before on the hill. He invited me in for tea after – well, after everything. It was a rough day.”
She eyes him. If it’s a lie, it’s better than the rest of the lies he’s told her.
“How about you?” he asks, clearly trying to steer the conversation away from him. “How are you?”
She shrugs. “I’m good. I’m a secretary –“
“Super temp,” he cuts in.
They’re her words, her personal joke. She stares at him and thinks that maybe agreeing to this lunch was a mistake. He smiles at her, oblivious, and shovels a fork full of roast beef into his mouth.
“How did you - I’m not a temp,” she clarifies, watches as the crinkles around his eyes fade with his smile.
“You’re not?” he says.
“I was. I work for this travel agency now. I just started a few weeks ago actually.”
”Oh,” John says.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s not much, this job, but I enjoy it and I’ll work my way up, become an agent, and there are discounts, you know? I’m going to go to Japan, maybe Egypt. I’m hoping to take my granddad.”
“Good for you, Donna Noble,” John’s smile is back, complete with eye crinkles, as though working at a travel agency for the perks is the most amazing thing anyone could ever do. It’s not like she told him she’s a doctor or out there doing something to save the world, yet here he is, smiling at her like she’s something special.
“I started taking Japanese classes last week.” She’s not sure why she’s still talking. Why she’s telling him more than he needs to know. “With my mother, of all people. I’m taking language classes with my mother. Still, I always wanted to learn another language. Japanese though,” she laughs. “Should have started easy. We’ll be lucky if we learn to say ‘where’s the loo?’”
He laughs, and then babbles something which she supposes is probably ‘where’s the loo?’ in Japanese.
“So how long have you been stalking me?” she asks.
“I swear I’m not stalking you,” he says, the smile leaving his eyes so he appears open and earnest. He’s getting a little better at lying, she’ll give him that.
He orders banana pudding for dessert and then afterward, he realizes that he’s left his wallet in his hotel room, or wherever. At this point, Donna’s not all that surprised.
“You’re an awful date, you know?” Donna asks.
They stand outside the restaurant, awkwardly. His hands are stuffed in his pockets and he’s staring at his trainers again.
“I guess I’ll see you around,” Donna says.
“Maybe,” John agrees and looks up for the first time. He looks like he wants to run again. She guesses lunch with her was maybe not all that he imagined it to be. He doesn’t thank her for paying the bill and when she reaches out to shake his hand his arms are already open to return the hug.
“Oh,” she says, at the same time that he realizes and starts to try to shake her hand instead. It ends with a strange handshake/half hug with him patting her awkwardly on the back. And then they turn and walk in opposite directions along the pavement. She can feel him turn to look at her twice. She doesn’t turn around. She thinks that if she ever sees him again she might call the police. She pulls her mobile from her bag and dials Veena.
“You’re never going to believe the day I’m having,” she says, as soon as Veena answers.
**
She finds herself glancing over her shoulder during the days that follow their lunchtime encounter, checking to see if he’s still following her. She feels eyes on her at the office and turns, expecting to see him but there’s no one there, just her boss Larry, her co-worker Susan. She hears someone say her name at the supermarket and turns to find the aisle empty, children laughing in the aisle next to hers.
“He was so familiar,” Donna says for what must be the fourth time by now. “You know, he’s probably been following me for months and I just didn’t notice.”
“Nutter,” Veena agrees. “I can’t believe you caught a bloke following you and instead of turning him in, you buy him lunch.”
Donna still can’t believe it either.
“He forgot his wallet,” she says, somewhat sheepishly.
“The roast beef isn’t the point,” Veena prods. “You agreed to eat lunch with him in the first place. The man’s probably got pictures of you plastered all over his walls. He’s plotting your death as we speak and you’re going along like it’s nothing out of the ordinary. You don’t watch enough movies. That’s your problem. Life lessons, Donna. You need to study up.”
“He wasn’t – really, Veena. He’s not a serial killer. He’s just a lonely awkward man. He’s harmless,” she insists, not sure why she’s defending him. And when she asks her mother about him, suddenly she isn’t so sure that he deserves her defense.
“John?” her mother repeats in the car on their way to their language class.
“Yeah,” Donna says. “Remember? Scrawny? Kind of jumpy? He was here right after that whole planet thing. John Smith. He says he knows Granddad.”
“John Smith?” her mother repeats once more, and then there’s a spark of recognition in her eyes and her lips press into a tight line. “What about him?” Sometimes Donna wonders about her mother. Wonders if something has happened to her that she just isn’t telling anyone. There’s something different and Donna just can’t put a finger on it.
“I had lunch with him,” Donna says. “Last week.”
“You what?” her mother gasps. “Donna, you stay away from that man. He’s no good for you. He’s not good for anyone.”
“But who is he? John Smith? It’s not even his real name, is it?”
“Never you mind,” she insists, refusing to elaborate on the subject.
“Says he works for a bank,” Donna continues. “Travels a lot or something. John Smith. I think he’s making it up.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sylvia insists. “It’s just a name. Trouble follows that man everywhere. You don’t tell your granddad about this. It’d give him a heart attack if he knew. Do you want to give an old man a heart attack?”
**
He turns up again two weeks later unannounced at her office, surprising her coworker Susan as they’re locking up at the end of the day. Susan shrieks and kicks him hard in the shin, starts rummaging in her purse. John shouts and limps, rubs his leg.
“Give us a heart attack, why don’t you,” Donna snaps and slaps his arm. All her promises to herself that she would call the authorities if he started following again seem stupid now. Look at him. He’s hardly dangerous.
“You know him?” Susan asks, face red, eyes narrowed into slits as though she’s trying to be intimidating. She’s pulled a can from her purse and has it pointed at John.
“Yes, yes, he’s that nutter I told you about. John,” Donna says. “John, this is Susan. Susan, John.”
John manages a smile for Susan. “Susan,” he repeats, still holding his shin. “Lovely name.”
Donna looks over Susan’s shoulder at the can she’s holding and rolls her eyes. “Pepper spray? Susan, put that away. Where did you get that?”
Susan shrugs. “The internet.” She drops the can back into her purse and then looks John up and down. “You didn’t mention that he was so fit.”
John’s smile gets wider and he stops slouching. “I like her,” he says.
Donna thinks Susan might wink at him. It’s a little bit disgusting and John’s smile seems to fade a bit with the gesture.
“You should come by more often,” Susan continues. “We could get you an amazing travel package.”
Donna rolls her eyes.
“Yeah,” John agrees. “Maybe I will.” He sets a hand on Donna’s arm, lowers his voice and says, “Can I talk to you for a moment? Alone?”
“Why?”
“Please?”
She gives in, tells Susan that she’ll see her in the morning, assures her that they don’t need a chaperone, that she’s certain that she’ll be safe alone with her crazy stalker friend. Once they’re alone, John says, “Susan’s not human?”
“Oh, come on. Not you too,” Donna says.
“What?”
“Not human? Everyone in this city is so obsessed with aliens.”
“She blinked at me! Sideways!”
“She was flirting,” Donna reasons. “You’re her type. Gangly and thinking you’re all clever. She loves that.”
“Literally sideways,” he says again.
“Well,” Donna shrugs. “She hasn’t been feeling well.”
John seems to consider this. “Maybe,” he concedes and lets it drop, but not before a grumbled. “I am all clever.” Then he adds, louder, “Let me take you to dinner. Make up for lunch the other day.”
“No,” Donna says.
“Did you already eat?” His face falls and she wonders again how he could possibly be any danger to her.
