Fic: "Balancing Act" (2/8) (Doctor/Donna, Doctor Who)
Title: "Balancing Act" (2/8)
Author: ageless_aislynn
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 (for adult content)
Length: 2,358
Spoilers: Up to 4x13 "Journey's End"
Disclaimer: Not mine or you can bet there would've been happy endings for everybody!
Beta: Unbeta'ed. Sadly, the fantabulous mistojen wasn't available for this chapter (feel better, hon! ♥! ) so any and all mistakes are solely my own. ;)
Chapter 1
"In here!" the Doctor said, wielding his sonic screwdriver with quick precision and opening a narrow panel in the hallway.
Donna heard the sizzle of the alarm system coming online behind them. She started to follow him as he stepped into the opening, then skidded to a halt. "Are you crazy?" she hissed. "There isn't room for an ant in there! It's not even a storage closet! I can't--"
"Course you can," he said cheerily, turning her around and pulling her backwards, letting the panel snap shut a split-second before the motion detectors swept by with an angry electrical crackle.
They were pressed tightly enough together that she could feel the distinct double pulses of his hearts against her shoulder blades. She could also feel a rib or two and possibly a hipbone.
"Would it kill you to eat something every now and again?" she muttered, squirming and trying not to think about how she really wasn't fond of tight, dark spaces. "And get your screwdriver out of my back!"
He cleared his throat guiltily.
"Oh you've got to be kidding," she groaned.
"Well, it's very cozy in here," he defended. "And I can't exactly help it, now can I?"
"All right, all right," she said, taking a deep breath. "How long are we stuck here?"
"There'll be another window in between alarm cycles in five minutes."
"So, we just have to stay calm and we'll be out of here in-- Doctor, stop grinding against me. That's only going to make things harder!"
He had the nerve to chuckle. The low, naughty sound made muscles clench and flutter deep in her abdomen.
"Oi, you know what I mean!" she said, trying to ignore the involuntary reaction. "Now, focus. Tell me what you're going to do to disarm the device, why don't you? That ought to be completely boring."
"Well," he began authoritatively. "The Kalelests tend to rely on three fairly simple...um...bomb type pattern things."
His fingers crept up and began gently kneading her shoulders and neck, slipping slightly under the scalloped neckline of her green blouse. "And once I take it off -- the panel lid, I mean! -- then I'll just determine which, uh, pattern thing it is annnnnd... Mmm, your skin is so soft."
She craned her head back to look at him. Even in the dim lighting, she had no trouble reading his single-minded expression. "All the blood has drained out of your head into your nethers, hasn't it?"
"Yeah, pretty much so," he agreed. "I'll be better when we're not in such direct physical contact."
"In time to defuse the device?"
"What device?" he asked, nuzzling his cheek against the crown of her head. She elbowed him in the ribs and he grunted, "Oof! What was that for?"
"You're going to get us blown to smithereens if you can't pull yourself together," she told him sharply. "Undo your zip."
She was slightly surprised that he immediately obeyed, squirming to get both hands in between their bodies to perform the task.
"Okay," he said eagerly when he was done.
"What? You need me to draw you a picture? Go ahead and...take care of that so you'll be able to think straight again. You've got four minutes and twenty-nine seconds according to the wee bit of a Time Lord consciousness clock in my head. Ought to be plenty of time if you put your mind to it. Should even be able to get zipped back up before we have to run for it."
"You want me to do it?" The concept clearly stunned him.
"What, did you want me to invite one of the Kalelests in here? Yes, you, you alien git. Who else?"
"But why can't you--?"
"Because I'm turned around the wrong way," she interrupted as if ticking items off of a list. "Because I'm already sacrificing the back of my new blouse and I like this blouse. Because you're perfectly capable of doing it yourself. And because, well, it's too personal."
He hunched down so that his lips brushed the shell of her ear. "I hate to have to tell you, Donna, but we're going to get a lot more personal than this before we're through."
