Timestamp Meme Fic: Dreaming of the Sky
Title: Dreaming of the Sky
Author: Tess/mihane_echo
Rating: Rated R for one TEENY scene of adult nature. And a really bad nightmare. And angst. This is not a happy story, people.
Word Count: 2382
Spoilers: Through 4.10 Midnight
Summary: The events on planet Midnight have had a profound effect on Donna Noble.
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it belongs to the Beeb and I'm borrowing it to play with. I promise I will return them (marginally) unharmed. ;3
Author's Note: God, this was nearly as hard to break as TtAatD! Gee lordy. Anyway. lilianvaldemyer asked for the morning after my fic To the Air and the Dark in my timestamp meme. Sorry it's so late in coming, dear. /; I hope it's worth the wait.
The feel of him on her is electric. Hands smoothing over her back, his palms deliciously rough over the softness of her bare skin; up the ticklish backs of her arms and across her shoulders to her throat. He pauses to admire her with heavy-lidded eyes, stroking her jaw with his thumb, her hair on the tips of his fingers. His thumbs trace down from her chin to her collarbone and her eyes fly open when he ducks his head and devours her throat.
Donna shudders and drops her face down into the Doctor's hair, gasping. His mouth is cool on her heated skin, lips moving slowly, softly... His tongue, warm and wet, darts out to sample her flesh. One hand reaches around to support her, press her closer to him as the other slides down, disappears between her thighs and Donna whimpers, fists into his hair. He moves up, his teeth on her skin sending another quaking little rumble through her belly, to her earlobe. He suckles it, kisses it, breathes in the jasmine of her hair, sighs.
"Tell me what you want me to do," he says huskily. She whimpers again as the hand does its work; too well, she's going to fall. She tightens, her knees drawing up and she shakes her head but the arm around her is so strong, cradling her against him, safe and familiar. If she falls, he'll be there. He kisses her neck. "Tell me."
"I want..." she gasps, hands, arms, legs trembling. One finger slips deeper, dipping inexorably closer to that crucial point and Donna's head drops back with a strangled cry. The Doctor watches her reaction with the eye of an artist, satisfied and bothered, his own arousal evident in his blazing eyes, his heaving chest, the hard length pressing against her belly.
"What?" he asks again.
"I want--"
She snaps awake just like that.
Coming out of a dream like that is like falling through the open sky, but realizing she's still curled up next to the Doctor, his form solid beneath her, is like landing on a billion fluffy pillows. She tries in vain to call back the dream, but it's long gone by now, the images in her mind's eye fluttered away like fallen leaves on a breeze. The feelings, physical as well as emotional, remain and Donna squirms, her thighs pressing together as though to smother away the heat building between them. Of all the times...
"Are you all right?" Surprised, Donna lifts her head and looks up at the Doctor, whose dark eyes are wide, his lips parted in an expression of soft bewilderment. A pang of embarrassment streaks through her and she hesitates with a mortified squeak. Has he somehow realized what she had been dreaming?
He sits up a bit, propping himself on bent elbow to look at her. His mouth is twisted into a stupidly happy smile. He reaches out with his free hand to push back her unkempt bed hair, pausing over her cheek. Her heart skips a beat. "That must've been some dream," he notes. "You're blushing."
This time, she feels her cheeks color fiercely and she drops her face down with an aggravated moan; the bed shakes slightly as the Doctor laughs at her. Painfully embarrassed, Donna looks up at him, her chin in her hand, fingers curling over a shy smile. "It was," she declares. "It really was."
"Care to share?" he asks, nudging her and Donna shakes her head vehemently.
"Ooh, no... I don't... I mean, I'm not sure you'd really be interested."
"I'm always interested in you," he says softly. Donna ducks her head, shrugging a bit. The Doctor exhales deeply and then says, "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours." She can practically hear him grinning as he nudges her playfully once more. "What do you think? Do we have a deal?"
She laughs, lifts her head again. "Sure, why not..."
They aren't in bed.