“Well, all right,” she agrees. “Someplace crowded, in case I have to scream for help.”
He blinks at her, confused.
“Never mind,” she mumbles and starts walking toward a popular curry place a few streets over. He grins and bumps into her and she can’t tell if it’s supposed to be some kind of nudge or if he just can’t walk straight.
**
They start getting together whenever he’s ‘in town’. She wonders if ‘in town’ isn’t just some sort of code that means when he’s not busy stalking someone else. There’s always something he wants to do; coffee, a play, a concert event. His suggestions always bring them to very public locations and she wonders if it’s on purpose, if he’s trying to ease her apprehensions about their first meeting. It’s a strange friendship. She can’t believe half of what he says, never knows when he’ll turn up, and she can’t contact him, yet she’s always happy to see him when he appears. And somehow he still always knows where to find her.
“Because he’s a stalker,” Veena says. “That’s what stalkers do. That’s why when you have a stalker you call the police.”
“He’s harmless,” Donna insists. Most of the time she’s still sure that’s true.
Sometimes she sees him twice in one week, sometimes it’s longer.
“Where have you been?” she asks when she leaves her office and sees him sitting on a bench a few shops down. It’s been weeks since their last encounter.
“Oh, you know,” he muses and shoves his hands into the pockets of that same brown suit. “Here and there. Visited King Arthur then popped into the 51st century for a bit.”
She’s had a headache all morning, listening to Susan ramble on and on, this time about some fantasy planet called Fersh where everything is wonderful and fabulous all the time and people prance around barefoot and don’t have to worry about things like stalkers and moving planets. Most of the time Donna likes Susan, but once in a while Susan will go off on one of her talking sprees, refusing to stop the chit chat until Donna’s head is aching and she has to step outside just to get some air. The headache gets worse now and she presses her fingers to her forehead. King Arthur and the 51st Century. She’s heard so much nonsense today. She’s starting to think that maybe John and Susan are perfect for one another.
“You could have just said it’s none of my business,” Donna says.
“Not as much fun,” he reasons. He’s watching her, concerned.
“Sorry,” she says. “It’s nothing. Headache.” She reaches for his hand and pulls him up off the bench. She thinks that it shouldn’t be this easy, being friendly with a man like John Smith.
**
“Is that some kind of uniform or something?” she asks him as they wait outside of the theatre. She’s never heard of the play, but he swears that she’ll love it.
“What?” he asks. “Do you think I should have worn a tuxedo?”
No one wears a tuxedo to the theatre, but the question sounds serious. She ignores it.
“You’re always wearing that same suit. Is it a uniform? For your job? What do you do, anyway?”
John looks down at his suit, tries to smooth out a few wrinkles. “What do I – I work for the bank,” he says. “Remember?”
“The bank,” Donna repeats. “Of course. How could I forget.”
John gives her a look. “It’s just a bank,” he says. “You don’t like this suit? I have a tuxedo. It’s a bit unlucky, but I could –”
She returns the look and his voice trails off. It starts to drizzle and the crowd outside the theatre squishes in under the awning. John grins at her as though getting to the theatre forty minutes early is loads of fun. When she doesn’t grin back, he asks her about the office.
“The agency’s been crazy lately. Everyone’s booking holidays for next spring, you know? Honeymoons and things. Susan’s been out with some sort of flu,” Donna says. “Poor girl. She asks about you though, even bedridden with fever. Told you she fancied you, all scrawny and self important. My boss though, Larry. Every night he’s trying to convince me to go out for drinks, go dancing.”
John makes a face when she mentions dancing.
“What was that?” she jokes and mimics the face. “You don’t dance? Or are you jealous?”
“Of course not,” he says and leans against the wall of the theatre. “Just don’t get too serious.”
“Serious? The man is older than my mother and has dandruff like you’ve never seen. Serious. What do you care anyway?”
“I don’t,” he says. “But – I was going to - I have this friend. A friend. He’s thinking about moving to London. If he does, I thought I’d introduce you.”
Donna laughs. “You’re playing matchmaker now?”
“Well,” he says. “My friend doesn’t know anyone in London. I thought you could show him around.”
The doors to the theatre open and the crowd starts pushing through at once in an attempt to get out of the rain. John’s grinning again as they get jostled around a bit in the crowd. He hands a doorman the tickets and once they’re inside he offers to check Donna’s coat, before they settle into their seats.
“When is this friend coming?” she asks, flipping absently through the program.
“I’m not sure,” he admits. He pulls his glasses from his pocket. “It’s all just an idea right now.”
“I guess I’ll make sure not to get serious with my old boss then.”
“I guess you better,” John agrees. He looks down at himself and brushes some lint from his knee before turning to her. “What’s wrong with this suit?”
**
He kisses her one night at a pub in Chiswick. She’s surprised, but she’s had three martinis and when his thin lips press against hers, she grabs his jacket and pulls him closer. It’s been a while since she’s done this. It seems like it’s been a while for him too. He’s not a bad kisser. He’s better at this than he is at a lot of other things.
“Doesn’t take much to get you to swing the other way,” Donna laughs and kisses him again. She’s already decided not to tell Veena about this.
“The other way?” John asks. His thumb is tracing circles in the bare skin of her arm.
“You’re gay, yeah?” She asks. “It’s okay. I mean, I guessed a while back.”
“Oh,” John says. “Okay.” He finishes the rest of his drink.
It happens again outside. She’s telling him about Japan, about the plans for her trip. She booked her tickets the day before and her granddad is so excited and then she isn’t talking, she’s kissing, being kissed, and her back is pressed to the brick wall and his hand cups her face as his tongue tastes her mouth.
“Get a room,” someone shouts, and she giggles against his lips, thinks the two of them are probably a pretty funny sight.
“We must look like an odd couple,” Donna says, closes her eyes when he doesn’t stop right away, when he leans in to taste the warm skin of her neck.
“Okay, sweet cheeks,” she laughs. “I think you’ve had enough to drink tonight. Let’s get you home.”
She has no idea where home is and so he walks her to her home instead.
“We’re here,” she says, though John’s been there before and surely remembers.
They stand there in the street for a moment until Donna breaks the silence.
“I’d say you could come in, but well –“ she gestures toward the house. She’s pretty sure she wouldn’t have asked him to come in even if she wasn’t still living with her mother. It just seems like the thing to say.
“Of course,” John says, as though he’s snapping out of a stupor. He leans in and kisses her one more time, just a quick press of lips. It’s awkward now and she thinks the alcohol must be wearing off for both of them. He presses a hand to her shoulder and then turns and begins walking back down the street.
Donna waits until he’s disappeared around the corner and then slips inside and is greeted by her mother who has rather obviously been peering out at the window.
“Who was that? Who were you with?” she asks.
“It was Veena,” Donna lies. She hopes her mother hasn’t been watching for long.
It’s the following afternoon before she remembers that John had been ordering Cokes the entire night.
**
It’s been three weeks since the nonsense at the pub. She’s seen him twice since then, waited for him to say something, do something, but he seems perfectly content to pretend that he was drunk enough that he’s forgotten the entire thing. Finally, she sets down her fork and says, “What is this?”
“What’s what?” he asks. He’s been talking about broccoli for the last ten minutes.
“Us,” Donna clarifies. She gestures toward the table, the restaurant, “this.”
John’s mouth drops open and then he shrugs and says, “We’re friends – companions. I don’t know. Does it have to be something?”
“Yes,” she says, and then changes her mind. “No. But it’s strange, you know? I mean, you do know that, right? That this is strange?”
“People meet in all sorts of strange ways,” he says.
