DW Fic - The Psychology of Gallifreyan Mating
Title: The Psychology of Gallifreyan Mating
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG-ish
Summary: Donna is determined to learn as much about the Doctor as she can.
Word Count: approx 5,700 words
Characters: Ten and Donna
A/N: Written as a result of tkel_paris’s 2011 Secret Santa prompt, which was: "The Psychology of Gallifreyan Mating." There's your title. Now explain a bit about the Doctor's people's mating habits, rituals, and customs. Pairing must be Ten/Donna, but you can highlight other women who've been in the Doctor's life to explain why they didn't fit the bill for what he needs. Or have their experiences highlight some aspect of Gallifreyan preferences/biology. D/D smut not required, but would be GREATLY loved! The original Santa was kind enough to let me play in this sandpit so I hope you enjoy it.
A/N 2: This encompasses some non-television canon. Please feel free to ask questions if you’re confused.
A/N 3: I would also like to dedicate this fic to ahalfpasttea. You know why. ;-)
Donna stared at the page in her notebook and then sighed, sliding her hand through her hair.
“Tea,” the Doctor said, depositing the steaming mug in front of her. “Milk with one. I thought you might need the sugar,” he added, sitting down opposite her. “You usually do when you’re deep in thought.”
Donna grinned and rolled her eyes. “Thanks,” was all she said, but not for the first time, she was glad to have someone who understood her that well.
“So,” the Doctor’s eyes were already fixed on the notebook, “another chapter in the Handbook on Travelling with a Time Lord?”
“Yup.” Donna sighed. “This is a difficult one though. Maybe the toughest of all.”
“I thought you were finished ‘The Innermost Workings of a TARDIS console’.”
“Ages ago.”
“Done with ‘Handling the Hair’? You do love your alliteration, I notice.”
“God, yeah, that’s been done for weeks. Probably took me less time than it takes you to do your hair of a morning, actually.”
He decided not to rise to the bait for once and continued to pursue the topic at hand. “‘Yes, it’s bigger on the inside’ all done?”
“Down to the last full stop.”
“What about those problems you were having with ‘Just because the TARDIS moved your room doesn’t mean she also nicked your stuff - and yes, it is a ‘she’!’”
Donna rolled her eyes. “Blimey, don’t you remember me reading that one aloud to you last - well, whenever it was. Day or night or whatever.”
“Oh, yes.” The Doctor sipped his tea. “Sorry, that had slipped my mind. So if those are all done, which one are we up to now?”
“‘We’?” Donna cocked an eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware that this was a collaborative effort.”
“Donna, you’re writing a manual about the most nit-picky parts of me!” he protested. “Of course I’m part of this!”
“‘Nit-picky’ is a word?” she demanded incredulously, but he continued as if she had never spoken.
“If you’re going to cast light over even the darkest corners of my being,” he went on, the usual tones of über-drama creeping into his voice so that Donna rolled her eyes, “then I feel I should have some say in the manner in which I’m represented. Yes?”
“I don’t see why.” She drummed her fingers the table. “You’ll probably have regenerated into some hysterical teenager or something by the time there’s any other companion to show it to anyway, so most of this won’t even be relevant. This is really just for my amusement, and the TARDIS’s. Oh, and Martha’s,” she added, watching as his eyebrows shot upwards.
“Tell me you are not showing this to Martha!” he exploded.
“I’m not showing this to Martha,” she chanted obediently, but her crossed fingers were clearly visible on the table-top and did nothing to calm the Doctor.
“Donna,” he whined, “what about the respect due to a Time Lord? The last Time Lord, in fact!”
“Oh, right, yes, I still have to write a section on that!” Donna flipped back to the contents page at the start of the notebook and wrote it down. Her lips quirked into a grin. “That one will be quite fun, actually.”
“Hmph!”
He scowled, crossing one arm across his chest and loudly slurping his tea out of his mug in a way he knew annoyed her. She added another point to the list about ‘Irritating Habits and How To Ignore Them’ before turning back to the page that had been giving her trouble in the first place.
She had already gone through the TARDIS library, which had proved useful in answering questions about Gallifrey for her chapter on that. However the old girl was proving to be rather recalcitrant in the matter at hand, which, even Donna had to admit, had the potential to be a bit personal. She’d considered leaving this section out altogether, but for the sake of completeness - and not at all because she was a bit curious! - she felt it had to be included.
“Go on then,” the Doctor said rather grumpily, and she had the feeling that he couldn’t bear not to know what was troubling her. “Tell me what it is. Let’s hear the worst.”
Donna briefly considered actually telling him, but eventually decided that it would be better - or at the very least, safer - if she just showed him. She turned the notebook around, and the Doctor choked on his tea, spitting tiny dots of brown onto the page in front of him, which bore only a few words:
The Psychology of Time Lord Mating
“What?!” he squawked. “What are you writing about that for?!”
She managed to suppress a smirk. “Why wouldn’t I?” she asked. “If you remember, when we first discussed this, I did promise I would cover every aspect of your personality.”
“Ah!” He suddenly looked far too pleased with himself. “Then I’m afraid you’ve struck a snag.”
“What sort of snag?” she demanded suspiciously.
“We don’t mate,” he declared in victorious tones.
Donna cocked an eyebrow and waited.
“We don’t!” he insisted, rather too loudly. “You can’t call all that stuff mating.”
“All what stuff?” she pressed, sensing that she had the advantage.
“Oh,” he looked distinctly uneasy, making meaningless gestures with his hands, “you know, just - stuff.”
“What ‘stuff’?” she asked disdainfully. “If you don’t shag, how do you reproduce then? Cloning or something alien?”
“No and yes.”
She glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“No, it’s not cloning,” he admitted with visible reluctance, “but yes, I suppose you would consider it to be fairly alien.”
“What was it then?” she demands eagerly, her interest piqued.
“All those books you got the TARDIS to give you didn’t say anything about it?” he asks almost incredulously.
“If they had, would I be asking?” she retorted, knowing that he was trying to avoid the subject.
He sighed, sat back in his chair and ran both hands through his hair as if wishing he could wipe this conversation away just as easily. He mumbled something under his breath, but it was clear from his expression that he knew Donna wouldn’t let him get away with that one.
“I beg your pardon.”
He sighed again and seemed to collapse a little as he gave in. “Looms,” he said at last.
She frowned. “What?”
“It was called looming.” The Doctor rapped his fingers on the outside of his half-full mug. “Genetic material woven into a person. It was boosted by the fundamental knowledge belonging to the person’s specific house - family, if you will. Voila, instant new life. Well, not quite instant, but close enough. Future Time Lord.”
“Oh.” There was not much Donna could say in response to that. She frowned for a moment and then looked down at her paper again. “Fine then.”
