Part 2.d: Poison

The next morning, the Doctor realised that Donna's massage had actually helped to cure his backache. Sure, it had also paralysed him for a few hours, but who was he to complain about that, as long as his back felt better? He should properly thank Donna, he decided and hopped out of his bed.
Yup, he was as good as new, except a minor headache that steadily buzzed through his skull.
It had appeared right after Donna had left him in the med bay; alone with the realisation that somehow he'd been silly or careless enough to fall for his companion.
This memory was enough to make the Time Lord want to crawl back under his sheets. Of course he couldn't. Donna would start worrying and come looking for him and the imagination of having his ginger companion here in his bedroom… Not that the mere presence of a bed could destroy centuries of clear constraints, but it was enough to give him all kinds of funny ideas. No. This was a risk he wasn't willing to take.
Waving his cheerful mood good-bye, the Doctor entered his bathroom.
Distraction was the keyword. He was good at distracting himself from serious emotional issues and eventually he'd just forget about it. He would simply bring them to a place where they would have to run a lot, if he was lucky something would even explode. It wasn't much of a plan, but it was everything he had.

Prepared and decently dressed, he strolled down the corridors to the control room where Donna was already waiting. She was sitting on the jump seat, thumbing through a magazine. Today she had tied her ruby hair back in a side ponytail that softly rested on her right shoulder. It was exposing just enough of her pale neck to make the Doctor smile despite his gloomy mood. He was unable to keep his bad temper whenever Donna was around. How had he been able to put those feelings down to friendship? And how could he go back to making himself believe that? Because he really wished he could return to his earlier blindness.

"You're already up?" he finally got himself to enter the control room. It was rare that Donna was waiting for him to go somewhere instead of vice versa.
"Yes, since hours, you sleepyhead," Donna replied and closed the magazine. Then she turned around to look at him. "I wasn't sure if you would get up at all today."
"You told me to sleep it off properly, and who am I to disagree with my Donna?"
"Your Donna?" she asked cheekily.
Oh, bugger.
"I, err-," he stuttered but Donna just shrugged it off with a grin.
"Meh, I suppose I am. Kind of. That makes you my Spaceman then, huh?"
"I think so," he agreed with a big smile.
Pull yourself together! You're acting like a goopy teenager.

"A-anyway, where are we going today? A new planet? An ancient time? A spaceship? Oh, I feel spaceship-y today!"
Where everything will hopefully explode and I have no time to think about us.
"Wherever you want," Donna giggled.
"Molto bene," he kicked the TARDIS alive with an exited grin and spun around, flicking lever and pushing buttons.
"Does that mean my massage-attempts haven't left any major damage?" she asked amused.
"Nope. I feel wonderful, all thanks to you, Miss Noble."
Donna shrugged his gratitude off, but the Doctor wouldn't let her get away that easily.
"I mean it. I feel great, and once this headache is gone, I'll be good as new."
"That doesn't sound like you've completely cured it!" Donna objected.
"It's nothing, I just need some fresh air," he said and regretted to have mentioned it in the first place.
"Right, because spaceships are so full of fresh air with their rusty air-cons," Donna pointed out, annoyed. "If you overexert, you'll relapse."
"I'll taken an ibuprofen if that makes you feel better," he offered, not ready to spend any more time in bed.
Donna let out a deep sigh.
"Make sure to get the time right, I'll get you some from the med bay. If there are any left, mind you! You've been eating them like smarties lately."
"Thank you," replied, ignoring the accusation in her voice and watched her vanish in the depths of the TARDIS. His brilliant companion. Always worried about him...
"Screw this, I need to tell her!"

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Donna had just meant to mock the Doctor, but in the med bay she realised that he'd really used up all the pain pills. Sure, they'd been running low on them anyway, but it still confirmed her believe that the Doctor had better spent another day in bed.
Annoyed, Donna left the med bay again - maybe she had something else to cure his headache.
She wasn't entirely sure why she bothered anyway. Judging by the way he had been bouncing around the control panel like the big child he was, he didn't seem to be in much agony. Nevertheless… she knew she wouldn't be able to ignore it. If she didn't do anything about it, she would worry about him all day long and end up with a headache herself, and this annoyed her even more.