“John, I’m thirty six years old and I’m afraid to tell my family that I still see you. And I don’t know why. Should I be? You show up and you hardly talk and when you do half of what you say is lies and the rest is nonsense and I still feel like I’ve known you for ages. You kiss me in a pub and then I don’t hear from you for days and when I do you pretend we were drunk, but you had nothing to drink. I worry about you. Should I?” She sighs and downs the rest of her glass of wine. “Sometimes you scare me. You make me feel like I’m going insane.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. He reaches out and rests a hand on her arm.
“Maybe we should stop this,” she says. She brushes his hand away and presses her fingers to her temples. Her head aches. John reaches out and pulls her hands away, folds them on the table and rubs them gently with his own.
He’s quiet, just sitting there holding her hands, and eventually Donna sighs and says, “Veena thinks you’re a government spy.”
“Really?” John smiles. “Must be a pretty exciting life I lead, yeah? What do you think?”
“I think you’re just a strange lonely man.”
John looks down but doesn’t disagree.
“When will you start telling me the truth?” she asks.
“Donna,” John starts. “I wish –“
He trails off and she knows the answer is never.
“I think you should stop following me,” she says. “Stop coming to see me. I can’t – we don’t work together.”
“We could,” he says, quietly. “Work together. We could work together wonderfully, I think. If we try.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to try.”
John nods and places a hand on her shoulder before leaving the restaurant.
**
Her headaches are getting worse. She sits at her desk and listens to Susan talk about the planet moving, about how they all survived the Daleks. Dalek. It’s such a nonsense word to Donna. Sometimes she thinks everyone is hallucinating but her.
“I don’t know how you could have missed it,” Susan laughs, now. It doesn’t sound like she was laughing six months ago when fifteen or however many planets suddenly appeared in the sky.
Donna doesn’t know how she missed it either, how she always seems to miss these things. She tries not to think about it too much. It makes her headaches worse.
She stays home a few days with the blinds drawn and the lights off. Her granddad makes her beans on toast and talks about the things they’ll see in Japan. He’s looking older. She worries about him. He doesn’t talk to her about aliens anymore, refuses to talk about it, but he still goes up to that hill every night, sits and stares at the stars.
She joins him sometimes, asks what he’s looking for. “Shooting stars,” he says and smiles at her. “Just shooting stars.”
It starts raining again. It rains for three days and Granddad is convinced it won’t stop for another month. On the third night of rain Donna looks out her window and sees John standing outside in the dark. Her stalker. She thinks again that if she was smart she’d call the police, but he’s not staring up at her, and something about the lone figure stops her from reaching for the telephone. He looks scared and completely lost standing there in the rain. She walks quietly down the stairs and opens the back door.
“Get inside,” she says. “You’ll catch your death.”
She’s rehearsed a list of things that she planned to say the next time they met. Plans to turn him away, stop this entire nonsense once and for all. Somehow she didn’t doubt that they would meet again. She didn’t really think for a moment that that restaurant would be the last time she saw him.
John’s clearly at least a little bit insane, and her mother seems terrified of him. This relationship, whatever it is, won’t end in anything good, no matter how much it feels otherwise sometimes when she’s with him. She has a script, but he looks so dejected and she forgets the words instantly. Instead she hugs him as though they’ve known each other for ages.
“What happened to you?” she asks. It could be anything.
She leaves him dripping in a chair and goes to fetch a cloth. She hands it to him and watches him press it to his face.
“I’ll make tea,” she offers and fills the kettle. She sets it on the stove and sits in the chair beside him.
“What is it?” she asks again.
“Sorry,” he says. He sighs and bunches the cloth in his damp lap. “I know – you think I’m strange and – I shouldn’t be here. I really shouldn’t.”
“Don’t worry about that now.”
“Rough day at work, you know?”
“At the bank?” she says. He seems genuinely upset and it doesn’t seem like the time to pry, to find cracks in the lies.
“Have you ever met someone and known exactly how things were going to end, exactly how it would go and you want to run, want to just stop it all before any of it happens, but you can’t. You can’t stop any of it.”
She’s not sure she does know how that feels. Looking back she thinks that she should have known how things would end with Lance, but she never felt that at the start. She never realized she was pushing too hard until it was much too late and he was gone.
“I don’t think so,” Donna says, honestly.
John nods.
“You met someone?” she asks. For a moment, half of a half of a second, she wonders if he’s talking about her. He isn’t, she knows. This is something else entirely.
“I was looking for someone else,” John explains. “I didn’t think – it’s a big universe, you know? Same century, yeah, but I didn’t think, not even for a second that I’d see her. I’m not ready for her.”
He isn’t making much sense and she reaches out and presses the back of her palm to his forehead. She expects him to be feverish, but his skin feels cool. He jumps a little at her touch, reaches out to take her hand, holding it in his own.
“John,” she says. He looks like he wants to tell her something and she leans in closer, crouched on the floor beside his chair.
He closes his eyes and then the distance between them and they’re kissing. His kisses are tentative, unsure, as though he thinks she might haul off and smack him at any moment. His hands still hold hers. Her free hand moves to his shoulder, grips his damp sleeve. She kisses him back and he makes a noise in his throat and moves closer when he realizes she doesn’t plan to pull away.
Eventually he releases her, their noses bumping a little as he turns his head from hers.
“You must be freezing,” she says. “You should stay. Dry off.”
“Your family –“ he protests, but he stands when she pulls at his arm and lets her guide him up the stairs. The house is quiet, asleep except for the two of them. She’ll have to smuggle him out in the morning, but they can cross that bridge when the time comes.
She pushes his damp jacket off his shoulders and hangs it on a chair.
“Thank you,” he says and it sounds like the most sincere thing he’s ever said to her. He hugs her, tight, as though he’s afraid she’ll disappear if he lets go. His body is cool and damp.
“I haven’t done anything, really,” she says.
He kisses her once, twice, and then releases her and turns away, apologizes, wipes a hand across his face and sighs.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he says again. “This isn’t fair to you.”
Donna smiles. “I’m a big girl,” she says. “I can look after myself.”
He doesn’t look like he believes her. His hair, usually sticking out everywhere, is damp and looks soft. She reaches out and touches it.
“Donna,” he says, and even her name on his lips is more familiar than their few encounters should warrant. “I think I’ve always needed you more than you needed me.”
“We hardly even know each other,” she says, but saying the words out loud doesn’t seem to stop her. She thinks it might, but there she is, only moments later, reaching for him and she’s the one doing the kissing now. He pushes at her clothes, removes her shirt and presses his mouth to the tops of her exposed breasts.
She knows this is a bad idea. She thinks about what the Donna who stood in Trafalgar Square shouting at a man in a suit would think if she could see herself now. She doesn’t think she cares. People meet in all sorts of strange ways and anyway, she’s thirty six and she’s been playing it safe her entire life. Where has safe got her? Resolved, she stops thinking about what she should do and concentrates on the moment instead, concentrates on John’s mouth, John’s hands, the taste of salt on John’s skin. His fingers fumble with her bra and she helps him, slides it off and lets it drop to the floor.
She unbuttons his trousers and pushes them down past his slim hips, wonders again about that suit. She’d been so sure that this was something that would never happen with them, something that neither of them could ever want and as he kisses her and pushes her toward her bed, she just can’t help but laugh at it all.
John grunts. It’s a question.
“Who would’ve thought we’d end up here,” she laughs.
John just smiles and slides her cotton pants to her ankles. She kicks then off her feet.
