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On Boundaries
The Doctor licked everything. It was just something he did. Dirt, walls, suspicious glowing goo― if it didn’t actively move away from him, the Doctor was almost certainly going to lick it. Donna figured he might be like her old terrier who just enjoyed licking everything. Dogs and aliens― who could say why they did what they did?
She drew the line at licking her. It was a reasonable line to draw― he could put his mouth on whatever he wanted, except for her. She was very clear about it.
The Doctor never seemed to remember. Her terrier hadn’t done well with that either.
On Harnemi, the Doctor presented Donna with something that looked like flowers that turned out to be closer to anemones. Her fingertips tingled for six hours. She knew it was six hours because the Doctor followed her around licking her fingers and announcing the time and toxicity levels like that was in any way helpful.
“Stop that!” Donna hissed when he tried it in front of a whole crew of witnesses.
“I have to monitor it! You said no to the medical implant!”
“I’ve made it this far without being probed! You’re not getting me now!”
“Don-naaa!”
“No!”
“Don-naaaaaaa,” he whined, louder. “I’m worried about you.” He turned on the puppy dog eyes, and God, Donna really missed that old terrier.
“Ugh,” she groaned. “Fine. Fine!” She held up her hand. “You can take a look.” He immediately snuck a lick. “Look with your eyes!” she started to argue, but got distracted by a stinging sensation she hadn’t noticed before. “…That’s odd…”
The Doctor tapped his tongue against his teeth and screwed up his face. “Did you―?”
Donna missed the rest of his question because she passed out.
She came to in the captain's lounge with the Doctor rambling on about how she could be “unreasonably squeamish” about medical trackers or oral tests, but not both.
“No tracker,” Donna mumbled, head buzzing.
“Then you’re just going to have to rely on my oral diagnostics!”
“Whatever,” she said. “…Why do I feel drunk?”
“Drunk?!” He ducked over, grabbed her face, and gave her a kiss right on her frowning mouth. The absolute berk had the nerve to sneak in a bit of tongue. “Secondary toxins!” he said, and darted off before she could do much more than sputter.
Then Donna was a bit distracted by bitter drinks and annoying aliens and not going into any kind of shock. She did not enjoy Harnemi.
The Doctor learned exactly nothing. He went right back to licking everything, including her. But she managed to avoid the medical tracker.
On Communication
Donna wasn’t sure why she had to be the one to housetrain the 900-year-old alien, but he certainly seemed to be missing a lot of common courtesy. She’d learned to focus on one offense at a time― prioritizing whatever was most inconvenient. If she picked too many fights at once, he just got worse.
“You can’t just run off without a word!” Donna said, for the thousandth time. “How am I supposed to know when you’re ducking out to grab something and when you’re disappearing for three days?”
He blinked wide eyes at her. “…You want me to tell you where I’m going every time I leave a room?”
“Don’t say it like it’s the craziest thing you’ve ever heard of! How would you feel if every time I got up you didn’t know whether I was grabbing a snack or heading home for the weekend? We were in the middle of a conversation earlier and you just swanned off to who knows where in the middle of your own sentence! For all I knew you’d been eaten by whatever that growling thing is in the closet by the pool!”
The Doctor stared at her with his weird blank face. “…You want me to announce where I’m going and give you a time estimate for when I’ll be done?”
“I tell you when I’m going to bed!” she pointed out. “But fine― maybe just a signal. Like how you bring your coat when you’re going outside. Something! I don’t know!”
He nodded in a way that inspired exactly no confidence, but she’d learned to space out repeating arguments by then. Maybe he’d only need three reminders this time.
Not even a full day later, they were snowed in with an unlucky bunch of orange yetis and Donna was busy trying to keep the little ones from panicking.
The Doctor was being no help, as usual. “If I could find the nearest tower, I could get it up and running,” he said.
“There’s a relay station two clicks from here,” one of the orange yetis said. “We could show you.”
“Brilliant!” The Doctor jumped up and pulled on his coat (like that was going to do anything). “Allons-y!”
The yetis looked much less excited about the prospect, but started putting on actual winter gear.
Donna caught the Doctor before he could start another rambling loop. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
He turned his ridiculously large eyes on her, blinking blankly. “…Am I?”
“Remember what we talked about?” Donna gave him her best pointed look.
“Er,” he said. “Course.” He looked around the room where his guides were saying goodbye to their families. Even the yetis had better manners than he did.
Donna sighed and waited for him to connect the dots. She could see the moment something rattled loose.
“Oh!” he said, and hopped closer. “Right!”
Donna glanced down to make sure he didn’t step on one of the fuzzies clutching her leg and was completely unprepared for the Doctor to duck in and kiss her.
