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locker_monsterRating: G
Word Count: 2000
Characters: Donna, with appearances by others.
Timeline/Spoilers: Post “Journey’s End” so spoilers for that episode.
Summary: While Donna might not remember, the world remembers Donna. And she’s still the best temp in the universe.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC.
A/N: I’ve worked temp myself so I know what it’s like to jump from job to job but I doubt I’m half as good as Donna. Many thanks to my beta
browncoat_2x2. You rock!
On Donna Noble’s first day covering reception for an up-and-coming shipping company, a man with a strange looking gun came crashing through the front doors and started shooting at random things. Everyone in the office had ducked behind desks and filing cabinets in a panic. Far beyond her usual first day on a temp job, Donna jumped up from behind her desk to confront the man.
At the time, she couldn’t explain her compulsion to do so. She had low tolerance for completely useless and annoying people, but she thought she had enough sense not to yell at a man with a gun.
In the end, her impulsive gamble paid off. Men in uniform flooded into the building and disabled the man while he was focused on her. They went through the office, looking for the injured or the distressed and from the orders that flew around, it was apparent to Donna that these men were soldiers.
A young woman with dark skin and dark brown hair approached her. She was so much smaller than the other soldiers, but somehow she seemed more in charge than any of them. “That was a brave thing you did,” she said to Donna.
Donna shrugged. She wasn’t a hero. “I’ve got work to do and I can’t do it when crazy men are waving guns around.” She looked around, noting the soldiers were also carrying arms. “Seems like a minor thing for the army to worry about.”
“We’re from UNIT.” At the blank stare Donna gave her, the young woman added, “You’ve never heard of UNIT?”
“Should I? Is it some government initiative thing? I don’t follow the news.”
The young woman seemed disappointed that Donna didn’t know about them. “Don’t worry about it.” The young woman smiled brightly at her. “You saved the day, Donna Noble.”
It didn’t occur to Donna until she got home that she hadn’t told the young woman her name.
* * *
With the shipping company’s London office in disarray after the armed man’s intrusion, Donna found herself being sent off to one of the smaller branches to work. The people in charge had been impressed with her show of bravado and they wanted to keep her employed.
They hadn’t mentioned the smaller office was in Cardiff…
Typically, nothing was organized when she got there. She was put in charge of keeping track of the shipping orders for the time being and all the paperwork looked as if someone had ran over them with a muddy car. Late nights filing and organizing became the norm for the Donna, but she was used to tedious jobs and she discovered early on that there was nothing in Cardiff that was of interest to her.
One night, a black SUV skidded to a halt in front of the warehouse. Donna watched as three people climbed out; a young woman with long dark brown hair, a young man in a crisp suit, and a slightly older man in a long gray coat. The man in the gray coat issued some orders to the other two before starting off for the front of the warehouse.
Donna reached for the stack of papers she had set aside and ran downstairs to meet the man. She had phoned the head office to discuss a problem she had found and they had promised to send someone over to talk with her. She hadn’t expected such a speedy response; the call was logged only ten minutes ago.
Down in the warehouse she found the man in the gray coat looking through some of the wooden crates. Now that she could see him up close, she couldn’t help but notice how handsome he was. When he turned around to greet her, his broad smile nearly took her breath away. It wasn’t just a polite smile between strangers. He smiled at her like they were dear friends.
“Is that the paperwork?” he asked. Oddly, his accent was American.
“The head office sent you?” Good-looking as he was, Donna wasn’t about to hand over the papers to just anyone.
“You discovered some inconsistencies. There are forms and paperwork detailing the export of shipments but the shipments were never sent off or received.”
That was the gist of it. Unless the man had been monitoring her phone conversation, there was no way he could have known that. “Big ol’ waste of money if you ask me. Or someone’s covering something up, shipping things that shouldn’t be, but that sounds like a bad movie plot.”
“You don’t think it’s likely?”
Donna handed the paperwork over. “This is Cardiff. What illegal goods would be shipping through here? Poison kebabs?”
“Maybe something a little nefarious. Good find.” The man gripped Donna’s hand in a firm handshake, though she felt an overwhelming urge to wrap him in a tight hug. She squashed the feeling. Hunting for a man while on the job; she could hear her mother’s criticism already.
But as the SUV disappeared into the night, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was as if she already knew what it felt like to be wrapped in the man’s strong arms, enjoying a happy embrace.
Donna returned to the warehouse. Clearly she was working too hard.
* * *
The shipping company’s Cardiff office quickly shut down once it was discovered the local workers were using ships and equipment for their own needs. Once again Donna was praised for her dedication, but it all felt misplaced to her. Someone would have discovered the same thing if they had looked hard enough. She had just been doing her job, the latest in a long line of temp work.