They're somewhere else, someplace she's never seen the inside of and yet somehow she knows where they are. A vehicle cabin, seats bolted into a gray-carpeted deck lined with gold lights. A pair of seats is ripped up next to her, a group of angry, frightened people stand apart from the two of them and the Doctor on his knees in front of her, frozen in place.
Donna shakes her head wordlessly, confused and unnerved, dread leaking into her like blood from a torn artery. Like a doll unable to act on its own, the Doctor shakes his head too, the same way she did, the same speed. The only difference is the terrified look on his face, the pain clawing in him as she drains away everything that he is.
"No, this..." Donna begins, "this didn't happen!"
"--didn't happen," the Doctor echoes.
"I wasn't there, I didn't--" Donna claps a hand over her mouth and shoots to her feet, staring down in horror at the defeated Time Lord as he repeats her words.
No, she did, didn't she?
She sent him there. Alone. Condemned him to this, alone. He suffered, alone.
Because of her.
"It was me," Donna weeps. "I brought you here."
"It was me, I brought you here." The Doctor's body trembles as he stares almost straight on, unable to properly lift his head to look at her. He can only crane his neck painfully, enough to look up at her through his lashes and lock his eyes with hers; Donna whimpers.
"Doctor, stop!"
"Doctor, stop."
Donna drops back down again, tears streaming down her face freely; she reaches up and takes his face in her hands. "Please, just... Just be you again, please." She shakes her head pitifully at him, rubbing away the tears that have slipped down his cheeks. "This didn't happen, you came home to me. You're safe, remember?"
"I left him to this," the Doctor says suddenly. "He suffered because of me."
Donna shakes her head again, firmly. "No. You came home."
"He burned because of me," the Doctor tells her. "It was all my fault. I killed the Doctor."
"No!" She throws her arms around his shoulders, clings tight to him, fingers digging into his suit, face buried in his collar. This is wrong! Wake up, she yells, wake up, wake up, wake--
Her eyes snap open; at the same moment, a sob of despair tears from her before she can stifle it. She claps her hands over her mouth and turns to the Doctor, certain she's woken him, but he sleeps peacefully on. He looks like a vulnerable little boy curled up next to her, his dark lashes lying on his freckled cheeks, his lips parted slightly. Not for the first time, it strikes her how often he's in danger, how close he came this time to destruction. To the end.
And she can't bear it.
Her chest tightens, a pain nearly enough to choke her; at least it feels that way. The world without the Doctor... Her world without the Doctor... She can't imagine it. She doesn't want to.
Donna feels pathetic for a moment; when had she come to love him so much? She feels the same now as she did yesterday, and nothing seems any different, just that now she's put a word to her feelings, this huge emotion in her that's like to swallow her whole if she lets it. Love.
She's in love with him.
The moment she thinks it, Donna knows it can't be anything else. She knows she's broken the rules, let this ridiculously talkative alien deeper into her heart than any other man had ever been, even Lance-- and Lance had dug himself pretty deep, the slimy bastard.
She knows that at some point it had stopped being about seeing the universe; it's become sharing it with him, making him laugh, holding his hand, protecting him (of which she's done a right muck-up so far, she reminds herself bitterly.)
She's allowed a skinny streak of alien nothing become someone she fancies, someone who makes her heart melt and her toes curl, someone she trusts more wholly than anyone, save her granddad and her father.
And in a moment when she thinks most women would be happy, or excited, or otherwise overwhelmed in their romantical fancies, Donna only feels angst.
It can never work.
No matter how much she loves him, she will die long before he ever does. Even if she stays with him for the rest of her life, she'll go gray and wither away before his eyes, and he'll stay exactly the same, young and thin and energetic. She could live with that, but she's seen that look on his face. It would break his heart absolutely, and yet she knows he could never ask her to leave.
The ball will always be in her court. She can't see him ever taking the initiative; he's lost so much, too much, to take chances any more with anything but his own life. And when she thinks she can work up the courage to tell him, take the initiative herself and do something about this feeling, she hears his voice in her head.
I just want a mate.
