mycroftsmindtardis:

The Doctor was so set on leaving when Donna tells him that he was being unfair – that he had the power to go back and save someone but that he was choosing not to. And his face, it has this underlying anger when he says that it is fair, because it wasn’t not up to him to change things, but  Donna confronts him with the truth, that HE DOES, she reminds him that his own planet burned and he didn’t save them, and that maybe he couldn’t save them anymore, but that he has the chance to save someone now.

And I think that is what was the hardest thing about this entire scene, because he was so sure that he just couldn’t, because for so long de had convinced himself that life wasn’t fair, that he didn’t decide people’s fate, that he couldn’t go back, but Donna with her heart on her sleeve calls him out, and in that moment he just looks down, because she’s right. He could go back and save someone. Just like he could have gone back to gallifrey to save one person, but he chose not to, that he had been a coward, and that he had run away. but this time, thanks to her, he wouldn’t.