She amended her chapter title. The Psychology of Time Lord Gallifreyan Mating
“Clever, if a bit nit-picky,” he was forced to admit, clearly able to read her writing upside down, “but I don’t know how non-Time Lords reproduced so I can’t help you with that one.”
Donna huffed, starting to feel as if the Doctor was playing a game of some sort with her. Now that he was more comfortable with this topic, he could clearly understand what she really wanted to know, but he seemed determined not to give her any answers to her questions. Donna decided she might as well be more upfront about the matter. After all, she had done her best to be tactful in the way she posed the topic.
“So,” she said slowly, still thinking about what he had told her, “if it all happens in looms - which does have its merits, I have to say, not having to carry a baby for nine months and you don't have your figure completely stuffed and your boobs ruined - where does the genetic material you mentioned come from? Some pool of random stuff floating around?”
He stared at her for a moment before chuckling and then lifting his mug to his lips, perhaps in an attempt to keep from laughing out loud. “You’re just going to keep pushing this subject until I give you want you want, aren’t you?” he said as he put the empty mug down.
There was a dancing light in his eyes and Donna couldn’t help smirking back. “Don’t even try to pretend you know what I want, mate,” she warned in a mock-stern voice, pointing her pen at him. “You have no idea.”
“Yes,” he admitted at last, “a Gallifreyan loomed child has parents. Yes, those parents have to be willing partners in the birth. And yes, there is a whole courtship ritual leading up to it.”
“Sex?” she suggested, feeling comfortable enough to say the word at last.
“Mmm, yes and no.”
“Oh, come on!” Donna slammed down the pen and rolled her eyes. “It’s a simple enough question, mate - did you or did you not have sex with women - actually with people of either sex - on Gallifrey?”
“We didn’t call it sex.”
Donna threw the cap of her pen at him, watching as, with his usual dexterity and instinct, he caught just millimetres before it hit him on the nose.
“So you had something similar to sex then?” she prompted him, watching as he nodded.
“Yep,” he admitted at last, one eyebrow raised, as if wondering what she would ask next.
“What’s it like?”
The Doctor mused on this for a moment. “Mental,” he said at last.
Donna snorted with laugher. “Yeah, it can be a bit like that.”
He rolled his eyes and chuckled. “That’s not what I meant, Donna. Actually, it’s the opposite of what you mean by mental, at least from the outside. In fact, as an observer, you wouldn’t know anything was happening because most of the process happens in a meeting of minds.”
“So no flowers and chocolates and nice music and candles then?”
He shakes his head, his eyes dancing and dimples appearing in his cheeks. “That’s romance, Donna. You asked about mating rituals.”
“Now who’s being nit-picky?” she demanded.
For a moment he studied her face, his eyes lingering in a meeting with her gaze, before he turned his attention to the notebook on the table between them.
“The trouble is,” the Doctor said slowly, “that it’s very hard to describe.”
“There’s not a process?”
“Not as such.” He suddenly got up and carried his mug over to the sink, setting the old brass kettle on the stove to heat up again. Then he turned to face her, folding his arms over his chest, continuing to watch her as he spoke again. “How would you describe, as you so nicely put it, ‘the psychology of human mating’?”
Donna nods because she did think about this before she began this particular chapter, having a suspicion that the Doctor’s would call her own feelings onto the carpet. “There has to be an initial attraction,” she admits. “Mutual goals and desires - at least for anything long-term, like raising children. Willingness to share responsibilities. That sort of thing.”
“And it was no different on Gallifrey,” he told her. “The difference was that, in general, the partnerships were arranged. You only partnered people in your House, and the leaders in the various Houses in the Academy would bring people with shared goals and aims together.”
She pulled a face. “So love had nothing to do with it?”
“Donna, arranged marriages are considered normal in certain parts of Earth culture as well,” he pointed out, beginning to prepare a fresh pot of tea. “And we had the benefit of being touch telepaths so other people could help to judge the compatibility of particularly character traits. Much more reliable than letting Mum and Dad pick someone and hoping for the best.”
“You make it sound so romantic,” she mocked.
“If things worked out, romance could come later.” He poured hot water over the tea leaves and left them to stew. “It’s just that romance didn’t necessarily lead to mating - just to the act you would call sex.”
“That does make sense,” she had to admit, playing with the pen between her fingers.
“You sound disappointed.” His eyes sparkled with something like victory. “Were you hoping we’d dangle upside down from the ceiling like spiders or something?”
“I had no idea,” she admitted honestly, before grinning. “Although I might pay good money to watch if trapeze-work was involved.”
“I’ll take you to a circus one day,” he promised, laughing.
Then he became more serious, his expression one of deep thought so that Donna wondered what he was thinking. She wasn’t left in the dark for long as he carried the teapot over to the table and resumed his seat, finally speaking.
“I could show you what it felt like.”
Donna recoiled instantly. “Doctor, I don’t want...”
“Then why are you asking?” he prompted her, leaning forward, his fingers steepled, elbows resting on knees, his gaze intense and fixed on her face. “Come on, Donna, we both know this isn’t all about that book of yours. You’re curious - and that’s a good thing!” he hurries on, as if afraid she might strike out at him. “Yes, curiosity, always good! Best thing ever! Bellisimo! Molto bene! And you, Miss Donna Noble, are full of it!”
“Oi!”
She glared at him and it was his turn to cringe back into his chair as he realised what he’d said. “Curiosity,” he reminded her hurriedly. “That’s what I’m talking about. Nothing else.”
“You’d better not be,” she shot back. “And,” she went on as an idea occurred to her, “I notice that you seem strangely keen to share these experiences of yours. Usually any attempt to talk about Gallifrey results in a prompt change of subject and at least one hair-raising adventure to ensure that the topic is forgotten as soon as possible. So,” she looked at him through narrow eyes, “what’s changed?”
He nodded at the notebook. “That,” he admitted softly. “No one else has wanted to know so much about me before. Oh, people have asked the occasional question, but never this sort of cross-examination.” He paused for a moment before adding, “There was Jenny, too. It made me think, Donna.” His gaze returned to her face, his expression sombre. “Maybe it’s time to stop keeping it all to myself. I mean, if other people know, at least about some things, then I won’t have to feel like, should something happen to me, all that knowledge of Gallifrey will be gone forever.”
“Oh.” That made sense to Donna, although a tiny part of her still wondered just why he was offering to show it to her of all people.
“Because you’re special,” he said, answering her unspoken question, and his voice hummed with meaning and honesty so that she couldn’t even laugh off his statement as easily as she wanted to. “And,” he added, “because you’re the first one to ask.”
Donna thought for a moment as the Doctor poured them both fresh mugs of tea. It was hard to deny that she was wildly curious now as to just what could be done in the mind that would be in any way comparable to sex as she knew it.
Her only tiny, nagging concern was what this might do to their definitely-not-having-any-of-that-nonsense friendship.
Still, would he be offering if he didn’t mean it?
“Oh, go on then,” she said at last.