His suggestive purr sent a wave of liquid heat shooting straight to her groin. No, she thought firmly. I'm not turned on by this. I am not turned on by this!
He straightened and they both gasped as the motion rubbed him against her in a long line.
Oh God, I'm so turned on by this!
"I need you to help me," he murmured. "It'll be faster this way. Please?"
"Fine. If it'll be faster," she said in a tone meant to convince them both that that was the only reason she was agreeing to this foolishness.
She slid her right hand between her back and his stomach. Her fingers brushed along his shirt; he must've opened his brown suit jacket and pushed it back when he dealt with his trousers. She touched the silky end of his tie and he shifted, reaching to flick it haphazardly over his shoulder and out of the way. Finally, she encountered the cold, rough edge of his zipper where his trousers were laid open. Before she advanced any further, she asked, "I'm not going to find anything 'unusual' here, am I?"
"Like what? Fronds or tentacles or a ball of yarn?" he said in rather righteous indignation. "When you saw the other me naked, did you notice anything 'unusual,' hm?"
"Well, it's not like I looked!" she fired back.
"That's not what he said," he returned smugly, but when she yanked her hand back to her side with a muttered curse, he must have realized this was not the time to prod her. At least, not verbally.
"I'm sorry," he said contritely, his hands wiggling back up so he could stroke her hair. "Externally, there's very little difference between myself and any other adult human male. Well, other than my superior good looks, excellent conformation and incredible stamina, of course."
She snorted. "Oh, well I hope all that superiority, excellency and incredibleness is enough to tide you over until that bomb gets defused, then."
"Donna," he said, his bravado fading into a note of desperation as he rocked helplessly against her.
"All right," she said, exhaling resolutely. "We've got three minutes, thirty-one seconds. Let's get this done."
She slipped her hand behind her back, questing gently until she took him in her grasp. He inhaled sharply, going briefly up on his toes.
Her hand glided along his length. Not bad, she thought, speculatively. Enough for no complaints but not so much that your privates would feel like they've met with a battering ram.
"Let me know what you need," she said, hoping she didn't sound as awkward as she felt.
"You," he said, the word strangling in his throat. "I need you. Your skin. Your touch. You. You. You...ohhhhh."
It was interesting -- and more than a little kinky -- to explore him by touch alone without the benefit of sight. He did feel human: no unidentifiable parts, no strange textures or protuberances or any of a hundred things she'd been worried about. Only his slightly lower body temperature gave away that he wasn't of her species. But, rather than being unappealing, the idea of his cooler skin against hers, inside of her, sent little frissons of anticipation through her own rapidly overheating flesh.
He's an alien, she thought, trying to put it into perspective, but it was no longer the frightening, off-putting concept it might've once been. Yes, he'd been born on another planet, he could change his body to cheat his own death, and sometimes the things that went through his mind made no sense at all. But the last was true for every human bloke she'd ever known. When she looked at him, touched him, laughed with him or at him, took his hand and ran for her life with her heart in her throat, feeling more alive than she'd ever been in her life, she didn't think alien. She just thought Doctor and, though he was still a long streak of nothing, she now could see him as an attractive male. And that was the most disconcerting part of all.
"After we're done with the bomb," she said, clearing her throat, "I want your coat."
"Wh-what? Why?" The word emerged as a sigh as she changed her grip, trying to avoid cramping up from the odd angle.
"I'm not walking around with a big wet spot on me in front of everybody, sunshine!"
"Nobody'll know what it is," he argued breathlessly. "It'll be on my front. Lot more obvious. I need the coat. You can have my jacket."
"That skinny thing?" She blew derisively through pursed lips. "Makes me feel like I'm about to burst its seams like the flippin' Incredible Hulk! You give me the coat and you can carry your jacket."
"Oh, that'll look natural--ahh!"
He slipped into Gallifreyan. The sounds twisted through her mind, like notes of a song just at the edge of her hearing.
"Why can't I understand?" she asked, mostly rhetorically as she found a rhythm that seemed to suck the air from his lungs.