This isn't like you, Donna tells herself as she curls closer to the Doctor, slipping one arm over his ribs and hugging him tight; she can hear his hearts beating against her ear and though it comforts her immensely, hot wetness still gathers in her eyes. You don't give up, you're a fighter. The Little General. What's wrong with you? If you want him, grab him.
It isn't worth it. Driving a rift between them with this nonsense? Ruining the best thing that's ever happened to her, making the person she loves uncomfortable? She'd give all this up before she'd hurt him.
I can never tell him. I'll stay with him, as long as I can, as long as he'll let me, and I'll be his mate.
That's all I can do.
It feels like a very long time when Donna wakes up again. Eyes closed, one hand sleepily gropes out in front of her, searching but not finding; the bed is empty. The Doctor isn't there at her side. She opens her eyes slowly, staring at the blank space before her.
Somehow, she'd known he wouldn't be there. He doesn't need much sleep, after all. The explanation is as simple as that but just the same, her eyes well up and Donna starts to cry. She really wanted him to be here, to wake up next to him, share that little moment before inevitably, they get up and go on with life.
"Hey!"
She blinks, surprised, and sits up suddenly as though zapped with a jolt of electricity. The Doctor stands at the foot of the bed, his fingers tangled in his tie. He's ruffled, his hair damp and sticking up in every which direction. His clothes are clinging to him in the way that clothes do to moist skin, and she can smell rosemary and mint on the air. His soap.
He has the most worried look on his face and ignores his half-finished tie, slides onto the bed next to her and gazes down at her. One hand takes hers automatically, his thumb brushing over her knuckles lightly. "What's the matter?" he asks, sounding almost a little desperate to help her, ease whatever pain that's got her worked up.
Donna shakes her head at him, rubbing the tears away. "Nothing. I had this dream, and then you weren't here, and I just..." She smiles at him, still a little bleary from sleep and crying. "I'm fine."
He looks reproachful, as though mentally kicking himself, and then winces empathetically. "I'm sorry," he says, rubbing a hand over his wild hair. "I thought I'd be finished before you woke up. You didn't sleep very long." He raises one eyebrow dubiously. "You sure you want to get up?"
Donna nods. "Yeah, I'm good."
"Absolutely sure?" He presses again, and Donna's intuition starts flashing neon warning lights.
"Why, what've you done that you don't want me to see?"
"Nothing," he wails, looked affronted. "And I take offense to the implication that I'm afraid of your wrath, because I'm just not, Miss Noble and so there."
Donna just glares at him, utterly unconvinced. Under that stare, he shrugs, looking sheepish, and says, "I made breakfast, figured I'd treat you to... you know. Breakfast in bed." It might just be her imagination, but his ears look a bit pinker than usual.
Donna blinks in surprise. "You made breakfast."
"Making," he amends, looking awkward. He waggles his head, his hand waving back and forth through the air. "I'm in the middle of... making, as in present tense, making breakfast."
Donna nods her head approvingly. Not her imagination, then. His ears are burning red now. "That's a whole lot of measuring and mixing and stirring you're doing there," she remarks, noting his obvious lack of any of those actions. The Doctor's face flushes properly now.
"I made cinnamon buns out of a tin," he admits with a shrug of his thin shoulders. "They're in the oven."
Donna throws her head back and laughs mirthfully; she puts her arms around him and holds him close for a long moment. She loves this geeky maniac so much. With every breath.
The Doctor hugs her back, and as she knows he will, breaks the silence of the moment. "About last night," he whispers against her ear, and Donna beams. He can't not talk. He pulls away, eyes downcast; after a minute, he looks up and meets her blue-gray gaze. "Thank you."
She nods. Even before she says it, you're welcome doesn't seem right. Not enough. She swallows past the lump in her throat, wondering if she looks to him as on edge as she feels. All her emotions roiling and bubbling inside her, they feel vast and enormous and monumental and there simply aren't words for how she feels about him, what she feels for him.
I love you, she says. "You know I'll always be here for you," is what comes out of her mouth.