His eyes widen instantly. “Are you sure?”
She rolled her own eyes impatiently. “Blimey, Spaceman, you’ve just talked me into the idea and now you’re having second thoughts?”
He mustered a faint grin, although she could still see the worry lines on his face. “Just as long as you’re not just saying yes to be polite.”
“I’m not.” As he hesitated, she felt her only irritation and anticipation growing. “Well, get on with it, Time Boy!”
“Only if you really want to,” he insisted, as if afraid that he was forcing himself on her.
“Doctor,” she reached across and placed her hand on his, “I do,” she said firmly.
His expression brightened and he leaped to his feet, almost overturning his chair as he did so, taking one last slurp of his tea before coming around to her side of the table. “All right, come on then!”
Donna got rather more warily to her feet. “Where are we going?”
“It works better standing up.”
She looked at him curiously. “What about the Oodsphere? That seemed to be fine as far as mental mumbo-jumbo went, and we were sitting down there. Or kneeling or whatever.”
“It’s a different process,” he explained as she got to her feet. “Then again,” he added thoughtfully, “that might just be a myth. It was one of those things I got told while I was at the Academy - that it’s better standing up.”
Donna couldn’t resist a crack. “I’d always thought it was better lying down,”
He grinned and then took her hands in his. Her eyes widened as he lightly spread her fingers and then lifted them to his face, placing them in approximately the same places that she had felt his hands on her face during that moment with the Ood.
“What’s this for?” she asked.
“It’s for me,” he admitted. “If this was happening between two touch telepaths, everything you’re about to feel would be a mutual action. As it is, your psychic abilities are too untrained for you to be an active participant in the process, but you having your hands there will let me feel as if you are.”
“Oh.” As he released his light touch on her fingers, she looked up into his eyes and studied the expressions she could see there - the familiar joy at having someone to share things with, eager anticipation of how she would find the experience and, perhaps, a faint echo of what Donna herself was feeling: a flicker of nervousness about how they would both get through these next few moments and what effect it might have on their future friendship.
His eyes closed in preparation and she studied the line of his dark lashes on his skin. It was strange to have him so near to her, and in particular, for him to be so still and quiet. It gave Donna an even better idea of just how huge this moment was for him.
“Oh, and one more thing,” he added suddenly, his dark eyes so close and huge as they opened again that it almost left her breathless. Then he gave one of his manic grins. “I have no idea how you’re going to describe this!”
Donna was about to reply, but she had no chance.
It was as if her feet had been suddenly swept out from under her. The world tilted, seeming to fold itself up into a multitude of tiny shapes, before shattering into a myriad of tiny coloured particles that pitched and yawed around her like the worst kind of sea voyage. Her eyes slammed shut in protest at the apparent stability of the world around her, which was such a hectic contrast with the waves crashing against her mind that left her dizzy and breathless.
For one wild moment she grasped the fact of how different this moment was from that other time he had been in her mind, when he helped her to hear the song on the Oodsphere. Then it had simply been an opening of a sense she had never known she possessed. Now it was as if every sense had been flung open to its very widest extent. Even the movement of the blood in her veins and the breath in her lungs pulsed and gusted through her like the raging of a tornado.
And despite the fact that it was almost terrifying, there was something thrilling about it, too. The comparison with a storm - the first idea that had occurred to her - was particularly apt. It was like watching the lightning and thunder, only now they were inside her.
Like every storm, the raging heart of it died away almost too soon.
Her mind was already adjusting to the dramatic changes, toning the reactions in her mind to manageable levels, easing the vicious up-and-down heaving to a more gentle to-and-fro rock that was actually rather soothing.
Somewhat nervously, Donna let herself become more aware of her surroundings and slowly relaxed. Flickers and tremors flowed through her mind as her muscles eased from the tension into which the initial maelstrom had flung them, and then Donna experienced the new and not altogether unpleasant sensation of knowing what relaxation could really mean.
Slowly she began to consider the world beyond her immediate body. She was still too unsure of the reaction to open her eyes, but she let her other sense explore instead - smell, primarily. The sweetness that echoed the tang of tea, the light floral scent of her perfume, so recently applied after the shower that was so necessary at the end of a day filled with running. There was the Doctor’s scent as well. She’d never noticed it before, but now, with his fingers pressed against her face, his palms close to her nose, she could detect the aroma of his skin, dark and musky, but with tantalising hints of wood and flowers and herbs that made her think of the forests on the planet they had so recently left behind.
And yet there was more than just his smell.
He was in her mind, too.
She didn’t know how she knew it, because he made no sound, but she could feel his presence in her thoughts, feather-light, like it was on the Oodsphere, only somehow different at the same time.
He was waiting, she understood at once (could she hear his thoughts now?) for her to become used to this strange mental world where every feeling and thought was magnified hundred-fold. She could feel that there were walls around this presence in her mind, keeping him from unleashing himself over her in a way neither of them could control.
Almost as soon as she became aware of him, Donna could feel that he, too, was aware of her shift in thoughts outside of herself and her mental acknowledgement of his closeness. He was waiting, she realised, for a signal from her. She took in a deep breath and readied her muscles to nod...
She had forgotten that he didn’t need any visual cues to know what she wanted. The mental whirlwind returned, buffeting her for a moment, but somehow she didn’t feel quite so out of control this time. It was not unlike the reassurance she felt when the Doctor held her hand, even in the face of some of the worst dangers they had faced together. He was there to help control the situation.
It was while she was still musing on this that she felt the first trickling of foreign sensations running through her. These weren’t foreign in the sense of unusual or different, but rather that she could detect the causes of these feelings and she knew they were not the feelings she would have under the same circumstances. They were, in their most basic sense, alien to her.
It was like watching a movie, except one in which it wasn’t only the vision that was three-dimensional. It seemed to come at her from every angle, titillating and intoxicating all of her senses at the same moment.
And yet somehow she was still distant from it.
She could feel an echo of how the participants felt, but - now she understood what was happening - the response arrived before she had a chance to decide how such a circumstance would make her feel. It was like a TV show where the sound came a few seconds before the picture, so she knew what the characters were going to say and do before they did it.
Still, she couldn’t deny that the emotions she was feeling were far stronger than those she had ever experienced from a film or TV program. They swamped her, carrying her along with them until she forgot to think in trying to capture every nuance and flavour of the mind in hers.
Then, without warning, it was over. Donna’s mind was still and quiet and empty for the first time in what seemed like hours. Strangely, her strongest emotion was an aching sense of loss. Even if that hadn’t been what she had imagined it might be, it had still been one of the most powerful emotional moments of her life.
She ventured to open her eyes, finding the Doctor still in front of her, his fingers no longer resting on her face, and she hastily imitated his actions, dropping her hands to her sides.
“Well?” he asked curiously, his eyes studying her face. “What did you think?”
