Fic: "Balancing Act" (1/8) (Doctor/Donna, Doctor Who)
Title: "Balancing Act" (1/8)
Author: ageless_aislynn
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Ten/Donna
Summary: Donna has managed to save both herself and her memories but in doing so, has she bitten off more than she...and the Doctor...can chew? An alternate end to "Journey's End."
Rating: NC-17 (series); This chapter, hard R (for adult content and language)
Length: 2,345
Spoilers: Up to 4x13 "Journey's End"
Disclaimer: Not mine or you can bet there would've been happy endings for everybody!
Beta: The fantabulous mistojen ♥! *mwah!* ♥!
"Donna, no. You can't keep doing that," the Doctor called over the racket the TARDIS was making.
"What?" she hollered, clinging to the quivering console for all she was worth and periodically adjusting levers whenever the tiny thread of consciousness left in her mind directed her to. It was a point of pride that one of the things she'd retained was an affinity for piloting the TARDIS.
"You've got to stop!" he yelled back, whacking the console with the mallet.
"Stop what, you idiot?" Her feet momentarily came off the deck as the TARDIS violently bucked. "Blimey, she didn't shake this hard when she was coming apart in the Crucible! What are you doing to her?"
"May have muffed the math a bit when I was setting the coordinates," he admitted as the rotor whined. He began jockeying the controls in earnest. "Better park her in the Vortex while I sort it out. But -- and I'm serious here -- you've got to stop jiggling like that or I could accidentally steer us into a supernova."
She automatically looked down. Yes, indeed, all of the motion was doing wonders for her anatomy. "Well, what do you want me to do? Take 'em off? They're not exactly detachable! Just stop looking!"
"You know I can't!" he said through gritted teeth, bracing the sole of his Converse against the console and putting all his weight into pulling the handbrake.
Her feet came off the grating once again and this time she ended up flat on her back as the TARDIS settled into a rather woozy rotation in the Time Vortex. To be fair, he had warned her about this sort of thing. He'd even given her a book, a sort of "What To Expect When Your Time Lord's Expecting...to be horny as all get-out because he's pumped full of human hormones."
"You shouldn't have been able to do it," he'd explained after his attempt to wipe her memory-slash-save her life had taken an unexpected twist. "Only another Time Lord should've been able to initiate a mating bond."
And while she'd stood there slumped against him, still shell-shocked, he'd explained something about a mental bond acting like an overflow valve, shunting away whatever excess energy was too much for her human mind to withstand. But, he'd cautioned, it wasn't called a mating bond for nothing.
"Sex?" she'd squeaked, pulling back.
"No, we'll just watch the game on telly on Sundays and play bridge on Thursdays," he'd mocked. "Of course, it's sex. What do you think 'mating' means?"
She'd socked him in the shoulder at that. "Well, how am I supposed to know, Martian boy? I always got the impression that you weren't real big on the whole--" she'd pumped her fist back and forth a few times "--thing."
He'd rubbed his shoulder, looking offended. "Why does nobody ever think that in 904 years--"
She'd interrupted with loud snort. "I've had your mind in my head, pal. And that includes your real age, you know?"
"Like I was saying," he'd went on with an unfriendly look, "why does no one ever think that I've...danced?"
The bit of Time Lord consciousness she'd still possessed had provided the reference for her. And that had also brought Rose Tyler to her mind. Oh no, she'd thought. How can I even be standing here ribbing him about this when he's just left Rose behind with his own doppelganger?
Maybe he'd enjoy some distraction then? a treacherous little voice had whispered and she'd shushed it immediately. Their entire relationship, from nigh-on moment one, had been based on the understanding that things would stay platonic between them.
He must be mortified, she'd thought. "Isn't there anything we can do?"
"There are ways I could control both your hormones and mine," he'd said, "but the bond is tenuous at best right now and clamping it off would cause it to die. And if dies, you lose the overflow valve and..."
"And then I die," she'd finished. "Okay, note to self: don't let the bond die."