She only just remembered not to stumble back over little toes. The Doctor was already off, spinning away.
“D―!”
“I’m heading out now,” he announced. “Outside, I mean. Shouldn’t be more than an hour. Well, an hour or two. Well… maybe a few hours. The point is― I’m going outside now!” He flashed an inappropriately enthusiastic grin and bounded out into the cold.
Donna was left sputtering in a room full of orange fuzzballs. Once she realized that wasn’t going to magically make anything make more sense, she decided to just put that whole interaction in the ‘partial win’ category. It had been a signal, after all. And he wasn’t half bad at it.
On Explanations
With a ship collapsing in around them, Donna wasn’t in the mood for anything but clear cut solutions. The Doctor was rambling on about the core this and the core that. Something about it being too efficient at holding the ship together. Fab.
“If you can’t reset the core itself, can’t you― I don’t know― shut off the emergency lockdown or something? Just long enough for the escape pods to clear?” The Doctor’s head snapped up to stare at her like he’d forgotten she could even talk. “…What?”
He said something that the TARDIS translated as, “Physics. Physics? Physics!”
Donna rolled her eyes. “I don’t care why― If it’ll work, just do it!”
“Brilliant idea, Donna!” The Doctor jumped up, caught her face between both hands, and planted a smacking kiss right on her startled mouth. Before she could do much more than sputter, he was off in another whirl of pinstripes.
She lost her balance a bit, but it was because he’d startled her. Not because she’d gone a bit weak in the knees. “You can’t just― Why are you climbing?!”
His trainers disappeared into the overhead panel. “Emergency systems are always up, Donna. Never down.”
“What idiot designed that?!”
“Excellent question,” he chirped. “We should look them up after this. Let them know how everything turned out.”
“That’s not actually― Never mind! Hurry up!”
“Won’t be a minute!” The ship lurched, reminding her that there were actually much bigger issues.
“Don’t forget to―!” A great creaking groan reverberated, so loud it made her teeth ache. “…Adjust the gravity first.”
“Oops!” the Doctor said. “Forgot the gravity!”
“You don’t say,” Donna grumbled.
“Up we go!”
Donna had just enough time to bark, “We?!” before everything sort of lurched out from underfoot. Donna made a mental note to add a new rule about not switching off the gravity without warning. She nearly floated right into a bunch of wires and mentally nudged that up the priority list. The unnecessary snogging seemed a lot less likely to pose an electrocution risk.
On Abductions
After the third diplomatic incident, Donna tried to explain that most sentient things liked to be asked, not abducted.
“I don’t abduct people,” the Doctor argued.
“Tricking them into the TARDIS and then ‘accidentally’ taking a trip counts as abducting,” Donna clarified.
“Oh, that’s hardly my fault. The TARDIS likes new people!”
The TARDIS warbled doubtfully. Donna suspected once again that she tolerated the Doctor bringing in strays in the same way that her dad had tolerated her bringing home the occasional small animal from the yard. Humans seemed less likely to try and nest in the sofa, admittedly.
“Just ask properly,” Donna insisted. “They’ll probably say yes! I said yes, didn’t I?”
“Not the first time,” the Doctor grumbled.
“Doc-tor.”
“Oh, all right,” he said. “You know, you have more rules than most humans.”
“Yeah, me and my crazy objections to abductions.”
“They’re not abductions!”
“This really is brilliant,” the Doctor said for the fourth time, and Donna just knew he was leading up to another abduction.
The starship captain blushed a pretty magenta. “It’s the best I could do,” they said.
“What century is it?” The Doctor held up two wires. “Thirty-sixth?” He turned over a nearby dial. “Thirty-fifth?!”
“Finally notice the date written on the dash, did we?” Donna guessed, before he got too far into his Sherlock show.
He shot her an indignant look. “Other people appreciate the flair!” To the captain, he just continued gushing, “You’re two centuries ahead of your time! Maybe three!”
They blushed even darker. “Can you fix it though?”
“Course I can,” the Doctor said, and shoved his whole arm in upto the shoulder. “Just need to… Aha!” One solid yank and the whole deck buzzed to life. “There we are!” He turned to the captain. “Now then. Fancy a trip to your future? Just a quick one?”
They hesitated, visibly tempted. “I couldn’t abandon my crew…”
The Doctor turned to Donna, clearly about to start whining, but she cut in with, “What part of ‘traveling in time’ makes you think you’d have to choose? Could have you back in time for tea!” She jerked her head toward the Doctor. “He’s a decent pilot when you can get him to focus.” Donna nudged the over-enthusiastic alien encouragingly, “There are science expos in the future, right?”
The Doctor turned an awed look on her like she’d invented the concept. “You’d go to a science expo?”
