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aislynnTitle: "Balancing Act" (8/8)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ageless_aislynn
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Ten/Donna
Summary: Donna has managed to save both herself and her memories but in doing so, has she bitten off more than she...and the Doctor...can chew? An alternate end to "Journey's End."
Rating: NC-17
Length: 3,655
Spoilers: Up to 4x13 "Journey's End"
Disclaimer: Not mine or you can bet there would've been happy endings for everybody!
Beta: The fantabulousmistojen ♥! *mwah!* ♥! Special Britpick thanks also to teh loverly popcornleader ♥!
A/N: After the end of the story. ;)
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7
"Strip poker!" the Doctor proclaimed grandly as they were both lying on their backs, staring up at the red ceiling.
"We're already naked," Donna pointed out. "What? Are we going to put our clothes back on?"
"Gin rummy?"
"Nope, not sexy enough."
"Sexy gin rummy?" he said with a leer.
She whacked him with one of the pillows and he surprised her by grabbing another pillow and playfully whacking her back. "Oh now, that's how it is?" she said, straddling him while unleashing a flurry of pillow smacks.
"I surrender!" he hollered from somewhere beneath the pillow which he was using to simply defend himself. They were both laughing like loons. Then he unexpectedly tossed their pillows aside and she yelped as she collapsed onto him, nearly nose-to-nose.
"So, what now?" he murmured, snugging his arms around her.
"We could just make out," she said thoughtfully and he grinned.
"Donna Noble, have I ever mentioned that you're brilliant?"
"Ehhh, a time or two," she demurred, "but I don't mind you saying it again."
He ran his hands from her shoulders down along her spine to her bum. She squirmed against him, feeling that he was already starting to respond again. She gave him a wink then snogged him for all she was worth.
When she pulled back, he looked happily gobsmacked, his hair all a-muss and a goofy smile flirting with his mouth.
"You know what you're— Mmm," his sentence went off track as she shifted again. "You know what you're going to say for your leverage phrase? The whole blonde thing won't work anymore."
"Well, I'm thinking now I should've saved the man-wand comment," she said, laughing as he flipped them over.
"Are we back to the girth thing again?" he said, mock sternly as he pinned her beneath him. "Because I may start developing a complex if that's the case. Ahhhh…"
She slid her hand in between them and caught hold of him, stroking firmly until he was pumping with helpless pleasure in her grip. "You keep forgetting I used the adjective 'mighty.' Mighty does not in any way denote lack of girth— Wait!"
"What?" he asked rather crossly at the interruption.
She could feel the first niggling of sensation in the back of her skull, letting her know it wasn't going to be long before he went again. "You're getting too close and I want this one to count. Or we're going to end up staying in this bedroom forever!"
"Nothing wrong with that, in my opinion— Donna? Where are you going?"
"Oh, thought I'd just pop out to the store and pick up some snacks. Where do you think I'm going, silly?" She readjusted herself, raising her knees on either side of him. "Assume the position, spaceman."
"Well, I'd planned on more than a passing nod to foreplay, you know—ohhhhhh." His words trailed off into a moan as she guided him to her entrance.
"I'll hold you to that later," she said with a crooked smile. "But right now I'm ready, you're ready, so let's get this show on the road, eh?"
"You understand that there's no stopping this time, right?" he said, flecks of golden light dancing in his eyes.
"Do I look like I'm interested in stopping?" she demanded, rocking against him and he couldn't resist the invitation to slide slowly into her.
"Oh," they both groaned in tandem.
She'd rather gotten used to the cooler temperature of his skin on hers but within her was a delightful shock that stole her breath for a moment. He gave a strangled noise, eyes squeezed shut, and abruptly it occurred to her that, just as he was alien to her, so was she to him. "Am I too warm to you?"
"Oh, no," he said quickly. "You're perfect. Just like plunging into the heart of a star, except of course, without all of that messy radiation and the intense—"
She got him by the scruff of the neck and pulled his head down to hers, smothering his words with a kiss.
You know that doesn't really stop me from finishing my sentence if I want to, he pointed out silently.
How does this work for you, then? she answered back and squeezed him with her internal muscles. Intricate symbols flooded her mind's eye. I suppose that's how you spout Gallifreyan when your mouth is otherwise occupied?
This time, he didn't bother to respond in words but in actions, gliding in and out in a steadily increasing rhythm that sent small shockwaves radiating through her entire body. The sensations intensified quickly, like she was strapped to the nose of a rocket as it hurtled towards outer space, the oxygen being stripped from her lungs as stars filled her eyes.
The Doctor murmured, "Balance, Donna."
"Splunk me with my feet in the air, Martian boy," she said teasingly, though she hadn't needed the phrase to help her find her balance for a while now. She tumbled into that dark room in her mind and perched atop those three chairs stacked on each other.