He seems to know exactly how she likes to be touched, exactly what to do to make her gasp, choke back the sounds that she doesn’t dare make with her mother sleeping right down the hall. She feels like a teenager again, sneaking Billy Davis in through the bedroom window. John smiles down at her and then bites his lip and thrusts deeper and her mouth opens in a silent groan. He clings to her, tries to memorize her, the sound of her voice, the smell of her hair, her skin. She grips his back, kisses his shoulder, the base of his neck as he moves above her. He stops then and shudders, collapses on her for just a moment. She presses her face to his damp hair.
“Did you -?” he asks and then trails off. His heart is beating so fast that it almost feels like two heartbeats pounding simultaneously. He pulls her closer. Three heartbeats now, she thinks.
He looks up at her and she shakes her head, says “that’s okay.”
He kisses her mouth, a languid kiss, slow, exploratory. His hand slips down between her legs and she gasps into his mouth.
“Donna,” he says, his lips forming the word against her skin, his fingers knowing exactly what to do. It isn’t long before she is holding back a cry, her back arching up against him in release. He kisses her once more, his body pressed against hers and there it is again, his heart. It’s slower now, and she still –
She presses a hand to his chest.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Your heart,” Donna says. Her head aches and she closes her eyes. These stupid migraines.
“Stop,” he says. He pulls her hand away and kisses her palm.
Her head is starting to pound and all she wants to do is sleep. “You can stay here,” she says. “When I was in school, there was this boy. Billy. He used to – there’s this tree outside and - have you ever snuck out a window?”
**
She doesn’t expect anything to change. She’s relieved when she wakes up the next morning and discovers that he’s already gone. And she’s not really surprised when one month passes, two, and she hears nothing from John Smith.
“You aren’t still seeing that man, I hope,” her mother occasionally frowns at her over breakfast. She never believed for a second that Donna was standing out in the street that night kissing Veena.
Donna’s mostly stopped thinking about him after the first month. She’s busy with work and her classes, her plans for Japan. The migraines have been getting worse. The pills her doctor gave her don’t seem to be helping.
Then two months after that night in the rain he walks up to her outside the Tae Kwon Do class she’s been taking with Veena. On this particular evening, Donna is there alone. John looks nervous and has an even more nervous looking man in tow.
“Donna,” John says. He reaches for her, to hug her, but she’s having none of that.
“Right,” he says, his arms flopping back to his sides. “You remember that bloke I told you about? My friend moving to London? This is – This is Lee McAvoy.”
Lee is tall and broad and looks enormous next to John Smith. He’s dressed like a normal human being, jeans and a soft looking shirt and he smiles at her and extends a hand. When he says her name he stutters.
“Welcome to London,” Donna says. He’s smiling at her and she thinks she could just stand there and watch him smile forever, but John clears his throat and she looks away from Lee McAvoy. “Well? Where have you been hiding?”
“I’ve been helping Lee here settle in,” John explains.
“For two months?”
“It was a – uh, a big move,” John suggests.
She turns back to Lee. “Where are you from?” She notices that she’s touching his arm and wonders when she started. She was right. His shirt is soft and she can feel the muscle of his arm underneath. She sees John eyeing her and pulls her hand away.
“I’m – the Sterling Sphere –“
“Liverpool,” John interjects.
“He doesn’t sound like he’s from Liverpool,” Donna notes.
“He’s moved around a lot,” John adds.
Lee smiles and Donna doesn’t care where he’s from. He asks her for her phone number, which is more than John has ever done. He gives her the address of his flat and promises to phone her and kisses her on the cheek before she leaves.
She sees what John’s doing. He’s running. It’s typical, male, and he’s giving her Lee as some strange consolation prize. Still, when Lee calls her she’s excited to hear his voice over the phone, and when he asks her to dinner she says yes immediately.
“You don’t have to spend time with me, you know,” she says when he shows up on her doorstep.
“Why wouldn’t I want to spend time with you?” He’s nervous and he stutters a bit on the first word. It’s sort of adorable, this huge broad man who has trouble just talking to her.
“You’re smooth, aren’t you,” Donna says, and Lee laughs.
Donna knows that her mother is watching from behind the curtains in the front window, spying, just as she has since Donna was 15. Usually Donna ushers her dates off in a rush. This time she lingers on the walk until she’s sure her mother has had a good look.
They go to see a film, Donna’s choice because Lee hasn’t heard of anything that’s playing.
“Did you live under a rock in Liverpool?” Donna asks.
Lee shrugs and says something about not having a television, but he’s staring at her mouth. He kisses her afterward, completely ignores her questions about the film, covers her lips with his instead. Donna’s stomach is full of butterflies and her toes tingle and she thinks she should probably thank that coward of a man, John Smith.
Part 2(/2)
Pairing: Doctor/Donna, Donna/Lee
Rating: R?
Spoilers: Through Journey's End.
Let's Forget We're Running (Out of Time)
Donna first notices him among the shoes. He’s watching her browse, a thin man in a brown suit. Funny hair. He looks a little familiar and she wonders if she’s seen him before. At the office, or maybe at the new pub Veena’s been dragging her to. Somewhere.
She sees him again two days later as she’s walking across Trafalgar Square. Same suit and so obviously watching her. She turns ninety degrees as a test. He follows a short distance behind, stops when she stops.
Great. The last thing she needs is a stalker.
“You,” she yells. She points at him and starts walking in his direction.
He stops short, his eyes wide. His pointy hair just completes the surprised look. He points at his own chest and mouths “me?”
“Yeah,” she shouts. “You. Wait a minute.”
He looks like he might bolt, make a run for the nearest statue, something. In the end he just stands there with a daft expression on his face.
She catches up with him and looks him up and down. He’s tall and skinny, with a suit that’s too tight and looks off, a little too feminine, like he purchased it in the ladies’ department. She frowns and pokes at his chest. “I saw you watching me in Henrik’s, and now here you are again. You’re following me.”
“I was just shopping,” he says. “Christmas shopping.”
She scoffs. “Right. No bags. And it’s August.” She’s seen him before, she knows she has. Before Henrik’s. How long has he been following her? She pokes him again, hard, and watches as he makes a face and rubs at the spot where she poked his girl suit. He’s tiny and she’s been taking Tae Kwon Do with Veena every Thursday. He also looks terrified of her. Anyway, they’re in public. All she has to do is shout.
“Window shopping,” he clarifies. “I like to start early.
“I’ve seen you before,” she says. She’s sure of it.
“You haven’t,” he says immediately. Too quickly.
She squints at him. He refuses to look her in the eye. He looks down at his trainers, possibly realizing they’re a little too casual for the rest of his buttoned up look. And then she remembers.
“Wait, I know you. I met you in my living room. Right after that whole thing with the planet moving. Why are you following me? What are you trying to sell?”
“I’m not – I’m not selling anything,” he stutters at her. “And I’m not following you – I mean, I was. I was following you. But only because I thought I recognized you. We met in your living room, you say? That must be it then. I couldn’t place you and I was trying to figure it out – so yes. I was following you. I’m – yeah. Sorry. I’ll be off then.”
“Oi,” she calls after him, grabs at his arm. He flinches a little at her touch and turns back to look at her. “What did you say your name was? Last time, you told me your name.”
“John Smith,” he says. “John.”
“That’s a bit boring, isn’t it?” she asks. She’s not a complete moron. If someone wanted to give her a phony name, John Smith’s the exact sort of thing they’d come up with.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “I suppose it is.”
He stares at her, his face blank. She thinks he’s a nutter, bonkers, clearly off his rocker. A skinny twig of a man in a woman’s suit. And then he shakes his head and says, “Are you hungry?”
