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Sometimes Donna wondered if they spent more time in alien prison cells than anywhere else, including the TARDIS.
"Here we are again," the Doctor said cheerfully and sat down on the narrow bed.
Donna crossed her arms, not feeling much like interrupting her gloom to answer.
"Too bad they took my screwdriver again. I should make a secret pocket for it," he added.
"It's not like it worked the last time anyway." Donna sighed. "That thing is completely useless most of the time."
The Doctor looked hurt. Insulting his flashy Time Lord gadgets always did seem like a personal affront to him. Maybe it was a bit mean, but she had really been looking forward to the hot wells of Kalla, and the only thing worse than ending up in a prison cell was ending up in a prison cell in a bathing suit.
"Give me your coat," she said. He looked momentarily confused and she sighed. "You threw my clothes into a volcano!"
"We were running for our lives, if you remember!"
Donna gestured to the room around them.
"All right," the Doctor conceded. "Not for our lives, maybe. Our dignity. Our fervent desire for not having to spend the night in a place like this."
"That was my favourite bra too," Donna muttered. "Do you know how hard it is to find good bras?"
"Yes, well, had an accident once with a body-swapping machine. Never operate heavy machinery while under the influence of Neptunian Ale."
Donna gave him a Look. Half the time she didn't know if he was serious or just winding her up. "You owe me," she said.
"Probably," he agreed and shrugged off his coat. "For many, varied reasons."
"Bloody right you are." She wrapped the coat around herself. "I can't believe I'm in a prison cell, in a bathing suit. That's got to be a new low."
"I don't think it's so much a prison cell as it's a dungeon."
"Yeah, that's helping things."
"It's not so bad," the Doctor said. "The bed is quite comfortable."
She slumped down next to him, sighing deeply, and she might not admit it, but it wasn't entirely uncomfortable. "My point still stands. Bathing suit. In a dungeon. It's like a bad joke, and I don't appreciate being the punch line."
"Donna Noble," he said and grinned. "You make an excellent punch line."
"You what?" she said suspiciously, not quite sure if it was an insult or a compliment.
"I just meant you're..." he paused as he seemed to consider how to continue.
"Oi, you better be really careful with where you're going with that sentence," she said, eyes narrowing.
The Doctor was saved from having to come up with an appropriate word by the heavy wooden door to their prison cell/dungeon being shoved open. A guard entered, pointing some kind of alien ray gun at them. "Our Benevolent Queen and Spiritual Leader, the Wondrous Goddess of Magnificence, will see you now."
In Donna's experience, 'benevolent' was often code for something very much not. "The Wondrous Goddess of Magnificence? Really?" she said, glancing at the Doctor. "She sounds delightful."
Of all the shapes and sizes Donna had imagined the Benevolent Queen and Spiritual Leader, the Wondrous Goddess of Magnificence would come in, a small, blonde Time Lady was not it.
"Dad! Donna!" Jenny exclaimed, springing up from her throne and throwing her arms around Donna's neck so hard the sparkling crown on her head almost fell off.
The Doctor looked a bit like someone had hit him really hard in the head.
"Last time I checked you were not a queen, a spiritual leader or a goddess," Donna said, holding Jenny at arms' length and scrutinising her carefully. She was a little older, but she still had the same brilliant smile.
Jenny beamed as brightly as ever. "All I did was suggest they shouldn't go around killing each other and next thing I knew they were building statues of me."
At this point the Doctor briefly awoke from his stupor. "You died," he said, pointing an accusatory finger at her. "You were dead. I, you, I... you died!"
Jenny shrugged cheerfully. "I got better."
"Let's face it, Spaceman," Donna said. "It's not the strangest thing we've seen."
The Doctor was still looking a bit shell-shocked.
"I tried to find you," Jenny said, "but the universe is very big, and very distracting."
"You've done very well for yourself," Donna said to cover up the Doctor's inability to emote. "I bet no one's ever built statues of him." She gestured towards the Doctor.
