This is just my idea of what would happen if the Doctor decided that he didn't want to go on without Donna. Starts out dark, but gets better.

He hadn't told her he loved her. That wasn't the first time he had made the mistake, but it was possibly…no, it was most certainly the most painful time. He had stood there at her side, helpless.

He had been forced to go into her mind and steal from her. A mind so precious to him he never would have considered it if the circumstances weren't so cruel.

He hadn't stolen her, no she was fine. Back on Earth Donna Noble was still fire embodied. She was still an outer shell of stone protecting a heart of light. No, he had stolen himself away from her.

He had stolen every adventure, small and large. He took every moment, every quiet night in the TARDIS. He withdrew everything, all the times that made up the thousand moments he should have told her loved her from the moment he realized it until the moment that he lost her.

She didn't have to hurt because she didn't have to remember. She had looked through him when he left that night, and walking back to the TARDIS soaked in rain he died.

He had really tried to keep going. He thought of places to go, both new and old, and a few he even managed to make himself go to. But when he got there, when he stepped onto that planet or moon, the first thing he did was reach for her hand. When he found nothing but air he fell all over again.

He just couldn't do it anymore. He hadn't left the TARDIS in weeks. He had tried everything. He was caught up on the maintenance. All the stuff that had actually needed done, not just the off handed habitual tinkering that he did.

He wasn't sleeping. He hadn't really since that first night when he left her, and then only because the emotional strain caught up to him. Since then it had only been scattered minutes, when he blinked too long. He wasn't eating well either. Only when he remembered, or passed a kitchen, this was usually at the same time.

The TARDIS had taken to humming her concern for him constantly, and the mirror had become an enemy that showed his distress. So now he avoided mirrors and ignored the TARDIS as much as he could do.

Thinking of her wasn't going to bring her back. Donna was lost to him.

The Doctor had bought aspirin a couple of days ago, had sat in the kitchen for hours holding the bottle tightly in his hand. In the end he could hear Donna's voice plain as day, telling him that he couldn't do it.

He got rid of the bottle, and thanked her. She was saving his life even now.

Only it wasn't worth it. He wasn't alive. He was just the shell, something that used to be a man. His hearts beat because they hadn't found a medical reason not to, his lungs breathing because it was expected.

No, this wasn't living, this was just life.

He could make this pain stop. He could steal her from him, as he had stolen him from her. He would never have to remember her name again, and with that he wouldn't have to hurt.

But to do that he would have to erase the man she made him. The man who had learned to take a step back and think about his actions and the man she had told that he didn't have to be strong all the time. She told him that she was there to catch him. Only she wasn't now.

He knew that he couldn't go back. Even now all he wanted to be was the man who would make her proud. But he couldn't do this anymore; he couldn't do this and survive.

He had all of time and space, and they were now just a gift he didn't want. They had become nothing more than an idea and a destination. Just things without her.

All he wanted was her arms around him, her friendly smile. To hear her say his name, with the softest layer of affection, and it would melt him.

He knew what he had to do.

Hours later he was standing at a doorstep, knocking. Wilf opened the door, his face surprise that melted into concern. The Doctor knew how he looked –he had to face the mirror to shave- but his appearance couldn't hold a candle to how bad he was damaged inside.

"Sylvia and Donna aren't here," Wilf confirmed.

The Doctor let out a breath of relief. "May I come in?"

Wilf nodded moving out of the way. In the kitchen he was served tea, but he wasn't able to drink much of it.

"Are you all right?" Wilf asked concern for him so clear it hurt.

He couldn't even say always. Instead he explained what these last few weeks had been like for him, and what he needed.

"Will you help me?"

Wilf reached across the table and patted his hand, his eyes misty. "Of course I will. Of course. Can you do something for her though, her memories?"

"I'll try," the Doctor told him, knowing that it was probably a lost cause. But he would keep his word to Wilf. "Right now I just need Donna."

Will nodded again. "She can't know who you are."

The Doctor agreed. "I'll be John Smith I suppose."

"Okay," he glanced at the clock. "Sylvia will be home soon."

That was his cue to leave, he thanked Wilf thought he didn't have a any idea how to find Donna.

"Wait," Wilf stood. He dug out a pen and a paper and wrote quickly. "This is where Donna will be eating tonight. You can find her there at five."

He looked at the paper for a long while before he folded it and slid it into his pocket. "Thank you."

"Doctor," was all Wilf said, pulling him into a tight embrace.

It was the first hug he had had in weeks. He let it linger, fighting tears of his own. This was what love felt like, he had been missing it.

"Come tomorrow at three?" Wilf asked.

The Doctor promised. He left before he could be caught, retracing his steps to the TARDIS. He felt better than he had in all that time. He had a date.