DISCLAIMER: "Doctor Who" and all associated characters and likenesses are the exclusive property of the BBC. Used here without permission. This is a fictional story made for purely entertainment purposes. Any relation to events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Somewhere in London, there is a drifter who walks through the gold-leafed doors of the most expensive hotel in the sector, with a confidence and grace and bearing fitting of old-money nobility. Beside her long-legged stride a single satchel swings freely, unattached to anything. Just like her.

She smiles at the clerk behind the desk – as well as at every pair of eyes that's followed her since she stepped off the double-decker at the top of the street – and makes the necessary small-talk that keeps from arousing suspicion or unwarranted extra attention. But the smile never quite reaches her eyes, because she knows that these men are just men (lower-case, she tells herself with a sneer), and no substitute for the Man (capitalized, this time) who changed her life, the Doctor who showed her the greater World outside and beyond the one she'd always known.

So as soon as she's done signing a name that isn't hers on the reservation, she gives an extra swivel of her hips when she turns toward the elevator, to give the lad behind the desk a thrill for his day. But as the metal doors close in front of her, her fake smile falters, and she wonders if there will ever be another Man worthy of this Lady.

. . .

Somewhere in London, there is a warehouse worker (the title on his name tag says, "Retail Logistics Technician," but he knows the truth, though it doesn't bother him) who stumbles for the fourth time over a line of stock reconciliation, his thoughts elsewhere. There's a girl in that mental elsewhere, a very special girl whom he loves no matter what anyone else says or thinks.

And it's because he loves her as he does that whenever he looks into her eyes and sees her smile at him, he wishes that they didn't have to hide. He wishes that he could share her brightness and sweetness and high, giggling voice with others, because she's too wonderful to be kept away in the lonely, simple tower of his flat. Because she deserves the mad, marvelous world that she's opened to him, just as much as anyone.

He's made concessions for their situation, of course (as much as he can), but it isn't the same. It isn't the same as her joining him at the pub for a pint and idle but amusing conversation with the other patrons watching the game. It isn't the same as her hearing the laughter of the old man who works the newsstand and who always asks after the young lady for whom he wraps up the special-order stone polish that arrives every month without fail. It isn't the same as her feeling the warm sun or the brisk wind against her cheeks while they sit together on a park bench, as other couples can do.

And so as he tries to focus again on the electronic pad in his hands, he wonders if there will ever be a corner of this world that will accept him and the girl he loves.

. . .

Somewhere in London, there is a shopkeeper who turns in front of the mirror, smoothing her hands over her hips as though checking her outfit for the day. But it's not really her clothes she scrutinizes, but the shape of her body, the slope of her belly, the swell of her bust. Because she knows that these are the things that have always attracted men. The man straightening the bed in the other room is no exception; his kisses and his caresses favor those soft and womanly aspects of her just as other men have done. But no matter how sweet those kisses or how soft those caresses, it isn't enough.

Because for the first time with a man, with him, she wants more. More than the quiet invites to stay the night murmured at her shoulder as she locks up the shop; more than the carry-all with the refresh of clothes dropped beside the sofa on which she never sleeps, for the gentle tug of his hand; more than the internal vacillation of whether she'll cradle to her breast a soft stuffed bear wrapped in a flannel shirt that smells vaguely but unmistakeably of him...or the delightfully rough, stubbled cheek of the man himself.

So as she twists back and forth in front of the mirror - not quite watching in her preoccupation - she wonders if, from this man, it's time for her to ask for more. If, for this man, it's time for her to offer more. If, with this man, it's time for her to be more.

And, unbeknownst to her, the man in the other room stops as he smooths his hand across the quilted blue duvet settled upon the queen-size bed made for two (that lives up to that description only half the nights of any given week), and wonders the same thing about himself.

. . .

Somewhere in London, there is a doctor who wakes from a too-light solitary sleep, with half-remembered dream images of beautiful black hair, beautiful cocoa-coloured eyes, beautiful brown lips still swimming behind his eyelids. He glances to the space beside him in his bed and almost forgets himself before her name ("Martha-?") escapes from his parched lips.

