Fic: Seeing Things 1/1

[wendymr]

Story: Seeing things
Author: wmr wendymr 
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Donna and others (I'm not going to give the full character list, as that would spoil what I hope will be at least a couple of surprises).
Rated: G
Spoilers: Inspired by leaks of characters returning for the end of S4, but the story itself is pure invention.
Summary: He’s supposed to be looking for Donna, not seeing imaginary faces in crowds.
  Written for sensiblecat, who needed fluff. Thanks, as always, to the wonderful dark_aegis for BRing :)



Seeing Things

Companions. All these centuries and they’re still the same. Still wandering off. Still needing to be rescued after wandering off too - Donna’s no different from any of her predecessors in that regard.

Scanning people on the street around him as he runs, he does a double-take as one face looks familiar. “Wotcha, mate!” A quick wave and a smile, and the man turns away.

He swings around, coat swishing at his heels, but the man’s already disappeared from view. Still. Couldn’t have been. It’s impossible. Mickey Smith’s in another universe.

And he’s supposed to be looking for Donna, not seeing imaginary faces in crowds.

Around another corner, and there’s no sign of her. Oh, he’s going to have words with her when he does find her. He said he’d be back soon. Half an hour, at most. And it was, what? Thirty-two minutes? Thirty-two minutes, and she’s disappeared. He told her not to wander off, and what did she go and do?

A car’s slowing down beside him, window rolled down. “Suggest you go that way, mate!”

He turns, arrested by the voice, but it’s already too late. The car’s speeding up again, window smoothly ascending. All he can see is the shape of a hand pointing left.

No way of checking, trying to confirm his suspicion that the speaker will have thinning, greyish-red hair over a balding scalp, blue eyes and an engaging smile. But that’s ridiculous too. Pete Tyler? Here? Nah. Just his imagination.

Understandable, perhaps - after all, in Earth’s timeline it’s two years to the day after Canary Wharf. Three, if he counts the year that he erased. But it’s still ridiculous. Pete and Mickey aren’t here. He didn’t see them, didn’t hear them. His imagination’s just going haywire.

All the same, he takes the left turning, into another suburban street full of Victorian terraces, a pub halfway down with a busy beer-garden. It is a warm June evening, of course.

If Donna’s gone off boozing, while he’s been worrying about her...

But there’s no sign of auburn hair in the garden. There’s the back of a dark head and a blue shirt that’s just a little familiar... nah. Jack’s in Cardiff. Why would he be here, in a London suburb, having a drink in an ordinary local pub? And if he were in a pub, he’d be with that young man he seems to have taken up with these days, wouldn’t he? Not with a woman, even if the man’s female companion does seem to be rather attractive, from the limited view he has of her profile, cast into shadow by the evening sun.

Then her head tilts and... it can’t be. Sarah-Jane?

Behind him, on the road, a horn blares, and he turns automatically to look. It’s nothing, and by the time he turns back the table’s empty. He searches the garden with his gaze, even goes into the pub to look, but there’s no sign of a couple who might have been Jack and Sarah.

But it wasn’t them anyway, so why is he even looking?

What’s wrong with him this evening? Seeing familiar faces everywhere he looks, yet they’re not here. Can’t be. Oh, Jack and Sarah could be, that’s definitely possible, even if not probable. They don’t even know each other, after all, do they? But not Mickey. Not Pete. That’s as impossible as Jackie being here. Or... or Rose.

Donna. That’s the priority. Find Donna.

He breaks into a run again, down to the bottom of the street, where there’s a corner shop. On a news-stand outside, the Evening Standard blares the rumour of the latest political scandal, one of Harriet Jones’ cabinet caught in an indiscretion. Next to it, someone’s stuck a flier for the local theatre, a production called Wolves in the Storm.

“Nah,” he mutters, shaking his head. Maybe he’s dreaming. That could be it. He pinches himself hard, but the resulting pain seems just to confirm that he’s awake.

“Donna.” He has to say her name aloud to make himself focus. All right. Now, right or left?

He looks left, then right - and, to the right, his gaze is caught by a glimpse of blonde hair. The woman’s got her hair tied back in a ponytail, and that too is familiar, just as her walk and the way she holds her head and shoulders is.

It can’t be. But there’ve been too many coincidences tonight.

“Jackie!” he shouts. “Jackie Tyler!”

She doesn’t look around, just keeps on walking. Yet again, he’s running, chasing after her. He’s not going to let her disappear, just as all the others have.

But she isn’t disappearing, just walking along the road as if she’s got every right to be here in this suburb of south-west London. And even that doesn’t make any sense. They’re at least ten miles from the Powell Estates. So why would Jackie be here?

Oh, this is ridiculous. He’s going to catch her up, run around in front of her and find that he’s looking at a complete stranger, who’s probably going to accuse him of stalking her or trying to mug her or something. Yet he’s still chasing her.

And he’s caught her, and he’s grabbing her shoulder, despite all the reasons why he shouldn’t, and he’s tugging her around...

...and it is Jackie, and she’s giving him an impatient look, as if to demand to know why it’s taken him this long to find her.

He could throw so many questions at her, from what are you doing here? and did I really see Pete and Mickey too? and taken to universe-hopping now, have you? to Where’s Rose? But, instead, he just flings his arms around her.

“Jackie?” he says at last, letting her go and just staring at her.

“Hello, Doctor.” Her smile definitely tells him that there’s plenty she’s not going to tell him. “See you haven’t changed. Still a lanky piece of string a good wind’d blow away. Still need a haircut.”