Donna struggled to find the right words. “Was that it?” she asked at last.
She couldn’t help the way her voice carried some of her disappointment, even though she tried to hide it. As soon as the words escaped, she wished them back, but to her surprise, the Doctor did not seem offended. He gave a would-be casual shrug.
“It doesn’t have to be.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I probably should have explained, although I think you realised anyway, but that was me showing you what it was like. It wasn’t what you would go through yourself if you were an active participant.”
“Oh.” Donna wasn’t sure what to think about that. “So what was I going through then?”
“That,” he explained patiently, “was - well, basically it was like a recording. That was the memory of the experience I had with my wife that led to our first child. The emotions you felt were her emotions, and some of my own, which is why they didn’t feel like they belonged to you. Because they didn’t.”
Donna nodded as she processed this, understanding why she had compared it to a film or television program - because, in effect, that was exactly what it was. Her disappointment began to fade.
“I could show you,” he offered hesitantly, “how that experience might be if it was tailored for you.”
She was almost embarrassingly eager. “Go on then.”
He shot her that familiar manic grin and then she felt his hands brush against her arms as he raised them towards those sensitive places on her face. She closed her eyes to block out the visual stimuli that had caused her so many problems last time, before feeling as the Doctor lifted her hands and placing them lightly on his face. His fingers, cool points of light pressure, resumed their former touch, and she waited.
The world tilted again, but she was more ready for it this time and the worst of it was pver almost at once. She reached out for the Doctor with her mind, feeling his presence as a reassuringly stable element, and the storm passed quickly.
Ready?
She had scarcely even begun to frame a positive response in her mind when the world exploded inside her head. It wasn’t like last time, with the violent, disorienting motion. Instead it was as if every nerve in her body had been switched on. Instant heightened arousal. An almost unbearable sense of expectation, of waiting.
Teasing.
For a moment she could have sworn she heard the Doctor chuckle, although she doubted he was actually making a sound. No, the git was deliberately doing this to her, seeing how far he could push, tormenting her. Revenge -
No chance to think of anything appropriate.
There was a sudden thrill, as if hands had crept onto her skin, smooth and feather-light. It was strange, because she knew these were the Doctor’s fingers, and yet, as if from a distance, she could also feel his touch at her temples. That meant everything she was feeling now - all of the touches on different parts of her body - was simply phantom sensations, stemming from whatever the Doctor was doing in her mind.
Not that it mattered.
She could feel herself responding in the same way, or perhaps even more so, than she would have done had this been happening for real. No, she had would have to find another way to phrase that because there was no doubt that this was real. She was responding to touches and kisses and even the delicate tracing of his tongue on her arms and legs and shoulders and neck and face, even if, in actuality, there was nothing for her to feel. The only touch was his fingertips against her temples.
His non-touch crept gradually closer to her private areas, stroking up her stomach before she felt brushes of fingers against her breasts and between her legs. Then, as if his impatience equalled hers, he was inside her, filling her, drawing her rapidly to the very heights of ecstasy and to the bounds of comprehensible thought before it would all be lost.
Donna forced herself to focus.
This wasn’t sex.
She had to remind herself of that because it felt like sex. It felt like the Doctor’s hands and mouth and every part of him were on every part of her all at the same time. The mental stimulation of her nerves had the identical impact, or perhaps even a stronger one, than it would have had if it really had been him carrying out the same actions on her. Her mind seemed to be urging her body to respond in all the right ways, to bring herself to orgasm, and it was with an almost painful effort that she was able to stop herself.
After all, she was standing in the middle of the kitchen in the TARDIS, impossible as it seemed at this moment, and she really didn’t want anything like that to happen then and there!
Even as this thought took solid form in her mind, the feelings vanished and the heightened sensations of her nerves switched off. She could feel the emptiness in her mind, and a sudden terror struck her that she would find herself alone when she opened her eyes.
Gasping, her eyelids flew open and she stared at the Doctor, who was still standing opposite her, his hand gently grasping her arm, an understanding expression in his eyes, clearly realising how unbalanced she was - literally as much figuratively - after all she'd gone through. After a moment, while she gasped for breath like a fish out of water, he peered into her face with something like concern.
“Okay?”
She nodded, finally managing to make her mouth move in words that she hoped would make sense.
“Yeah.”
It was something she gasped rather than actually said, but she was actually quite proud of herself for managing to make sound - coherent sound at that! And at least the room had stopped spinning.
“Good.” His hands rested on her upper arms, rubbing lightly. “That was a little more abrupt than it would usually have ended. I’m sorry about that, but you were right in what you were thinking. Still,” his tone was lighter, more teasing, after a prolonged moment of silence, “what do you think now about the psychology of Gallifreyan - or Time Lord - mating?”
“Intense,” she admitted, and he chuckled.
“If that moment was to be used for its intended purpose,” he told her, his voice heavy with promise, “it would have been even more so. But we couldn’t go that far. I mean, you felt that it had to stop, and you were right. In a different setting, though...”
He trailed off into a silence filled with expectation, and Donna only just stopped herself from shuddering in delighted ecstasy as an echo of what she had felt went through her again. This seemed to clear her mind and allowed her to think rather more succinctly and to the purpose.
“So,” she offered, “that was you finding out what I liked?”
“Put very simply, yes,” he agreed, although there was a wariness in his voice as if he wasn’t sure what she was about to ask next.
“What about what you like?” she asked meaningfully, and couldn’t help being both pleased and amused when it was clear how much her question had flustered him.
Still, the Doctor was rarely at a loss for long, and his response was prompt. “You could always find out,” he replied in teasing tones, but there was also a deep undercurrent in his voice that suggested he was testing the ground to find out whether she was willing to go there.
“And how would I do that?” she retorted in similar tones.
Something dark and playful sparkled in his eyes. “Practice,” he told her in the most serious tone he could muster. “Lots and lots of practice. But in the meantime,” he picked up the notebook and pen, handing them to her, “now that you understand the process, you might want to get on with that chapter.”
Turning, he sauntered out of the room, leaving Donna staring after him. Her mind was still electrified from everything she had just experienced, and the most powerful part of the whole thing was the knowledge that all she had just undergone was inscribed deeply in her memory. With a thought she could bring it all back, relive it all, and allow herself to wallow in it, bringing her to the orgasm she had held herself back from in front of the Doctor.
Still, that wasn’t really something she thought should be her first priority at this moment.
She looked down at the items in her hands and finally put them on the table, returning to the seat where she had been sitting when this whole conversation, if you could call it that, began.
Two hours later, she was still there.
Donna sighed and played with the pen, continuing to stare at the almost blank sheet of paper.
It wasn’t that she was still replaying everything she had just undergone in her mind.
Well, maybe she was. A bit.
But really she was trying to find the best way to put it all into words.
And struggling.
The most annoying thing about the entire process was that the Doctor had been right. Again. There really was only one way to describe the psychology of Gallifreyan mating.
