Work Text:
Donna has always known she wasn't clever or beautiful or particularly talented. She never had any bright ideas past her skills, and except for a few daydreams when she was in school of being famous, she was perfectly content with her lot.
Down to earth was the term people seemed to use, if they were being polite-unambitious was the less kind word. Either way it amounted to the same thing. She took a rather pragmatic view of the world and her chances in it, and much to her Mother's dismay she saw no need to fight it. There was no point, not really, not when she already had to be the loudest woman in the room to get what was hers.
She really didn't have anything going for her other than sheer force of will, and that was fine. That was how life worked, and after more than thirty years she'd come to accept that. She never expected anything else.
At least, not until she suddenly appeared in the TARDIS. The Doctor turned her world absolutely upside down, made her believe for a moment that she really was brilliant, even considering the truth about Lance. He was so mad, and brilliant, and utterly believed in her, more than anyone else ever had her entire life. It made her want to do amazing things, take on the world, reach for the stars, all those things she'd never even dared to dream.
But Donna Noble knew when a thing was too much for her, and travelling with the Doctor was certainly past her limits. What would a woman like her do with him? He saved the world on a weekly basis, and he didn't do it by filing and typing and making coffee. She turned him down, fully aware that it was the right thing to do.
Or at least, she thought it was. For the first time since puberty she felt so up in the air. The world was a strange new place, with aliens and madmen in blue boxes, and Donna no longer knew where she fit. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she'd missed her chance, and she was devastated.
So she searched, because all at once she was all unsure and it felt rather uncomfortably like being back in school and not knowing where to sit that first day. She hated it, and so she searched. Even if she never found it, at least she was in control of her life again.