"Yes," Jenny said, looking troubled suddenly. "I thought it would be fun, but it's actually a bit boring just sitting around being in charge. There's not nearly enough running."
Oh, she was the product of the Doctor's genes, all right. "Well then, that's settled. You're coming with us."
Of course, the aliens don't want their Benevolent Queen and Spiritual Leader, the Wondrous Goddess of Magnificence to leave (who would?) and they end up having to leg it out of there. Running in a bathing suit, as Donna had discovered before, was only marginally better than getting thrown into a dungeon in a bathing suit.
Jenny certainly seemed to be having a good time of it, though. So now there were two people with an affinity for running in the family. Donna didn't object to running on principle, not when there were aliens chasing them. It just seemed terribly unnatural to get so much enjoyment out of it.
When Donna woke up the next morning, there was a space ship blocking the way to the kettle.
She found the Doctor in the console room, the only part of him visible his long legs sticking out from under the console. She nudged his Converse with her foot. "Doctor," she said. "Are you alive?"
He crawled out, his hair sticking out in every way as if he'd had an electric shock down there. "Donna, I told you. The green water is completely harmless, and I'm working on it."
"Not that. Why is there a space ship in the kitchen?"
"It's a shuttle, not a space ship. And it's Jenny's. She didn't want to leave it behind."
"No, Doctor. Why is it in the kitchen?"
The Doctor didn't look like he quite understood what she was trying to get at. "It would have been in the way in the console room."
"How big is the TARDIS again? Did you have to put it just where I have my breakfast? Wait, hang on, how did you even get it into the TARDIS? The door is tiny."
"It's, uhm. "The Doctor tugged on his earlobe. "It's better if you don't think about it."
Donna glared at him.
He seemed to sense her annoyance. "I'd love to explain, I would, really," he said. "It's just that it usually makes you lot throw up a bit. Your brains aren't made to bend that way."
Donna snorted, putting her hands on her hips. "My brain can bend in ways you can't even imagine, Time Boy."
She really wished that hadn't come out sounding like a proposition.
"Oh, just move it somewhere else, not my room," she said, wrapping the robe tighter around herself, and she left to have a shower in weird, green water.
Things weren't entirely problem-free, of course.
The Doctor had been devastated when Jenny died, but the reality of actually having a daughter on the TARDIS wasn't as easy as Donna suspected it had been in his rose-coloured dreams.
She looked up from her book. "The nurse-maid just threw herself out of a window of the Orient Express, this better be important."
"She brought home a T-Rex!" the Doctor said, gesturing wildly.
Jenny pouted. "It was just a baby. It's not like there's no room."
Donna sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Doctor, do I have to remind you about the time you brought home a 'harmless' plant that tried to eat me?"
He crossed his arms. "That was entirely different."
Sometimes they were just too much alike.
Then, there was Jenny's... pragmatic attitude towards violence.
The prison guard landed at their feet with a thud. "Hullo!" Jenny said. "Nice to meet you. Don't kill people."
The Doctor did not look happy. "Jenny!"
"What? I didn't kill him."
No, she was very careful about that. The Doctor had definitely made an impression on Messaline. But the kid was a flipping martial arts genius and she'd been on her own for a long time. Her lines of self-defence were a little bit less narrowly drawn than the Doctor's.
He didn't approve.
Donna thought it was quite convenient. "It does help a lot of time," she said when they were back in the TARDIS. "She's like a body guard. A very tiny body guard."
"She's not a body guard, she's my..." he trailed off, and then gave Jenny another hard look. "No fighting."
"Daughter," Donna said. "You can say it."
"Daughter," he agreed, his voice going a bit softer for a moment, before he settled back into a stern frown. "Go to your room."
Donna sighed.
He was a bit rubbish at everything.
Well, there was one thing he was rather good at. Getting himself, and by extension Donna, in trouble.