Indescribable.
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG-ish
Summary: Donna is determined to learn as much about the Doctor as she can.
Word Count: approx 5,700 words
Characters: Ten and Donna
A/N: Written as a result of tkel_paris’s 2011 Secret Santa prompt, which was: "The Psychology of Gallifreyan Mating." There's your title. Now explain a bit about the Doctor's people's mating habits, rituals, and customs. Pairing must be Ten/Donna, but you can highlight other women who've been in the Doctor's life to explain why they didn't fit the bill for what he needs. Or have their experiences highlight some aspect of Gallifreyan preferences/biology. D/D smut not required, but would be GREATLY loved! The original Santa was kind enough to let me play in this sandpit so I hope you enjoy it.
A/N 2: This encompasses some non-television canon. Please feel free to ask questions if you’re confused.
A/N 3: I would also like to dedicate this fic to ahalfpasttea. You know why. ;-)
Donna stared at the page in her notebook and then sighed, sliding her hand through her hair.
“Tea,” the Doctor said, depositing the steaming mug in front of her. “Milk with one. I thought you might need the sugar,” he added, sitting down opposite her. “You usually do when you’re deep in thought.”
Donna grinned and rolled her eyes. “Thanks,” was all she said, but not for the first time, she was glad to have someone who understood her that well.
“So,” the Doctor’s eyes were already fixed on the notebook, “another chapter in the Handbook on Travelling with a Time Lord?”
“Yup.” Donna sighed. “This is a difficult one though. Maybe the toughest of all.”
“I thought you were finished ‘The Innermost Workings of a TARDIS console’.”
“Ages ago.”
“Done with ‘Handling the Hair’? You do love your alliteration, I notice.”
“God, yeah, that’s been done for weeks. Probably took me less time than it takes you to do your hair of a morning, actually.”
He decided not to rise to the bait for once and continued to pursue the topic at hand. “‘Yes, it’s bigger on the inside’ all done?”
“Down to the last full stop.”
“What about those problems you were having with ‘Just because the TARDIS moved your room doesn’t mean she also nicked your stuff - and yes, it is a ‘she’!’”
Donna rolled her eyes. “Blimey, don’t you remember me reading that one aloud to you last - well, whenever it was. Day or night or whatever.”
“Oh, yes.” The Doctor sipped his tea. “Sorry, that had slipped my mind. So if those are all done, which one are we up to now?”
“‘We’?” Donna cocked an eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware that this was a collaborative effort.”
“Donna, you’re writing a manual about the most nit-picky parts of me!” he protested. “Of course I’m part of this!”
“‘Nit-picky’ is a word?” she demanded incredulously, but he continued as if she had never spoken.
“If you’re going to cast light over even the darkest corners of my being,” he went on, the usual tones of über-drama creeping into his voice so that Donna rolled her eyes, “then I feel I should have some say in the manner in which I’m represented. Yes?”
“I don’t see why.” She drummed her fingers the table. “You’ll probably have regenerated into some hysterical teenager or something by the time there’s any other companion to show it to anyway, so most of this won’t even be relevant. This is really just for my amusement, and the TARDIS’s. Oh, and Martha’s,” she added, watching as his eyebrows shot upwards.
“Tell me you are not showing this to Martha!” he exploded.
“I’m not showing this to Martha,” she chanted obediently, but her crossed fingers were clearly visible on the table-top and did nothing to calm the Doctor.
“Donna,” he whined, “what about the respect due to a Time Lord? The last Time Lord, in fact!”
“Oh, right, yes, I still have to write a section on that!” Donna flipped back to the contents page at the start of the notebook and wrote it down. Her lips quirked into a grin. “That one will be quite fun, actually.”
“Hmph!”
He scowled, crossing one arm across his chest and loudly slurping his tea out of his mug in a way he knew annoyed her. She added another point to the list about ‘Irritating Habits and How To Ignore Them’ before turning back to the page that had been giving her trouble in the first place.
She had already gone through the TARDIS library, which had proved useful in answering questions about Gallifrey for her chapter on that. However the old girl was proving to be rather recalcitrant in the matter at hand, which, even Donna had to admit, had the potential to be a bit personal. She’d considered leaving this section out altogether, but for the sake of completeness - and not at all because she was a bit curious! - she felt it had to be included.
“Go on then,” the Doctor said rather grumpily, and she had the feeling that he couldn’t bear not to know what was troubling her. “Tell me what it is. Let’s hear the worst.”
Donna briefly considered actually telling him, but eventually decided that it would be better - or at the very least, safer - if she just showed him. She turned the notebook around, and the Doctor choked on his tea, spitting tiny dots of brown onto the page in front of him, which bore only a few words:
The Psychology of Time Lord Mating
“What?!” he squawked. “What are you writing about that for?!”
She managed to suppress a smirk. “Why wouldn’t I?” she asked. “If you remember, when we first discussed this, I did promise I would cover every aspect of your personality.”
“Ah!” He suddenly looked far too pleased with himself. “Then I’m afraid you’ve struck a snag.”
“What sort of snag?” she demanded suspiciously.
“We don’t mate,” he declared in victorious tones.
Donna cocked an eyebrow and waited.
“We don’t!” he insisted, rather too loudly. “You can’t call all that stuff mating.”
“All what stuff?” she pressed, sensing that she had the advantage.
“Oh,” he looked distinctly uneasy, making meaningless gestures with his hands, “you know, just - stuff.”
“What ‘stuff’?” she asked disdainfully. “If you don’t shag, how do you reproduce then? Cloning or something alien?”
“No and yes.”
She glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“No, it’s not cloning,” he admitted with visible reluctance, “but yes, I suppose you would consider it to be fairly alien.”
“What was it then?” she demands eagerly, her interest piqued.
“All those books you got the TARDIS to give you didn’t say anything about it?” he asks almost incredulously.
“If they had, would I be asking?” she retorted, knowing that he was trying to avoid the subject.
He sighed, sat back in his chair and ran both hands through his hair as if wishing he could wipe this conversation away just as easily. He mumbled something under his breath, but it was clear from his expression that he knew Donna wouldn’t let him get away with that one.
“I beg your pardon.”
He sighed again and seemed to collapse a little as he gave in. “Looms,” he said at last.
She frowned. “What?”
“It was called looming.” The Doctor rapped his fingers on the outside of his half-full mug. “Genetic material woven into a person. It was boosted by the fundamental knowledge belonging to the person’s specific house - family, if you will. Voila, instant new life. Well, not quite instant, but close enough. Future Time Lord.”
“Oh.” There was not much Donna could say in response to that. She frowned for a moment and then looked down at her paper again. “Fine then.”
She amended her chapter title. The Psychology of Time Lord Gallifreyan Mating
“Clever, if a bit nit-picky,” he was forced to admit, clearly able to read her writing upside down, “but I don’t know how non-Time Lords reproduced so I can’t help you with that one.”
