[Don't] Try to Remember (Star Trek Voyager, Doctor Who, Kathryn Janeway, Donna Noble)

[divinemissem13]

Title:(Don't) Try to Remember
Fandom: Star Trek Voyager, Doctor Who
Pair: Kathryn Janeway & Donna Noble
Contains: Memory loss, Angst, Time Travel
Prompt: Stargazing

Donna rushes out of the house, a chilled bottle of rosé in hand. "Did I miss it? I always seem to be missing these things…"

"You were gone for about 60 seconds," Kathryn answers with a teasing smile. "So no, you didn't miss it — yet."

"Well I guess there's a first time for everything!" Donna jokes as she uncorks the bottle and tops off both glasses.

"So tell me about that one. Have you been there?" Donna asks, pointing to a star at random.

Kathryn hums, sipping her wine as she thinks how much she can share this time. "I believe that is the Beta Zeta system, and yes, I've been to Betazed. It's a race of telepaths. They almost look human, except that their eyes are pitch black." Kathryn glances at her friend out of the corner of her eye. She is looking up at the sky with such wonder, hanging on to Kathryn's every word… it breaks Kathryn's heart. "Their wedding ceremonies are conducted completely in the nude," she adds, as much to raise her own spirits as to shock Donna.

"In the nude?!" Donna cackles in disbelief. "Now you're just pulling my leg!"

Kathryn only shrugs and smiles enigmatically. It's better for Donna if she thinks Kathryn just has a wild imagination, but the captain often wishes she could tell her friend everything. When that strange man in the blue box had landed on Voyager and promised to protect her ship from temporal disasters if only she would do a bit of time traveling (in a controlled environment of course) to check on his best friend every so often, Kathyn had agreed without thinking twice. She hadn't expected to enjoy her visits so much, or to get so attached to this brash woman from the past.

Donna has that far away look in her eye again, the one that makes Kathryn fear she has inadvertently triggered a memory in the woman and she holds her breath and prays. It's a relief when Donna says "Do you think someday we might really be able to go up there? See other planets? Meet aliens?"

"Haven't you been listening? I've already been," Kathryn responds, knowing that Donna will take her honest answer as another joke. Knowing that it's safer that way.

"Oi!" Donna says, elbowing her playfully, "I mean it! Wouldn't that be something? Outer space… I'd be on the first rocket out if they'd let me."

Kathryn wants to say You've been and you were incredible. She wants to say They would be idiots not to let you go back. She wants to tell her friend the story of how she once saved the universe and all of time and space… Instead she just holds up her wine glass in a salute and says, "Donna Noble, when you put your mind something I don't think anyone could stop you."

"Oh, go on! I'm just a temp, what use would I be in space?" Donna deflects, disparaging herself like she always does.

"Maybe the aliens need a really good typist?" Kathryn suggests with forced levity.

"Oh! Look!" Donna leans forward, pointing at the sky and changing the subject, for which Kathryn is extremely grateful.

Kathryn watches over Donna while the redhead watches with childlike amazement as hundreds of flecks of space debris ignite in Earth's atmosphere. She's never seen a meteor shower before — at least not that she can remember — and that's why Kathryn is here, in this very moment. To make sure that she doesn't. 

Comments

[senmut]

Oh nicely done