She shrugs and says “God knows you could use a good meal,” and is following him across the square before she even has time to think about it. And when she does she thinks that maybe she’s the one that’s a bit bonkers.
**
As they sit down at the table, John – or whatever his name is – still looks completely conflicted. Scared, really.
“You don’t ask strange women to lunch a lot, do you?” she asks. He’s not her type. He’s not her type at all, but maybe if he was (and if he wasn’t a lying stalker), this would be kind of cute. Endearing.
“This isn’t a date,” John clarifies immediately, eyebrows raised. “This is just lunch.”
Gay, then. That explains a lot. Well, it explains the suit at least.
“Yeah,” Donna agrees. “I wouldn’t be here if it was.”
He nods like he expected as much and pulls a pair of battered glasses out of his pocket, slides them on and opens his menu. He’s antsy and tries to make small talk. He’s not very good at it. She’s starting to wonder if there is anything that he is good at.
“Do you eat roast beef?” he asks. “I love roast beef.”
“Sometimes,” she says, and orders fish. John, shockingly, orders a roast beef sandwich.
He tries to talk about the weather, about the rain that just finally stopped the week before, then mentions something about the planet being kidnapped, then stops himself short and just says “Well.” The longer they sit there, the more anxious he seems to become. Their food arrives and he begins pulling the roast beef out from the bread with his fingers. He notices that she’s watching and switches to a fork.
She decides to take pity on the weirdo.
“What do you do?” she asks.
“I – well, I travel,” he says.
She nods and waits for him to continue. When it becomes obvious that that’s it, that she’s failed to start a conversation, she frowns and sets down her utensils.
“That’s it? You just travel?”
“No,” he says.
“Like as part of a traveling circus?” she prompts. “Are you a trapeze artist or a lion tamer or, I don’t know, the bearded lady?”
John rubs his chin and says “Of course not. I travel for work – for the – for a company. I mean, for a company that banks. The bank. I travel for the bank. That I work for.”
She nods. A gay man who lies about his name and his job asks her out in Trafalgar Square and she says yes. Yes. It sounds like the start of a joke and here she is waiting for the punch line. She must be bonkers.
“I would have said airline pilot,” she suggests.
“Yeah,” he sighs and finishes his drink.
“How do you know my family?”
“Your family?”
“We met in my living room. You must have been there for a reason.”
His mouth opens and then closes. He’s at a loss for words.
“It wasn’t that long ago,” she prompts. “A few months?”
“I know,” he says. “I know your – I know Wilf. We share a common interest. The stars. I’d met him before on the hill. He invited me in for tea after – well, after everything. It was a rough day.”
She eyes him. If it’s a lie, it’s better than the rest of the lies he’s told her.
“How about you?” he asks, clearly trying to steer the conversation away from him. “How are you?”
She shrugs. “I’m good. I’m a secretary –“
“Super temp,” he cuts in.
They’re her words, her personal joke. She stares at him and thinks that maybe agreeing to this lunch was a mistake. He smiles at her, oblivious, and shovels a fork full of roast beef into his mouth.
“How did you - I’m not a temp,” she clarifies, watches as the crinkles around his eyes fade with his smile.
“You’re not?” he says.
“I was. I work for this travel agency now. I just started a few weeks ago actually.”
”Oh,” John says.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s not much, this job, but I enjoy it and I’ll work my way up, become an agent, and there are discounts, you know? I’m going to go to Japan, maybe Egypt. I’m hoping to take my granddad.”
“Good for you, Donna Noble,” John’s smile is back, complete with eye crinkles, as though working at a travel agency for the perks is the most amazing thing anyone could ever do. It’s not like she told him she’s a doctor or out there doing something to save the world, yet here he is, smiling at her like she’s something special.
“I started taking Japanese classes last week.” She’s not sure why she’s still talking. Why she’s telling him more than he needs to know. “With my mother, of all people. I’m taking language classes with my mother. Still, I always wanted to learn another language. Japanese though,” she laughs. “Should have started easy. We’ll be lucky if we learn to say ‘where’s the loo?’”
He laughs, and then babbles something which she supposes is probably ‘where’s the loo?’ in Japanese.
“So how long have you been stalking me?” she asks.
“I swear I’m not stalking you,” he says, the smile leaving his eyes so he appears open and earnest. He’s getting a little better at lying, she’ll give him that.
He orders banana pudding for dessert and then afterward, he realizes that he’s left his wallet in his hotel room, or wherever. At this point, Donna’s not all that surprised.
“You’re an awful date, you know?” Donna asks.
They stand outside the restaurant, awkwardly. His hands are stuffed in his pockets and he’s staring at his trainers again.
“I guess I’ll see you around,” Donna says.
“Maybe,” John agrees and looks up for the first time. He looks like he wants to run again. She guesses lunch with her was maybe not all that he imagined it to be. He doesn’t thank her for paying the bill and when she reaches out to shake his hand his arms are already open to return the hug.
“Oh,” she says, at the same time that he realizes and starts to try to shake her hand instead. It ends with a strange handshake/half hug with him patting her awkwardly on the back. And then they turn and walk in opposite directions along the pavement. She can feel him turn to look at her twice. She doesn’t turn around. She thinks that if she ever sees him again she might call the police. She pulls her mobile from her bag and dials Veena.
“You’re never going to believe the day I’m having,” she says, as soon as Veena answers.
**
She finds herself glancing over her shoulder during the days that follow their lunchtime encounter, checking to see if he’s still following her. She feels eyes on her at the office and turns, expecting to see him but there’s no one there, just her boss Larry, her co-worker Susan. She hears someone say her name at the supermarket and turns to find the aisle empty, children laughing in the aisle next to hers.
“He was so familiar,” Donna says for what must be the fourth time by now. “You know, he’s probably been following me for months and I just didn’t notice.”
“Nutter,” Veena agrees. “I can’t believe you caught a bloke following you and instead of turning him in, you buy him lunch.”
Donna still can’t believe it either.
“He forgot his wallet,” she says, somewhat sheepishly.
“The roast beef isn’t the point,” Veena prods. “You agreed to eat lunch with him in the first place. The man’s probably got pictures of you plastered all over his walls. He’s plotting your death as we speak and you’re going along like it’s nothing out of the ordinary. You don’t watch enough movies. That’s your problem. Life lessons, Donna. You need to study up.”
“He wasn’t – really, Veena. He’s not a serial killer. He’s just a lonely awkward man. He’s harmless,” she insists, not sure why she’s defending him. And when she asks her mother about him, suddenly she isn’t so sure that he deserves her defense.
“John?” her mother repeats in the car on their way to their language class.
“Yeah,” Donna says. “Remember? Scrawny? Kind of jumpy? He was here right after that whole planet thing. John Smith. He says he knows Granddad.”
“John Smith?” her mother repeats once more, and then there’s a spark of recognition in her eyes and her lips press into a tight line. “What about him?” Sometimes Donna wonders about her mother. Wonders if something has happened to her that she just isn’t telling anyone. There’s something different and Donna just can’t put a finger on it.
“I had lunch with him,” Donna says. “Last week.”
“You what?” her mother gasps. “Donna, you stay away from that man. He’s no good for you. He’s not good for anyone.”
“But who is he? John Smith? It’s not even his real name, is it?”
“Never you mind,” she insists, refusing to elaborate on the subject.
“Says he works for a bank,” Donna continues. “Travels a lot or something. John Smith. I think he’s making it up.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sylvia insists. “It’s just a name. Trouble follows that man everywhere. You don’t tell your granddad about this. It’d give him a heart attack if he knew. Do you want to give an old man a heart attack?”