"Only three ways you could," he gasped. "Not enough consciousness to understand it alone."
"Think of it as modules," he had explained back when she realized she could still pilot the TARDIS. "The Time Lord consciousness provides the power for each of them: TARDIS piloting, awareness of time, knowledge of planets, the ability to tap into multiple timelines, a million other things but you get my meaning. A full Time Lord can power all of those modules at the same time. But now you only have enough left to power a few of them, like time awareness and a bit of piloting."
"I don't have enough juice to fire up the Gallifreyan language module in my head," she said. "Okay, I get that. What's the second way?"
"Reading my mind. Ohhhhhh, that twisty thing there? That's gooooood."
She grinned. "Like that one, eh? It works in the other direction, too."
He made a high-pitched sound in the back of his throat. "So it does," he said with sincere appreciation. "I'm going to have to be clever when I reciprocate. Luckily, though -- ohhh, your fingers are brilliant, they are! Luckily, I'm quite clever myself."
"Reciprocate?" she echoed, surprised.
"'Course," he said like it was completely obvious. "This isn't--nnnnggggg. Tighter is good, yes. Oh, it's very, very good."
It took him a few breaths to regain the ability to speak. "This isn't 'bout you servicing me the whole time, you know? It's meant to be mutual. I've just got a bit of a head start, sorry."
Suddenly, the uncharacteristic shyness melted away. She'd felt off-balanced, trying to reconcile DoctorDonnaFriends with Doctor-with-Donna's-hand-down-his-pants, like at any moment he was going to snap out of it, leaving her caught doing something vastly inappropriate. Just hearing him say it was going to be a mutual thing took away a tension she hadn't even realized was there.
She picked up the tempo and he fisted the sleeves of her blouse, uttering a string of Gallifreyan that fluttered through her mind like autumn leaves.
"So telepathy was number two," she said, returning the conversation back to its original topic. "And since I can't read your mind, I can't understand what you said."
"Right. Eventually...full-bond...can," he panted, losing words here and there. "Not yet."
"And the third thing?"
"TARDIS...translation."
Of course. The TARDIS translated all other languages, now didn't she? "So why isn't she translating it for me, then?"
He made a noise that was probably meant to be a chuckle. "She doesn't approve of that sort of language."
Her mouth dropped open a fraction. The Doctor was dirty-talking her in Gallifreyan?
Heat flared down her spinal column, following the path it had taken before. But this time it didn't coalesce into some faintly pleasant, ephemeral sensation; it poured down through her belly like boiling water and thickened into a corkscrew of shivery sensation in her core.
"Oh," she gasped as it twisted and tightened, radiating sharp tendrils of pleasure in all directions. "That's... that's..."
He grunted something harsh and coarse -- Gallifreyan or just nonsense now, she couldn't tell -- and the corkscrew within her snapped like a taut rubber band.
The next thing she knew, his arm was snaked around her waist and he was muttering, "Can you stand? Donna, you need to be able to stand."
"'I am standing," she said, her words slightly slurred. Then she realized, No, I'm not. He was all that was keeping her from slumping into a boneless puddle in the cramped space.
"Fifteen seconds," he said. "If you can stand, I can zip up before we have to run."
It took more effort than she expected to get her knees to lock and support her own weight again. He released her and set to quickly making himself presentable. She bit down on a giggle as she imagined him having to sprint down the hall with his trousers open and his bits flying every which way.
The back of her blouse felt positively drenched. I don't know if I should be mad or just impressed! she thought.
The Doctor reached over her and fiddled with the panel. "Annnnnnd here we go," he said, popping it open just as the electric crackle of the alarm system's motion detectors died away.
She stumbled out into the hallway with him close on her heels.
"Come on," he said, grasping her hand and they started to run, both of them staggering off to save the world -- or at least a small-sized chunk of it -- on rather wobbly legs.
After disarming the device, the Doctor and Donna emerged from the building to a crowd of enthusiastic natives. He had his suit jacket draped over his forearm, clutching it awkwardly to his stomach.
