Away From the Mirror

She’s going back tomorrow and tonight she ought to be resting but there’s a mirror in the room UNIT has assigned her to and the minute she lays eyes on it she’s turning and turning before the glass trying to see the Time Beetle on her back.

“Donna,” I tell her, “you’ve got to come away from there. You’re making yourself crazy.” She doesn’t seem to hear me, she’s somewhere else, through the looking glass as it were, trying to reach between realities, to touch or see clearly the creature that’s attached its vile self to her. She’s making herself hysterical. She’s breathing heavy and her eyes are wild. “Please, Donna, stop it. There’s nothing you can do, not tonight. You’ve got to rest. We’ll take care of everything tomorrow….”

“I can almost see it,” she says. “A bloody great insect on my back. I know it’s there.”

She rips off her blouse, throws it on the floor, and wraps her arms around herself trying to get at the Time Beetle.

“Donna, don’t!” I cry. I run to her, hold her tight. I try to think of what the Doctor would say. “It’s going to be alright, I promise. I’m sorry this is happening to you but everything’s going to be okay. You’ll see.” I stroke her hair, I mean to be gentle, soothing but I’m stroking it fiercely with both hands, trying to drag her back from behind the looking glass. “Don’t look in the mirror, Donna. Don’t think about the Time Beetle. Make yourself think about something else, anything else. Please, try.”

“Okay,” she says. “I’m not thinking about it.”

“Tell me what you are thinking about. Say it aloud, that will make it real.”

“I’m thinking that you’re very pretty.”

I can’t help but laugh. It’s funny at a time like this that she might fancy me even a little but then I’ve been in some pretty awful situations myself and you’d be surprised at the things that go through your head. Mainly that you’re lonely and that it would be so much easier if there was someone to love you. Or if not love you, take care of you.

I think of the Doctor again, not what he would do but what I would have liked him to do.

“You’re a lovely woman, Donna Noble,” I tell her. “A special, beautiful, and unique woman.” Then I kiss her. I’ve never kissed a woman before but it’s easy and natural as breathing. She kisses me back, hot and agitated, clinging to me so hard it hurts. She needs someone so badly. Why not me?

“Come away from the mirror,” I say to her. “Come to bed.”

“Yes,” she agrees and I guide her across the room. She glances back at the looking glass, looks over her shoulder for the Time Beetle but she comes with me. I turn down the bed, help her take off the rest of her clothes. She gets into bed then she clutches my hand. “Don’t leave me, Rose. Don’t leave me alone with this thing.”

“I promise you I won’t,” I tell her. “I’ll stay with you tonight.” I undress, climb under the covers and wrap my arms around her from behind. I’m flush to her back, there’s nothing there, nothing but me. I stroke her long red hair again, gently this time. I rest my cheek against hers, listening to her breathe at first in rapid gasps of panic then slow and steady as she drifts off to sleep.

I’ve accomplished something, just getting her away from that mirror. I wish that I could take away all her fears, all the uncertainty about what will happen tomorrow. If time is corrected will she cease to exist? Will I? Will this whole world? I’m not a Time Lord, I can’t understand it like the Doctor would. All I can do is hold her tight, hope that for a little while I can make her feel safe, whether it’s true or not.