**
He turns up again two weeks later unannounced at her office, surprising her coworker Susan as they’re locking up at the end of the day. Susan shrieks and kicks him hard in the shin, starts rummaging in her purse. John shouts and limps, rubs his leg.
“Give us a heart attack, why don’t you,” Donna snaps and slaps his arm. All her promises to herself that she would call the authorities if he started following again seem stupid now. Look at him. He’s hardly dangerous.
“You know him?” Susan asks, face red, eyes narrowed into slits as though she’s trying to be intimidating. She’s pulled a can from her purse and has it pointed at John.
“Yes, yes, he’s that nutter I told you about. John,” Donna says. “John, this is Susan. Susan, John.”
John manages a smile for Susan. “Susan,” he repeats, still holding his shin. “Lovely name.”
Donna looks over Susan’s shoulder at the can she’s holding and rolls her eyes. “Pepper spray? Susan, put that away. Where did you get that?”
Susan shrugs. “The internet.” She drops the can back into her purse and then looks John up and down. “You didn’t mention that he was so fit.”
John’s smile gets wider and he stops slouching. “I like her,” he says.
Donna thinks Susan might wink at him. It’s a little bit disgusting and John’s smile seems to fade a bit with the gesture.
“You should come by more often,” Susan continues. “We could get you an amazing travel package.”
Donna rolls her eyes.
“Yeah,” John agrees. “Maybe I will.” He sets a hand on Donna’s arm, lowers his voice and says, “Can I talk to you for a moment? Alone?”
“Why?”
“Please?”
She gives in, tells Susan that she’ll see her in the morning, assures her that they don’t need a chaperone, that she’s certain that she’ll be safe alone with her crazy stalker friend. Once they’re alone, John says, “Susan’s not human?”
“Oh, come on. Not you too,” Donna says.
“What?”
“Not human? Everyone in this city is so obsessed with aliens.”
“She blinked at me! Sideways!”
“She was flirting,” Donna reasons. “You’re her type. Gangly and thinking you’re all clever. She loves that.”
“Literally sideways,” he says again.
“Well,” Donna shrugs. “She hasn’t been feeling well.”
John seems to consider this. “Maybe,” he concedes and lets it drop, but not before a grumbled. “I am all clever.” Then he adds, louder, “Let me take you to dinner. Make up for lunch the other day.”
“No,” Donna says.
“Did you already eat?” His face falls and she wonders again how he could possibly be any danger to her.
“Well, all right,” she agrees. “Someplace crowded, in case I have to scream for help.”
He blinks at her, confused.
“Never mind,” she mumbles and starts walking toward a popular curry place a few streets over. He grins and bumps into her and she can’t tell if it’s supposed to be some kind of nudge or if he just can’t walk straight.
**
They start getting together whenever he’s ‘in town’. She wonders if ‘in town’ isn’t just some sort of code that means when he’s not busy stalking someone else. There’s always something he wants to do; coffee, a play, a concert event. His suggestions always bring them to very public locations and she wonders if it’s on purpose, if he’s trying to ease her apprehensions about their first meeting. It’s a strange friendship. She can’t believe half of what he says, never knows when he’ll turn up, and she can’t contact him, yet she’s always happy to see him when he appears. And somehow he still always knows where to find her.
“Because he’s a stalker,” Veena says. “That’s what stalkers do. That’s why when you have a stalker you call the police.”
“He’s harmless,” Donna insists. Most of the time she’s still sure that’s true.
Sometimes she sees him twice in one week, sometimes it’s longer.
“Where have you been?” she asks when she leaves her office and sees him sitting on a bench a few shops down. It’s been weeks since their last encounter.
“Oh, you know,” he muses and shoves his hands into the pockets of that same brown suit. “Here and there. Visited King Arthur then popped into the 51st century for a bit.”
She’s had a headache all morning, listening to Susan ramble on and on, this time about some fantasy planet called Fersh where everything is wonderful and fabulous all the time and people prance around barefoot and don’t have to worry about things like stalkers and moving planets. Most of the time Donna likes Susan, but once in a while Susan will go off on one of her talking sprees, refusing to stop the chit chat until Donna’s head is aching and she has to step outside just to get some air. The headache gets worse now and she presses her fingers to her forehead. King Arthur and the 51st Century. She’s heard so much nonsense today. She’s starting to think that maybe John and Susan are perfect for one another.
“You could have just said it’s none of my business,” Donna says.
“Not as much fun,” he reasons. He’s watching her, concerned.
“Sorry,” she says. “It’s nothing. Headache.” She reaches for his hand and pulls him up off the bench. She thinks that it shouldn’t be this easy, being friendly with a man like John Smith.
**
“Is that some kind of uniform or something?” she asks him as they wait outside of the theatre. She’s never heard of the play, but he swears that she’ll love it.
“What?” he asks. “Do you think I should have worn a tuxedo?”
No one wears a tuxedo to the theatre, but the question sounds serious. She ignores it.
“You’re always wearing that same suit. Is it a uniform? For your job? What do you do, anyway?”
John looks down at his suit, tries to smooth out a few wrinkles. “What do I – I work for the bank,” he says. “Remember?”
“The bank,” Donna repeats. “Of course. How could I forget.”
John gives her a look. “It’s just a bank,” he says. “You don’t like this suit? I have a tuxedo. It’s a bit unlucky, but I could –”
She returns the look and his voice trails off. It starts to drizzle and the crowd outside the theatre squishes in under the awning. John grins at her as though getting to the theatre forty minutes early is loads of fun. When she doesn’t grin back, he asks her about the office.
“The agency’s been crazy lately. Everyone’s booking holidays for next spring, you know? Honeymoons and things. Susan’s been out with some sort of flu,” Donna says. “Poor girl. She asks about you though, even bedridden with fever. Told you she fancied you, all scrawny and self important. My boss though, Larry. Every night he’s trying to convince me to go out for drinks, go dancing.”
John makes a face when she mentions dancing.
“What was that?” she jokes and mimics the face. “You don’t dance? Or are you jealous?”
“Of course not,” he says and leans against the wall of the theatre. “Just don’t get too serious.”
“Serious? The man is older than my mother and has dandruff like you’ve never seen. Serious. What do you care anyway?”
“I don’t,” he says. “But – I was going to - I have this friend. A friend. He’s thinking about moving to London. If he does, I thought I’d introduce you.”
Donna laughs. “You’re playing matchmaker now?”
“Well,” he says. “My friend doesn’t know anyone in London. I thought you could show him around.”
The doors to the theatre open and the crowd starts pushing through at once in an attempt to get out of the rain. John’s grinning again as they get jostled around a bit in the crowd. He hands a doorman the tickets and once they’re inside he offers to check Donna’s coat, before they settle into their seats.
“When is this friend coming?” she asks, flipping absently through the program.
“I’m not sure,” he admits. He pulls his glasses from his pocket. “It’s all just an idea right now.”
“I guess I’ll make sure not to get serious with my old boss then.”
“I guess you better,” John agrees. He looks down at himself and brushes some lint from his knee before turning to her. “What’s wrong with this suit?”
**
He kisses her one night at a pub in Chiswick. She’s surprised, but she’s had three martinis and when his thin lips press against hers, she grabs his jacket and pulls him closer. It’s been a while since she’s done this. It seems like it’s been a while for him too. He’s not a bad kisser. He’s better at this than he is at a lot of other things.