She stared at the golden light peeking through the wall before her. The last time she'd seen it, it had been barely big enough for her to slip her mental finger into it. Now it could easily accommodate her entire arm and it was growing larger by the second. For a moment, she felt completely overwhelmed and unprepared.
Enough of that, she told herself firmly. All right, Time Lord consciousness… bring it!
She stood in the miasma of pleasure and anticipation, clutching the words she intended to use as leverage, ready to thrust them at the golden energy as soon as the bond expanded.
She waited. And waited.
And waited some more.
Finally, she opened her eyes and said, "Um, Doctor?"
"Hm?" he said absently.
"Is this supposed to… er… take this long?"
He looked down at her, faltering out of rhythm. "What? Late for an appointment, are we?"
She gave him a stern expression but her words were hesitant. "It's just… well, we usually get there pretty quickly. I mean, we were practically shooting off like bloody Roman candles a bit ago and now we just seem to be sort of circling the airport."
Heh, never thought I'd be complaining about a bloke going on and on like the flippin' Energizer Bunny! she thought.
"You're squeezing," he said, regaining his rhythm.
"No, I'm not," she said. "Now I am." And she proved it by clenching her internal muscles again. He gave a garbled cry, thrusting gracelessly several times. Heh, those Kegel exercises really do pay off, she thought.
"Not… like that," he said brokenly. "You're… nnnnnnggg… squeezing the bond… nearly shut."
"You're accusing me of puckering?" she retorted, but when she closed her eyes, she had to admit the truth of the matter: she did indeed have her mental hands somehow around the hole in the wall and had it choked to a tiny pinpoint.
"Okay," she said, resigned. "Let's take a break."
"Um, do you remember the part about no stopping?"
Her eyes went wide. "What? You mean, like, physically we can't stop? What if this takes hours, then? Or longer?" The absurdity of it struck her. "What if we get hungry and want to make a sandwich? Are we supposed to head off to the kitchen all hump-hump-hump? And not to mention how are we supposed to save the next planet that needs saving? 'Hi, folks, we're the DoctorDonna and we're here to help! Don't mind the fact that we're having a non-stop shag-fest. Won't affect our world-saving abilities in the slightest.'"
"Donna, this is serious!" he said firmly but she hump-hump-hump-ed at him one more time and he burst out laughing, losing his balance from where he'd been propped on his elbows.
"Oi!" she said as his full weight dropped onto her. "For a skinny thing, you're heavy! Lay off!"
He gathered her in his arms and deftly turned them over, never separating as he put her back on top. She shifted, sitting back and looking down at him. He got his laughter under control but his brown eyes were shining with mirth and she couldn't help but grin at him.
"You and I always get in the weirdest predicaments, hm?" she said, poking him in the ribs. "So, what do we do now?"
"What we were doing before?" he said hopefully and gave a roll of his hips that caused him to hit a spot inside of her that briefly made her vision go a little white around the edges.
"Yeah, I'm good with that," she gasped and began to move, riding him slowly at first, then with increasing speed.
He said something in gutteral Gallifreyan and symbols appeared in her mind like they were being pressed into clay. And she understood them.
At least, she understood the concept, even if she couldn't quite translate it back into proper English.
"Really?" she said. "I don't think I can stand on my head for that long."
He grinned up at her. She noted the way he seemed to be appreciating the view, so she leaned back and braced her hands against his thighs as she bounced. Oh yes, he definitely liked the view, if his predatory expression and the fact that he felt rather like a velvety steel rod within her were anything to judge by.
Her leg muscles eventually began to protest. "Change places?" she requested.
She expected him to do another roll but instead he rearranged them in a smooth flurry of motions. She found herself curled onto her left side with him spooned in behind her, never seeming to have lost a beat.
"Blimey," she said, impressed, and he chuckled into her hair.
"Just thought it might help you relax," he said, settling into an easy rocking motion while letting his hand roam inquisitively over the front of her body.
"Relax?" she said breathlessly, fisting the duvet as his fingers stroked and plucked and rubbed and gently twisted until she was once more seeing stars. "'S not quite… relaxing what you're… ahhh! What you're doing, sunshine!"
"Do you want me to stop?" he said huskily in her ear, his tone making it clear he knew exactly what her answer would be.
"Don't you dare!" she retorted immediately. "Might have to… ohhhhh… regenerate you if you do!"
She reached over her shoulder to tangle her fingers in his hair. He leaned in to make it an easier stretch for her, tucking a lock of her hair back behind her ear, then kissing the curve of her cheek.
"Where do you want to go?" he asked, increasing their tempo as his fingers resumed their play. "Back to Zoaoa and… mmm… catch the meteor shower we… mmmmmmm… missed? Or maybe just some fancy… nng… resort? Be catered to all day?"
"What are—oh, right there, that… that's good. What are you… going on about? Oh my God! Do that again!" Her eyes rolled back in her head for a few seconds as he shifted and hit a particularly sweet spot. He obliged by doing it again several more times.