It's been a long time since the woman from his dreams slept beside him in this bed or any other, but he still misses her. The extra shifts at hospital and the hopeful dinner dates and the evenings spent lounging in the cinema or the pub or the park help – a little bit – to ease his loneliness. But only until a charming couple walking arm-in-arm passes him on the street (their arguing about the value of film adaptations of classical books no mask for their affection); or a man carrying a gift-wrapped box of what could be chocolates or jewelry asks him for the time (his bashful flustering no distraction from the look of anxious emotion on his face); or a brazen bombshell sizes him up from across the street (her flirty smile no cover for the isolation he sees in her eyes, as well). Then he thinks, all too easily, of the woman from his dreams again.

And he wonders if the memory of her will ever let him go.

. . .

In a very specific house below a very specific hill in the western London suburb of Chiswick, a red-haired woman moves about her family kitchen, going through the motions of making tea like a shadow of a greater self of which she feels like she sometimes dreams, but somehow never quite remembers upon waking.

Because somewhere in the back of her mind, she thinks her life could be about more than biscuits and tea around the table, or fish and chips at the market, or even money or property or social standing, or all the other things that her mother and the women in the neighborhood say is so important.

Because somewhere in the back of her mind, she thinks that her life could be more than just sitting complacently on the newest furniture decorating a spacious flat, or stepping among dress racks in posh shops on the high street, or even showing off the diamond on her finger or the gold around her wrist, or all the other things that her mother and the women in the neighborhood say is so impressive.

Because somewhere in the back of her mind, she knows that her life should be more than Chiswick, more than money and standing, more than the newest furniture and the high street. She knows that there's more to life than what she's been told, than what she's ever expected, than what she can possibly even imagine. And all she has to do is step out of the family kitchen, set down the tea kettle and take off the diamond ring, and make the leap of faith that's been nagging at the back of her mind for who knows how long, now.

But what would her mother and the women in the neighborhood say about her, then? To take her head out of the clouds. To get to work on starting that family she says she wants. To stop deluding herself that there's anything more than ordinary about her life, or anything about her that can make a difference in the world.

So it's her grandfather who brings her the note scribbled on the back of an old waybill one afternoon, a job notice for an in-house manager at Copper's Pub, that strange little spot of eccentric anachronism situated two streets down from the newsstand and where the old man has said he's seen the oddest regulars go.

"You've been floating, love," her grandfather tells her, with that familiar, slightly red-eyed look. "Maybe this will help you get back on-track."

She sighs, lamentable, defeated. "I don't know, Gramps. You know what Mum'll say-"

He sniffs, and snorts. "You live your own life," he says. "You're made for greater things than just sitting around waiting for something to happen." And now he smiles. "You can change the world."

"Working in a pub?" she replies, incredulous for his thought, though she doesn't exactly mean to be. "How is working in a pub going to change the world?"

And he looks at her, with that same red-eyed gaze that is so witting, so loving, so sad, like he knows something she doesn't. "The world doesn't usually change in a day," he murmurs. Then he smiles again, a much more wonderful expression than the doleful, wistful one that usually crosses his face when he looks at her but thinks she can't see him. "It's safer to change it a little bit at a time."

"By serving bitters and balancing books?" she guesses with a lively snicker.

But he shakes his grey head. "By being just you," he tells her at last. "By being Donna."

And as he reaches his gnarled hand toward hers, she smiles, and wonders if maybe he isn't right about that, after all.

AUTHOR'S COMMENTS:
Fellow author Prone to Obsession wrote a charming short story called "The Almost Companions" that I tried really hard not to duplicate here...but I, too, have some ideas about what could have happened to some of the minor and supporting characters who have had adventures and run-ins with the good Doctor.

This short piece is something of a prelude to my larger burbling idea. If you like it, maybe you could let me know? I would love to keep sharing some of the (hopefully) entertaining ideas I've come up with for this odd little group.

NEXT: Don't Bother None