"We just lost the beat..."

Spaceman

            “There we go.  Safe and sound.”

            She didn’t need his reassurance, his hug, and yet, she was accepting it warmly.  What was wrong with her?  The Doctor didn’t seem to take it as something out of the ordinary.  He was always doing things out of the ordinary: forever pulling her by the hand, running off, going at a chaotic pace.  She’d asked for this.  She’d asked for a life of adventure to trade for a life of disillusionment with the human race. 

            Donna had little idea what drew her to this man besides his obvious (and refreshing) alien-ness. Was he some sort of father figure for her?  God, she wouldn’t go analyzing herself again…  It was true that her father was never quite the best, but she’d never sought for his personality in other places. 

            A brotherly figure?  No, no, never.  Donna could never share with the one sister she had, let alone the fifteen cousins who always came around at Christmastime.  There was no fighting to share the bathroom (not that room itself was an issue on the TARDIS in the first place), no yelling about the washing up.  It just was.

            Later, when the expected chaos died down and the hum of the TARDIS had welcomed her back, Donna came to the conclusion she was searching for. 

            The Doctor was no lover, no father, no brother, not even an uncle or an estranged cousin.  He was a friend who offered the love of a friend; a spaceman.  He was as unique as his time-traveling police box.  It was the sort of uniqueness Donna needed after the immense disappointment of normal life and normal relationships.  
            Maybe Donna was running, or maybe she wanted to forget.  Or maybe she needed a spaceman, a stranger, to help her find faith in the human race that she’d lost in a snowstorm on Christmas Day only a few years ago.