reel me in pt. 6

[damalurbackup]

References lifted, as always, from that wholly remarkable book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Reel Me In (6/?). Ten/Rose, Donna, AU after 4x07. Previous parts here.
And if Doctor-Donna-friends meant that she had to live for three months in a world that had zeppelins overhead and hadn't heard of The Beatles, then that was what she'd do.

VI.

The Doctor's idea of "moving in" consisted of parking the TARDIS in the middle of their new flat.

"Look," Donna said. "We went to all this trouble to actually rent the place and think up a cover story, so the least you could do is actually live here."

The Doctor stared at her blankly.

"Alien," Donna sighed, and then badgered him into helping her move a bed into the flat's bedroom.

After a few days, though, he started to spill out of the TARDIS. Trinkets appeared in the bathroom, gadgets on the balcony, and one morning she woke to find that he'd disassembled the dishwasher and laid the parts out on the floor in what was supposed to be his bedroom. Well, it wasn't like he slept much anyway.

"What'd you take the dishwasher apart for?" she asked.

He peered at her over his glasses, his hands still working at the mass of wires held between them. She always found it disconcerting when he did that – demonstrated that he didn't have to look at something to understand it, or take it apart. "I needed the pieces," he said, as if it should have been evident.

"I figured that much out myself, thanks," Donna said. "Although I shouldn't put it past you to take apart appliances on a whim."

"It's for a Traalian Psychometric Memory Encoder. If I can manage to rig a touch-telepathic receptor, it might help us with...you know," he told her, and caught his tongue between his teeth as a part popped loose and sent a shower of bits and bobs to the floor.

"How we going to wash the dishes, then?"

"Hm? Why would you need a dishwasher to wash the dishes?"

"For crying – do you even listen to yourself talk? Why would we need a dishwasher to wash the dishes, he asks. Well, Space Man, you can do your own dishes, how about that."

"Dishes. Absotively. Would you bring me my screwdriver? It's just – " He grunted, wrenched his hands in opposite directions, and the mess he was holding began to smoke. Pretty impressive, Donna thought, especially considering that he didn't seem to have it plugged in to anything. "Just in the other room, in my coat pocket."

"Alright," Donna said. "I see how it is. Send the human to fetch for you." He didn't return the volley, though, instead entirely absorbed in his Traalian Memory whatsit.

It took her a good bit of searching to finally locate his coat; with the Doctor, "in the other room" could mean anything from "just over there, by the door" to "possibly by the TARDIS's swimming pool." The last place she thought to look in the flat itself was the hall closet, which was, of course, where it was, hanging from a pink wire hanger on an empty rack.

If nothing else, looking through the Doctor's pockets was always good for a laugh, and she didn't have anything else to do at the moment; her job at Rose's bookshop didn't start until tomorrow, and this London was disappointingly similar to her own London. An alternate universe should've been more exciting, in her opinion. Wasn't like she could go barging over to Rose's flat and start demanding information, either. Memory loss, according to the Doctor, was a tricky thing, and it might take them weeks or even months to unravel the mystery.

Donna hadn't hesitated when the Doctor asked her to come with him to this world, nor had she balked when he told her how long they might be stuck here. Because they were mates, weren't they, Doctor-Donna-friends, even if he was a dense alien git some of the time. If Doctor-Donna-friends meant that she had to live for three months in a world that hadn't heard of commercial airplanes or the Beatles, then that was what she'd do. And really, it was sort of romantic; she'd always been soft for a good love story.

She took his coat into her bedroom. There wasn't anywhere else to sit, except for the sole chair she'd hauled into the kitchen; despite her protests over the dishwasher, they ate most of their meals out or in the TARDIS. The bed, though, was a dream, soft and downy and big enough for four people. It wasn't the bed she normally slept on, but one she'd found in a spare room, although she might have to switch it with her old one when they finally packed up again.

The first thing she found in his pockets was the toy mouse he'd used on Messaline, immediately followed by the sonic screwdriver, an odd-looking die with twenty sides, and a pair of hollowed-out coconut halves. Next came a tin of beeswax, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet, the top half of a lava lamp, a scarf twice a long as she was tall, eight spare plugs, a calendar for the year 1976, a yellow orb that glowed faintly when she handled it, a drawstring bag filled with chips of cement, and what looked liked an immensely large and complicated calculator, snugged inside a cover emblazoned with the words "DON'T PANIC" in large, friendly letters across the front.

And then she found a list.

She turned it over, curious; someone had scribbled it on the back of a half-sheet of schematics for a spaceship. The odd line had been composed in the curling symbols the Doctor used on his sticky notes, but the majority, though shaky and smeared, was written in plain English.

"Number one," Donna read to herself. "From base of the carpals to tip of the distal phalange on the digitus medius, her hand is twenty-two millimeters shorter than mine. Why would he make a list of..." And only then did she see the title, scrawled under a row of the alien symbols:

Things to Remember about Rose.

She was tempted. She was tempted, but she did what any friend would: Moved his bookmark in A Study in Scarlet forward thirty pages, set aside his screwdriver to bring him when he finally lost patience and bellowed for it, stole the beeswax to use on her cuticles –

And returned the list to his pocket without reading another word.


next.

Comments

[falulatonks]

Clicked on your doctor/rose tag in Thimblerig and found this little gem - I love the humour and the warmth the characters have for one another here, and this chapter just proved it, what with Doctor-Donna-friend and all. ♥ It's fantastic. I love their friendship so much, it's what killed me about Journey's End.

And parts of this story crack me up - it's so freaking in-character! I lost it for a minute or so because I imagined this line in CT's voice and it was perfect: For crying – do you even listen to yourself talk? Why would we need a dishwasher to wash the dishes, he asks.

Perfect!! I love the intriguing spin on Rose forgetting - like Donna in JE, isn't it? Can't wait for more. I hope you don't mind me coming in here out of nowhere. :/

[damalur]

Thank you! I'm so glad you like this, because it is completely taking over my head. Someday, I may even edit the scenes together into chapters. *g*

And no, feel free to lurk or friend or whatever you want!

[falulatonks]

DO IT!

And I may just have to take you up on that friending thing! :D

[nurse-stiney.livejournal.com]

LOL, as if Donna couldn't be any more awesome than canon, you've gone and captured her brilliantly here.
As well as Ten, of course. LOL at the contents of his pockets, and ::GIANT SNIFFLES OF ANGST:: at the Rose list. ::wibbles::
Definitely looking forward to more! I love your fast little updates: it's like a really good piece of chocolate in the midst of this Finals Week HELL. :D

[damalur]

Thank you! I am glad to provide chocolate-like fic in the midst of finals - writing this has been my escape from studying lately. :)