She was wearing his coat.
Chapter 3
Author: ageless_aislynn
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 (for adult content)
Length: 2,358
Spoilers: Up to 4x13 "Journey's End"
Disclaimer: Not mine or you can bet there would've been happy endings for everybody!
Beta: Unbeta'ed. Sadly, the fantabulous mistojen wasn't available for this chapter (feel better, hon! ♥! ) so any and all mistakes are solely my own. ;)
Chapter 1
"In here!" the Doctor said, wielding his sonic screwdriver with quick precision and opening a narrow panel in the hallway.
Donna heard the sizzle of the alarm system coming online behind them. She started to follow him as he stepped into the opening, then skidded to a halt. "Are you crazy?" she hissed. "There isn't room for an ant in there! It's not even a storage closet! I can't--"
"Course you can," he said cheerily, turning her around and pulling her backwards, letting the panel snap shut a split-second before the motion detectors swept by with an angry electrical crackle.
They were pressed tightly enough together that she could feel the distinct double pulses of his hearts against her shoulder blades. She could also feel a rib or two and possibly a hipbone.
"Would it kill you to eat something every now and again?" she muttered, squirming and trying not to think about how she really wasn't fond of tight, dark spaces. "And get your screwdriver out of my back!"
He cleared his throat guiltily.
"Oh you've got to be kidding," she groaned.
"Well, it's very cozy in here," he defended. "And I can't exactly help it, now can I?"
"All right, all right," she said, taking a deep breath. "How long are we stuck here?"
"There'll be another window in between alarm cycles in five minutes."
"So, we just have to stay calm and we'll be out of here in-- Doctor, stop grinding against me. That's only going to make things harder!"
He had the nerve to chuckle. The low, naughty sound made muscles clench and flutter deep in her abdomen.
"Oi, you know what I mean!" she said, trying to ignore the involuntary reaction. "Now, focus. Tell me what you're going to do to disarm the device, why don't you? That ought to be completely boring."
"Well," he began authoritatively. "The Kalelests tend to rely on three fairly simple...um...bomb type pattern things."
His fingers crept up and began gently kneading her shoulders and neck, slipping slightly under the scalloped neckline of her green blouse. "And once I take it off -- the panel lid, I mean! -- then I'll just determine which, uh, pattern thing it is annnnnd... Mmm, your skin is so soft."
She craned her head back to look at him. Even in the dim lighting, she had no trouble reading his single-minded expression. "All the blood has drained out of your head into your nethers, hasn't it?"
"Yeah, pretty much so," he agreed. "I'll be better when we're not in such direct physical contact."
"In time to defuse the device?"
"What device?" he asked, nuzzling his cheek against the crown of her head. She elbowed him in the ribs and he grunted, "Oof! What was that for?"
"You're going to get us blown to smithereens if you can't pull yourself together," she told him sharply. "Undo your zip."
She was slightly surprised that he immediately obeyed, squirming to get both hands in between their bodies to perform the task.
"Okay," he said eagerly when he was done.
"What? You need me to draw you a picture? Go ahead and...take care of that so you'll be able to think straight again. You've got four minutes and twenty-nine seconds according to the wee bit of a Time Lord consciousness clock in my head. Ought to be plenty of time if you put your mind to it. Should even be able to get zipped back up before we have to run for it."
"You want me to do it?" The concept clearly stunned him.
"What, did you want me to invite one of the Kalelests in here? Yes, you, you alien git. Who else?"
"But why can't you--?"
"Because I'm turned around the wrong way," she interrupted as if ticking items off of a list. "Because I'm already sacrificing the back of my new blouse and I like this blouse. Because you're perfectly capable of doing it yourself. And because, well, it's too personal."
He hunched down so that his lips brushed the shell of her ear. "I hate to have to tell you, Donna, but we're going to get a lot more personal than this before we're through."
His suggestive purr sent a wave of liquid heat shooting straight to her groin. No, she thought firmly. I'm not turned on by this. I am not turned on by this!