"At the moment, it's small and mostly flowing from you to me. But it'll try to push us to complete it," and he'd given a sketchy imitation of her previous fist-pumping motion. "When that happens, it'll burst from a one-way road to a massive superhighway in both directions. That initial rush alone will put you in the same danger you were just in, having a Time Lord consciousness burning through the synapses in your mind."
"So you're saying that shagging you could cause my head to explode?" She'd intended for sarcasm but instead just sounded stunned.
"It won't come to that," he'd said quickly. "We'll stall for now; try to find a balance between keeping the bond alive but without completing it. Give me some time to find a way out of this."
Lying on her back on the TARDIS floor, she sighed. So far in the past few days, the only part of the balancing act they'd managed to work out was that physical contact was a big no-no. Hand-holding immediately turned to full-body hugging and full-body hugging became quite enthusiastic snogging. Keeping physical contact to a minimum had allowed them to resume a bit of their normal life. However, his inability to stop ogling her was something new.
"Are you hurt?" he asked, still gripping the console like he hadn't realized the shaking had stopped.
"Oh, I'm peachy, thanks," she said, pulling herself to her feet and dusting herself off. "What about you?"
He squeezed his eyes briefly shut and muttered something under his breath. Gallifreyan, she abruptly knew, but neither the TARDIS nor the thin bit of Time Lord left in her head would translate it. Abject misery was written in every angle and line of his face.
"It's getting worse?" she murmured. "Yeah, 'course it is, why'm I even asking? I'm not thinking anything hormonal at you, you know? I've been a right saint, I have! No reading romance novels before bed, no more looking at the bums of any good-looking fellows we meet, and absolutely no, uh, personal quality time."
He looked at her, smiling crookedly. "You do that?"
She colored but kept her head up high. "Well, don't know about you Time Lord blokes but it's a perfectly natural biological function. Nothing at all to be ashamed of."
"I meant looking at posteriors," he clarified.
"Oh." The blush deepened until her cheeks burned, but she forged on. "Ahem. I told you, I've been good. No peeking. Captain Jack was the last."
"You looked at Jack's rear end?" he said, amused.
She snorted. "Looked at it? I very nearly asked if he'd mind me making a plaster cast for a souvenir!"
He grinned but it turned into a grimace. "Donna, I need you to go to your room. Please."
The strain in his voice convinced her not to argue. She nodded and left the console room at a brisk pace. A few moments later, as she turned to close her door, she gasped. He was in the hall right behind her.
"Don't open the door for me, even if I ask," he cautioned her, then looked up. "Don't open the door, especially if I ask."
A sound like a whale's song faintly curled through the air and Donna glanced up. Is that the TARDIS? she wondered, a bit wide-eyed.
"I know," he said to the ceiling, fisting his hands in his hair in frustration. "Just... do your best."
The door suddenly swung shut, trapping her inside. "Hey!"
For a while, she just stood there, trying to figure out what she was supposed to do now. A shrill ring startled her yet again and she discovered a red telephone with a corded receiver, like something out of an old TV show, sitting on the nightstand next to her bed.
She picked up the receiver tentatively. "Hello?"
"Donna."
"Doctor? Where are you? And since when do I have the Bat-phone in my room?"
"The TARDIS has a way of making things appear when they're needed," he said and the connection crackled like he'd tucked the receiver under his chin.
"That how my shampoo bottle never seems to run out then?" she said, pulling an impressed face. On impulse, she reached over and patted the wall. Faint whale song wafted down to her and she smiled.
"Mmm, I like your shampoo," he said and there was muffled movement again. "Always smells a bit like raspberries. Not quite as good as bananas, of course, but under the circumstances, bananas really wouldn't be a good thing for you to smell like. Did you know that the olfactory sense of a Tasarandian beetle is a thousand times stronger than a--"
"Doctor, shut it! Where are you? Are you all right?"
"In my room," he said with a sigh. "I'll be fine inaminute."
The words ran together like he was gritting his teeth and she suddenly knew.
"Oh. My. God," she said, hardly able to believe the words about to come out of her mouth. "You're wanking, aren't you?"
"Oi, why is it 'personal quality time' when you do it and 'wanking' when I do?" he said, annoyed.
