Bank Jobs and Nut Jobs.

by Flaignhan.

She's working for this bank. Just behind the counter like, nothing too special. The pay's not bad (it's not great either) and the other girls are all right. Spotty Horace gets on her nerves (not just because he has a face which resembles a crater and therefore she finds difficult to look at without grimacing) but because he's got this oily patronising tone of voice and a sense of self importance that no nineteen year old should have.

Still, she finds it greatly consoling that he's spotty. And called Horace.

Honestly, she finds the whole adventure quite exciting. Granted she becomes a little less excited when faced with the not so friendly end of a sawn off shot gun, more terrified, but nevertheless, she whacks the security button under her desk with her knee and stares at the bloke wearing the monkey mask.

"Give us the money!" the bloke screams at her, pushing a sack through the gap under the glass partition. She raises an eyebrow.

"Please wouldn't go amiss and will you stop pointing that thing at me!" she nods towards the shot gun and he looks down at it, his grip loosening slightly. "For god's sake you're about as menacing as a lump of cotton wool…" she begins to fill up the sack that he'd tossed at her with bank notes in a haughty manner, taking her sweet time. She knows she is pushing her luck, but frankly she can't care less - Jermaine was voted out of X Factor on Saturday and she's run up a considerable bill on her mobile voting for him. She is in no way a 'happy bunny'.

"Hurry up!" the bloke yells at her again, his accomplice pointing his gun at the customers, looking anxiously towards the door every five seconds. Donna stops immediately.

"That's no way to get things done," she tells him. Shireen looks at her like she's mad, talking like that to a bloke pointing a gun at her like that. "Like I said, a please wouldn't go amiss and I'd appreciate it if you adjusted your tone of voice." The man doesn't know what to say, and she imagines a somewhat taken aback look on the grubby face behind the mask. "Now, repeat after me. 'Hello, I'm here to rob this bank. Would you mind filling up this sack with money for me?' Your turn." She's hoping that the glass is bullet proof and that his finger doesn't squeeze the trigger, and she also hopes that this burst of self confidence and sarcasm will dissipate soon as it doesn't really suit her best interests in the current situation.

"Fill it up, please," he says grumpily, the 'please' sounding strained and somehow choked upon.

"Ooh, that'll have to do." She starts filling up the bag again but there's a bit of a kafuffle as armed police burst through the doors of the bank and Donna takes the opportunity to dive under the desk so she doesn't get in the way of any pieces of lead that decide to speed in her direction.

The robbers are taken away in handcuffs and the one who'd been shouting at her sent her a scowl on his way out.

She blows him a kiss and then sets about lapping up all the praise that is sent her way.

The bank sort her out a free holiday for her and a mate to Thailand for two weeks, and, as a nice little bonus, she gets paid for the hours that she's in Thailand.

Her mum purses her lips and tells her she shouldn't mess around with people with guns, while Gramps congratulates her heartily, saying things like 'that's my girl' and 'you tell 'em!'

Two days later and she's still the Wonder Woman of the Chiswick branch of Barclays, although Spotty Horace decides to lecture her on how company policy means that staff who get mouthy with bank robbers aren't covered when it comes to insurance. Everyone tells Spotty Horace to stop acting like he wrote the policies himself, and stop being a jumped up little twit.

Donna can think of a great number of things that she would have called Spotty Horace other than a 'jumped up little twit' but she likes the fact that she's got people jumping to her defence. Likes the fact that the manager's bringing her coffee from Starbucks when he arrives every morning, and she loves the fact that Veena has treated her to a lovely pair of jewelled sandals from Office, as a thank you for choosing to take her to Thailand.

On her way home, she's taking a shortcut through the park, (bad idea, she knows, but there's a proper path and there's lights and it's not completely deserted, and besides, no one would dare to try anything with the woman who doesn't bat an eyelid at a sawn off shot gun). She hears a noise and turns around, slightly curious and slightly cautious as to what it could be. She continues walking backwards (bad idea, she knows, she's seen enough horror movies to know that walking backwards in a dark and foreboding place is asking to be murdered, but you know, whatever, she's not missing Strictly Dance Fever for no one).

Her back bumps into something soft and alive, and she screams and turns around. The soft and alive thing has taken a step back and is holding his hands up.

"It's all right!" he says urgently. "I wasn't looking where I was going. Sorry." Donna exhales a shaky breath.

"God, you frightened the life out of me!"

