ddd_news | APPLICATIONS -- 2010; 001

APPLICATIONS -- 2010; 001

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Something else that was apparent in her childhood was her ability to take to patterns, systems, and schedules with ease. At the age of six, miffed that her mother wouldn’t take her on vacation or even give a good reason as to why she wasn’t going on vacation, Donna made her way to the local bus depot and managed to find a bus that would take her to Strathclyde, where her parents found her bothering a shopkeeper in Glasgow.

Other than spurts of mischief, trouble, and temper, Donna's childhood and adolescence was a pretty well "normal" one. Her greatest joy was having a date to prom – he told her afterwards he was gay – and her greatest heartbreak was losing her grandmother – and even that had the flip side of her doting grandfather moving in with her and her parents after that. After graduating high school, she took a course in business from a local community college while working full-time at her neighbourhood library. Following that graduation, she signed on with a temp agency, and that's been the bulk of her life ever since. Moving into a flat in the city, she lived with a roommate for a few years while they each took on assorted part-time secretarial jobs. On free evenings and weekends, bars and clubs were all the rage for the duo and their friends. After all, Donna was half-way through her twenties by now and, in her mind, far too old to still be single. Practically an old maid, really. While fairly good looks and a charming smile often gave good first impressions, follow-up dating was rare because of her admittedly strong personality. Her flatmate moved out to live with a boyfriend and Donna moved home to live with her parents and grandfather.

In June of 2007, Donna began working at H.C. Clements, a security company in central London secretly owned by the Torchwood Institute. Lance Bennet, head of Human Resources, made Donna a coffee on her first day. Considering she was only a temping secretary, Donna took this to mean all sorts of wonderful things. When he started making her coffee every day, their friendly work relationship, possibly pressured by Donna, turned into dating. After four and a half months, Donna had convinced herself he was The One, she was madly in love with him, and they had better get married before he decided she was too old or something ridiculous like that. The end of October was spent hint-dropping things about marriage and babies, while most of November was dedicated to Donna convincing Lance that they really ought to get married, since they were so perfect for each other. Of course, in any recounting of the tale of their courtship, Donna remained adamant that he was just so wooed by her that he had to marry her immediately. December was a whirl-wind month of joyous planning for Donna Noble-soon-to-be-Bennet, planning the wedding, reception, and honey moon. She suggested Christmas Eve as a date for their nuptials and, bemused, Lance went along.

Finally, the big day came. Donna and her father were halfway down the aisle when, poof, she disappeared in a glowing ball of light through the high-ceilinged church roof. She found herself standing on the flightdeck of the TARDIS, in the presence of one very glum and heartbroken Time Lord called the Doctor. Assuming she'd been somehow kidnapped, she shouted a bit before heading to the door. The TARDIS currently being parked in space, Donna was incredibly surprised to find not London outside, but the nebula created by a sun's recent death. While this lead credibility to this not being an office prank, Donna still believed herself to have been kidnapped and the Doctor spent some time trying to figure out just why she was there before she smacked him and ordered to be taken back to the church. The Doctor managed to park the TARDIS in London, but unfortunately nowhere near the church for the wedding Donna was now late to. As expected with Donna, quite a bit of telling-off ensued for this. Genuinely wanting to help (and likely wanting her out of his hair), the Doctor stepped off to get money from an ATM, only to turn around and find Donna had found a taxi cab that would accept payment upon arrival to the church.

It became apparent right around then that London was more or less crawling with murderous, scavenging Roboforms dressed up like Father Christmas. Donna didn't see a problem with much of anything except missing her wedding until the cab driver turned out to be one of this Roboforms, with no intention of getting her to the church. Thankfully, the Doctor wasn't far behind, using the TARDIS in a rare and taxing way, actually flying along a motorway in order to catch up with this new, temporary companion of his. He eventually coaxed Donna into jumping from the moving taxi into the equally-moving TARDIS before flying away to park on a roof somewhere in London. There, with smoke bellowing from the time machine's interior, Donna gloomily sat on the edge of the roof to lament missing her wedding. Never mind that she'd nearly lost her life. Her honeymoon would now be just a vacation and they'd have to schedule another date.