"Because... because it is," she blustered. "Why are you calling me now?"
"I needed to hear your voice."
"While you wank?"
"I need a connection to you, either physical, mental or aural. And that's aural with an 'au' by the way, not an 'o.'"
Her lips twitched because she had just been about to quip about men and their need for aural.
"If I hear your voice," he went on and his breath hitched. "I think I can stay here and bring the levels down."
"By wanking."
"Blimey, you like that word, don't you? Yes, Donna," he said in an exaggerated, oh-so-patient voice. "That's what I'm doing because I don't have any other choice."
Guilt twinged at her. It was all her fault, wasn't it? "I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "You know I never meant--"
"I know that and I don't blame you. Believe you me, I'd rather do this all day and keep you here with your memory intact than the alternative. Though I probably couldn't do this all day. Welllll, I could, I suppose, under the right circumstances. But I'd get chafed and it would be fairly uncomfortable after a while."
It was so surreal she found herself grinning. There was a pause and she finally said, "So, you want me to tell you what I'm wearing?"
"No," he said quickly. "No sex talk, please. I'll come--"
"On planet Earth, that's the point, you know."
"I'll come to you," he said. "And you don't want me standing out in your hallway right now, howling and pounding on the door."
"Howling and wanking?" she said, not able to keep from giggling. Oh my God, I've turned into a twelve-year old! What's wrong with me?
He gave a choked giggle as well. "It won't exactly be my most dignified moment," he said, "so let's try to avoid it, hm? Just talk to me 'bout anything at all, just not sex."
Non-sexy phone sex talk? She wrinkled her nose, considering her options. There was something she was curious about.
"The last time I looked," she said, "hormones don't come floating out of a person's body and start accosting people. So how are mine molesting you while we're not even in the same room?"
"'S not your homones, pre-ahhhh, precisely," he said. His breathing noticeably picked up and she finally had to smack herself lightly on the face to stop trying to visualize what he was doing. "It's the impulses that... that trigger my own hormonal reee--" the word twisted into more Gallifreyan "--release. Ahhh, if I wanted to hear my own voice, I wouldn't have bothered to call you, you know? Talk!"
"Sorry, sorry," she said quickly. I'm so off my phone sex game, she thought, shaking her head to try and clear it. A million risqué and/or downright filthy things came to mind but he'd said no sex talk.
"Donnnnaaaaa! Howling and wanking in the hall, remember?"
"A!" she yelped. "B! C!"
He was breathing like he was running up a steep hill. "Go on."
"D, e, f, g," she said at a more controlled pace, sitting on the edge of her bed.
He moaned something under his breath and she had to force herself to continue reciting slowly, drawing out the letters, rather than stopping to listen to him.
When she reached the letter R, he grunted an unintelligible mash of Gallifreyan and English and a warm rush went through her, starting at the back of her skull, tracing down her spine, then spilling out in a fiery tingle through her entire body like a caress.
"Oh," she said, nearly dropping the receiver. It wasn't an orgasm in any way she'd ever experienced one but it was pleasurable all the same. Odd but... interesting.
"Donna?"
She realized that wasn't the first time he'd said her name. "Yeah?"
"Thank you."
"Sure," she said breezily, like she was an old hand at Alphabets For Time Lords To Wank By. "You good, now?"
His smile was audible. "I'm good."
"Well, do you think our visit to planet Sparkle--"
"Spakrel," he corrected.
"Sparkle, Spakrel, whatever. Can it wait 'til tomorrow? 'M a bit knackered, think I'll call it a night."
"Certainly," he said. "I've got to check the TARDIS over anyway, make sure nothing got wrenched out of alignment."
"Make sure you wash your hands first," she ordered. "That's only polite, you know."
There was a silence that was either stunned or was simply because he was trying not to laugh at her. "Of course," he said in a carefully-controlled voice that meant it was the later.
"G'night, then, Doctor."
"Goodnight, Donna." There was another noise she couldn't identify until after the line had gone dead: He'd kissed the receiver.
"Oh, you big dumbo," she said, rolling her eyes.