The Doctor smiles at her again but this time, it doesn't reach his eyes. "I hope so."
end
Author: Tess/mihane_echo
Rating: Rated R for one TEENY scene of adult nature. And a really bad nightmare. And angst. This is not a happy story, people.
Word Count: 2382
Spoilers: Through 4.10 Midnight
Summary: The events on planet Midnight have had a profound effect on Donna Noble.
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it belongs to the Beeb and I'm borrowing it to play with. I promise I will return them (marginally) unharmed. ;3
Author's Note: God, this was nearly as hard to break as TtAatD! Gee lordy. Anyway. lilianvaldemyer asked for the morning after my fic To the Air and the Dark in my timestamp meme. Sorry it's so late in coming, dear. /; I hope it's worth the wait.
The feel of him on her is electric. Hands smoothing over her back, his palms deliciously rough over the softness of her bare skin; up the ticklish backs of her arms and across her shoulders to her throat. He pauses to admire her with heavy-lidded eyes, stroking her jaw with his thumb, her hair on the tips of his fingers. His thumbs trace down from her chin to her collarbone and her eyes fly open when he ducks his head and devours her throat.
Donna shudders and drops her face down into the Doctor's hair, gasping. His mouth is cool on her heated skin, lips moving slowly, softly... His tongue, warm and wet, darts out to sample her flesh. One hand reaches around to support her, press her closer to him as the other slides down, disappears between her thighs and Donna whimpers, fists into his hair. He moves up, his teeth on her skin sending another quaking little rumble through her belly, to her earlobe. He suckles it, kisses it, breathes in the jasmine of her hair, sighs.
"Tell me what you want me to do," he says huskily. She whimpers again as the hand does its work; too well, she's going to fall. She tightens, her knees drawing up and she shakes her head but the arm around her is so strong, cradling her against him, safe and familiar. If she falls, he'll be there. He kisses her neck. "Tell me."
"I want..." she gasps, hands, arms, legs trembling. One finger slips deeper, dipping inexorably closer to that crucial point and Donna's head drops back with a strangled cry. The Doctor watches her reaction with the eye of an artist, satisfied and bothered, his own arousal evident in his blazing eyes, his heaving chest, the hard length pressing against her belly.
"What?" he asks again.
"I want--"
She snaps awake just like that.
Coming out of a dream like that is like falling through the open sky, but realizing she's still curled up next to the Doctor, his form solid beneath her, is like landing on a billion fluffy pillows. She tries in vain to call back the dream, but it's long gone by now, the images in her mind's eye fluttered away like fallen leaves on a breeze. The feelings, physical as well as emotional, remain and Donna squirms, her thighs pressing together as though to smother away the heat building between them. Of all the times...
"Are you all right?" Surprised, Donna lifts her head and looks up at the Doctor, whose dark eyes are wide, his lips parted in an expression of soft bewilderment. A pang of embarrassment streaks through her and she hesitates with a mortified squeak. Has he somehow realized what she had been dreaming?
He sits up a bit, propping himself on bent elbow to look at her. His mouth is twisted into a stupidly happy smile. He reaches out with his free hand to push back her unkempt bed hair, pausing over her cheek. Her heart skips a beat. "That must've been some dream," he notes. "You're blushing."
This time, she feels her cheeks color fiercely and she drops her face down with an aggravated moan; the bed shakes slightly as the Doctor laughs at her. Painfully embarrassed, Donna looks up at him, her chin in her hand, fingers curling over a shy smile. "It was," she declares. "It really was."
"Care to share?" he asks, nudging her and Donna shakes her head vehemently.
"Ooh, no... I don't... I mean, I'm not sure you'd really be interested."
"I'm always interested in you," he says softly. Donna ducks her head, shrugging a bit. The Doctor exhales deeply and then says, "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours." She can practically hear him grinning as he nudges her playfully once more. "What do you think? Do we have a deal?"
She laughs, lifts her head again. "Sure, why not..."
They aren't in bed.