Her tenure in Cardiff ended just as quickly as it had begun and she happily made her way back to London. The company found her a decent position in their ground transportation division as the assistant to the regional manager of Western London. Nothing glamorous, but Donna was used to that by now.
She fell back into a normal work routine, happy to leave work when it was still light outside. The lorry drivers were always good for a laugh and Donna found herself exiting through the back at the end of a day to see them.
So it became fairly obvious to her when a small green car started appearing, parked amongst the lorries for a few days in a row.
The security cameras provided no answers and no one seemed concerned about it. None of the locks had been tampered with and nothing was missing. The drivers just figured it was some poor sod who couldn’t find a parking space and left it at that.
A few days later the small green car stopped appearing and the whole incident was quickly forgotten. Donna nearly dropped the matter herself but then she saw the same car parked on the street in town. She stared through the windows but nothing inside the car hinted that it was trouble.
“Can we help you?”
Donna looked up sharply from the car window. A woman, possibly in her fifties, and a young boy, who looked to be her son, stood patiently off to her right. She expected some annoyed expressions but the woman quietly regarded her.
“Nice car. Been looking for one of my own.” What else could Donna say? She couldn’t very well yell at a woman and her son for parking their car in an unusual place.
“They’re good for getting out of… tight places.” The woman smiled at Donna, but it was melancholic, like she was trying to offer sympathy though Donna had no clue as to why this woman would feel sympathy for her.
“Yeah, I’ll try to remember that.” Saying a quick good-bye, Donna took off down the sidewalk at good pace away from the odd woman. At least the woman wasn’t as bad as the people on the news, jabbering on about alien invasions.
“Thank you.” The boy’s voice carried down the street to Donna. She stopped and looked back at the mother and son.
But they, and the car, were already gone.
* * *
Disappearing lorries. Donna laughed bitterly at the thought as she fumbled to find her car keys. Something that big couldn’t just disappear into thin air. Someone had stolen it while the driver had popped out to use the loo; that was the only explanation. Plus, the company’s insurance didn’t cover “alien abduction”.
The driver had insisted he turned off the engine and took the keys with him before going on break. He would have heard the large vehicle leaving if someone had managed to hotwire it as well. But no one at the stop heard or saw anything.
And Donna had been told to drive out to the middle of nowhere to check the story. Wasn’t that a job for the police? She had been many things over the years, but a police officer wasn’t one of them. When she got back to the office, she was going to tell them it was just simple theft. The whole thing had happened late at night; she doubted anyone could function properly after two a.m. in the morning, let alone see clearly.
She sighed angrily as her keys continued to elude her. The lorry stop was still open at least. Being stuck in the middle of nowhere, outside, and alone was not a combination she wanted to deal with. Donna glanced back at the small shop at the stop. Had she left her keys inside?
Something blue caught her attention from the corner of her eye.
Donna turned completely to give the thing a proper look. Maybe their would-be lorry thieves hung out in the bushes.
But nothing was there.
Eventually, Donna found her car keys at the very bottom of her bag. She drove onto the motorway, headed back for home. No more adventures for her, not for today.
Had she looked in her rear-view mirror while she drove away, she might have seen a tall skinny man in a brown, pin-stripe suit with a blue box…
* * *
Torchwood in this universe was very different from the version back home. The Cybermen invasion already done and past, the institution had rebuilt, bigger and better than before, all under the watchful eye of Pete Tyler. With branches and employees all over the world, this Torchwood had more in common with UNIT.
The Doctor felt a small sense of pride when he looked at Pete’s Torchwood. This version wasn’t about procuring alien tech and hording it for themselves. This Torchwood wanted to protect the people of the Earth and it didn’t require secrets and hidden facilities to achieve that goal. Lost as he was in this new world, and this new body, having something familiar to surround him helped with the adjustment.
A hand wrapped around his and he felt a reassuring squeeze. With a bright grin, he turned to face Rose.
“I have something you need to see.” The mischief in her expression made her eyes sparkle. For the first time since they had returned from the other universe, she seemed content with the way of the world.
The Doctor asked no questions as Rose led him through the hallways of Torchwood. They ended up in the main foyer upstairs, the morning light spilling in through the high windows. Rose pointed to a desk at the centre of the room, positioned so it was the first thing visitors would see.
“She started today. A temp agency sent her over.”
A lone woman sat the desk, acquainting herself with the equipment. Though it all seemed unfamiliar to her, she looked prepared to tackle the job.
The phone rang and the woman picked it up, the light catching in her ginger hair as she tossed it over one shoulder. “Good morning, you’ve reached the main office of the Torchwood Institute. This is Donna speaking.”
The Doctor let out a small laugh. Donna Noble. The best temp in any universe.
