The Enabler by basmathgirl
Summary: What if the Doctor and Donna's first meeting had gone slightly differently? Okay, completely differently? The Doctor has to stick around to protect Donna Noble from an alien threat. Or is he the alien under threat? He’ll soon find out.
Rating: Teen
Categories: Tenth Doctor, Sarah Jane Adventures
Characters: Donna Noble, Luke Smith, Other Character(s), Other Character(s), Sarah Jane Smith, Sarah Jane Smith, The Doctor (10th)
Genres: Fluff, Het, Humor, Romance, Standalone
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Published: 2012.11.18
Updated: 2013.01.17
The Enabler by basmathgirl
Chapter 3: Chapter 3
Author's Notes: A/N: I was going to take things straight to the studio, but my muse had other ideas.
Donna walked over to her studio chair and sat down contentedly. Why did she find riling John Smith so much fun? Because you’re not allowed to do anything else to him, an inner voice pointed out.
She snorted. Yeah, that was true. Anything beyond verbal interaction was off limits. So why did her thoughts keep straying to him and how he had acted the night before; poor bloke!
She’d completely dismissed him as an alien hunter when she climbed into bed the night before. There had been much whispering outside her bedroom as Donna tried to get to sleep; Sarah Jane was obviously arguing with John about something.
There was a, “No! You can’t do that!” from Sarah Jane, closely followed by the bedroom door handle being rattle as it turned, and John thrust his way into the room.
“I’m sorry, Donna, but I can’t let this go on,” he cried.
“What? You’re turfing me out?” Donna queried, fearing midnight eviction and holding the edge of the bed covers up to hide her modesty. Not that she had any to hide, mind you; it was merely a knee jerk reaction to the intrusion.
“Why would I throw you out?” he asked in return. “I’m here to protect you, not neglect you. And that’s my point; I need to be in here.”
She pulled the covers further up. “I don’t think you do, Sunshine. There are late night channels and special 098 phone services that cover that sort of thing,” she argued.
“Late night...?” His puzzled face made her want to laugh out loud, which was a relief given their circumstances.
Fortunately she held in most of her laughter. “Are you going to tell me why you burst into my room unannounced or what, Bunsen boy? Cos I feel like slapping you from here to next week at the moment for disturbing my beauty sleep.”
“You don’t need any more,” he instantly answered and then gave a cough. “I’m here to keep an eye on you, Donna, in case those things come back.”
There was a principle at stake here, so she bristled. “I think we can practically guarantee they’ll come back because they seem to have voted me their unofficial queen bee. But that’s not the point, Igor. You are not staying in here to keep an eye on me or put anything else on me!”
“Blimey, you’re suspicious!” he blurted out angrily. “I’m trying to help you.”
“Then you can help me by buggering off with your perverted ideas and let me get some sleep. It’s bad enough being woken in the night by those things,” she huffed.
“That is my point entirely,” he declared, throwing his hands up in despair. “They will come back, and I want to be here when they do.”
“And you will be,” she said, smiling as sweetly as she could at that moment. “You’ll be here, in your bed, in your bedroom with the door safely shut.”
“No no no no, Donna! That wouldn’t do. I need to be here with you.” He held up his finger to stop her firing back the retort he was expecting. “I have to see what they look like and how they move.”
“That’s all you’re going to see,” she said defensibly.
“Why, what were you offering, I mean, what is the problem?” he wondered, sweeping his eyes over her as she hid under the covers. “Have you got any weapons of mass destruction under there that you’re hiding for a friend?” he joked.
“No, but I’ve got my right hook, that I’ve been told is quite deadly when applied with force to a bloke’s jaw,” she threatened.
“In that case you’d better leave him alone for a while,” he retorted whimsically. “Now where should I watch you from?” He stood considering the possibilities as Donna spread herself across the bed in case he got that fancy idea in his head. “This chair should do,” he commented as he touched a rocking chair in the corner of the room
“I’ll tell you what would be even better; if it was outside the door,” she said pointedly.
Oh. She didn't trust him! That was unusual. Normally people complied without too many explanations. Hmm. Donna was obviously going to be a tricky case to deal with. “Fine! I’ll move it to outside the door,” he huffed at her testily. Anyone would think he was Jack the Ripper with the way she was carrying on.
“Good! And don’t forget to shut the door behind you,” she warned as she watched him struggle through the door with the chair.
He shot her a withering look, grabbed the handle and slammed the door. He really shouldn’t have let her get to him like that, but that woman would make Mother Theresa spit.
“See! I told you!” Sarah Jane hissed at him out on the landing.
So he shot her a withering look too and tried to sit gracefully on the rocking chair with a massive pout on his face. He couldn’t understand why she was giggling as she took herself off to bed.
What?! He must have fallen asleep, because he was suddenly startled by a tapping sound. Without consciously thinking, he was up out of the chair, opening the bedroom door and bursting in to see where the noise had come from. To his surprise Donna was standing by the window and was in the process of opening it wide.