She tried to remind herself that the Doctor was older than her, that he was the one who had seen war and destruction and whatnot and that a little pounding in his head was hardly worth mentioning, but that only managed to make her sad. Donna didn't like to think about all those horrible things that had happened to him in the time before they met and before she had been be there to look after him. It was pathetic and pointless, since most of the things he'd been through would have been horrible anyway, with or without her around. She knew that, but it was still painful to think about it…

Oh hell. When had she fallen for her Spaceman? They had agreed on the just-mates-thing and Donna had hoped she would be able to keep it like that, but now… Angrily she shook her head as if she hoped those feelings would simply fall out of her mind like this. Whatever happened, she wouldn't allow those thoughts to alter their friendship. The last time she had felt like this, she had ended up in the web of a giant spider. Not that she believed the Doctor would go and kill her, but then again, blokes had the annoying habit of changing into homicidal jerks once Donna started dating them.
No. They were mates. Here and now. And here and now he had a headache. A complaint she could actually assuage.
She always had some painkillers in her purse in case of unexpected cramps. Those probably would help curing a headache, too, she reckoned.
"He better be grateful that I share my private stock with him," she mumbled and fetched the white box from her bag.
Aspirin was somewhat difficult to get out in space.

Donna returned into the control room with a big glass of water that was still fizzing with the aspirin.
"To your health," she said and handed him the glass. "Drink up."
"What would I do without you?" the Doctor asked smiling and brought the bubbling water to his lips.
"I never ever want to find out," Donna thought, but simply shrugged.
She wouldn't tell him about her inner struggle. Not wanting your best friend to die was a natural thing and nothing she would have felt silly about, but yesterday while he had been unconscious and she had been afraid she'd seriously harmed him? The way this fear had all but physically hurt her was nothing she wanted him to know about. She just wanted to make sure she'd never feel like that again…

"By the way, you actually did use up all your ibuprofen," she informed him casually, just to try if her voice was still working.
The Doctor licked his lips and lowered the empty glass with a frown on his face.
"And what did I just drink?" he wondered bemused.
"My anti-cramp-medicine. You're welcome, by the way."
"Hmm… tastes funny," he mumbled and staggered backwards. The frown on his face was deepening while he tried to figure what was wrong with his body.
"Does it make you feel light-headed, too?" he asked and squinted his eyes as if looking ahead had suddenly become more difficult than he remembered it.
"Not really," Donna replied slowly. "It's no hard stuff, just aspirin."
The Doctor's face lost all colour and the glass slipped from his hand to shatter on the ground.
"What's wrong?!" Donna exclaimed and jumped away from the pieces of broken glass that flew around. Instead of an answer the Doctor made a gagging noise and pressed his hand in front of his mouth then he dashed past a completely shocked Donna.

She stood there, petrified, and tried to wrap her head around what had just happened. There it was again. This feeling of having missed something crucial, something that would tell her what was wrong with him. It was an ice-cold feeling that spread in her chest, squashing her lungs, and almost choking her.
Just like yesterday.
But this was different, Donna realised and spun around to where the Doctor had vanished. He wasn't unconscious so she could at least talk to him.

Shaking herself out of the paralysis, she ran after him. The room he'd vanished in was the kitchen.
"What is wrong?!" she repeated her question before she had fully entered the room. When she stepped inside she found the Doctor frantically searching the kitchen. Shelves and the fridge were wide open and grocery was spread on the floor in one big mess.
"It's just aspirin!" she tried to calm him, or maybe tried to remind herself that she couldn't possibly be to blame for his distress.
"Chocolate!" he chocked, ignoring Donna's objection. "Do we have any left?! I need chocolate!"
This seemed a bit much ado for a sudden craving, Donna thought. Actually it looked more like another detox-situation…
"N-no, just some couverture," she stuttered and pointed at the shelf next to the Doctor. He spun around, throwing flour and cake pans to the ground until he finally found the couverture bar and stuff it into his mouth in one piece.

Once it was gone, the Doctor slid down on the shelves. Shaking wildly, he sat there, trying to chew and gag at the same time and, in between, he gasped for air. Donna gaped at the sight in front of her and managed to ask:
"W-what was that?"
The Doctor finally swallowed the big lump of chocolate down.
"That was me, trying not die," he replied very short of breath.
"Die? From aspirin?" Donna wondered, too flabbergasted by the whole situation to even realise what they meant while saying "die".
"Of course, die!" he snapped and she backed off, taken aback by how furious he sounded. "Aspirin's poisonous to me! It causes massive allergic, pulmonary and cerebral embolism and can even interfere with the hormone receptor intermediaries!"
Slowly the meaning of his words reached Donna and she realised the truth about the word "die". Not the kind of "die" they used ever day, not the playful kind for when things got a little bit risky, but the serious kind of "die" like in "gone forever" which she had refused to understand the first time. Together with this realisation another fact came tumbling down on her.
"I nearly killed you," she mumbled more to herself to try how those words sounded and if they would make more sense once they were out… they didn't, they still sounded ridiculous in this combination.
"Oh god, I had no idea…!"
"That's why I have none in the med-bay, you must have recognised that!" he retorted. "Are you sure you had no idea? Lately you're doing a good job at unknowingly nearly-killing me."
Donna clapped her hand in front of her mouth to hold back the sob that wanted to escape and shook her head. She wanted to tell him that she really had had no idea and how sorry she was, but instead of an answer she spun around and fled the kitchen… and his glare.