He straightened and they both gasped as the motion rubbed him against her in a long line.
Oh God, I'm so turned on by this!
"I need you to help me," he murmured. "It'll be faster this way. Please?"
"Fine. If it'll be faster," she said in a tone meant to convince them both that that was the only reason she was agreeing to this foolishness.
She slid her right hand between her back and his stomach. Her fingers brushed along his shirt; he must've opened his brown suit jacket and pushed it back when he dealt with his trousers. She touched the silky end of his tie and he shifted, reaching to flick it haphazardly over his shoulder and out of the way. Finally, she encountered the cold, rough edge of his zipper where his trousers were laid open. Before she advanced any further, she asked, "I'm not going to find anything 'unusual' here, am I?"
"Like what? Fronds or tentacles or a ball of yarn?" he said in rather righteous indignation. "When you saw the other me naked, did you notice anything 'unusual,' hm?"
"Well, it's not like I looked!" she fired back.
"That's not what he said," he returned smugly, but when she yanked her hand back to her side with a muttered curse, he must have realized this was not the time to prod her. At least, not verbally.
"I'm sorry," he said contritely, his hands wiggling back up so he could stroke her hair. "Externally, there's very little difference between myself and any other adult human male. Well, other than my superior good looks, excellent conformation and incredible stamina, of course."
She snorted. "Oh, well I hope all that superiority, excellency and incredibleness is enough to tide you over until that bomb gets defused, then."
"Donna," he said, his bravado fading into a note of desperation as he rocked helplessly against her.
"All right," she said, exhaling resolutely. "We've got three minutes, thirty-one seconds. Let's get this done."
She slipped her hand behind her back, questing gently until she took him in her grasp. He inhaled sharply, going briefly up on his toes.
Her hand glided along his length. Not bad, she thought, speculatively. Enough for no complaints but not so much that your privates would feel like they've met with a battering ram.
"Let me know what you need," she said, hoping she didn't sound as awkward as she felt.
"You," he said, the word strangling in his throat. "I need you. Your skin. Your touch. You. You. You...ohhhhh."
It was interesting -- and more than a little kinky -- to explore him by touch alone without the benefit of sight. He did feel human: no unidentifiable parts, no strange textures or protuberances or any of a hundred things she'd been worried about. Only his slightly lower body temperature gave away that he wasn't of her species. But, rather than being unappealing, the idea of his cooler skin against hers, inside of her, sent little frissons of anticipation through her own rapidly overheating flesh.
He's an alien, she thought, trying to put it into perspective, but it was no longer the frightening, off-putting concept it might've once been. Yes, he'd been born on another planet, he could change his body to cheat his own death, and sometimes the things that went through his mind made no sense at all. But the last was true for every human bloke she'd ever known. When she looked at him, touched him, laughed with him or at him, took his hand and ran for her life with her heart in her throat, feeling more alive than she'd ever been in her life, she didn't think alien. She just thought Doctor and, though he was still a long streak of nothing, she now could see him as an attractive male. And that was the most disconcerting part of all.
"After we're done with the bomb," she said, clearing her throat, "I want your coat."
"Wh-what? Why?" The word emerged as a sigh as she changed her grip, trying to avoid cramping up from the odd angle.
"I'm not walking around with a big wet spot on me in front of everybody, sunshine!"
"Nobody'll know what it is," he argued breathlessly. "It'll be on my front. Lot more obvious. I need the coat. You can have my jacket."
"That skinny thing?" She blew derisively through pursed lips. "Makes me feel like I'm about to burst its seams like the flippin' Incredible Hulk! You give me the coat and you can carry your jacket."
"Oh, that'll look natural--ahh!"
He slipped into Gallifreyan. The sounds twisted through her mind, like notes of a song just at the edge of her hearing.
"Why can't I understand?" she asked, mostly rhetorically as she found a rhythm that seemed to suck the air from his lungs.
"Only three ways you could," he gasped. "Not enough consciousness to understand it alone."