Worried that she might be sleep walking, he crept up to her. No, she wasn’t asleep, she was hypnotised by something. Usually that would be pure guesswork, but a bright light switched on to illuminate her from somewhere outside the window and from above.
He bobbed his head outside and could easily see two lights beaming down, but the outline or the structure of the vessel were harder to make out in the glare. The only thing that was conclusive was that this was no object made on earth.
“Donna? Can you hear me?” he softly asked.
Robotic eyes turned and looked at him. “We seek the One then all will be blessed,” she said in a monotone voice that clearly wasn’t her own.
“Let me help you. Who is the One? You don’t have to use Donna to do this. I can help you in a lot more ways,” he insisted.
“She is not ready,” the voice merely said; and the light shut off, throwing them into darkness.
“Where are you going?” he yelled out. “Come back!”
But it was evident that they weren’t going to stay for tea and toast, so he raced out of the room, down the stairs and into the garden. Looking up he could make out some sort of being that hovered above the trees, heading slowly away from the house. If only he could get a closer look...
He rammed a hand into his pocket to bring out his sonic screwdriver, and only then discovered that he didn’t have any pockets. Well, not the ones he needed anyhow. The fact was he didn’t have his suit on either, and was stood outside in a pair of pyjamas Sarah Jane had lent him. Oh yes, he’d woken up with a blanket thrown over him. He didn’t remember that happening either. Looking down, he saw he was also barefooted and about to step on a slug! Stepping back to avoid it, his calf hit the edge of a large earthenware garden tub, and he toppled backwards with a yelp. Falling hadn’t been so bad, but landing and then moving had been painful. He’d landed right in a holly bush!
A hand shot out and grabbed him, pulling him clear of most of the prickles. A few leaves embedded themselves in his pyjamas as he tried to rid himself of the pain and assess the damage.
“I can’t leave you alone for two minutes, can I,” his rescuer mocked him.
“Thanks, Donna. I almost got a good look at them but I forgot my sonic screwdriver. Sorry,” he apologised,
‘Blimey, he looks like a wet week after a thunderstorm standing there in the garden,’ she thought. And goodness knows how a screwdriver would help you look for aliens. Perhaps he’d dreamt it? “Let’s get inside and discuss it,” she offered. “I’ll even make you some tea.” I mean, what sort of bloke rushes out into the garden in the middle of the night to chase aliens wearing next to nothing? Dr John Smith, obviously. He was turning out to be one in a million. “About earlier,” she started to say, “I didn’t mean to be all in your face, but you scared me when you forced your way into the bedroom; and I’ve had a few close shaves with blokes trying it on.” She sighed, and risked placing a tender hand on his arm. “What I’m trying to say is: I’m sorry. I know now that you genuinely were worried about the Eyes in the Sky bots.”
“That’s okay, Donna,” he replied, giving her smile in the low lighting of the kitchen. “I’m sorry for scaring you. I have this habit of acting first and thinking later.”
“Strangely enough I had sort of guessed that. Here, let me help you,” she said, and picked off the last remaining leaves and noted the scratches on his skin. “That’s going to hurt for a while. Just for the record, I’m not taking the blame, so don’t boast otherwise to your mates.”
“Why would I boast?” he asked in confusion. She tended to ask a lot of questions that confused him, he’d noticed.
But she ignored the question as she stirred sugar into his tea. “Here you go,” she said, turning around to hand him his tea and sitting at the kitchen table. “We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”
“We have?” he queried. A smile broke out across his face as he sipped his tea and let out a rapturous sigh. “Good tea!” he remarked, still grinning.
“Yes, we’re off to work in the studio. I have a television programme to record,” she clarified.
“What sort of programme do you do?” he asked, hoping it would be something connected with science.
She eyed him in disbelief. “Do you ever watch daytime television?” she asked return.
“Oh!” he replied, disappointment written all over his face. She did that type of programme, eh? Never mind, he was sure that he’d find something to amuse him as he kept vigil. “Should be interesting,” he mused.
Donna stood up decisively as she said, “I hope so; otherwise I’ll soon be out of a job. On that note I’d better get back to bed, and I’ll leave you to wash off all that muck.”
‘What muck?’ he wondered before looking down and seeing the grime on his feet and the prickly evidence bleeding on his hands. Of course he instantly wondered how bad his hairstyle was, since that was a major matter. And then he caught Donna smirking at him and he automatically smirked back. Maybe guarding her wouldn’t be so bad after all?
“Good night, John,” she threw at him, having resisted the urge to kiss his cheek goodnight. He may want to be her knight in shining armour but it didn’t mean that she was going to push things.
“Good night, Donna,” he pleasantly responded. And then sat back to finish his tea. Perhaps spending a day with Donna in a recording studio wouldn’t be so bad after all?
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