She was almost out of the TARDIS's door, when she remembered they were still somewhere in the vortex and she had no way to escape. Turning around, not knowing where to go or what to do, the fragments of the shattered glass caught her attention and she started picking them up, eager to do anything remotely useful.
With a trembling hand, she collected the pieces in her palm and tried to figure what on earth had just happened. Minutes ago she had been here to help him. She had loathed the idea of him suffering and then everything had gone askew and she'd almost killed him.
What if he hadn't been able to save himself? She wondered and her view blurred with tears.
By now, she was able to fly the TARDIS home on her own. She wouldn't have died here. So why did she feel panic choking her?
She wouldn't have learned that it had been her fault he had died. So why did she feel so miserable?
It took her a while to realise that the mere idea of him gone, tore at her heart.
"Ouch!" a pain shot through her palm and Donna opened her hand that she'd unknowingly clenched to a fist around the bits of broken glass. God, she really was useless. Carefully she removed a fragment that had bored into her skin and sharply sucked in some air.

"Donna?" the Doctor asked from behind her and Donna froze in her move.
"There you are," his voice sounded soft. He wouldn't sound like that if he was about to chuck her out… what else could he want?
He walked around his companion to look at her face. He'd expected to find her crying, but not bleeding.
"What happened to your hand?!" he gasped and crouched down to her to have a look at her palm. She pulled her hand away from his touch with a sorrowful look.
"Don't," she whispered. The last thing she wanted was him to treat her injury after what she had done. The Doctor mistook her remorse for hurt feelings.
"I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have said those things," he said. "I didn't mean any of it, I was just- I was in shock and took it out on you, Donna."
"You were right," she replied.
"No I wasn't."
"You were," she insisted. "Maybe you didn't want to say it, but that doesn't mean you were wrong. I almost killed you."
"But you didn't know," he objected with a little laugh, trying to show her how ridicules it was to believe she could have known it. Bitter about her own silliness, Donna avoided his look and returned to pick the broken glass up.

"Donna," he pressed, helplessly watching his stubborn companion trying to tidy his mess up with her bleeding hand.
"Donna. Donna!" he carefully took her wrists to make her stop and listen to him.
"You didn't know. It was a misunderstanding. That happens between different species. I had to learn all your human weaknesses the hard way, too."
She looked at him without raising her head, but at least he had caught her attention.
"It was horrible!" he told her. "My first companion? I nearly-killed her umpteenth of times. Ever day! Humans are not bulletproof? Huh, you live and learn."
This managed to make Donna smile a tiny smile which the Doctor happily replied.
"You're lying to make me feel better," she mumbled.
"I'm just a bit… overdrawing it, but you get the picture. Did it work? To make you feel better I mean."
"…yeah," Donna reluctantly admitted and tried not to let this relieved smile of his affect her bad consciousness. Eventually she succumbed though and smiled back.
"And now I'm going to have a look at this nasty cut you've got there," he decided and slowly pulled her up to her feet with him. The cut on her hand throb unpleasantly and the blood, that steadily dripped down from her wrist, had started to form a little puddle on the ground.
Maybe just her nerves were to blame, or the relief that none of them was seriously hurt after everything that had happened, but suddenly Donna felt dizzy. She could feel the pressure on her ears and the world around her blurred. The last thing she saw was the Doctor mouthing a word that could have been "Donna" then darkness swallowed her whole and her legs gave in.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

For how long had she been unconscious? It could hardly have been more than some minutes, Donna reckoned, because when she opened her eyes again, she was still in the TARDIS's control room, just that now she was facing the ceiling.
Moaning she tried to sit up but quickly two arms held her back. She looked around, saw that those arms belong to the Doctor and relaxed. He held her in a semi-lying position while her legs were propped up on some kind of box.
Donna frowned.
"You've scared me, I didn't expect you to pass out like that," he told her and she could hear the fear still resonating in his voice. "You've had a shock, so don't get up just yet. The blood needs some time to return to your brain properly."
Oh, that explained what the box was for.
"Okay" Donna quietly said and tried her best not to look at him. Sheepishly she glanced down at her hand to check on her injury.
"Did you use your tie to dress my cut?" she asked amused and blinked to make sure her eyes weren't just playing a trick on her. No, there really was a blue tie tightly wrapped around her hand. Her blood had already started seeping through the silken fabric and left a nasty, dark spot on it.