"Where do we… want to go…" he said, huffing like he was running up a particularly steep hill, "after… the bond's complete? 'S tradition to go on vacation and… and… oh my… and have lots and lots of…"
"Cake?" she suggested when it seemed he wasn't going to finish his sentence. He chuckled and curled around her, nuzzling her ear.
"Sex," he concluded, slowing his motion. "Lots and lots of sex. Indecent amounts, really."
"Indecent?" she repeated, twisting to look at him.
"One might say bordering on massively indecent amounts of sex," he affirmed and abruptly he was repositioning them so that he was on top again, his weight braced on his elbows and their bodies somehow never separating.
"That sounds like a—" honeymoon, she started to say but chickened out at the last second. "Sounds like a great idea," she finished lamely.
He gave her an enigmatic look but clearly decided not to pursue the matter right now. He started to move once more, hitching one of her legs up higher along his hip and changing angles slightly until he found one that made her cry out wordlessly with every thrust.
The pleasure built in dizzying waves, the corkscrew of sensation boiling down from her skull through her spine until it coiled tighter and tighter in her center like hot lava. This is it, she thought and, in the dark room in her mind, she let go of the bond and balanced on the stack of chairs.
"Donna," the Doctor said and she looked at him and his eyes were blind with the golden light, flecked with swirling white. She waited for him to give some hasty final bit of advice or clever quip but, as the pinprick of energy in her mind swelled and ripened to the bursting point, all he quietly said was, "Don't leave me."
"Doctor," she gasped, playing her final card. "I love…"
She felt him go off-balance at just those two words. The bond dilated into a gaping maw of pure energy and Donna shrieked into that maelstrom:
"I LOVE PEARS!"
The Time Lord consciousness roared into her mind. Though weakened by the way he was recoiling in surprise, it still struck like a tidal wave, nearly throwing her from her precarious perch.
The energy crackled and stormed higher and higher until it was at the level of her metaphorical chin while she stood on her tiptoes, desperately trying not to be swamped. But she wasn't drowning, she was about to burn as the unused Time Lord modules began to power up inside her mind, fueled by the influx of caustic energy.
In that brief millisecond, she understood everything; she saw all of the ways the universes were bound together through time and space. She saw how hopeless this gamble was, heard in a dispassionate, removed voice that no mere human could hope to survive a second full emersion into the truly massive amount of energy contained in a Time Lord brain.
And she thought, Well, bugger that! I am NOT dying from this! She pressed down so that, as the energy continued to rise, she was rising as well, keeping her head above the surface and not allowing it to close over her and burn out the rest of her synapses.
Desperately questing for something she could grasp hold of, she reached up with a mental hand… and something reached back and grasped hold of her in return. She held on for another handful of splintered fractions of an instant before her grip gave out.
Long enough.
She felt the Doctor regain control of the bond, constricting it from a massive flood into a sedate trickle once more, somehow tilting things so that the excess energy drained out of her and harmlessly back into himself.
Donna was dumped back into awareness of her body a fraction of a linear second later, as their orgasms hit like a nuclear explosion. Raw pleasure snapped through her, her body tightening rhythmically around him as he emptied himself into her in a forceful rush. They both cried out a garble of nonsense sounds.
She floated back to herself after an unknown amount of time, vaguely aware that he was once more lying on her but too blissfully sated to care.
As if he realized that at the same time, he gently pulled free and dropped onto his side next to her, gazing at her with eyes that were once again brown. "Oh, Donna," he murmured and gently touched her face. "You didn't just hinge the entire fate of your life on the phrase, 'I love pears,' did you?"
She gave him a half-hearted sock on the shoulder. "What? It worked, didn't it?"
"I suppose it did," he said, then gave a sketchy but clearly happy attempt at his usual maniac grin. "It worked! You did it!"
"Wasn't all me," she corrected. "It took a helping hand right there at the end." She looked up at the red ceiling and said, "It's hardly enough to just say but… Thank you, love. Thank you from the bottom of my heart."
Whale song drifted down but, this time, she could hear the words inside of it: You're very welcome, Donna.
The Doctor watched her with an increasingly proud grin.
"Why didn't you tell me the TARDIS could help me?" she asked.
He rolled his shoulder. "Wasn't sure she could. It's like… Have you ever had two friends who you knew were just perfect for each other? But then everybody gets to matchmaking and by the time they actually meet, laden down with all of those expectations and such, it doesn't work. I couldn't just tell you to reach for her, you had to reach for her instinctively and that's how she had to answer. It's a delicate balance, you see. But it was a good sign how close you two became on your own and I believed you'd find each other if I just stayed out of the way."
"So all that balancing and leverage and such? That was all bollocks?" she said incredulously. "You were just trying to buy me and her time to bond a bit?"