But before she hung the receiver up, she kissed it back.
Chapter 2
Author: ageless_aislynn
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Ten/Donna
Summary: Donna has managed to save both herself and her memories but in doing so, has she bitten off more than she...and the Doctor...can chew? An alternate end to "Journey's End."
Rating: NC-17 (series); This chapter, hard R (for adult content and language)
Length: 2,345
Spoilers: Up to 4x13 "Journey's End"
Disclaimer: Not mine or you can bet there would've been happy endings for everybody!
Beta: The fantabulous mistojen ♥! *mwah!* ♥!
"Donna, no. You can't keep doing that," the Doctor called over the racket the TARDIS was making.
"What?" she hollered, clinging to the quivering console for all she was worth and periodically adjusting levers whenever the tiny thread of consciousness left in her mind directed her to. It was a point of pride that one of the things she'd retained was an affinity for piloting the TARDIS.
"You've got to stop!" he yelled back, whacking the console with the mallet.
"Stop what, you idiot?" Her feet momentarily came off the deck as the TARDIS violently bucked. "Blimey, she didn't shake this hard when she was coming apart in the Crucible! What are you doing to her?"
"May have muffed the math a bit when I was setting the coordinates," he admitted as the rotor whined. He began jockeying the controls in earnest. "Better park her in the Vortex while I sort it out. But -- and I'm serious here -- you've got to stop jiggling like that or I could accidentally steer us into a supernova."
She automatically looked down. Yes, indeed, all of the motion was doing wonders for her anatomy. "Well, what do you want me to do? Take 'em off? They're not exactly detachable! Just stop looking!"
"You know I can't!" he said through gritted teeth, bracing the sole of his Converse against the console and putting all his weight into pulling the handbrake.
Her feet came off the grating once again and this time she ended up flat on her back as the TARDIS settled into a rather woozy rotation in the Time Vortex. To be fair, he had warned her about this sort of thing. He'd even given her a book, a sort of "What To Expect When Your Time Lord's Expecting...to be horny as all get-out because he's pumped full of human hormones."
"You shouldn't have been able to do it," he'd explained after his attempt to wipe her memory-slash-save her life had taken an unexpected twist. "Only another Time Lord should've been able to initiate a mating bond."
And while she'd stood there slumped against him, still shell-shocked, he'd explained something about a mental bond acting like an overflow valve, shunting away whatever excess energy was too much for her human mind to withstand. But, he'd cautioned, it wasn't called a mating bond for nothing.
"Sex?" she'd squeaked, pulling back.
"No, we'll just watch the game on telly on Sundays and play bridge on Thursdays," he'd mocked. "Of course, it's sex. What do you think 'mating' means?"
She'd socked him in the shoulder at that. "Well, how am I supposed to know, Martian boy? I always got the impression that you weren't real big on the whole--" she'd pumped her fist back and forth a few times "--thing."
He'd rubbed his shoulder, looking offended. "Why does nobody ever think that in 904 years--"
She'd interrupted with loud snort. "I've had your mind in my head, pal. And that includes your real age, you know?"
"Like I was saying," he'd went on with an unfriendly look, "why does no one ever think that I've...danced?"
The bit of Time Lord consciousness she'd still possessed had provided the reference for her. And that had also brought Rose Tyler to her mind. Oh no, she'd thought. How can I even be standing here ribbing him about this when he's just left Rose behind with his own doppelganger?
Maybe he'd enjoy some distraction then? a treacherous little voice had whispered and she'd shushed it immediately. Their entire relationship, from nigh-on moment one, had been based on the understanding that things would stay platonic between them.
He must be mortified, she'd thought. "Isn't there anything we can do?"
"There are ways I could control both your hormones and mine," he'd said, "but the bond is tenuous at best right now and clamping it off would cause it to die. And if dies, you lose the overflow valve and..."
"And then I die," she'd finished. "Okay, note to self: don't let the bond die."
"At the moment, it's small and mostly flowing from you to me. But it'll try to push us to complete it," and he'd given a sketchy imitation of her previous fist-pumping motion. "When that happens, it'll burst from a one-way road to a massive superhighway in both directions. That initial rush alone will put you in the same danger you were just in, having a Time Lord consciousness burning through the synapses in your mind."