“Doesn’t take much to get you to swing the other way,” Donna laughs and kisses him again. She’s already decided not to tell Veena about this.
“The other way?” John asks. His thumb is tracing circles in the bare skin of her arm.
“You’re gay, yeah?” She asks. “It’s okay. I mean, I guessed a while back.”
“Oh,” John says. “Okay.” He finishes the rest of his drink.
It happens again outside. She’s telling him about Japan, about the plans for her trip. She booked her tickets the day before and her granddad is so excited and then she isn’t talking, she’s kissing, being kissed, and her back is pressed to the brick wall and his hand cups her face as his tongue tastes her mouth.
“Get a room,” someone shouts, and she giggles against his lips, thinks the two of them are probably a pretty funny sight.
“We must look like an odd couple,” Donna says, closes her eyes when he doesn’t stop right away, when he leans in to taste the warm skin of her neck.
“Okay, sweet cheeks,” she laughs. “I think you’ve had enough to drink tonight. Let’s get you home.”
She has no idea where home is and so he walks her to her home instead.
“We’re here,” she says, though John’s been there before and surely remembers.
They stand there in the street for a moment until Donna breaks the silence.
“I’d say you could come in, but well –“ she gestures toward the house. She’s pretty sure she wouldn’t have asked him to come in even if she wasn’t still living with her mother. It just seems like the thing to say.
“Of course,” John says, as though he’s snapping out of a stupor. He leans in and kisses her one more time, just a quick press of lips. It’s awkward now and she thinks the alcohol must be wearing off for both of them. He presses a hand to her shoulder and then turns and begins walking back down the street.
Donna waits until he’s disappeared around the corner and then slips inside and is greeted by her mother who has rather obviously been peering out at the window.
“Who was that? Who were you with?” she asks.
“It was Veena,” Donna lies. She hopes her mother hasn’t been watching for long.
It’s the following afternoon before she remembers that John had been ordering Cokes the entire night.
**
It’s been three weeks since the nonsense at the pub. She’s seen him twice since then, waited for him to say something, do something, but he seems perfectly content to pretend that he was drunk enough that he’s forgotten the entire thing. Finally, she sets down her fork and says, “What is this?”
“What’s what?” he asks. He’s been talking about broccoli for the last ten minutes.
“Us,” Donna clarifies. She gestures toward the table, the restaurant, “this.”
John’s mouth drops open and then he shrugs and says, “We’re friends – companions. I don’t know. Does it have to be something?”
“Yes,” she says, and then changes her mind. “No. But it’s strange, you know? I mean, you do know that, right? That this is strange?”
“People meet in all sorts of strange ways,” he says.
“John, I’m thirty six years old and I’m afraid to tell my family that I still see you. And I don’t know why. Should I be? You show up and you hardly talk and when you do half of what you say is lies and the rest is nonsense and I still feel like I’ve known you for ages. You kiss me in a pub and then I don’t hear from you for days and when I do you pretend we were drunk, but you had nothing to drink. I worry about you. Should I?” She sighs and downs the rest of her glass of wine. “Sometimes you scare me. You make me feel like I’m going insane.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. He reaches out and rests a hand on her arm.
“Maybe we should stop this,” she says. She brushes his hand away and presses her fingers to her temples. Her head aches. John reaches out and pulls her hands away, folds them on the table and rubs them gently with his own.
He’s quiet, just sitting there holding her hands, and eventually Donna sighs and says, “Veena thinks you’re a government spy.”
“Really?” John smiles. “Must be a pretty exciting life I lead, yeah? What do you think?”
“I think you’re just a strange lonely man.”
John looks down but doesn’t disagree.
“When will you start telling me the truth?” she asks.
“Donna,” John starts. “I wish –“
He trails off and she knows the answer is never.
“I think you should stop following me,” she says. “Stop coming to see me. I can’t – we don’t work together.”
“We could,” he says, quietly. “Work together. We could work together wonderfully, I think. If we try.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to try.”
John nods and places a hand on her shoulder before leaving the restaurant.
**
Her headaches are getting worse. She sits at her desk and listens to Susan talk about the planet moving, about how they all survived the Daleks. Dalek. It’s such a nonsense word to Donna. Sometimes she thinks everyone is hallucinating but her.
“I don’t know how you could have missed it,” Susan laughs, now. It doesn’t sound like she was laughing six months ago when fifteen or however many planets suddenly appeared in the sky.
Donna doesn’t know how she missed it either, how she always seems to miss these things. She tries not to think about it too much. It makes her headaches worse.
She stays home a few days with the blinds drawn and the lights off. Her granddad makes her beans on toast and talks about the things they’ll see in Japan. He’s looking older. She worries about him. He doesn’t talk to her about aliens anymore, refuses to talk about it, but he still goes up to that hill every night, sits and stares at the stars.
She joins him sometimes, asks what he’s looking for. “Shooting stars,” he says and smiles at her. “Just shooting stars.”
It starts raining again. It rains for three days and Granddad is convinced it won’t stop for another month. On the third night of rain Donna looks out her window and sees John standing outside in the dark. Her stalker. She thinks again that if she was smart she’d call the police, but he’s not staring up at her, and something about the lone figure stops her from reaching for the telephone. He looks scared and completely lost standing there in the rain. She walks quietly down the stairs and opens the back door.
“Get inside,” she says. “You’ll catch your death.”
She’s rehearsed a list of things that she planned to say the next time they met. Plans to turn him away, stop this entire nonsense once and for all. Somehow she didn’t doubt that they would meet again. She didn’t really think for a moment that that restaurant would be the last time she saw him.
John’s clearly at least a little bit insane, and her mother seems terrified of him. This relationship, whatever it is, won’t end in anything good, no matter how much it feels otherwise sometimes when she’s with him. She has a script, but he looks so dejected and she forgets the words instantly. Instead she hugs him as though they’ve known each other for ages.
“What happened to you?” she asks. It could be anything.
She leaves him dripping in a chair and goes to fetch a cloth. She hands it to him and watches him press it to his face.
“I’ll make tea,” she offers and fills the kettle. She sets it on the stove and sits in the chair beside him.
“What is it?” she asks again.
“Sorry,” he says. He sighs and bunches the cloth in his damp lap. “I know – you think I’m strange and – I shouldn’t be here. I really shouldn’t.”
“Don’t worry about that now.”
“Rough day at work, you know?”
“At the bank?” she says. He seems genuinely upset and it doesn’t seem like the time to pry, to find cracks in the lies.
“Have you ever met someone and known exactly how things were going to end, exactly how it would go and you want to run, want to just stop it all before any of it happens, but you can’t. You can’t stop any of it.”
She’s not sure she does know how that feels. Looking back she thinks that she should have known how things would end with Lance, but she never felt that at the start. She never realized she was pushing too hard until it was much too late and he was gone.
“I don’t think so,” Donna says, honestly.
John nods.
“You met someone?” she asks. For a moment, half of a half of a second, she wonders if he’s talking about her. He isn’t, she knows. This is something else entirely.
“I was looking for someone else,” John explains. “I didn’t think – it’s a big universe, you know? Same century, yeah, but I didn’t think, not even for a second that I’d see her. I’m not ready for her.”
He isn’t making much sense and she reaches out and presses the back of her palm to his forehead. She expects him to be feverish, but his skin feels cool. He jumps a little at her touch, reaches out to take her hand, holding it in his own.
“John,” she says. He looks like he wants to tell her something and she leans in closer, crouched on the floor beside his chair.