"You and your big mouth," she said, crossing her arms and leaning back against the wall. "I can't believe you got us imprisoned again."
The Doctor sat down on the floor beside her, his arm nudging his. "I was only trying to explain to them--"
"They were all set to let us go, and then you started talking. Talking and getting us into trouble, those are your special talents, aren't they? We should have brought Jenny. Her special talents are actually useful."
"My talking has got us out of a lot more trouble than it's got us in," the Doctor protested.
"No," she said, pushing at him with her shoulder. "Nothing good ever comes out of your mouth."
"I'll have you know, my mouth is useful for plenty of things." He paused, suddenly turning a bit pink. "I mean, that didn't come out right."
She'd thought about it. Of course she had. Maybe you shouldn't be thinking about your best friend like that, but it was really rather hard not to, considering all the gymnastics he had his tongue perform on a regular basis.
He licked everything.
Before she had the time to think too much about it she grabbed his coat and pressed her lips to his. They were softer than she'd have given him credit for, a contrast to the rasp of his skin, and there you go. His mouth was actually rather good sometimes.
"Oh," he said when they parted.
He looked so positively gob-smacked that she laughed and smacked his arm. "Don't get any ideas."
"I... no. I won't." His face changed to look just like he had after she'd killed his people-eating plant (in self-defence!) with her shoe.
"I have some standards, you know," she said.
"Of course you do," he said softly. "Standards are good to have."
"I'm not going to shag you in a dungeon."
He opened and closed his mouth, looking somewhat like an adorable fish. Turning his gaze forward he blinked rapidly, and then he turned back to her again.
He leaned in closer, giving her a very serious look. "Actually," he said, his breath hot on her cheek. A sudden draft gave her goosebumps. "Actually," he said again, "I think you'll find this is more of a prison cell."
Her mouth dropped open.
The cheek.
"A prison cell?" she said, quirking an eyebrow.
He backed away a little, as if expecting a slap.
"Well," she continued, bringing her face closer to his, "that changes everything."
It wasn't exactly the most romantic place in the universe, but on the other hand, her sense of romance had been getting really skewed since she started travelling with the Doctor.
Jenny looked around the prison cell curiously. "This isn't so bad."
"I think I liked the last one better," Donna said.
"You weren't the one getting bit by that rat," the Doctor said.
That was true. She'd also had a lot more clothes on than he had when the guards had come to bring them to their trial.
"You didn't mention anything about dungeons when you told me about travelling with my dad," Jenny said. "But we seem to be in them a lot."
"Obviously some form of selective amnesia," Donna muttered, crossing her arms.
"I was very good at rescuing civilisations, saving planets and running," Jenny said. "If you'd told me about the dungeons I'd have made sure to have visited a few of those too."
"Don't worry," Donna said, giving the Doctor a dark glare. "You have his genes; I'm sure you're a natural talent."
Jenny frowned. "So maybe I shouldn't have," she said, opening her hand to reveal silvery metal resting on her palm, "stolen back the sonic screwdriver?"
The Doctor beamed at her with fatherly pride. "Oh no," he said, eyes sparkling now, "because the best thing about dungeons, is breaking out of them!"
And so what if said breaking out involved crawling through waste disposal canals. It wasn't exactly Donna's favourite thing to do, but it was worth it for some father-daughter bonding.
The Doctor would never admit it, of course, but things were a bit brilliant with Jenny around. For one thing, it meant they could take a holiday every now and then, and leave the world in someone else's hands.
Generally speaking, Donna preferred to spend her holidays outside of dungeons, but that's because most of them didn't come with a built-in spa.
Donna sipped her not-quite-Margarita. "We should probably at least make an attempt to break out."
There was a pause before the Doctor's head popped up between the long rows of books on the other end of their cell. "Absolutely. Definitely. At some point."
"I suppose we could let Jenny handle things," Donna said. "Just for a short while."
"It would be good practice for her," the Doctor agreed.
After all, what were kids for?