Apples

Early in the Mornin'

Disclaimer: I do own Doctor Who!! ...Just not in this universe... :(

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Ears: Enjoy! :)

Donna awoke to a splitting headache, and immediately tried to turn over and away from whatever light was currently on at the moment. Then she heard laughter. Male laughter. Rather cold male laughter. As she pushed the headache to the back of her mind, she ran through everything she'd done the night before. Which, actually, didn't involve a pub... So why-

"Ah, you're awake!" A voice, probably the same that had laughed, proclaimed happily. "You people sleep far too much."

Donna opened her eye just a crack, enough to look around and enough to make her headache return. "Oh, blimey, what hit me?" She sat up in bed and put a hand to her head. She noticed she was still in the outfit she'd worn yesterday. And yes, there was a man in her room. Leaning against the door, watching her. She found it more than a little creepy.

The man chuckled. "Oh, the ways to answer that question...." She noticed he had something in his hands, but couldn't tell what it was. "Did you sleep well, Donna? Must have, seeing as it's past ten..."

It took a moment, but then her eyes widened and she bolted up. "I'm late again! And what am I supposed to say, 'sorry, got a bit pished last night, it won't happen again for a few weeks at least'!" She ran her hands through her hair a few times before noticing the man was staring at her. "What?"

"Late again? Make a habit of this, Donna Noble?" He asked lightly, brown eyes pinning her. "Could it be you don't like your job?"

She blinked at him. "Wha- Look, who are you, just barging into my room like this!" Though he had a point.

"Oh, no, you really don't." He shook his head, ignoring her, and tossed the object in his hands up into the air a few times. It looked like a little red ball. "Day after day after day, sitting in a little office, even below the lowest rung of the ladder, waiting for someone to give you more work to do.... No, you can't stand it, can you?"

Donna stared at the man. He didn't look half bad; short brown hair, laying flat on his head, not really tall but taller than her at least, though something about him struck her as...odd. "Answer me."

He didn't look at her, instead watching the ball go up and down and up. "But you know better, don't you, Donna." He grabbed the ball out of the air and turned to stare directly at her. She shivered. "You have dreams, don't you? Of an exciting life, opening a different door every day, where you're not just some little...temp." He took a step towards her, and Donna had to fight to stay where she was. "You wake up in the middle of the night and walk outside to stare at the stars, and you don't even know why, do you? Why you feel like you're special, different from the rest of these...people?"

"How do you know what I do?" She was caught between fear - a strange man who appeared to be a stalker in her room - and curiosity - what he was saying struck far to close to home. "Who are you?"

He came closer. "And you are, Donna. Not only different, but better than them. You feel like you don't quite fit, like an extra puzzle piece. Like there's an answer somewhere in those stars to a question you don't even know." The man tilted his head slightly as he moved toward her. "Would you like to know, Ms. Noble? Why you look up at the stars at night? Why you feel out of place?"

Donna didn't notice how close he was until he was right in front of her. "Who..."

He held his hand out to her, where a little red apple sat waiting for her. "Would you like to know?"

Distantly, she noticed the fear had given way to the curiosity.

She took the apple.

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