“And you’ve still got a mouth on you, Jackie Tyler,” he tells her, but he can’t stop smiling. “Never thought I’d say this, Jackie, but I’ve missed you.” He hugs her again, bending his head to drop a kiss on her forehead.

She’s grinning as he releases her this time. “Never thought I’d say it, but I missed you too.”

“But... but... but how?”

“Thought you were always the one with the explanations.” She nudges him with her elbow. “How’s it feel bein’ in the dark for once?”

Bloody frustrating, he wants to tell her, but there’s another more important question. “Rose...?”

Jackie just shrugs. “Thought you were lookin’ for someone?” She jerks her head across the road. “I’d find her if I were you.”

Her? Who? But he’s looking for Donna, not Rose. Though if Rose is here...

He looks, and for the first time since this wild-goose chase started he spots a flash of auburn hair disappearing down an alley. “Stay there!” he yells at Jackie, tearing across the road after his stubborn, impossible companion.

But when he looks back, Jackie’s gone.

***

He finds Donna sitting on a low wall at the edge of a space of waste ground next to someone else who shouldn’t be here, though it’s much less of a surprise to see Martha Jones in this neck of the woods than Jackie Tyler.

Martha waves. “Hi, Doctor.”

“Martha.” He smiles back at her; even after all that stuff with UNIT, she’s still and always will be a friend. It’s a matter of seconds to stride over to her and hug her, and then he turns his attention to Donna.

“Can I make it any plainer than don’t wander off?” he enquires lightly. “Or is there a different language I should be using if English doesn’t work?”

Donna just laughs. “Didn’t go far, did I? Besides, you can talk. Always disappearing, you are. Tell him, Martha.”

“Oh, yeah,” Martha says, laughing. “Like the time he rushed ahead and left me to get kidnapped on a planet five billion years in the future. An’ you should talk to Sarah-Jane, too. She’s got a few stories to tell.”

“Oi! Standing here!” he points out, jerking a thumb at his chest. “Right in front of you!”

“And you should hear Jack too,” Donna’s saying. “Though you probably have. Spent a few weeks in Cardiff with him, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” Martha giggles. “That was fun. Not as fun as it could’ve been, but... well, I am an engaged woman, after all.”

“You’re engaged, not dead,” an amused drawl comes from behind him. He’s not at all surprised when he turns around to see Jack standing there, that blue coat of his swishing at his heels and a huge smile on his face. “Hey, Doctor.”

“Jack. What’s going on?” And what other surprises are in store?

“Oh, we just thought we’d get a few friends together. You know, drop in and say hi, stuff like that. Since you’re so bad at keeping in touch.” Jack’s still grinning as he extends an arm theatrically to the side. Instantly, a small group emerges from behind a wall.

Pete. Mickey. Sarah-Jane. And Jackie again.

“I don’t understand,” he protests, even as he’s coming over, trying and failing not to break into a run. “Mickey? Pete? How?”

“Torchwood’s a lot cleverer than you give us credit for,” Pete comments with a sly grin. “And your friend Captain Harkness here’s got quite a few tricks up his sleeve.”

What did they do? And how much repair-work is he going to have to do? But right now that doesn’t even seem to matter, as he shakes Pete’s hand, pulls Mickey into a hug and leans in to kiss Sarah on the cheek, wrapping his arms around her. He stares at Jack for a long moment, trying to look stern, but failing miserably, before he grabs Jack and hugs him too. Jackie hauls him towards her, almost making him overbalance in the process, and plants a kiss on his cheek.

And that’s that, then, and he’s left looking at them, happy beyond belief to see them but at the same time so aware of the missing member of the old team. He’s about to ask - how is she, where is she, why didn’t she come with you, didn’t she want to come, when he hears it. A voice he thought he’d never hear again.

“Don’t I get a hug, too, then?”

They’ve moved aside, the little group in front of him, and there she is, standing there, just as beautiful as she was the last time he saw her, there on the beach, though this time her eyes are shining with happiness, not tears. Oh, her hair’s in better condition now, no roots showing, and she’s a little older and perhaps a bit more confident, but she’s still Rose and she’s here and grinning at him and why’s he wasting time just looking at her?

“C’mere.” And she’s in his arms and he’s swinging her off her feet and around as the world spins under his feet at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour and he feels it, feels every single movement of the Earth turning and Rose in his arms, time and the universe flowing around them.

He has to put her down eventually, and she’s still smiling up at him, and the rest of them, Mickey and Donna and Pete and Jackie and Martha and Jack, they’re all watching the two of them with expressions ranging from fondness to amusement.

“Betcha he won’t,” Mickey whispers.

“I won’t even take that bet,” Jack murmurs in response.

“I think he’ll surprise you,” Jackie says, and catches his eye, winking. “You’re on, you two!”

He winks back, then focuses all his attention back on Rose. Yes, the rest of them are there and he’s delighted to see them, and later he’s got to work out what they’re doing here and why and whether it’s safe for them to stay and who’s going to come travelling with him and who he’s got to say goodbye to again - just temporarily, he hopes. But now he’s got something more important to do.

“Rose Tyler,” he murmurs, reaching out and laying his palm against her cheek. “As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted...”

“Yeah?” She gives him an impish grin.

He leans in and presses a soft kiss against her lips. It’s not enough, but it’s a start. “I...” Yes, he can say it. Just this once, yeah? It’s really not that difficult, and if she can do it - well, he’s a Time Lord, isn’t he? He’s not going to be outdone by a mere human. “I love you.”

Her grin turns into a full-fledged laugh. “Quite right too.”

The last thing he hears, before hauling Rose back into his arms for a much more satisfying kiss, is Jackie, hands on hips, saying, “All right, then, you two - pay up!”

- end