"Sorry," he says again. She nods, readjusting the strap of her handbag on her shoulder, keeping a firm grip on it, in case he tries to grab it, or her, in which case she'll need to swing that bag at his head with as much force as a Japanese Bullet Train. She frowns at him, curiously.

"Have I seen you somewhere before?" she asks.

"Naaah," the man replies, running his hand through his thick brown hair. Everything about him seems to be brown: his eyes, his hair, his suit, his tie, his coat, only his battered cream trainers and his dark blue shirt aren't brown, and she's never been a fan of brown on men, but somehow it works on this man and she doesn't wish he'd go and see Trinny and Susannah for a huge wardrobe overhaul.

"Right, well, I'd best be off." She takes a step to the side but he mirrors her actions. She looks up at him with her best 'get out my way or you'll be picking your facial features up off the floor' look but realises in a not so comforting way that he's really quite tall, and even if her handbag was full of bricks and she swung it like she was representing Britain in the hammer throw, she wouldn't be able to get away from him. His facial expression isn't dangerous though, and she wonders whether he means her harm or whether he's just a bit doolally. Or maybe he's trying to lull her into a false sense of security. Either way, she's ready to scream her loudest scream in history and send her knee flying into his family jewels the second he does something she doesn't like.

"Can I just say something?"

"Make it quick, I wanna get home." She then adds, "my mum was expecting me ten minutes ago," as a slight and subtle threat.

"You're amazing." She frowns at this.

"You what?"

"Amazing," he repeats. "Wonderful, astounding, remarkable, marvellous, incredible, special, magnificent, fantastic, molte bene!"

"Are you a stalker?" she demands. "I've had a stalker before! D'you know where the police found him? In a ditch, that's where they found him, d'you get that?"

He smiles warmly and she is suddenly disarmed by this big friendly grin. Perhaps this is how the bank robber felt when she started demanding manners.

"I'm not a stalker," he tells her quietly. "In fact, you probably won't ever see me again, but I just think you should know that you're special, because you are, incredibly special. Don't ever think otherwise."

"Get out my way, weirdo!" she shoves past him, checking her watch as she does so. "Oh bloody hell you've only gone and made me miss the start of Strictly Dance Fever, you nut job!"

His hearts break a little at this, partly because he knows she doesn't believe she's special, even though he's just told her it with nearly a dozen adjectives, and partly because she's still shouting at the world and far too absorbed in those phone vote cons on the television.

With a sigh he walks back to the Tardis, and is highly offended for the old girl when he realises that the dodgy smell isn't coming from the public toilets, and there's a big wet stain on one of her nice blue panels.

Just as he's about to step into the Tardis, something in a bin catches his eye. It's a newspaper, the Chiswick Gazette, and it's got a big bold headline and a photo of a smiling red head. He grabs it, and heads back into the Tardis.

"Met a right weirdo on my way home," she announces as she collapses onto the sofa, her tea sloshing around in her mug. "Ooh, that Arleen don't half get on my nerves, dunno what she's talking about, he was bloody good!"

"You didn't even see the dance, you're only saying that because he's in Holby City," Sylvia replies in a tired sort of way. "Who's this weirdo?"

"He was wearing a brown suit, kept banging on about how I'm special. Probably a nutter who's seen that story in the Gazette. Still, he said I probably wouldn't see him again so that's a relief. Absolutely barmy. Tell you what though, it's put me off cutting through that park at night if there's gonna be head cases like him about. Has whatsername from Eastenders been on yet?"

She isn't bothered that she doesn't get an answer, and she doesn't notice the look that her mum gives Gramps, a sort of half cautious, half relieved look. Difficult to explain, but it's the look that Sylvia and Wilf associate with the Doctor.

"You are special, love," Sylvia says getting up, "a nutter he may be but he knows a special girl when he sees one. Fancy some chocolate biscuits?"

Donna's train of thought crashes at the mention of chocolate biscuits and it's not until she's lying in bed later that she realises that her mum had called her special, and not in a special needs sort of way either.

Phrases such as 'outstanding bravery' and 'keeping cool in the face of danger' make him so so proud of her. Of course he wouldn't recommend that she does it again, especially not with a sawn off shot gun pointing at her, because money does terrible tings to people and that gun was probably loaded but even so, he's immensely proud.

He hopes that she's read the article, and feels proud of herself, because she should be. And he hopes that even though she most likely thinks him a psychopath, she'll remember what he said to her about being amazing.

Because maybe, just maybe, if she starts to believe it herself, Donna Noble will be back to doing a dozen amazing things everyday.

The End.