“In the future? Course I would!” She turned to the captain. “So, what do you say?”
“I say… Yes!” they said, looking just as awed.
Donna resigned herself to a full day of tuning out technical babble, but at least there’d probably be robots. She turned back to the Doctor. “What’s the flying robot situation? Do humans still make cute little ones?”
“Let’s find out!” The barmy alien jumped up, kissed her right in front of God and everyone, grabbed her hand, and dragged them both back toward the TARDIS before Donna knew what was happening.
Was he wearing chapstick? She realized she was pressing her lips together and made herself stop.
The Doctor didn’t notice, too busy hunting for his key.
“So sorry, I didn’t realize,” the captain squeaked.
“It’s not―“ Donna was cut off by a different alien kissing her, casual as you please. “Mph!”
“You’ll have to forgive me,” the captain said. “We don’t have that custom. I hope you won’t take offense!” They kissed her again, a bit earnestly.
“…None taken,” Donna said. She tried very hard not to compare the flavors. Or techniques.
“Donna only gets offended by me,” the Doctor said cheerily and threw open the TARDIS doors. “Welcome to the TARDIS!”
Donna just headed in before anyone else could snog her.
On Keeping in Touch
Considering how long it took to talk the Doctor into trying it, Martha was surprisingly easy to abduct. To hear him tell it, his old companion had vowed never to step foot inside the TARDIS again. But she welcomed them back to UNIT like old friends.
“The gang’s back together!” the Doctor crowed and Donna automatically braced for a kiss. He picked them both up instead, whirling back toward the main room. Martha laughed, delighted, which gave Donna an idea on how to kill two alien quirks with one stone.
Two hours later when they popped out of the roof access, Donna cleverly ducked behind Martha when the Doctor went looking around for his celebratory snog. He blinked and immediately pulled the younger woman into another bear hug.
“Well done, you clever humans!”
Donna waited, smirking, for the kiss that was surely coming, but he just set Martha back down, unmolested.
“Now you’re shy??” Donna asked, but then the helicopter arrived and they got distracted again.
Back at the base, Donna finally had a chance to catch Martha alone. “How’d you get him to knock it off with all the snogging?”
Martha coughed. “The what?”
“All the snogging!” Donna said. “You know― he uses it like punctuation!” She threw her arms out emphatically. “Great work― kiss! Welcome back― kiss! I’m going to make sure that the glowworms haven’t mutated any further― kiss!”
“Oh, God,” Martha said. “He still has those glowworms?”
“They’ve learned to fly now. We had to just wall them off in the starfruit grove.” Donna shuddered, but refocused. “Never mind that― how’d you deal with all the…?” She made some exaggerated smooching noises.
Martha became fascinated by something on the ceiling. “Not really an issue.”
“What?? He never snogged you?!”
“Ummm…” Martha’s voice jumped up a few octaves. “How are those glowworms?”
“The absolute nerve of that loony toon! Acting like―! I just assumed―! Did he really not pull this nonsense with you?!”
“Not… really…” Martha said, looking unconvinced by her own account.
“Hang on― did he sneak into your room at night like a kid who can’t sleep without his stuffed animal?”
“I really don’t think―“
“Jones!” someone barked down the hallway.
“Oh, thank God!” Martha practically leapt out after it. “Coming!”
The Doctor barged in a moment later to find Donna standing in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips. “Where’s Martha?”
She gestured toward the hall. “Ran off.”
The Doctor cocked a ridiculous brow. “Something you said?”
She turned a suspicious squint on him. “Is that why you travel with kids all the time? They just get embarrassed and run off instead of making you explain yourself?”
He blinked down at himself. “Do I need explaining??”
Donna laughed in his indignant face. “Yes! Obviously yes! Is there a stronger word than ‘yes?’ Because that!”
He somehow managed to look even more indignant. “Martha’s never said anything!”
“Yeah, that’s exactly my point!” Several soldiers thundered by, heading in the direction Martha’d just run off in. “…Where are they going?”
The Doctor snatched her hand up and pulled her in the opposite direction. “Well, this has been a fun visit, but we really should be off.”
Donna groaned. “Aw, what did you do?”
“Nothing!” he said. “Well, next to nothing. Practically nothing. Nothing that could be called even remotely―“
“Let’s just go,” Donna cut him off. “You can text Martha an apology from the TARDIS.” Any other concerns were drowned out by the sirens that started up.
On Communication (Again)
Even Donna had to admit, the Doctor was clearly trying. He had the TARDIS set a reminder for Martha’s wedding. He’d stopped swanning off without a word. His explanations were very nearly coherent. And just the other day, he’d handed Donna a handkerchief instead of trying to lick a streak of jam out of her hair.