"You were bleeding badly and it was everything I had at hand," the Doctor quickly justified as if he expected Donna to be mad at him for that.
She turned her head so she could look at him without sitting up or having him release her out of this embrace. Judging by the red stains on his shirt and jacket, he had caught her before she had hit the floor and then treated her wound.
"It's just a little cut, I wouldn't have bled to death, if you had fetched a bandage from the med bay," she told him softly, not wanting to argue with him after he'd taken such effort. "I'm afraid those stains won't come out again though."
He shrugged.
"I guess I've been panicking a bit," he admitted and carefully raised her hand to check on the makeshift bandage.
"Because of a shock and a tiny cut?" Donna wondered and watched him gently moving his fingers over her hand. He acted with care and tenderness and for a second Donna wished she would have been awake while he had treated her hand.
"Because of you," he corrected. "You keep distracting me." He raised her hand to his lips to place a soft kiss on the bandage. She realised that she was staring at him and quickly closed her mouth.
"That's not exactly a friend-kiss," she told him and sat up and tried to ignore that her head started swimming again. A part of herself was cursing her for rejecting him, but she couldn't stand looking at him like this any long. This one kiss on her hand had expressed so much love - more than any of the others - despite its innocents.

"I know it's not. This is something I wanted to talk to you about…" the Doctor replied and there was a certainty to his look that soothed and scared Donna at the same time.
"No, Spaceman, listen: it's been a weird day. Both of us thought we'd lose each other at some point, and that makes people think funny things." She struggled to pull herself up, propping herself up on the control panel and prayed her legs wouldn't give in.
"You're scared I don't mean it," he said without bothering to stand up.
"Of course you don't!" she shouted. "You've said so yourself: Just. Mates." She put great emphasis on the last two words.
"But I changed my mind!" he replied firmly. "I do that all the time, I change my mind."
"How do I know you're not changing it again!?"
Bugger! Now she had started crying. Angry with herself, Donna wiped her hand over her eyes. Of course she had recognised how he was looking at her lately, and she had put it down to a brief crush. It wasn't fair that he made it sound like something serious and enduring while she knew better than that.
"Because you're right, you keep changing," she continued. "When I came with you, you were just a… bloke in a box, and then you suddenly decided to show me how different you are with your two hearts and core temperature and whatnots! What else are you going to change? Bloke to alien. Mate to more. Nice to 'Let's feet her to a giant spider!'?"
Donna realised too late that she had said the last part out loud.
"Never mind," she added silently.
"Donna, you don't really expect me to do that?" he asked shocked and slowly got to his feet to look her in the eyes.
"I already proved that I suck at assessing men's characters," she replied, icier than she'd wanted to. "Do you think I was with Lance because I expected something like this to happen? Do you think I wanted to marry him because of that? I loved and I trusted him and he turned out to be this… jerk. Now I love and trust you and that's scary. No, you're nothing like him, but who tells me you don't… change again?

They stood there for a while in silence before the Doctor spoke up: "You love me?" he asked quietly.
Despite herself, Donna blushed.
"Shut up," she sniffed, annoyed that this had slipped her, too. Could she never hold her tongue?
"And don't tell me you love me, too!" she quickly added, shooting him a warning glare. "Because I've heard all that before and I just don't believe it anymore."
"Okay," he agreed slowly. "And if you don't want to, we won't change anything. I won't change and I won't say anything."
"Good!"
"I will show you though."
Donna blinked in confusion.
"Show me what?"
"That I do… what you don't want me to say. We can be just mates if you like, but that won't stop me from showing you what I really think when I look at you."
"You don't have to do anything for me," she told him seriously.
"It's not like I could help it," he chuckled. "Keeping you warm. Treating your cuts - even if it ruins my best ties. This was a very good one, by the way. I'm going to miss it."
She smiled.
"Aha! Saying silly things to make you smile. I will just keep doing all this and not change anything at all."
Donna realised that he was right. He had been doing all this for her since forever and she had probably done a lot for him, too. Nothing would change if they went on like this, except for what he had said… or not said to her, which seemed to change everything.
"…I'm confused," she admitted very slowly. "And my hand hurts, because some dunce has bandaged it with a tie. Can you have a look at it?"
The Doctor smiled warmly and drew her into a hug.
"Of course, and do you know why?"
"Tell me."
"I can't. I promise I wouldn't." He grinned, pleased with himself, and Donna swat at his arm.
"I hate you!" she grumbled and then pressed a brief kiss to his lips before she took his hand with her unharmed one.
"And I love you… funnily enough. Must be the blood-loss, so you better get me to the med-bay."
He positively beamed at her.
"Med-bay!" he repeated enthusiastically. "Allons-y!"

-The End-