"So you're saying that shagging you could cause my head to explode?" She'd intended for sarcasm but instead just sounded stunned.
"It won't come to that," he'd said quickly. "We'll stall for now; try to find a balance between keeping the bond alive but without completing it. Give me some time to find a way out of this."
Lying on her back on the TARDIS floor, she sighed. So far in the past few days, the only part of the balancing act they'd managed to work out was that physical contact was a big no-no. Hand-holding immediately turned to full-body hugging and full-body hugging became quite enthusiastic snogging. Keeping physical contact to a minimum had allowed them to resume a bit of their normal life. However, his inability to stop ogling her was something new.
"Are you hurt?" he asked, still gripping the console like he hadn't realized the shaking had stopped.
"Oh, I'm peachy, thanks," she said, pulling herself to her feet and dusting herself off. "What about you?"
He squeezed his eyes briefly shut and muttered something under his breath. Gallifreyan, she abruptly knew, but neither the TARDIS nor the thin bit of Time Lord left in her head would translate it. Abject misery was written in every angle and line of his face.
"It's getting worse?" she murmured. "Yeah, 'course it is, why'm I even asking? I'm not thinking anything hormonal at you, you know? I've been a right saint, I have! No reading romance novels before bed, no more looking at the bums of any good-looking fellows we meet, and absolutely no, uh, personal quality time."
He looked at her, smiling crookedly. "You do that?"
She colored but kept her head up high. "Well, don't know about you Time Lord blokes but it's a perfectly natural biological function. Nothing at all to be ashamed of."
"I meant looking at posteriors," he clarified.
"Oh." The blush deepened until her cheeks burned, but she forged on. "Ahem. I told you, I've been good. No peeking. Captain Jack was the last."
"You looked at Jack's rear end?" he said, amused.
She snorted. "Looked at it? I very nearly asked if he'd mind me making a plaster cast for a souvenir!"
He grinned but it turned into a grimace. "Donna, I need you to go to your room. Please."
The strain in his voice convinced her not to argue. She nodded and left the console room at a brisk pace. A few moments later, as she turned to close her door, she gasped. He was in the hall right behind her.
"Don't open the door for me, even if I ask," he cautioned her, then looked up. "Don't open the door, especially if I ask."
A sound like a whale's song faintly curled through the air and Donna glanced up. Is that the TARDIS? she wondered, a bit wide-eyed.
"I know," he said to the ceiling, fisting his hands in his hair in frustration. "Just... do your best."
The door suddenly swung shut, trapping her inside. "Hey!"
For a while, she just stood there, trying to figure out what she was supposed to do now. A shrill ring startled her yet again and she discovered a red telephone with a corded receiver, like something out of an old TV show, sitting on the nightstand next to her bed.
She picked up the receiver tentatively. "Hello?"
"Donna."
"Doctor? Where are you? And since when do I have the Bat-phone in my room?"
"The TARDIS has a way of making things appear when they're needed," he said and the connection crackled like he'd tucked the receiver under his chin.
"That how my shampoo bottle never seems to run out then?" she said, pulling an impressed face. On impulse, she reached over and patted the wall. Faint whale song wafted down to her and she smiled.
"Mmm, I like your shampoo," he said and there was muffled movement again. "Always smells a bit like raspberries. Not quite as good as bananas, of course, but under the circumstances, bananas really wouldn't be a good thing for you to smell like. Did you know that the olfactory sense of a Tasarandian beetle is a thousand times stronger than a--"
"Doctor, shut it! Where are you? Are you all right?"
"In my room," he said with a sigh. "I'll be fine inaminute."
The words ran together like he was gritting his teeth and she suddenly knew.
"Oh. My. God," she said, hardly able to believe the words about to come out of her mouth. "You're wanking, aren't you?"
"Oi, why is it 'personal quality time' when you do it and 'wanking' when I do?" he said, annoyed.
"Because... because it is," she blustered. "Why are you calling me now?"