Yes, he still sat half on top of her even when there were plenty of other chairs available, but he almost always thought to check for wet nail polish first now. Yes, he seemed to think that anything she was eating was up for sharing, but he was much better about offering things from his own plate instead of just trying to hand feed her. Sure, he kept sneaking in at bedtime, but she ran a bit hot anyway and it was nice to have something around to leech up the heat without having to sacrifice blankets.
On their next trip, Donna didn’t have to harp on about anything. She just went along for the ride, enjoying the sights like a proper tour.
“We can go to the bazaar next,” he said, pulling her along by the hand. “I could pick up a spare transorbital coupling― you’ll like those. They look a bit like very large marbles. And they’re often mixed in with traditional jewelry!”
Donna perked up. “Jewelry?”
“Mhmm. And I’ve got my credit stick, right here,” he said, and pulled something out of his pocket that definitely wasn’t a credit stick. “Oh. Well, that’s… Hm.”
Donna rolled her eyes, but was still distracted by the promise of jewelry. “Right. That would be why I carry the credit stick, remember?” She pulled the actual thing out of her own pocket.
The Doctor didn’t even look embarrassed; he skipped right to beaming. “Brilliant!” he crowed and ducked in for a kiss.
It lasted just a beat too long before Donna got enough brain cells together to duck away. “OK, what is with the snogging?”
The Doctor looked completely baffled. “What do you mean?”
“You can’t just―” Donna flapped her arms a bit. “You’re going to give people the wrong idea!”
“People?” he repeated blankly.
“Yes, people! You can’t just run around kissing everyone! This isn’t Italy!”
“I don’t kiss everyone,” he objected and then perked up. “…Are you jealous? You’re never jealous!” He seemed to find the idea delightful. The lunatic.
“No, I’m not― Why would you want me to be jealous?!”
He beamed. “Don’t worry, Donna. You’re my favourite!”
“Yeah, I wasn’t actually― Oh, never mind! You owe me jewelry!” She bustled him back on track.
“Technically, it’s on you,” he said. “And we should start with the transorbital coupling.”
“If it’s on me then we’re starting with jewelry,” Donna said.
“They’re still my credits, you know.”
Donna made a show of looking around. “You know what I could really go for right now? A big juicy pear.”
The Doctor looked like he’d really like to flatten his ears and hiss.
“That’s right,” Donna continued. “Just a mouth full of pear. Could taste like that all day. All week, if I pick up a few―“
“Jewelry first,” he agreed, and steered her on a wide path around the fruit merchants.
Two bracelets, a necklace and some lovely earrings later, Donna was confident she’d won that one.
Donna forgot she meant to follow up on anything until later that night when she was tucked in with the Doctor sidling up in his ridiculous pinstriped pajamas. It wasn’t the arm he casually threw over her that did it. It wasn’t even the sleepy kiss he pressed to the corner of her mouth. It was the way she turned into it automatically, without even a second thought.
Eighteen minutes later, she lurched awake like someone had doused her in ice water. “Do you think we’re together?!”
The Doctor whined sleepily. “C’rse we ‘re.” He patted around with one hand, not even opening his eyes. “Wh’ts wrong?”
Donna gawked at what she could make out in the dim light. “What’s―? Are you kidding me?!”
He frowned, scrunching his nose in a way that was absolutely not adorable. “Nightmare?” His blind groping found her tense back. Cool fingers stroked a bit clumsily, still half unconscious.
“No, I didn’t have a nightmare,” Donna snapped. She’d just started going with an alien by accident. By accident!
The alien in question sniffed and curled closer. “Could help you sleep,” he slurred around a yawn. “‘F you like.”
“Yeah, that’s just what I need― you poking around in my head!”
“Mm?” He frowned again, harder this time and cracked one eye open. Even half asleep, he clearly caught at least some of the horror on her face. “…Donna?” His voice cracked sleepily, but still managed to sound worried.
Donna was busy replaying the past few weeks in her own head. All the casual touching. The snogging… Maybe she was the one who was acting like a loon― suddenly surprised by something that had been happening in broad daylight for weeks. And she hadn’t exactly prioritized the snogging as an issue. It had been hanging out at the very bottom of the list, always managing to slip lower.
The Doctor blinked up at her and Donna suddenly felt like she’d caught herself moments from stomping right on a sleeping puppy. “Never mind,” she said quickly.
He frowned hazily. “What’s―?”
“It’s nothing,” she said and lay back down.
The Doctor cuddled right back in. “Too warm?” he asked and snuck a cool hand around to the back of her neck.
Donna shivered at the pleasant touch. “Yeah, that... must be it.”
“Mm,” he said, and clearly nodded back off.
Donna decided she could let one argument go, for the sake of diplomacy.