Donna huffed, starting to feel as if the Doctor was playing a game of some sort with her. Now that he was more comfortable with this topic, he could clearly understand what she really wanted to know, but he seemed determined not to give her any answers to her questions. Donna decided she might as well be more upfront about the matter. After all, she had done her best to be tactful in the way she posed the topic.
“So,” she said slowly, still thinking about what he had told her, “if it all happens in looms - which does have its merits, I have to say, not having to carry a baby for nine months and you don't have your figure completely stuffed and your boobs ruined - where does the genetic material you mentioned come from? Some pool of random stuff floating around?”
He stared at her for a moment before chuckling and then lifting his mug to his lips, perhaps in an attempt to keep from laughing out loud. “You’re just going to keep pushing this subject until I give you want you want, aren’t you?” he said as he put the empty mug down.
There was a dancing light in his eyes and Donna couldn’t help smirking back. “Don’t even try to pretend you know what I want, mate,” she warned in a mock-stern voice, pointing her pen at him. “You have no idea.”
“Yes,” he admitted at last, “a Gallifreyan loomed child has parents. Yes, those parents have to be willing partners in the birth. And yes, there is a whole courtship ritual leading up to it.”
“Sex?” she suggested, feeling comfortable enough to say the word at last.
“Mmm, yes and no.”
“Oh, come on!” Donna slammed down the pen and rolled her eyes. “It’s a simple enough question, mate - did you or did you not have sex with women - actually with people of either sex - on Gallifrey?”
“We didn’t call it sex.”
Donna threw the cap of her pen at him, watching as, with his usual dexterity and instinct, he caught just millimetres before it hit him on the nose.
“So you had something similar to sex then?” she prompted him, watching as he nodded.
“Yep,” he admitted at last, one eyebrow raised, as if wondering what she would ask next.
“What’s it like?”
The Doctor mused on this for a moment. “Mental,” he said at last.
Donna snorted with laugher. “Yeah, it can be a bit like that.”
He rolled his eyes and chuckled. “That’s not what I meant, Donna. Actually, it’s the opposite of what you mean by mental, at least from the outside. In fact, as an observer, you wouldn’t know anything was happening because most of the process happens in a meeting of minds.”
“So no flowers and chocolates and nice music and candles then?”
He shakes his head, his eyes dancing and dimples appearing in his cheeks. “That’s romance, Donna. You asked about mating rituals.”
“Now who’s being nit-picky?” she demanded.
For a moment he studied her face, his eyes lingering in a meeting with her gaze, before he turned his attention to the notebook on the table between them.
“The trouble is,” the Doctor said slowly, “that it’s very hard to describe.”
“There’s not a process?”
“Not as such.” He suddenly got up and carried his mug over to the sink, setting the old brass kettle on the stove to heat up again. Then he turned to face her, folding his arms over his chest, continuing to watch her as he spoke again. “How would you describe, as you so nicely put it, ‘the psychology of human mating’?”
Donna nods because she did think about this before she began this particular chapter, having a suspicion that the Doctor’s would call her own feelings onto the carpet. “There has to be an initial attraction,” she admits. “Mutual goals and desires - at least for anything long-term, like raising children. Willingness to share responsibilities. That sort of thing.”
“And it was no different on Gallifrey,” he told her. “The difference was that, in general, the partnerships were arranged. You only partnered people in your House, and the leaders in the various Houses in the Academy would bring people with shared goals and aims together.”
She pulled a face. “So love had nothing to do with it?”
“Donna, arranged marriages are considered normal in certain parts of Earth culture as well,” he pointed out, beginning to prepare a fresh pot of tea. “And we had the benefit of being touch telepaths so other people could help to judge the compatibility of particularly character traits. Much more reliable than letting Mum and Dad pick someone and hoping for the best.”
“You make it sound so romantic,” she mocked.
“If things worked out, romance could come later.” He poured hot water over the tea leaves and left them to stew. “It’s just that romance didn’t necessarily lead to mating - just to the act you would call sex.”
“That does make sense,” she had to admit, playing with the pen between her fingers.
“You sound disappointed.” His eyes sparkled with something like victory. “Were you hoping we’d dangle upside down from the ceiling like spiders or something?”
“I had no idea,” she admitted honestly, before grinning. “Although I might pay good money to watch if trapeze-work was involved.”
“I’ll take you to a circus one day,” he promised, laughing.
Then he became more serious, his expression one of deep thought so that Donna wondered what he was thinking. She wasn’t left in the dark for long as he carried the teapot over to the table and resumed his seat, finally speaking.
“I could show you what it felt like.”
Donna recoiled instantly. “Doctor, I don’t want...”
“Then why are you asking?” he prompted her, leaning forward, his fingers steepled, elbows resting on knees, his gaze intense and fixed on her face. “Come on, Donna, we both know this isn’t all about that book of yours. You’re curious - and that’s a good thing!” he hurries on, as if afraid she might strike out at him. “Yes, curiosity, always good! Best thing ever! Bellisimo! Molto bene! And you, Miss Donna Noble, are full of it!”
“Oi!”
She glared at him and it was his turn to cringe back into his chair as he realised what he’d said. “Curiosity,” he reminded her hurriedly. “That’s what I’m talking about. Nothing else.”
“You’d better not be,” she shot back. “And,” she went on as an idea occurred to her, “I notice that you seem strangely keen to share these experiences of yours. Usually any attempt to talk about Gallifrey results in a prompt change of subject and at least one hair-raising adventure to ensure that the topic is forgotten as soon as possible. So,” she looked at him through narrow eyes, “what’s changed?”
He nodded at the notebook. “That,” he admitted softly. “No one else has wanted to know so much about me before. Oh, people have asked the occasional question, but never this sort of cross-examination.” He paused for a moment before adding, “There was Jenny, too. It made me think, Donna.” His gaze returned to her face, his expression sombre. “Maybe it’s time to stop keeping it all to myself. I mean, if other people know, at least about some things, then I won’t have to feel like, should something happen to me, all that knowledge of Gallifrey will be gone forever.”
“Oh.” That made sense to Donna, although a tiny part of her still wondered just why he was offering to show it to her of all people.
“Because you’re special,” he said, answering her unspoken question, and his voice hummed with meaning and honesty so that she couldn’t even laugh off his statement as easily as she wanted to. “And,” he added, “because you’re the first one to ask.”
Donna thought for a moment as the Doctor poured them both fresh mugs of tea. It was hard to deny that she was wildly curious now as to just what could be done in the mind that would be in any way comparable to sex as she knew it.
Her only tiny, nagging concern was what this might do to their definitely-not-having-any-of-that-nonsense friendship.
Still, would he be offering if he didn’t mean it?
“Oh, go on then,” she said at last.
His eyes widen instantly. “Are you sure?”