He coughed guiltily. "Well, it did help for you to use leverage against me, didn't it? And if you hadn't been able to balance, then nothing the TARDIS could've done would've been enough. And there's also the fact that it was amazingly fun to practice all this time."
"I'd smack you if that wasn't sort of logical." Then she went ahead and smacked him anyway.
"Oi!" he exclaimed, his sweat-dampened hair flopping rather indignantly onto his forehead. She smiled, brushing it back, and he took that as an invitation to snuggle up in her arms with his head on her shoulder.
Companionable silence descended, then she squirmed as an uncomfortable sensation made itself known. "Scoot over," she told him.
"What? Why?" he mumbled against her collarbone. "I'm comfy."
"Well, I'm not because I'm lying in a giant wet spot. And when I say 'giant,' I don't mean big. I mean flippin' e—"
"Donnaaaaa," he groaned but obliged by moving over. She followed, bumping him over onto his back so she could curl up with her head on his shoulder for a change. He lazily smoothed his hand over her hair.
"'I love pears,'" he muttered. "Honestly!"
She chuckled.
"You know I, um," he said quietly. "I thought you were going to say… something else."
"I know what you thought," she said smugly. "That's why it worked. Knocked you right and properly off-balance, didn't it? Now hush."
He was silent for a few moments, then: "Donna?"
"Shh."
"But, Donna?"
"Did I not say hush? So, hush."
He shifted, fidgeting. She could almost feel the words battering around in his head. 3.5 seconds later – according to the revitalized Time Lord consciousness clock in her head: "Donna?"
"Yeah, I know. Me, too, you nutter. Now shut it." She pressed a kiss to his collarbone and he hummed happily.
She was mostly asleep by the time he murmured, "Donna, you don't really, do you?"
"Don't really what, Martian boy?" she mumbled back into the cool skin at the curve of his neck.
"Love pears," he said in a hushed tone, as if he were slightly afraid of her answer.
She raised her head in surprise. He looked so earnest she wasn't sure whether to smack him one or just snog him.
She opted for the later, pressing a loud and rather messy kiss to his mouth. When she pulled back, he looked happily mussed, though his tone remained worried. "So, is that a yes or no?"
And so then she smacked him.
Donna clung to the console for all she was worth as the TARDIS bucked and lurched, nearly taking her off her feet.
Over the whine of the rotor, she heard rapid-fire, angry whale song that she couldn't understand – the TARDIS was as good as putting hands over her ears to keep her from hearing the tongue-lashing she was laying on the Doctor.
"I know I muffed the math," he retorted, kicking a lever with the toe of his Converse. "I'm trying to correct it right now but it's not my fault, it's hers."
He risked taking a hand off the controls to gesture at Donna, who was manning the other side of the console.
"Me?" she returned indignantly. "You won't let me do the math, sunshine, even though you know I'm perfectly capable of doing it now. So don't be blaming that on me!"
"You're jiggling," he said in an ah-HAH tone, as if proving his point.
She automatically looked down. Yes, indeed, her anatomy was once more all over the place and in prominent display thanks to the violent shaking and the scalloped neckline of her form-fitting, dark blue blouse.
She grinned naughtily. "So? What are you going to do about it?" She risked releasing the controls long enough to fluff her cleavage and give him a saucy wink.
His eyes went wide and his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "I'm going to park the TARDIS in the Vortex," he avowed quickly. "And I'll redo the math later."
"And I'll redo the math later," she returned. He opened his mouth to argue. "You can watch, spaceman. You like to watch… don't you?"
His mouth slammed shut then he gave her an answering naughty grin as they both, in unspoken concert, began madly flipping entirely new sets of levers and spinning different dials.
She heard the TARDIS whistling a soft, vaguely familiar tune. Then all of the sudden, the Doctor started singing, loudly and – mostly – on key:
"I… I can't get enough of your love, babe…"
Donna crowed with laughter then joined in, singing along at the top of her lungs.
The End
A/N: Thank you so much to all who've stuck with me after all this time! I really appreciate how patient y'all have been with me! *hugs* :D You've made this such a great experience! :D
Once more, the song referenced is Barry White's "Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe". ;)
There ended up being a few ideas I came up along the way that ultimately didn't quite fit in with "BA" but that I hated to lose entirely. And so I finally admitted to myself that I really wanted to do a second story with bonded!Ten/Donna. ;) I won't even make an estimate as to when this might be, but hopefully the first chapter of a sequel will be popping up before too terribly long. ;) *fingers crossed*
And I can't close out this final chapter without saying thanks once more to my awesometastical beta,mistojen, who not only knows the nuts and bolts of writing but who knows both how and when to play cheerleader and to apply a bit of tough love. Otherwise, chapter 1 would've been flushed out of the Recycle bin on my computer a long time ago. ;) Thanks again, hon! *super!mega!squishy!hugs!* ♥!