He closes his eyes and then the distance between them and they’re kissing. His kisses are tentative, unsure, as though he thinks she might haul off and smack him at any moment. His hands still hold hers. Her free hand moves to his shoulder, grips his damp sleeve. She kisses him back and he makes a noise in his throat and moves closer when he realizes she doesn’t plan to pull away.
Eventually he releases her, their noses bumping a little as he turns his head from hers.
“You must be freezing,” she says. “You should stay. Dry off.”
“Your family –“ he protests, but he stands when she pulls at his arm and lets her guide him up the stairs. The house is quiet, asleep except for the two of them. She’ll have to smuggle him out in the morning, but they can cross that bridge when the time comes.
She pushes his damp jacket off his shoulders and hangs it on a chair.
“Thank you,” he says and it sounds like the most sincere thing he’s ever said to her. He hugs her, tight, as though he’s afraid she’ll disappear if he lets go. His body is cool and damp.
“I haven’t done anything, really,” she says.
He kisses her once, twice, and then releases her and turns away, apologizes, wipes a hand across his face and sighs.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he says again. “This isn’t fair to you.”
Donna smiles. “I’m a big girl,” she says. “I can look after myself.”
He doesn’t look like he believes her. His hair, usually sticking out everywhere, is damp and looks soft. She reaches out and touches it.
“Donna,” he says, and even her name on his lips is more familiar than their few encounters should warrant. “I think I’ve always needed you more than you needed me.”
“We hardly even know each other,” she says, but saying the words out loud doesn’t seem to stop her. She thinks it might, but there she is, only moments later, reaching for him and she’s the one doing the kissing now. He pushes at her clothes, removes her shirt and presses his mouth to the tops of her exposed breasts.
She knows this is a bad idea. She thinks about what the Donna who stood in Trafalgar Square shouting at a man in a suit would think if she could see herself now. She doesn’t think she cares. People meet in all sorts of strange ways and anyway, she’s thirty six and she’s been playing it safe her entire life. Where has safe got her? Resolved, she stops thinking about what she should do and concentrates on the moment instead, concentrates on John’s mouth, John’s hands, the taste of salt on John’s skin. His fingers fumble with her bra and she helps him, slides it off and lets it drop to the floor.
She unbuttons his trousers and pushes them down past his slim hips, wonders again about that suit. She’d been so sure that this was something that would never happen with them, something that neither of them could ever want and as he kisses her and pushes her toward her bed, she just can’t help but laugh at it all.
John grunts. It’s a question.
“Who would’ve thought we’d end up here,” she laughs.
John just smiles and slides her cotton pants to her ankles. She kicks then off her feet.
He seems to know exactly how she likes to be touched, exactly what to do to make her gasp, choke back the sounds that she doesn’t dare make with her mother sleeping right down the hall. She feels like a teenager again, sneaking Billy Davis in through the bedroom window. John smiles down at her and then bites his lip and thrusts deeper and her mouth opens in a silent groan. He clings to her, tries to memorize her, the sound of her voice, the smell of her hair, her skin. She grips his back, kisses his shoulder, the base of his neck as he moves above her. He stops then and shudders, collapses on her for just a moment. She presses her face to his damp hair.
“Did you -?” he asks and then trails off. His heart is beating so fast that it almost feels like two heartbeats pounding simultaneously. He pulls her closer. Three heartbeats now, she thinks.
He looks up at her and she shakes her head, says “that’s okay.”
He kisses her mouth, a languid kiss, slow, exploratory. His hand slips down between her legs and she gasps into his mouth.
“Donna,” he says, his lips forming the word against her skin, his fingers knowing exactly what to do. It isn’t long before she is holding back a cry, her back arching up against him in release. He kisses her once more, his body pressed against hers and there it is again, his heart. It’s slower now, and she still –
She presses a hand to his chest.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Your heart,” Donna says. Her head aches and she closes her eyes. These stupid migraines.
“Stop,” he says. He pulls her hand away and kisses her palm.
Her head is starting to pound and all she wants to do is sleep. “You can stay here,” she says. “When I was in school, there was this boy. Billy. He used to – there’s this tree outside and - have you ever snuck out a window?”
**
She doesn’t expect anything to change. She’s relieved when she wakes up the next morning and discovers that he’s already gone. And she’s not really surprised when one month passes, two, and she hears nothing from John Smith.
“You aren’t still seeing that man, I hope,” her mother occasionally frowns at her over breakfast. She never believed for a second that Donna was standing out in the street that night kissing Veena.
Donna’s mostly stopped thinking about him after the first month. She’s busy with work and her classes, her plans for Japan. The migraines have been getting worse. The pills her doctor gave her don’t seem to be helping.
Then two months after that night in the rain he walks up to her outside the Tae Kwon Do class she’s been taking with Veena. On this particular evening, Donna is there alone. John looks nervous and has an even more nervous looking man in tow.
“Donna,” John says. He reaches for her, to hug her, but she’s having none of that.
“Right,” he says, his arms flopping back to his sides. “You remember that bloke I told you about? My friend moving to London? This is – This is Lee McAvoy.”
Lee is tall and broad and looks enormous next to John Smith. He’s dressed like a normal human being, jeans and a soft looking shirt and he smiles at her and extends a hand. When he says her name he stutters.
“Welcome to London,” Donna says. He’s smiling at her and she thinks she could just stand there and watch him smile forever, but John clears his throat and she looks away from Lee McAvoy. “Well? Where have you been hiding?”
“I’ve been helping Lee here settle in,” John explains.
“For two months?”
“It was a – uh, a big move,” John suggests.
She turns back to Lee. “Where are you from?” She notices that she’s touching his arm and wonders when she started. She was right. His shirt is soft and she can feel the muscle of his arm underneath. She sees John eyeing her and pulls her hand away.
“I’m – the Sterling Sphere –“
“Liverpool,” John interjects.
“He doesn’t sound like he’s from Liverpool,” Donna notes.
“He’s moved around a lot,” John adds.
Lee smiles and Donna doesn’t care where he’s from. He asks her for her phone number, which is more than John has ever done. He gives her the address of his flat and promises to phone her and kisses her on the cheek before she leaves.
She sees what John’s doing. He’s running. It’s typical, male, and he’s giving her Lee as some strange consolation prize. Still, when Lee calls her she’s excited to hear his voice over the phone, and when he asks her to dinner she says yes immediately.
“You don’t have to spend time with me, you know,” she says when he shows up on her doorstep.
“Why wouldn’t I want to spend time with you?” He’s nervous and he stutters a bit on the first word. It’s sort of adorable, this huge broad man who has trouble just talking to her.
“You’re smooth, aren’t you,” Donna says, and Lee laughs.
Donna knows that her mother is watching from behind the curtains in the front window, spying, just as she has since Donna was 15. Usually Donna ushers her dates off in a rush. This time she lingers on the walk until she’s sure her mother has had a good look.
They go to see a film, Donna’s choice because Lee hasn’t heard of anything that’s playing.
“Did you live under a rock in Liverpool?” Donna asks.
Lee shrugs and says something about not having a television, but he’s staring at her mouth. He kisses her afterward, completely ignores her questions about the film, covers her lips with his instead. Donna’s stomach is full of butterflies and her toes tingle and she thinks she should probably thank that coward of a man, John Smith.
Part 2(/2)
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Date: 2009-02-09 01:38 am (UTC)I love the pace and the banter. Hehe and I loved that they weren't actually drunk- it was cola. ;)
Such a wonderfully written fic, I love it. Off to the next part!
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Date: 2009-02-09 03:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-12 12:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-09 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-06 10:27 am (UTC)