They're somewhere else, someplace she's never seen the inside of and yet somehow she knows where they are. A vehicle cabin, seats bolted into a gray-carpeted deck lined with gold lights. A pair of seats is ripped up next to her, a group of angry, frightened people stand apart from the two of them and the Doctor on his knees in front of her, frozen in place.
Donna shakes her head wordlessly, confused and unnerved, dread leaking into her like blood from a torn artery. Like a doll unable to act on its own, the Doctor shakes his head too, the same way she did, the same speed. The only difference is the terrified look on his face, the pain clawing in him as she drains away everything that he is.
"No, this..." Donna begins, "this didn't happen!"
"--didn't happen," the Doctor echoes.
"I wasn't there, I didn't--" Donna claps a hand over her mouth and shoots to her feet, staring down in horror at the defeated Time Lord as he repeats her words.
No, she did, didn't she?
She sent him there. Alone. Condemned him to this, alone. He suffered, alone.
Because of her.
"It was me," Donna weeps. "I brought you here."
"It was me, I brought you here." The Doctor's body trembles as he stares almost straight on, unable to properly lift his head to look at her. He can only crane his neck painfully, enough to look up at her through his lashes and lock his eyes with hers; Donna whimpers.
"Doctor, stop!"
"Doctor, stop."
Donna drops back down again, tears streaming down her face freely; she reaches up and takes his face in her hands. "Please, just... Just be you again, please." She shakes her head pitifully at him, rubbing away the tears that have slipped down his cheeks. "This didn't happen, you came home to me. You're safe, remember?"
"I left him to this," the Doctor says suddenly. "He suffered because of me."
Donna shakes her head again, firmly. "No. You came home."
"He burned because of me," the Doctor tells her. "It was all my fault. I killed the Doctor."
"No!" She throws her arms around his shoulders, clings tight to him, fingers digging into his suit, face buried in his collar. This is wrong! Wake up, she yells, wake up, wake up, wake--
Her eyes snap open; at the same moment, a sob of despair tears from her before she can stifle it. She claps her hands over her mouth and turns to the Doctor, certain she's woken him, but he sleeps peacefully on. He looks like a vulnerable little boy curled up next to her, his dark lashes lying on his freckled cheeks, his lips parted slightly. Not for the first time, it strikes her how often he's in danger, how close he came this time to destruction. To the end.
And she can't bear it.
Her chest tightens, a pain nearly enough to choke her; at least it feels that way. The world without the Doctor... Her world without the Doctor... She can't imagine it. She doesn't want to.
Donna feels pathetic for a moment; when had she come to love him so much? She feels the same now as she did yesterday, and nothing seems any different, just that now she's put a word to her feelings, this huge emotion in her that's like to swallow her whole if she lets it. Love.
She's in love with him.
The moment she thinks it, Donna knows it can't be anything else. She knows she's broken the rules, let this ridiculously talkative alien deeper into her heart than any other man had ever been, even Lance-- and Lance had dug himself pretty deep, the slimy bastard.
She knows that at some point it had stopped being about seeing the universe; it's become sharing it with him, making him laugh, holding his hand, protecting him (of which she's done a right muck-up so far, she reminds herself bitterly.)
She's allowed a skinny streak of alien nothing become someone she fancies, someone who makes her heart melt and her toes curl, someone she trusts more wholly than anyone, save her granddad and her father.
And in a moment when she thinks most women would be happy, or excited, or otherwise overwhelmed in their romantical fancies, Donna only feels angst.
It can never work.
No matter how much she loves him, she will die long before he ever does. Even if she stays with him for the rest of her life, she'll go gray and wither away before his eyes, and he'll stay exactly the same, young and thin and energetic. She could live with that, but she's seen that look on his face. It would break his heart absolutely, and yet she knows he could never ask her to leave.
The ball will always be in her court. She can't see him ever taking the initiative; he's lost so much, too much, to take chances any more with anything but his own life. And when she thinks she can work up the courage to tell him, take the initiative herself and do something about this feeling, she hears his voice in her head.
I just want a mate.