Author:
ageless_aislynnFandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Ten/Donna
Summary: Donna has managed to save both herself and her memories but in doing so, has she bitten off more than she...and the Doctor...can chew? An alternate end to "Journey's End."
Rating: NC-17
Length: 3,655
Spoilers: Up to 4x13 "Journey's End"
Disclaimer: Not mine or you can bet there would've been happy endings for everybody!
Beta: The fantabulous
mistojen ♥! *mwah!* ♥! Special Britpick thanks also to teh loverly popcornleader ♥!A/N: After the end of the story. ;)
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7
"Strip poker!" the Doctor proclaimed grandly as they were both lying on their backs, staring up at the red ceiling.
"We're already naked," Donna pointed out. "What? Are we going to put our clothes back on?"
"Gin rummy?"
"Nope, not sexy enough."
"Sexy gin rummy?" he said with a leer.
She whacked him with one of the pillows and he surprised her by grabbing another pillow and playfully whacking her back. "Oh now, that's how it is?" she said, straddling him while unleashing a flurry of pillow smacks.
"I surrender!" he hollered from somewhere beneath the pillow which he was using to simply defend himself. They were both laughing like loons. Then he unexpectedly tossed their pillows aside and she yelped as she collapsed onto him, nearly nose-to-nose.
"So, what now?" he murmured, snugging his arms around her.
"We could just make out," she said thoughtfully and he grinned.
"Donna Noble, have I ever mentioned that you're brilliant?"
"Ehhh, a time or two," she demurred, "but I don't mind you saying it again."
He ran his hands from her shoulders down along her spine to her bum. She squirmed against him, feeling that he was already starting to respond again. She gave him a wink then snogged him for all she was worth.
When she pulled back, he looked happily gobsmacked, his hair all a-muss and a goofy smile flirting with his mouth.
"You know what you're— Mmm," his sentence went off track as she shifted again. "You know what you're going to say for your leverage phrase? The whole blonde thing won't work anymore."
"Well, I'm thinking now I should've saved the man-wand comment," she said, laughing as he flipped them over.
"Are we back to the girth thing again?" he said, mock sternly as he pinned her beneath him. "Because I may start developing a complex if that's the case. Ahhhh…"
She slid her hand in between them and caught hold of him, stroking firmly until he was pumping with helpless pleasure in her grip. "You keep forgetting I used the adjective 'mighty.' Mighty does not in any way denote lack of girth— Wait!"
"What?" he asked rather crossly at the interruption.
She could feel the first niggling of sensation in the back of her skull, letting her know it wasn't going to be long before he went again. "You're getting too close and I want this one to count. Or we're going to end up staying in this bedroom forever!"
"Nothing wrong with that, in my opinion— Donna? Where are you going?"
"Oh, thought I'd just pop out to the store and pick up some snacks. Where do you think I'm going, silly?" She readjusted herself, raising her knees on either side of him. "Assume the position, spaceman."
"Well, I'd planned on more than a passing nod to foreplay, you know—ohhhhhh." His words trailed off into a moan as she guided him to her entrance.
"I'll hold you to that later," she said with a crooked smile. "But right now I'm ready, you're ready, so let's get this show on the road, eh?"
"You understand that there's no stopping this time, right?" he said, flecks of golden light dancing in his eyes.
"Do I look like I'm interested in stopping?" she demanded, rocking against him and he couldn't resist the invitation to slide slowly into her.
"Oh," they both groaned in tandem.
She'd rather gotten used to the cooler temperature of his skin on hers but within her was a delightful shock that stole her breath for a moment. He gave a strangled noise, eyes squeezed shut, and abruptly it occurred to her that, just as he was alien to her, so was she to him. "Am I too warm to you?"
"Oh, no," he said quickly. "You're perfect. Just like plunging into the heart of a star, except of course, without all of that messy radiation and the intense—"
She got him by the scruff of the neck and pulled his head down to hers, smothering his words with a kiss.
You know that doesn't really stop me from finishing my sentence if I want to, he pointed out silently.
How does this work for you, then? she answered back and squeezed him with her internal muscles. Intricate symbols flooded her mind's eye. I suppose that's how you spout Gallifreyan when your mouth is otherwise occupied?
This time, he didn't bother to respond in words but in actions, gliding in and out in a steadily increasing rhythm that sent small shockwaves radiating through her entire body. The sensations intensified quickly, like she was strapped to the nose of a rocket as it hurtled towards outer space, the oxygen being stripped from her lungs as stars filled her eyes.
The Doctor murmured, "Balance, Donna."
"Splunk me with my feet in the air, Martian boy," she said teasingly, though she hadn't needed the phrase to help her find her balance for a while now. She tumbled into that dark room in her mind and perched atop those three chairs stacked on each other.
