Archive of Our Own

Donna made sure that she put the last remnant of sensation in her fingers into slamming the Tardis door poignantly.

“He-e-y!” The Doctor turned, voice a touch whiny and indignant. He stroked the worn wood, his face acquiring the mushy expression it always had where the Tardis was concerned—the one that people wore when they were about to start cooing baby-talk. Donna rolled her eyes. She felt a pang of guilt, because her gesture was definitely not pointed at the Tardis, which she loved dearly, although in a rather more mature, un-sappy way.

“Why is it always boil or freeze with you?” She rounded on the Doctor, directing her righteous anger at the real cause of her suffering. “I don’t mind the plants that want to suck out the lymph…fluids from our bodies, or the elephant man—”

“He wasn’t an Elephant man; he was a mutated cartifolin—”

Donna’s voice rose without any difficulty. “—or even the square iron boxes with the gnashing teeth.” The Doctor’s face beamed, then quickly hurried to transform into a more appropriate expression of sympathetic listening.

“But when we say we’ll “take it easy” it’s then either the North Pole or the Sahara desert!” Donna finished, fingers still framing her face after the air quotes she’d used them for.

The Doctor frowned. “I would never take you to somewhere as dull as an Earth desert.”

“Not the point.”

“Well, not that they’re dull; not twenty-five thousand years—give or take—before you were born.”

“Doctor. Not the point.”

“Although technically the one I have in mind wasn’t exactly a desert then.”

“Not. The. Point.”

He looked at her, admiration and hurt mingling over his features.

“Blimey, you can hiss!”

Donna scowled. “It’s the one part of my body that I can still feel, my tongue.”

And there is was. The Doctor’s face changed instantly, his expression swirling the whole atmosphere between them like the storm swirled branches and leaves. He held her eyes and Donna realized that oh yes, she could feel her body all right. It was quite alive and receptive, if the shivers that ran up and down her spine were anything to go by.

It always took her breath away to see the Doctor change his mood—scratch that, his entire persona—so abruptly, in a blink of an eye. One moment, he was this babbling, ingenious, mad and maddening spaceman, her best friend and someone she secretly adored with all the might of her heart. The next, he was someone she wanted to be…well, ravished by! Someone who demanded to be adored openly and in very particular ways, and she was powerless to resist him.

Power. That was the thing. Half the thrill was from the shift happening between them so effortlessly, until she was reminded yet again that this was someone beyond her understanding, beyond anyone and anything she’d ever met. Someone formidable, brilliant, awesome and—to her small, human, female core—as of late stupefyingly attractive.

He read her mind with one glance at her slightly parted lips and stepped closer, embraced her rigid form. She felt the stiffness evaporate from her shoulders like dampness evaporated from a garment when the iron pressed against it. The Doctor’s breath tickled her ear.

“I would like to test that.”

Donna frowned for a second. His effect on her when he was like that often meant she lost track of the conversation. Sadly, all of her fire to fight him as well—something the devil took advantage of shamelessly. What was he talking ab—Oh yes, her having sensation in her tongue. She felt her heart in her belly and lifted her face. His eyes gazed at her intently, keeping their beautiful, warm, rich brown colour, while turning into two huge dark caves.

“Testing? Where’s your usual trust in everyone?” She said, trying to stay in the game.

“You’re not everyone,” he murmured, and closed the small distance between their lips.

Donna’s eyelids fluttered down on their own accord and she felt her arms wove around his thin figure; a distant part of her brain pointed and laughed at her for her hasty initial dismissal of his body, just as it laughed at the very idea that he would allow to be fitted into any yes or no boxes of preferred type. She yanked him closer, her mouth opening and inviting, no—urging him to enter, and his tongue slid in, natural and confident. Victorious.

They began kissing, slow and deep. Donna lost track of all else but her sensations: the softening of her muscles and bones, the pulsing arousal, sending hot telegrams to the furthest regions of her body, the tingling of her brain where every pleasure centre was stimulated with perfect precision, much like it felt as if her hormone of happiness was going into over-production. She moaned into his mouth—it sounded like a sob—pressed him closer, sought to merge with him there and then, to become him as much as herself. To make sure she would never lose this extraordinary gift, would never have to leave him or be left, would never be anyone else but Donna-and-the-Doctor.

He pulled away slightly and his hand splayed at the back of her skull, holding it, while his other hand caressed her hair along the side of her face. “Hey,” he murmured, voice soft and steady. “You’re cold, that’s all. Let’s get you warm.”

She nodded and opened her eyes. He was peering at her face…When had the light in the console room dimmed? He was almost obscure now. There was again that intensity which made her knees believe they belonged to a teenager. He pressed his lips softly to her forehead and she closed her eyes again; the touch followed on her nose, by the side of her mouth where she knew lines could already be seen even when she wasn’t smiling, on her chin…

“Let’s go to the fireplace room,” he said quietly. Her brain glowed where it was cradled by his palm, her skull a mere veil of nothingness in-between. The images of him, lying on the floor, half-undressed and rocking into her, mixed with the acute sensation of feeling him inside, managing to both tear her body apart with pleasure and put her together anew, belonging and certain.

“Donna,” he said. Donna opened her eyes and met his, impatient and quizzical. She pushed her hand into his and nodded, turning and pulling him after her.