This isn't like you, Donna tells herself as she curls closer to the Doctor, slipping one arm over his ribs and hugging him tight; she can hear his hearts beating against her ear and though it comforts her immensely, hot wetness still gathers in her eyes. You don't give up, you're a fighter. The Little General. What's wrong with you? If you want him, grab him.
It isn't worth it. Driving a rift between them with this nonsense? Ruining the best thing that's ever happened to her, making the person she loves uncomfortable? She'd give all this up before she'd hurt him.
I can never tell him. I'll stay with him, as long as I can, as long as he'll let me, and I'll be his mate.
That's all I can do.
It feels like a very long time when Donna wakes up again. Eyes closed, one hand sleepily gropes out in front of her, searching but not finding; the bed is empty. The Doctor isn't there at her side. She opens her eyes slowly, staring at the blank space before her.
Somehow, she'd known he wouldn't be there. He doesn't need much sleep, after all. The explanation is as simple as that but just the same, her eyes well up and Donna starts to cry. She really wanted him to be here, to wake up next to him, share that little moment before inevitably, they get up and go on with life.
"Hey!"
She blinks, surprised, and sits up suddenly as though zapped with a jolt of electricity. The Doctor stands at the foot of the bed, his fingers tangled in his tie. He's ruffled, his hair damp and sticking up in every which direction. His clothes are clinging to him in the way that clothes do to moist skin, and she can smell rosemary and mint on the air. His soap.
He has the most worried look on his face and ignores his half-finished tie, slides onto the bed next to her and gazes down at her. One hand takes hers automatically, his thumb brushing over her knuckles lightly. "What's the matter?" he asks, sounding almost a little desperate to help her, ease whatever pain that's got her worked up.
Donna shakes her head at him, rubbing the tears away. "Nothing. I had this dream, and then you weren't here, and I just..." She smiles at him, still a little bleary from sleep and crying. "I'm fine."
He looks reproachful, as though mentally kicking himself, and then winces empathetically. "I'm sorry," he says, rubbing a hand over his wild hair. "I thought I'd be finished before you woke up. You didn't sleep very long." He raises one eyebrow dubiously. "You sure you want to get up?"
Donna nods. "Yeah, I'm good."
"Absolutely sure?" He presses again, and Donna's intuition starts flashing neon warning lights.
"Why, what've you done that you don't want me to see?"
"Nothing," he wails, looked affronted. "And I take offense to the implication that I'm afraid of your wrath, because I'm just not, Miss Noble and so there."
Donna just glares at him, utterly unconvinced. Under that stare, he shrugs, looking sheepish, and says, "I made breakfast, figured I'd treat you to... you know. Breakfast in bed." It might just be her imagination, but his ears look a bit pinker than usual.
Donna blinks in surprise. "You made breakfast."
"Making," he amends, looking awkward. He waggles his head, his hand waving back and forth through the air. "I'm in the middle of... making, as in present tense, making breakfast."
Donna nods her head approvingly. Not her imagination, then. His ears are burning red now. "That's a whole lot of measuring and mixing and stirring you're doing there," she remarks, noting his obvious lack of any of those actions. The Doctor's face flushes properly now.
"I made cinnamon buns out of a tin," he admits with a shrug of his thin shoulders. "They're in the oven."
Donna throws her head back and laughs mirthfully; she puts her arms around him and holds him close for a long moment. She loves this geeky maniac so much. With every breath.
The Doctor hugs her back, and as she knows he will, breaks the silence of the moment. "About last night," he whispers against her ear, and Donna beams. He can't not talk. He pulls away, eyes downcast; after a minute, he looks up and meets her blue-gray gaze. "Thank you."
She nods. Even before she says it, you're welcome doesn't seem right. Not enough. She swallows past the lump in her throat, wondering if she looks to him as on edge as she feels. All her emotions roiling and bubbling inside her, they feel vast and enormous and monumental and there simply aren't words for how she feels about him, what she feels for him.
I love you, she says. "You know I'll always be here for you," is what comes out of her mouth.
The Doctor smiles at her again but this time, it doesn't reach his eyes. "I hope so."
end