She stared at the golden light peeking through the wall before her. The last time she'd seen it, it had been barely big enough for her to slip her mental finger into it. Now it could easily accommodate her entire arm and it was growing larger by the second. For a moment, she felt completely overwhelmed and unprepared.
Enough of that, she told herself firmly. All right, Time Lord consciousness… bring it!
She stood in the miasma of pleasure and anticipation, clutching the words she intended to use as leverage, ready to thrust them at the golden energy as soon as the bond expanded.
She waited. And waited.
And waited some more.
Finally, she opened her eyes and said, "Um, Doctor?"
"Hm?" he said absently.
"Is this supposed to… er… take this long?"
He looked down at her, faltering out of rhythm. "What? Late for an appointment, are we?"
She gave him a stern expression but her words were hesitant. "It's just… well, we usually get there pretty quickly. I mean, we were practically shooting off like bloody Roman candles a bit ago and now we just seem to be sort of circling the airport."
Heh, never thought I'd be complaining about a bloke going on and on like the flippin' Energizer Bunny! she thought.
"You're squeezing," he said, regaining his rhythm.
"No, I'm not," she said. "Now I am." And she proved it by clenching her internal muscles again. He gave a garbled cry, thrusting gracelessly several times. Heh, those Kegel exercises really do pay off, she thought.
"Not… like that," he said brokenly. "You're… nnnnnnggg… squeezing the bond… nearly shut."
"You're accusing me of puckering?" she retorted, but when she closed her eyes, she had to admit the truth of the matter: she did indeed have her mental hands somehow around the hole in the wall and had it choked to a tiny pinpoint.
"Okay," she said, resigned. "Let's take a break."
"Um, do you remember the part about no stopping?"
Her eyes went wide. "What? You mean, like, physically we can't stop? What if this takes hours, then? Or longer?" The absurdity of it struck her. "What if we get hungry and want to make a sandwich? Are we supposed to head off to the kitchen all hump-hump-hump? And not to mention how are we supposed to save the next planet that needs saving? 'Hi, folks, we're the DoctorDonna and we're here to help! Don't mind the fact that we're having a non-stop shag-fest. Won't affect our world-saving abilities in the slightest.'"
"Donna, this is serious!" he said firmly but she hump-hump-hump-ed at him one more time and he burst out laughing, losing his balance from where he'd been propped on his elbows.
"Oi!" she said as his full weight dropped onto her. "For a skinny thing, you're heavy! Lay off!"
He gathered her in his arms and deftly turned them over, never separating as he put her back on top. She shifted, sitting back and looking down at him. He got his laughter under control but his brown eyes were shining with mirth and she couldn't help but grin at him.
"You and I always get in the weirdest predicaments, hm?" she said, poking him in the ribs. "So, what do we do now?"
"What we were doing before?" he said hopefully and gave a roll of his hips that caused him to hit a spot inside of her that briefly made her vision go a little white around the edges.
"Yeah, I'm good with that," she gasped and began to move, riding him slowly at first, then with increasing speed.
He said something in gutteral Gallifreyan and symbols appeared in her mind like they were being pressed into clay. And she understood them.
At least, she understood the concept, even if she couldn't quite translate it back into proper English.
"Really?" she said. "I don't think I can stand on my head for that long."
He grinned up at her. She noted the way he seemed to be appreciating the view, so she leaned back and braced her hands against his thighs as she bounced. Oh yes, he definitely liked the view, if his predatory expression and the fact that he felt rather like a velvety steel rod within her were anything to judge by.
Her leg muscles eventually began to protest. "Change places?" she requested.
She expected him to do another roll but instead he rearranged them in a smooth flurry of motions. She found herself curled onto her left side with him spooned in behind her, never seeming to have lost a beat.
"Blimey," she said, impressed, and he chuckled into her hair.
"Just thought it might help you relax," he said, settling into an easy rocking motion while letting his hand roam inquisitively over the front of her body.
"Relax?" she said breathlessly, fisting the duvet as his fingers stroked and plucked and rubbed and gently twisted until she was once more seeing stars. "'S not quite… relaxing what you're… ahhh! What you're doing, sunshine!"
"Do you want me to stop?" he said huskily in her ear, his tone making it clear he knew exactly what her answer would be.
"Don't you dare!" she retorted immediately. "Might have to… ohhhhh… regenerate you if you do!"
She reached over her shoulder to tangle her fingers in his hair. He leaned in to make it an easier stretch for her, tucking a lock of her hair back behind her ear, then kissing the curve of her cheek.
"Where do you want to go?" he asked, increasing their tempo as his fingers resumed their play. "Back to Zoaoa and… mmm… catch the meteor shower we… mmmmmmm… missed? Or maybe just some fancy… nng… resort? Be catered to all day?"
"What are—oh, right there, that… that's good. What are you… going on about? Oh my God! Do that again!" Her eyes rolled back in her head for a few seconds as he shifted and hit a particularly sweet spot. He obliged by doing it again several more times.