She rolled her own eyes impatiently. “Blimey, Spaceman, you’ve just talked me into the idea and now you’re having second thoughts?”
He mustered a faint grin, although she could still see the worry lines on his face. “Just as long as you’re not just saying yes to be polite.”
“I’m not.” As he hesitated, she felt her only irritation and anticipation growing. “Well, get on with it, Time Boy!”
“Only if you really want to,” he insisted, as if afraid that he was forcing himself on her.
“Doctor,” she reached across and placed her hand on his, “I do,” she said firmly.
His expression brightened and he leaped to his feet, almost overturning his chair as he did so, taking one last slurp of his tea before coming around to her side of the table. “All right, come on then!”
Donna got rather more warily to her feet. “Where are we going?”
“It works better standing up.”
She looked at him curiously. “What about the Oodsphere? That seemed to be fine as far as mental mumbo-jumbo went, and we were sitting down there. Or kneeling or whatever.”
“It’s a different process,” he explained as she got to her feet. “Then again,” he added thoughtfully, “that might just be a myth. It was one of those things I got told while I was at the Academy - that it’s better standing up.”
Donna couldn’t resist a crack. “I’d always thought it was better lying down,”
He grinned and then took her hands in his. Her eyes widened as he lightly spread her fingers and then lifted them to his face, placing them in approximately the same places that she had felt his hands on her face during that moment with the Ood.
“What’s this for?” she asked.
“It’s for me,” he admitted. “If this was happening between two touch telepaths, everything you’re about to feel would be a mutual action. As it is, your psychic abilities are too untrained for you to be an active participant in the process, but you having your hands there will let me feel as if you are.”
“Oh.” As he released his light touch on her fingers, she looked up into his eyes and studied the expressions she could see there - the familiar joy at having someone to share things with, eager anticipation of how she would find the experience and, perhaps, a faint echo of what Donna herself was feeling: a flicker of nervousness about how they would both get through these next few moments and what effect it might have on their future friendship.
His eyes closed in preparation and she studied the line of his dark lashes on his skin. It was strange to have him so near to her, and in particular, for him to be so still and quiet. It gave Donna an even better idea of just how huge this moment was for him.
“Oh, and one more thing,” he added suddenly, his dark eyes so close and huge as they opened again that it almost left her breathless. Then he gave one of his manic grins. “I have no idea how you’re going to describe this!”
Donna was about to reply, but she had no chance.
It was as if her feet had been suddenly swept out from under her. The world tilted, seeming to fold itself up into a multitude of tiny shapes, before shattering into a myriad of tiny coloured particles that pitched and yawed around her like the worst kind of sea voyage. Her eyes slammed shut in protest at the apparent stability of the world around her, which was such a hectic contrast with the waves crashing against her mind that left her dizzy and breathless.
For one wild moment she grasped the fact of how different this moment was from that other time he had been in her mind, when he helped her to hear the song on the Oodsphere. Then it had simply been an opening of a sense she had never known she possessed. Now it was as if every sense had been flung open to its very widest extent. Even the movement of the blood in her veins and the breath in her lungs pulsed and gusted through her like the raging of a tornado.
And despite the fact that it was almost terrifying, there was something thrilling about it, too. The comparison with a storm - the first idea that had occurred to her - was particularly apt. It was like watching the lightning and thunder, only now they were inside her.
Like every storm, the raging heart of it died away almost too soon.
Her mind was already adjusting to the dramatic changes, toning the reactions in her mind to manageable levels, easing the vicious up-and-down heaving to a more gentle to-and-fro rock that was actually rather soothing.
Somewhat nervously, Donna let herself become more aware of her surroundings and slowly relaxed. Flickers and tremors flowed through her mind as her muscles eased from the tension into which the initial maelstrom had flung them, and then Donna experienced the new and not altogether unpleasant sensation of knowing what relaxation could really mean.
Slowly she began to consider the world beyond her immediate body. She was still too unsure of the reaction to open her eyes, but she let her other sense explore instead - smell, primarily. The sweetness that echoed the tang of tea, the light floral scent of her perfume, so recently applied after the shower that was so necessary at the end of a day filled with running. There was the Doctor’s scent as well. She’d never noticed it before, but now, with his fingers pressed against her face, his palms close to her nose, she could detect the aroma of his skin, dark and musky, but with tantalising hints of wood and flowers and herbs that made her think of the forests on the planet they had so recently left behind.
And yet there was more than just his smell.
He was in her mind, too.
She didn’t know how she knew it, because he made no sound, but she could feel his presence in her thoughts, feather-light, like it was on the Oodsphere, only somehow different at the same time.
He was waiting, she understood at once (could she hear his thoughts now?) for her to become used to this strange mental world where every feeling and thought was magnified hundred-fold. She could feel that there were walls around this presence in her mind, keeping him from unleashing himself over her in a way neither of them could control.
Almost as soon as she became aware of him, Donna could feel that he, too, was aware of her shift in thoughts outside of herself and her mental acknowledgement of his closeness. He was waiting, she realised, for a signal from her. She took in a deep breath and readied her muscles to nod...
She had forgotten that he didn’t need any visual cues to know what she wanted. The mental whirlwind returned, buffeting her for a moment, but somehow she didn’t feel quite so out of control this time. It was not unlike the reassurance she felt when the Doctor held her hand, even in the face of some of the worst dangers they had faced together. He was there to help control the situation.
It was while she was still musing on this that she felt the first trickling of foreign sensations running through her. These weren’t foreign in the sense of unusual or different, but rather that she could detect the causes of these feelings and she knew they were not the feelings she would have under the same circumstances. They were, in their most basic sense, alien to her.
It was like watching a movie, except one in which it wasn’t only the vision that was three-dimensional. It seemed to come at her from every angle, titillating and intoxicating all of her senses at the same moment.
And yet somehow she was still distant from it.
She could feel an echo of how the participants felt, but - now she understood what was happening - the response arrived before she had a chance to decide how such a circumstance would make her feel. It was like a TV show where the sound came a few seconds before the picture, so she knew what the characters were going to say and do before they did it.
Still, she couldn’t deny that the emotions she was feeling were far stronger than those she had ever experienced from a film or TV program. They swamped her, carrying her along with them until she forgot to think in trying to capture every nuance and flavour of the mind in hers.
Then, without warning, it was over. Donna’s mind was still and quiet and empty for the first time in what seemed like hours. Strangely, her strongest emotion was an aching sense of loss. Even if that hadn’t been what she had imagined it might be, it had still been one of the most powerful emotional moments of her life.
She ventured to open her eyes, finding the Doctor still in front of her, his fingers no longer resting on her face, and she hastily imitated his actions, dropping her hands to her sides.
“Well?” he asked curiously, his eyes studying her face. “What did you think?”
Donna struggled to find the right words. “Was that it?” she asked at last.
