Fic: Making Do (1/1)
Title: Making Do
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ten/Donna
Word Count: 546
Summary: Of course he’s trying, but without someone - without her - he never quite managed to make do. Spoilers for Doctor Who 4.17 - The End of Time, Part One.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: Given the amount of time I’ve been away from this pairing, this fandom, I’m going to apologize if I’m rusty as anything. I’d finally decided to dust off my old multi-chaptered Doctor/Donna WIP just this past week (because even if I highly doubt anyone minds whether it gets done or not by this point, I absolutely hate leaving things unfinished if I can avoid it), but then I was watching the new special, and... yeah. This happened. If it’s terrible, and absurd, and makes no sense, just pretend it was a “bad dream” at the end of the world, yeah? ;)
Making Do
Of course he’s trying, but without someone - without her - he never quite managed to make do.
And now, because every memory he curses just as deeply as he cherishes, buried in the shadows of his soul, is a memory she can never know - and that, too, is a memory damned, and damned alone; because she knows his face like the back of a penny: familiar, yet nondescript, earth-shattering in the same way the sunrise is; because she wears another man’s ring when she’d worn his first, it doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing does.
She’s starting to remember.
Because he’d pushed too hard, because he’d forgot his place, forgot what it was she really meant when she’d asked him to save people, to change things, what she’d taught him when they’d tried - because he’d forgotten her, unforgivable sin that it is, she’s starting to remember.
It doesn’t matter what he does, how he tries to change it; she’s only dying by his hand, yet again.
But he’s lost too much, too many; two hearts, and enough had been taken from them, chinked away bit by bit, that this final blow would be too much, too dire - he can’t imagine a world without Donna Noble.
And he wonders, in that vast ocean of blond, in that cacophony of leering, taunting laughter - in itself more maddening, it seems, than the sound of any drum - just how one saves a planet, saves the one life more precious than a world.
It mends entire planets.
Just set the template.
Entire populations.
He wonders at the consequences for the briefest moment in time; he cannot see what this will mean, what this will do - whether or not it’s been done already. He should be cautious, should be terrified. His hearts should be racing - and heavens know they are - but it’s not fear for himself that trembles in his chest. Not himself.
Entire species.
His days are numbered; he’ll take his chances.
Entire peoples.
Only; was there enough Time Lord in her to make it work?
But she saw them change, Wilf had said so. She’d seen them change, but she hadn’t changed herself.
He swallows a chuckle like a sob in his throat, but his hearts - for the first time in too long without her; his hearts smile.
She hadn’t changed; never would.
But would it be enough?
He grins the sort of grin that makes a million Harold Saxons turn and take note; when he steps between the panels, lets the light engulf him, prays the prayer of a desperate man that the calibrations are sound - when he breathes, and his eyes slide shut, chest heaving in a sea of vibrant, fluctuating blue: it’s already too late, already done.
Would she be enough?
She always had been.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ten/Donna
Word Count: 546
Summary: Of course he’s trying, but without someone - without her - he never quite managed to make do. Spoilers for Doctor Who 4.17 - The End of Time, Part One.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: Given the amount of time I’ve been away from this pairing, this fandom, I’m going to apologize if I’m rusty as anything. I’d finally decided to dust off my old multi-chaptered Doctor/Donna WIP just this past week (because even if I highly doubt anyone minds whether it gets done or not by this point, I absolutely hate leaving things unfinished if I can avoid it), but then I was watching the new special, and... yeah. This happened. If it’s terrible, and absurd, and makes no sense, just pretend it was a “bad dream” at the end of the world, yeah? ;)
Making Do
Of course he’s trying, but without someone - without her - he never quite managed to make do.
And now, because every memory he curses just as deeply as he cherishes, buried in the shadows of his soul, is a memory she can never know - and that, too, is a memory damned, and damned alone; because she knows his face like the back of a penny: familiar, yet nondescript, earth-shattering in the same way the sunrise is; because she wears another man’s ring when she’d worn his first, it doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing does.
She’s starting to remember.
Because he’d pushed too hard, because he’d forgot his place, forgot what it was she really meant when she’d asked him to save people, to change things, what she’d taught him when they’d tried - because he’d forgotten her, unforgivable sin that it is, she’s starting to remember.
It doesn’t matter what he does, how he tries to change it; she’s only dying by his hand, yet again.
But he’s lost too much, too many; two hearts, and enough had been taken from them, chinked away bit by bit, that this final blow would be too much, too dire - he can’t imagine a world without Donna Noble.
And he wonders, in that vast ocean of blond, in that cacophony of leering, taunting laughter - in itself more maddening, it seems, than the sound of any drum - just how one saves a planet, saves the one life more precious than a world.
It mends entire planets.
Just set the template.
Entire populations.
He wonders at the consequences for the briefest moment in time; he cannot see what this will mean, what this will do - whether or not it’s been done already. He should be cautious, should be terrified. His hearts should be racing - and heavens know they are - but it’s not fear for himself that trembles in his chest. Not himself.
Entire species.
His days are numbered; he’ll take his chances.
Entire peoples.
Only; was there enough Time Lord in her to make it work?
But she saw them change, Wilf had said so. She’d seen them change, but she hadn’t changed herself.
He swallows a chuckle like a sob in his throat, but his hearts - for the first time in too long without her; his hearts smile.
She hadn’t changed; never would.
But would it be enough?
He grins the sort of grin that makes a million Harold Saxons turn and take note; when he steps between the panels, lets the light engulf him, prays the prayer of a desperate man that the calibrations are sound - when he breathes, and his eyes slide shut, chest heaving in a sea of vibrant, fluctuating blue: it’s already too late, already done.
Would she be enough?
She always had been.