"I needed to hear your voice."
"While you wank?"
"I need a connection to you, either physical, mental or aural. And that's aural with an 'au' by the way, not an 'o.'"
Her lips twitched because she had just been about to quip about men and their need for aural.
"If I hear your voice," he went on and his breath hitched. "I think I can stay here and bring the levels down."
"By wanking."
"Blimey, you like that word, don't you? Yes, Donna," he said in an exaggerated, oh-so-patient voice. "That's what I'm doing because I don't have any other choice."
Guilt twinged at her. It was all her fault, wasn't it? "I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "You know I never meant--"
"I know that and I don't blame you. Believe you me, I'd rather do this all day and keep you here with your memory intact than the alternative. Though I probably couldn't do this all day. Welllll, I could, I suppose, under the right circumstances. But I'd get chafed and it would be fairly uncomfortable after a while."
It was so surreal she found herself grinning. There was a pause and she finally said, "So, you want me to tell you what I'm wearing?"
"No," he said quickly. "No sex talk, please. I'll come--"
"On planet Earth, that's the point, you know."
"I'll come to you," he said. "And you don't want me standing out in your hallway right now, howling and pounding on the door."
"Howling and wanking?" she said, not able to keep from giggling. Oh my God, I've turned into a twelve-year old! What's wrong with me?
He gave a choked giggle as well. "It won't exactly be my most dignified moment," he said, "so let's try to avoid it, hm? Just talk to me 'bout anything at all, just not sex."
Non-sexy phone sex talk? She wrinkled her nose, considering her options. There was something she was curious about.
"The last time I looked," she said, "hormones don't come floating out of a person's body and start accosting people. So how are mine molesting you while we're not even in the same room?"
"'S not your homones, pre-ahhhh, precisely," he said. His breathing noticeably picked up and she finally had to smack herself lightly on the face to stop trying to visualize what he was doing. "It's the impulses that... that trigger my own hormonal reee--" the word twisted into more Gallifreyan "--release. Ahhh, if I wanted to hear my own voice, I wouldn't have bothered to call you, you know? Talk!"
"Sorry, sorry," she said quickly. I'm so off my phone sex game, she thought, shaking her head to try and clear it. A million risqué and/or downright filthy things came to mind but he'd said no sex talk.
"Donnnnaaaaa! Howling and wanking in the hall, remember?"
"A!" she yelped. "B! C!"
He was breathing like he was running up a steep hill. "Go on."
"D, e, f, g," she said at a more controlled pace, sitting on the edge of her bed.
He moaned something under his breath and she had to force herself to continue reciting slowly, drawing out the letters, rather than stopping to listen to him.
When she reached the letter R, he grunted an unintelligible mash of Gallifreyan and English and a warm rush went through her, starting at the back of her skull, tracing down her spine, then spilling out in a fiery tingle through her entire body like a caress.
"Oh," she said, nearly dropping the receiver. It wasn't an orgasm in any way she'd ever experienced one but it was pleasurable all the same. Odd but... interesting.
"Donna?"
She realized that wasn't the first time he'd said her name. "Yeah?"
"Thank you."
"Sure," she said breezily, like she was an old hand at Alphabets For Time Lords To Wank By. "You good, now?"
His smile was audible. "I'm good."
"Well, do you think our visit to planet Sparkle--"
"Spakrel," he corrected.
"Sparkle, Spakrel, whatever. Can it wait 'til tomorrow? 'M a bit knackered, think I'll call it a night."
"Certainly," he said. "I've got to check the TARDIS over anyway, make sure nothing got wrenched out of alignment."
"Make sure you wash your hands first," she ordered. "That's only polite, you know."
There was a silence that was either stunned or was simply because he was trying not to laugh at her. "Of course," he said in a carefully-controlled voice that meant it was the later.
"G'night, then, Doctor."
"Goodnight, Donna." There was another noise she couldn't identify until after the line had gone dead: He'd kissed the receiver.
"Oh, you big dumbo," she said, rolling her eyes.
But before she hung the receiver up, she kissed it back.
Chapter 2