Street corner. Two in the morning. Getting a taxi home. 1/1; Wilf, Sylvia, Donna; G

[scarfman]

Title: Street corner. Two in the morning. Getting a taxi home. 1/1
Author: scarfman
Characters/Pairing: Wilf, Sylvia. Donna spoken of.
Rating: G
Setting (spoilers through): Journey's End
Disclaimer: This work is derivative of property of the BBC. No profit shall be made and no market of the owner(s) is infringed upon.
Betareader: qtrhorserider
Summary: The title is a line of the Doctor's from Father's Day in his dialog with the wedding couple, poetically summing up both the adventure he'll never have and the reason he does it all.
crossposted scarfman dwfiction marriedonmars loves_them_all

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"You wanted to be an actress," said Wilf.

Sylvia looked up from her magazine. "Sorry?"

Wilf still sat in the easy chair he'd occupied when Donna'd left for her evening out with her friends, where he'd dropped after he'd seen the Doctor out. "You wanted to be an actress, once."

"When I was seventeen. Then I grew up."

"We all want to be actresses when we're seventeen, and then we grow up," said Wilf gruffly. "We learn life doesn't work that way. We grow up and give in to the quiet desperation.

"But we're the ones he does it for. The ones who have to remember to stop and smell the roses, and don't always. Us with our football scores and our pub quizzes and a thousand pointless, tiny joys that don't make a whit of difference to the universe but that they add up to make us happy. That's who Donna was when he met her, and that's who she is again. He doesn't love her because she saved the universe. That's just background noise to him! He loved her before she did any of that. She's everyone he does it for, and that's why he loves her."

Sylvia shuddered with the effort of acknowledgement, but she said it: "She was so much more, and she doesn't know."

"We know."

"It's sad."

"Yeah," said Wilf. Finally he heaved himself out of his chair and set off toward the back, toward his stargazing. "But she's happy."

fin

(companion piece set immediately afterward is here)

Comments

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

For Wilf and Sylvia, it must be like living with an Alzheimer's patient - Donna has no clue what she doesn't remember, but they do, which makes it more painful for them than her. You convey that well here.