The Doctor, still baffled over Donna's trouble and adamantly not from Mars, as she kept saying, managed to get her to the site of her wedding reception only to find it was a roaring party without her. Donna's initial rage at everyone involved was soon turned back at her, assuming her disappearance had been an intentional show for attention. A few quick, fake sobs got things quieted down for the moment, though, and the party continued, until a look at the wedding footage made the Doctor realize the biodampening ring he'd given Donna to hide her from the Roboforms wouldn't work. She was infested with huon particles, a form of energy so old it shouldn't exist anymore. Thus, the Robo-Santas were still aware of Donna's presence and, verily, on their way to get her. The reception was interrupted when one of them pulled out a remote control to activate tiny bombs posing as Christmas tree ornaments. Things would have gotten much worse just then if the Doctor hadn't thought quick and destroyed the Roboforms. Finding the remote and a still-active commanding signal in the remains, he dashed off to find the source, running outside only to find it was something in Earth's orbit. The Doctor, Donna, and Lance all went to the H.C. Clements offices to look for information, where the Doctor worked to explain Donna's arrival in the TARDIS while he worked out other things. When active inside a living host, huon particles attract other huon particles. The high adrenaline levels involved in walking down the aisle and the TARDIS' chance close location were what drew one huon-infested thing to another. The image the Doctor used to explain it to Donna was that she was a pencil in a mug, an odd metaphor that's always stuck with her as being more applicable to her dull life than he even knew.

Traveling down to a subterranean floor not on the building plans, the trio found a Torchwood base hidden under the Thames barrier. It was there the huon particles had been being artificially recreated for some time now. Lance sneaked off just about then, while the Doctor and Donna were faced with a gigantic spider, the Empress of the Racnoss, an all-but-extinct ancient race. While she did a typical villain speech, it was revealed that Lance had been working for her all along, adding the huon particles from this lab into Donna's coffee daily to make her useful for the Empress' grand plan. The Doctor's typically quick thinking managed to reverse the pull of the huon particles so that the TARDIS would materialize around him and one very stunned, hurt Donna Noble. A quick trip back in time to the creation of Earth – a sight no human had ever seen before, it should be noted, making Donna one very special lady – revealed that the Empress needed hosted huon energy to wake up her baby Racnoss, at the centre of the planet since the beginning of its existence. Then, it was only a matter of the day being saved in typical Doctor Who Christmas Special fashion, with Lance being lost and the Empress' plans foiled. The Doctor would have destroyed the Empress entirely were it not for Donna, who yelled at him to stop, he'd done enough. The Empress went back to her ship where some sort of army – assumedly the Doctor-related military organization of UNIT – shot it out of the sky.

The Doctor returned Donna home safe and sound just after nightfall. Asking her what she planned to do now that Lance was gone and H.C. Clements likely done for, she said she'd like to travel. Her experience with outer space had made her more eager to know more about her own world. He offered, hesitantly, if she'd like to come with him for a while. Although she had a certain fondness for him and his habit of saving her life, she said she could never live like that, but she did sincerely hope he'd find someone. Between his obvious grief over missing the companion before her and his uncontrolled rage at the Racnoss, Donna figured that would be best for him, someone to keep him in line. She did invite him in for dinner, though, and he agreed, only to sneak off in the TARDIS before he actually did. Before he left, he told her the name of the companion he'd lost, Rose, and also to "be magnificent" and she replied that she thought she would.

The next year, Donna's father died. Although she'd been thinking about moving out, she stayed living with her mother and grandfather, only leaving to take extended vacations in places she'd always wanted to see, including Egypt. Between vacations, she took up temp work and started looking for the Doctor again, getting restless. Maybe it hadn't been what she really wanted, turning him down. Maybe a bit more of his type of adventure was just what she needed.

Personality: If you were going to metaphorically judge the book that is Donna Noble by her cover, you'd probably take in the red hair and proudly sported curves and assume that she was loud, boisterous, and maybe a little hot tempered. Although there's so much more to her than that, none of those snap judgements would be wrong.

Donna tends to perpetuate the red-head temper myths, having always been known for a fiery personality and ability to be positively furious at the drop of a hat. Anything from human stupidity to traffic or copier jams, to a well-placed insult against her or her family can and has set her off. She's got no tolerance for people who can't handle even the simplest of filing systems and, honestly, she's got such better things to do with her time than wait. She's also fiercely loyal and terribly insecure, making any comments made against her or her family a Very Bad Idea. All of her life, Donna's been classified as below average, mediocre at best. She was never terribly sporty, nor the prettiest girl in school, nor was she ever top of her classes. None of this makes her anything other than completely normal, of course, but paired with an attitude and raised by a mother who thought she could do better and a father who only doted on her when her mother wasn't yelling, things turned out a bit sour.

