Work Text:
Donna Noble was like any other temp. She filed paperwork and made coffee and took phone calls. She was normal. Average, you could say. Most would. But not him. Not the mad man with the blue box. To him, she was the most important woman in the whole of time and space. She was the one who saved them all. She was too smart and wonderful for her own good. She was too important. And it came back to bite her. It bit her hard.
Donna Noble used to have adventures with a man in a blue box. She traveled through space and time, saving aliens and making the universe a better place. She brought with her smiles and lessons and wit. She brought the sun. But then things changed. She may have saved the whole of existence, but that came at a cost she wasn’t willing to pay. But pay she did, and now instead of a hero, we have stories of a hero.
It’s tragic, really. How a girl and a boy can meet and have adventures, have a story, and then suddenly have it taken away. Sad how a girl so desperate to be something, gets her dreams and then has to give them away. Gives the blue box to another girl, who can love and look after the Doctor. Even in her final moments of truth she knew that it couldn’t have lasted forever, even though she wanted it to. More than anything she wanted it to.
But crying and kicking and screaming would do her no good, and in her heart she knew she had to face the consequences like an adult. She had to give it away to save them both great pain. And so she did. She may have fought out of habit, but she went willingly. She knew she was supposed to forget. She knew the Doctor could- and would- go on without her, even if it hurt.
But she never really forgot. Some nights she wakes up confused and elated. She dreams of a big blue box that lands in her backyard and takes her away for the monotony of real life. She dreams of planets and stars and a mad man with a pin striped suit and red converse shoes. She dreams of Pompeii and a Library. She remembers creatures made of fat and giant wasps. But most importantly, she remembers a ghost. The echo of a laugh and the squeak of rubber soles running from danger. She remembers running. So much running.