"Where do we… want to go…" he said, huffing like he was running up a particularly steep hill, "after… the bond's complete? 'S tradition to go on vacation and… and… oh my… and have lots and lots of…"
"Cake?" she suggested when it seemed he wasn't going to finish his sentence. He chuckled and curled around her, nuzzling her ear.
"Sex," he concluded, slowing his motion. "Lots and lots of sex. Indecent amounts, really."
"Indecent?" she repeated, twisting to look at him.
"One might say bordering on massively indecent amounts of sex," he affirmed and abruptly he was repositioning them so that he was on top again, his weight braced on his elbows and their bodies somehow never separating.
"That sounds like a—" honeymoon, she started to say but chickened out at the last second. "Sounds like a great idea," she finished lamely.
He gave her an enigmatic look but clearly decided not to pursue the matter right now. He started to move once more, hitching one of her legs up higher along his hip and changing angles slightly until he found one that made her cry out wordlessly with every thrust.
The pleasure built in dizzying waves, the corkscrew of sensation boiling down from her skull through her spine until it coiled tighter and tighter in her center like hot lava. This is it, she thought and, in the dark room in her mind, she let go of the bond and balanced on the stack of chairs.
"Donna," the Doctor said and she looked at him and his eyes were blind with the golden light, flecked with swirling white. She waited for him to give some hasty final bit of advice or clever quip but, as the pinprick of energy in her mind swelled and ripened to the bursting point, all he quietly said was, "Don't leave me."
"Doctor," she gasped, playing her final card. "I love…"
She felt him go off-balance at just those two words. The bond dilated into a gaping maw of pure energy and Donna shrieked into that maelstrom:
"I LOVE PEARS!"
The Time Lord consciousness roared into her mind. Though weakened by the way he was recoiling in surprise, it still struck like a tidal wave, nearly throwing her from her precarious perch.
The energy crackled and stormed higher and higher until it was at the level of her metaphorical chin while she stood on her tiptoes, desperately trying not to be swamped. But she wasn't drowning, she was about to burn as the unused Time Lord modules began to power up inside her mind, fueled by the influx of caustic energy.
In that brief millisecond, she understood everything; she saw all of the ways the universes were bound together through time and space. She saw how hopeless this gamble was, heard in a dispassionate, removed voice that no mere human could hope to survive a second full emersion into the truly massive amount of energy contained in a Time Lord brain.
And she thought, Well, bugger that! I am NOT dying from this! She pressed down so that, as the energy continued to rise, she was rising as well, keeping her head above the surface and not allowing it to close over her and burn out the rest of her synapses.
Desperately questing for something she could grasp hold of, she reached up with a mental hand… and something reached back and grasped hold of her in return. She held on for another handful of splintered fractions of an instant before her grip gave out.
Long enough.
She felt the Doctor regain control of the bond, constricting it from a massive flood into a sedate trickle once more, somehow tilting things so that the excess energy drained out of her and harmlessly back into himself.
Donna was dumped back into awareness of her body a fraction of a linear second later, as their orgasms hit like a nuclear explosion. Raw pleasure snapped through her, her body tightening rhythmically around him as he emptied himself into her in a forceful rush. They both cried out a garble of nonsense sounds.
She floated back to herself after an unknown amount of time, vaguely aware that he was once more lying on her but too blissfully sated to care.
As if he realized that at the same time, he gently pulled free and dropped onto his side next to her, gazing at her with eyes that were once again brown. "Oh, Donna," he murmured and gently touched her face. "You didn't just hinge the entire fate of your life on the phrase, 'I love pears,' did you?"
She gave him a half-hearted sock on the shoulder. "What? It worked, didn't it?"
"I suppose it did," he said, then gave a sketchy but clearly happy attempt at his usual maniac grin. "It worked! You did it!"
"Wasn't all me," she corrected. "It took a helping hand right there at the end." She looked up at the red ceiling and said, "It's hardly enough to just say but… Thank you, love. Thank you from the bottom of my heart."
Whale song drifted down but, this time, she could hear the words inside of it: You're very welcome, Donna.
The Doctor watched her with an increasingly proud grin.
"Why didn't you tell me the TARDIS could help me?" she asked.
He rolled his shoulder. "Wasn't sure she could. It's like… Have you ever had two friends who you knew were just perfect for each other? But then everybody gets to matchmaking and by the time they actually meet, laden down with all of those expectations and such, it doesn't work. I couldn't just tell you to reach for her, you had to reach for her instinctively and that's how she had to answer. It's a delicate balance, you see. But it was a good sign how close you two became on your own and I believed you'd find each other if I just stayed out of the way."
"So all that balancing and leverage and such? That was all bollocks?" she said incredulously. "You were just trying to buy me and her time to bond a bit?"