What few people did stick around through the temper and attitude and rather unwelcoming Mrs Donna's Mum found a good, reliable friend in Donna, though. Get on her good side and she'll defend you tooth and nail against just about anything. Not to mention keep you out of fashion faux-pas. The way Donna looks at it, it's water off a duck's back if someone doesn't like you, but you're looking the fool if you didn't even try to impress.

Despite less than stellar performances in school, Donna's mind is a keen one. She's quick to notice patterns -- mastered the Dewey Decimal System faster than any other temp at the agency by two days, after all -- and look for logical connections between events. That is... If she notices them at all. That's probably the biggest part of her problem, aside from the temper: she spends so much time off daydreaming that she doesn't always notice what's going on around her. There are things, though, (she would argue) much more important than whatever stupid stuff is going on around boring little her. Fairytale men to find; the perfect pumps in her size, on sale; little blue boxes with all of everything to see; whatever was on her mind, it's terribly exciting and much more deserving of her attention than Shakespeare or math or what you and your dog did this weekend. Dotty, she may be, but never short on dreams.

There are times, though, when she's been doing a bit too much failing and not enough succeeding. And then the insecurities pop up, compounded by her mother's apparently eternal disappointment in her only child. Donna loves her mother, for the most part, but hates the way she makes her feel. It's easy to pretend you're not a huge let-down when you're only trying to trick yourself and a few people here and there. But there's no hiding things like that from the woman who bore you. Donna fails and Sylvia knows about it, ready with tea and "well; you'd best do better next time."

But then there are moments of brightness, where one of her strong traits -- rationale, compassion, loyalty -- pulls through. And then she'll show them off, rattling off while she's saving your arse that she's better than you'll ever be at this, that, or that other thing. She's still growing into that, though. Moments where she'll acknowledge her own brilliance are rare. For the most part, though, she's thoroughly convinced she's a boring, dumb temp just waiting for something to happen to her.

Other: I plan on taking her from before the bulk of her canon starts, with the hopes of getting to play out canon updates at a (most likely) regular interval. Her timeline, then, will be much earlier than the rest of the Doctor Who/Torchwood cast, leading to possible confusion/fun.

Additional Links: Doctor Who Wiki links on: Donna (http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Donna_Noble) and the episode with the wedding day/Christmas Eve action described above, The Runaway Bride (http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Runaway_Bride).

First Person (entry type): [There's a sound of steady typing when this particular video clicks on, and a mass of ginger curls taking up most of the webcam's view. This is Donna Noble, working from home, transferring notes from a notepad next to her computer into a Word document. Or, she was doing that, fingers flying confidently over the screen. Only when she glances at the screen to check paragraph length does she see she's been typing a new entry into some place called Drama Drama Duck. Well, then. Copy-pasting those few sentences back where they go before she focuses her attention on this community thingy.]

Drama Drama Duck... Seems like an eclectic sort of place. Recording a video entry, am I? All righty, then. I can work with that. Chances seem good there are other people on this place... And maybe someone can help me out. See, I'm looking for a man. Not just any man, but a skinny little oddball who flies around in an old blue police phonebox. Know anyone who fits that description?

Oh! And I'm Donna, by the way. Donna Noble.

Third Person: Rightfully, Donna Noble is too old to keep wishing on stars all the time. Thirty-one and lonely, living with her mother and grandfather, she should be working harder to get on with her life. And she is, honest. That's where these wishes on stars come in. She knows that's where he is, that someday, she'll see an inkling of a blue box and know she's found him again. And then... then she gets to live, seeing the stars, all of time and space without worrying about her next temp bout or how disappointed her mother always seems to be in her.

"I'm heading in now, Donna," her grandfather says, and pulls her attention away from the stars and back to the allotment in their subdivision in Chiswick where they always stargaze from.

"All right," Donna replies with a little smile, nodding at him. "Think I'll stay out a mite longer, though, myself. Haven't finished my cocoa yet." When he starts to collect their things, two folding chairs and a collapsible telescope, she puts a hand on his arm to stop him. "Nah, just take yourself in, Gramps. I've got it tonight."

The old man's face splits into a grin, clearly so very fond of Donna. "Thank you, dear. Now don't you stay out too much longer."

After she's assured him she won't, and he's headed home she sinks into her chair, gaze back on the stars. Her wishes will come true one of these days, she just knows it. It's just a matter of when.

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APPLICATIONS -- 2010; 001

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