Title: The Little Picture
Author: Tess/mihane_echo
Rating: Rated E for everybody. It's gooey and slightly fuzzy. (It appears to be a hamster stuck in marshmallow fluff.)
Word Count: 311
Spoilers: None
Summary: The Doctor reflects on what Donna's given him.
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it belongs to the Beeb and I'm borrowing it to play with. I promise I will return them (marginally) unharmed. ;3
Author's Note: Random desperate need for some happy!Doctor. Scribbled it out in twenty minutes. Now I'm going to bed.



She loves listening to his hearts. The double-thump, so unlike her own and yet so familiar. It's comforting, safe and warm and home. Laying in the grass together, with magnificent purple birds soaring through the orange sky, she rests her ear against his chest and listens.

He glances down at the ginger head on his chest and strokes her hair. He loves her hair. It's soft and fluttering between his fingers and it catches the sun in the way that only red hair can, fiery-hot and blazing. He never thought in a million years that he would have this again, that he even could have it again. A family was something for other men to have, never him.

But Donna gave it to him. Made him realize that he didn't have to be alone. That he didn't have to sacrifice his own happiness for the sake of the big picture. That little picture that she understood so well had needed some mending, and Donna had known exactly how to do it.

He's grateful for her every day.

"Well, aren't you two just a picture," says the loveliest voice in the universe, and the Doctor opens one eye to squint at the figure standing over him. Donna grins down at him, haloed in the golden light of the setting sun. Her auburn hair also looks to be on fire, just like that of the little girl he holds on his chest.

Their daughter giggles and looks up at her mother.

"I like listening to Daddy's heartbeats," she tells her. "It's really cool."

"Is that right?" muses Donna, stretching out by the Doctor's side in the long grass. She sweeps her hair off her neck and smiles at him. One hand finds his and she twines her fingers between his. He squeezes them gently in reply. "I like listening to Daddy's heartbeats too."

end