He coughed guiltily. "Well, it did help for you to use leverage against me, didn't it? And if you hadn't been able to balance, then nothing the TARDIS could've done would've been enough. And there's also the fact that it was amazingly fun to practice all this time."
"I'd smack you if that wasn't sort of logical." Then she went ahead and smacked him anyway.
"Oi!" he exclaimed, his sweat-dampened hair flopping rather indignantly onto his forehead. She smiled, brushing it back, and he took that as an invitation to snuggle up in her arms with his head on her shoulder.
Companionable silence descended, then she squirmed as an uncomfortable sensation made itself known. "Scoot over," she told him.
"What? Why?" he mumbled against her collarbone. "I'm comfy."
"Well, I'm not because I'm lying in a giant wet spot. And when I say 'giant,' I don't mean big. I mean flippin' e—"
"Donnaaaaa," he groaned but obliged by moving over. She followed, bumping him over onto his back so she could curl up with her head on his shoulder for a change. He lazily smoothed his hand over her hair.
"'I love pears,'" he muttered. "Honestly!"
She chuckled.
"You know I, um," he said quietly. "I thought you were going to say… something else."
"I know what you thought," she said smugly. "That's why it worked. Knocked you right and properly off-balance, didn't it? Now hush."
He was silent for a few moments, then: "Donna?"
"Shh."
"But, Donna?"
"Did I not say hush? So, hush."
He shifted, fidgeting. She could almost feel the words battering around in his head. 3.5 seconds later – according to the revitalized Time Lord consciousness clock in her head: "Donna?"
"Yeah, I know. Me, too, you nutter. Now shut it." She pressed a kiss to his collarbone and he hummed happily.
She was mostly asleep by the time he murmured, "Donna, you don't really, do you?"
"Don't really what, Martian boy?" she mumbled back into the cool skin at the curve of his neck.
"Love pears," he said in a hushed tone, as if he were slightly afraid of her answer.
She raised her head in surprise. He looked so earnest she wasn't sure whether to smack him one or just snog him.
She opted for the later, pressing a loud and rather messy kiss to his mouth. When she pulled back, he looked happily mussed, though his tone remained worried. "So, is that a yes or no?"
And so then she smacked him.
Donna clung to the console for all she was worth as the TARDIS bucked and lurched, nearly taking her off her feet.
Over the whine of the rotor, she heard rapid-fire, angry whale song that she couldn't understand – the TARDIS was as good as putting hands over her ears to keep her from hearing the tongue-lashing she was laying on the Doctor.
"I know I muffed the math," he retorted, kicking a lever with the toe of his Converse. "I'm trying to correct it right now but it's not my fault, it's hers."
He risked taking a hand off the controls to gesture at Donna, who was manning the other side of the console.
"Me?" she returned indignantly. "You won't let me do the math, sunshine, even though you know I'm perfectly capable of doing it now. So don't be blaming that on me!"
"You're jiggling," he said in an ah-HAH tone, as if proving his point.
She automatically looked down. Yes, indeed, her anatomy was once more all over the place and in prominent display thanks to the violent shaking and the scalloped neckline of her form-fitting, dark blue blouse.
She grinned naughtily. "So? What are you going to do about it?" She risked releasing the controls long enough to fluff her cleavage and give him a saucy wink.
His eyes went wide and his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "I'm going to park the TARDIS in the Vortex," he avowed quickly. "And I'll redo the math later."
"And I'll redo the math later," she returned. He opened his mouth to argue. "You can watch, spaceman. You like to watch… don't you?"
His mouth slammed shut then he gave her an answering naughty grin as they both, in unspoken concert, began madly flipping entirely new sets of levers and spinning different dials.
She heard the TARDIS whistling a soft, vaguely familiar tune. Then all of the sudden, the Doctor started singing, loudly and – mostly – on key:
"I… I can't get enough of your love, babe…"
Donna crowed with laughter then joined in, singing along at the top of her lungs.
The End
A/N: Thank you so much to all who've stuck with me after all this time! I really appreciate how patient y'all have been with me! *hugs* :D You've made this such a great experience! :D
Once more, the song referenced is Barry White's "Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe". ;)
There ended up being a few ideas I came up along the way that ultimately didn't quite fit in with "BA" but that I hated to lose entirely. And so I finally admitted to myself that I really wanted to do a second story with bonded!Ten/Donna. ;) I won't even make an estimate as to when this might be, but hopefully the first chapter of a sequel will be popping up before too terribly long. ;) *fingers crossed*
And I can't close out this final chapter without saying thanks once more to my awesometastical beta,
mistojen, who not only knows the nuts and bolts of writing but who knows both how and when to play cheerleader and to apply a bit of tough love. Otherwise, chapter 1 would've been flushed out of the Recycle bin on my computer a long time ago. ;) Thanks again, hon! *super!mega!squishy!hugs!* ♥!