"Think of it as modules," he had explained back when she realized she could still pilot the TARDIS. "The Time Lord consciousness provides the power for each of them: TARDIS piloting, awareness of time, knowledge of planets, the ability to tap into multiple timelines, a million other things but you get my meaning. A full Time Lord can power all of those modules at the same time. But now you only have enough left to power a few of them, like time awareness and a bit of piloting."
"I don't have enough juice to fire up the Gallifreyan language module in my head," she said. "Okay, I get that. What's the second way?"
"Reading my mind. Ohhhhhh, that twisty thing there? That's gooooood."
She grinned. "Like that one, eh? It works in the other direction, too."
He made a high-pitched sound in the back of his throat. "So it does," he said with sincere appreciation. "I'm going to have to be clever when I reciprocate. Luckily, though -- ohhh, your fingers are brilliant, they are! Luckily, I'm quite clever myself."
"Reciprocate?" she echoed, surprised.
"'Course," he said like it was completely obvious. "This isn't--nnnnggggg. Tighter is good, yes. Oh, it's very, very good."
It took him a few breaths to regain the ability to speak. "This isn't 'bout you servicing me the whole time, you know? It's meant to be mutual. I've just got a bit of a head start, sorry."
Suddenly, the uncharacteristic shyness melted away. She'd felt off-balanced, trying to reconcile DoctorDonnaFriends with Doctor-with-Donna's-hand-down-his-pants, like at any moment he was going to snap out of it, leaving her caught doing something vastly inappropriate. Just hearing him say it was going to be a mutual thing took away a tension she hadn't even realized was there.
She picked up the tempo and he fisted the sleeves of her blouse, uttering a string of Gallifreyan that fluttered through her mind like autumn leaves.
"So telepathy was number two," she said, returning the conversation back to its original topic. "And since I can't read your mind, I can't understand what you said."
"Right. Eventually...full-bond...can," he panted, losing words here and there. "Not yet."
"And the third thing?"
"TARDIS...translation."
Of course. The TARDIS translated all other languages, now didn't she? "So why isn't she translating it for me, then?"
He made a noise that was probably meant to be a chuckle. "She doesn't approve of that sort of language."
Her mouth dropped open a fraction. The Doctor was dirty-talking her in Gallifreyan?
Heat flared down her spinal column, following the path it had taken before. But this time it didn't coalesce into some faintly pleasant, ephemeral sensation; it poured down through her belly like boiling water and thickened into a corkscrew of shivery sensation in her core.
"Oh," she gasped as it twisted and tightened, radiating sharp tendrils of pleasure in all directions. "That's... that's..."
He grunted something harsh and coarse -- Gallifreyan or just nonsense now, she couldn't tell -- and the corkscrew within her snapped like a taut rubber band.
The next thing she knew, his arm was snaked around her waist and he was muttering, "Can you stand? Donna, you need to be able to stand."
"'I am standing," she said, her words slightly slurred. Then she realized, No, I'm not. He was all that was keeping her from slumping into a boneless puddle in the cramped space.
"Fifteen seconds," he said. "If you can stand, I can zip up before we have to run."
It took more effort than she expected to get her knees to lock and support her own weight again. He released her and set to quickly making himself presentable. She bit down on a giggle as she imagined him having to sprint down the hall with his trousers open and his bits flying every which way.
The back of her blouse felt positively drenched. I don't know if I should be mad or just impressed! she thought.
The Doctor reached over her and fiddled with the panel. "Annnnnnd here we go," he said, popping it open just as the electric crackle of the alarm system's motion detectors died away.
She stumbled out into the hallway with him close on her heels.
"Come on," he said, grasping her hand and they started to run, both of them staggering off to save the world -- or at least a small-sized chunk of it -- on rather wobbly legs.
After disarming the device, the Doctor and Donna emerged from the building to a crowd of enthusiastic natives. He had his suit jacket draped over his forearm, clutching it awkwardly to his stomach.
She was wearing his coat.
Chapter 3