amberfocus | The Most Important Woman in the Universe--B'day Fic for Ageless

Title: The Most Important Woman in the Universe (1/1)
Author: Amberfocus
Characters/Pairings: Donna Noble, Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness
Genre: Genfic, fluff, tiny touch of angst
Beta:

amyo67
Rating: PG
Summary: Donna Noble crosses paths with a slightly unusul trio at a London café. Set after Journey's End for Donna and before Boomtown for Nine, Rose and Jack.
A/N: This fic is a birthday gift for

ageless_aislynn. Happy Birthday, hon!

The Most Important Woman in the Universe

Donna Noble is sitting down eating her lunch in one of the best underrated little restaurants in London and minding her own business when she sees them standing outside. She knows the grumpy, funny looking older man—well, older than her by a good five years—isn’t someone she’s ever seen before, so why does something in his bearing seem so familiar? He’s trailing two companions, a bottled blonde girl in a threadbare denim skirt and a brilliant scarf who can’t be more than twenty and a dark-haired, dimpled man who rings just about every bell she owns and a few more she might have to install just for him.

She watches curiously as the girl takes the hand of the man in the leather jacket and swings it back and forth, smiling cajolingly up at him and pointing across the street. For a moment it looks like she’s pointing straight at Donna, but it’s the café she’s pointing out. The man glances across and then back at the girl and his irritation seems to fade away in the face of her smile. When his own blinding grin comes out it’s like sunlight breaking through a storm cloud and it suddenly dawns on her that he’s actually very beautiful with his rough, chiseled features.

From the way he looks at the girl it’s obvious that she has him wrapped around her little finger. From the way she looks back it’s obvious that she’s more than just a little bit in love with the man and when she turns away to say something to Dimples it becomes clear that Leather Jacket is in so deep he’ll never get out again, but doesn’t want the other two to know it. Donna smiles into her coffee. She loves people watching, making up back stories about them, and rearranging their lives without them ever knowing about it. She sighs. It was something she used to do with…with…

She rubs at her forehead as a painful flash of a headache comes on and she quickly grabs for her purse. The doctor told her to take one of her pills at the start of one of these migraines and so she pops open the bottle and swallows one down with a mouthful of too hot coffee. What had she been thinking about? Oh, they’re coming into the café. She straightens herself around and smoothes down her hair, then adjusts her breasts making sure they’re even and she’s showing just the right amount of cleavage. Leather Jacket and Blondie are obviously besotted with each other but she might just happen to catch the eye of Dimples. A few minutes of silent flirting will go a long way towards improving her day.

"Told you we'd find it," Leather Jacket says.

"I found it," Blondie corrects him. "Your sense of direction is nearly as rubbish as your driving skills."

"Oi!" He scowls until she turns her smile on him again and he softens in the face of it.

They order a bunch of food at the cash register and settle at a table diagonal to hers a few minutes later with three loaded trays. Dimples and the girl sit next to each other facing her, and Leather Jacket sits across from the girl holding her hand across the table. She likes this set up as it means she has an unimpeded view of Dimples. Up close he is even more gorgeous than she thought and when he catches her staring unabashedly at him, he gives her a slow, sensual grin. Donna blushes from the sheer heat of his smile and looks out the window.

Her eyes are magnetically drawn back to him. He really is beautiful. She takes another sip of coffee and when he gives her a rather lusty wink her hand clenches the little polystyrene cup so hard it breaks. Hot coffee spills all over her hand. “Ow,” she cries out, trying to stuff the burned digits into her mouth.

Dimples is up in a flash, cold water in one hand and a serviette in the other. He sits down in the chair across from hers and wipes the spilled coffee off her hand, dipping her fingers into his water glass. “You okay?” he asks and his accent is shockingly American.

“Just a bit burnt,” she manages to say. Her eyes meet his and she knows she could get lost in them for days. He’s so gorgeous up close that she would swoon if she were that sort of a woman. She might just do it anyway for the fun of it. She shakes her head as Leather Jacket and Blondie crowd around with concern.

“You all right?” the girl asks and the genuine sympathy in her eyes touches something deep inside Donna’s heart. Something tells her this little girl is going to get her heart horribly broken one day and there will be absolutely nothing that Leather Jacket can do to stop it from happening. She has a feeling it'll somehow be even worse for him. She sighs.

“Yeah, fine,” she says. She pulls her hand out of the water. “No harm done, see? Only a little pink.”

“Can I buy you another coffee?” he asks and that flirty smile is back.

“Anytime you want, gorgeous,” she responds and he laughs heartily.

Leather Jacket rolls his eyes and tugs Blondie back to their table muttering something that sounds like but can't possibly be, "Intergalactic playboy," while Dimples heads to the counter and orders her another drink. When he returns he says, “You struck me as a chocolate kind of girl.” He puts the drink down in front of her. “I’m Jack, by the way.”

“Donna,” she says. They make polite chit chat, but everything the man says is actually laden with intense innuendo. She’s just considering whether or not she’s going to be lucky enough to get lucky with him when Leather Jacket stands up.

“We need to get going, Jack.”

Jack frowns at the older man but one look at his face has him jumping to his feet. “Right, Doc,” he says. He smiles down at her. “Don’t suppose you’ll give me your number? Let me call you the next time I’m in town.”

Despite her better judgment she writes it down on the sales slip that came with her meal and hands it over. “Come on, Jack,” the man he’d called Doc says from the doorway.

“You are bound and determined to spoil all my fun today,” Jack complains good-naturedly as he heads to the front door.

“More like every day,” the girl pipes up. “So where to now? I thought we were going to meet the most important woman in the universe today.”

Jack heads through the door first and Leather Jacket holds it for Blondie. He looks at her like she’s daft. “What have I told you about false expectations, Rose? You just did.” The door slams shut behind him and Donna sits there gaping after them. He can’t possibly mean…there is no way he can mean…her. Can he?

Nah, that’s just nuts. She sits at the little table sipping her mocha and wishing that just for once, just this once, something like that could be true. She glances down at her watch. Lunch break is over. Time to get back to it. As she exits the building she can’t help but turn her head sharply as an achingly familiar noise echoes down the street. It’s a noise that haunts her dreams, but just like in those dreams, when she turns to look there’s nothing there to see.

She shakes herself and heads back to work. She’s working as a temp at a place called U.N.I.T. It’s only her first day but she thinks she’s going to like it there.