She couldn’t help the way her voice carried some of her disappointment, even though she tried to hide it. As soon as the words escaped, she wished them back, but to her surprise, the Doctor did not seem offended. He gave a would-be casual shrug.
“It doesn’t have to be.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I probably should have explained, although I think you realised anyway, but that was me showing you what it was like. It wasn’t what you would go through yourself if you were an active participant.”
“Oh.” Donna wasn’t sure what to think about that. “So what was I going through then?”
“That,” he explained patiently, “was - well, basically it was like a recording. That was the memory of the experience I had with my wife that led to our first child. The emotions you felt were her emotions, and some of my own, which is why they didn’t feel like they belonged to you. Because they didn’t.”
Donna nodded as she processed this, understanding why she had compared it to a film or television program - because, in effect, that was exactly what it was. Her disappointment began to fade.
“I could show you,” he offered hesitantly, “how that experience might be if it was tailored for you.”
She was almost embarrassingly eager. “Go on then.”
He shot her that familiar manic grin and then she felt his hands brush against her arms as he raised them towards those sensitive places on her face. She closed her eyes to block out the visual stimuli that had caused her so many problems last time, before feeling as the Doctor lifted her hands and placing them lightly on his face. His fingers, cool points of light pressure, resumed their former touch, and she waited.
The world tilted again, but she was more ready for it this time and the worst of it was pver almost at once. She reached out for the Doctor with her mind, feeling his presence as a reassuringly stable element, and the storm passed quickly.
Ready?
She had scarcely even begun to frame a positive response in her mind when the world exploded inside her head. It wasn’t like last time, with the violent, disorienting motion. Instead it was as if every nerve in her body had been switched on. Instant heightened arousal. An almost unbearable sense of expectation, of waiting.
Teasing.
For a moment she could have sworn she heard the Doctor chuckle, although she doubted he was actually making a sound. No, the git was deliberately doing this to her, seeing how far he could push, tormenting her. Revenge -
No chance to think of anything appropriate.
There was a sudden thrill, as if hands had crept onto her skin, smooth and feather-light. It was strange, because she knew these were the Doctor’s fingers, and yet, as if from a distance, she could also feel his touch at her temples. That meant everything she was feeling now - all of the touches on different parts of her body - was simply phantom sensations, stemming from whatever the Doctor was doing in her mind.
Not that it mattered.
She could feel herself responding in the same way, or perhaps even more so, than she would have done had this been happening for real. No, she had would have to find another way to phrase that because there was no doubt that this was real. She was responding to touches and kisses and even the delicate tracing of his tongue on her arms and legs and shoulders and neck and face, even if, in actuality, there was nothing for her to feel. The only touch was his fingertips against her temples.
His non-touch crept gradually closer to her private areas, stroking up her stomach before she felt brushes of fingers against her breasts and between her legs. Then, as if his impatience equalled hers, he was inside her, filling her, drawing her rapidly to the very heights of ecstasy and to the bounds of comprehensible thought before it would all be lost.
Donna forced herself to focus.
This wasn’t sex.
She had to remind herself of that because it felt like sex. It felt like the Doctor’s hands and mouth and every part of him were on every part of her all at the same time. The mental stimulation of her nerves had the identical impact, or perhaps even a stronger one, than it would have had if it really had been him carrying out the same actions on her. Her mind seemed to be urging her body to respond in all the right ways, to bring herself to orgasm, and it was with an almost painful effort that she was able to stop herself.
After all, she was standing in the middle of the kitchen in the TARDIS, impossible as it seemed at this moment, and she really didn’t want anything like that to happen then and there!
Even as this thought took solid form in her mind, the feelings vanished and the heightened sensations of her nerves switched off. She could feel the emptiness in her mind, and a sudden terror struck her that she would find herself alone when she opened her eyes.
Gasping, her eyelids flew open and she stared at the Doctor, who was still standing opposite her, his hand gently grasping her arm, an understanding expression in his eyes, clearly realising how unbalanced she was - literally as much figuratively - after all she'd gone through. After a moment, while she gasped for breath like a fish out of water, he peered into her face with something like concern.
“Okay?”
She nodded, finally managing to make her mouth move in words that she hoped would make sense.
“Yeah.”
It was something she gasped rather than actually said, but she was actually quite proud of herself for managing to make sound - coherent sound at that! And at least the room had stopped spinning.
“Good.” His hands rested on her upper arms, rubbing lightly. “That was a little more abrupt than it would usually have ended. I’m sorry about that, but you were right in what you were thinking. Still,” his tone was lighter, more teasing, after a prolonged moment of silence, “what do you think now about the psychology of Gallifreyan - or Time Lord - mating?”
“Intense,” she admitted, and he chuckled.
“If that moment was to be used for its intended purpose,” he told her, his voice heavy with promise, “it would have been even more so. But we couldn’t go that far. I mean, you felt that it had to stop, and you were right. In a different setting, though...”
He trailed off into a silence filled with expectation, and Donna only just stopped herself from shuddering in delighted ecstasy as an echo of what she had felt went through her again. This seemed to clear her mind and allowed her to think rather more succinctly and to the purpose.
“So,” she offered, “that was you finding out what I liked?”
“Put very simply, yes,” he agreed, although there was a wariness in his voice as if he wasn’t sure what she was about to ask next.
“What about what you like?” she asked meaningfully, and couldn’t help being both pleased and amused when it was clear how much her question had flustered him.
Still, the Doctor was rarely at a loss for long, and his response was prompt. “You could always find out,” he replied in teasing tones, but there was also a deep undercurrent in his voice that suggested he was testing the ground to find out whether she was willing to go there.
“And how would I do that?” she retorted in similar tones.
Something dark and playful sparkled in his eyes. “Practice,” he told her in the most serious tone he could muster. “Lots and lots of practice. But in the meantime,” he picked up the notebook and pen, handing them to her, “now that you understand the process, you might want to get on with that chapter.”
Turning, he sauntered out of the room, leaving Donna staring after him. Her mind was still electrified from everything she had just experienced, and the most powerful part of the whole thing was the knowledge that all she had just undergone was inscribed deeply in her memory. With a thought she could bring it all back, relive it all, and allow herself to wallow in it, bringing her to the orgasm she had held herself back from in front of the Doctor.
Still, that wasn’t really something she thought should be her first priority at this moment.
She looked down at the items in her hands and finally put them on the table, returning to the seat where she had been sitting when this whole conversation, if you could call it that, began.
Two hours later, she was still there.
Donna sighed and played with the pen, continuing to stare at the almost blank sheet of paper.
It wasn’t that she was still replaying everything she had just undergone in her mind.
Well, maybe she was. A bit.
But really she was trying to find the best way to put it all into words.
And struggling.
The most annoying thing about the entire process was that the Doctor had been right. Again. There really was only one way to describe the psychology of Gallifreyan mating.
Indescribable.