Fic: Once Upon A Time (1/1)
Title: Once Upon A Time
Rating: PG-13, NC-17, PG
Pairing: Ten/Donna
Word Count: 3,152
Summary: A matter of life and death, a moment of passion, and a bedtime story for a night on the Thames. For dana_cz’s doctor_donna Fic Prompts Prompt #19: Where does Donna keep the Tardis key? Spoilers for Doctor Who 4.13 - Journey’s End.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Nor do I own The Man From Nantucket.
Author’s Notes: Because apparently my muses are indecisive, and can’t answer a prompt in just a singular fashion, you lovely people get three answers to the question of where Donna keeps her key. Drama, sex, and angst; in that order, in various lengths. Hopefully they’re satisfying :)
Once Upon A Time
...a matter of life and death...
“Donna!”
His hearts are hammering as he reaches her, her body eerily still. His hands grasp at her shoulders, shaking her, and his stomach drops sickeningly as her head lolls lifelessly from side to side. He hadn’t meant for this to happen. He hadn’t meant for it to get so out of hand.
Why did this always have to happen to him? Why was he so cured to be the one who always caused the people he cared for most to come to such harm?
“Donna,” he urges, his voice growing louder and higher in pitch as the moments pass without a response, and he only shakes her harder. “Donna, wake up!”
He presses his fingers to her wrist; terrified to feel nothing, he moves to her neck, massaging the veins, but to no avail. Desperate, he lays his head to her chest, closing his eyes and searching, wanting to imagine that every subtle shift is from the breath flowing through her lungs, from the heart beating beneath him, but it’s not, he knows it, and the air leaves him without warning, his pulse doubling and only serving to choke him as he laces his fingers together and presses the heel of his palm to her chest, compressing in quick succession and leaning forward to breathe deep against her lips, making certain that her chest is expanding with the air before pulling back and repeating the pattern.
“Breathe, damn you!” he growls when she remains unresponsive, placing his mouth over hers and hating himself for wishing - hoping - that these weren’t the circumstances under which he’d finally gotten the opportunity to taste her new tangerine lip gloss, or sample the faint trace of spice that lingers inexplicably around her teeth.
His hands are slipping on the silky material of her shirt, and he doesn’t think as he rips it off of her, exposing her navy blue bra, the tops of her breasts bouncing with every press he makes, jostling about - he’s distracted for an instant by something silver and shining between the the peaks, nudging out with the movement; he lets the TARDIS key fall from between her covered nipples and clang to the floor as he continues to breathe for her, growing more frantic by the second as she grows colder beneath his touch.
He needs a jolt, and he’s short on resources; but he can’t lose her, and certainly not like this, so it’s without a second thought that he snaps his sonic screwdriver in threes against the edge of a control panel nearby, pulling at the wires and using the sparking components as a makeshift means of resuscitation.
He’s a Doctor after all; he can figure it out.
Her spine arches violently off the floor as she heaves a breath of her own accord, her eyelids snapping open as she gasps once, twice - his hearts are in his throat as he feels for hers, finally beating again; fast, but seemingly fine.
“Are you alright?” he asks her breathlessly after a few minutes, and she glares at him, supporting her weight awkwardly on her elbows and looking a bit worse for wear.
“Bloody fantastic, quite obviously,” she tosses at him harshly, still breathing heavily as she presses a hand to her chest, trying to steady herself, to calm her throbbing pulse. Her hand meets skin where it should meet blouse, and it’s then that her eyes drift to her side, where her top is crumpled in a heap on the ground next to her.
“What were you doing?” she asks him, suddenly looking much healthier, her skin tinged with a rosy glow as she eyeballs him, at first looking suspicious, and then approaching positively scandalized.
“Were you feeling me up, Spaceman?” Her jaw stays dropped as he watches the emotions flicker across her face in rapid succession - anger, disbelief, mortification, and something else; something odd.
“What?” he exclaims, himself taken aback of her accusation, moving away from her in order to emphasize the innocence of his involvement with her... derobing. “Of course not, I-”
“Taking advantage of a girl while she’s unconscious,” she shoots at him, eyes narrowed and jaw clenched as she gathers the wrinkled material of her shirt and presses it to her bust, covering the worst of her exposure. “Is that what you Time Lords do?”
“Donna, sit still,” he urges, ignoring her irritation for the moment, not so soon forgetting how scared he’d been, how still she’d looked. “You’re not well.”
“I ought to be offended,” she continues, paying him little mind as she struggles to her feet, bracing herself against the wall as her vision clears enough to regain her balance, “is what I ought to be.”
“Outraged!” she adds, slowly and somewhat drunkenly stumbling away from him, mumbling on as she shakes her head and makes her way towards where she can vaguely make out the TARDIS some fifty meters away. “I ought to be outraged!”
He’s dumbfounded, and not just slightly worried as he watches her walk away; and though he’s on his feet and next to her in an instant, supporting her weight and helping her towards the door, walking her home in way, he can’t help himself - he has to ask:
“You should be outraged and offended, you say,” he ventures, helpfully reminding her of her words. “Does that mean you’re not, then?”
She slumps against him with a slap to his arm, but doesn’t say anything more on the subject.
--------------------------------------------------
...a moment of passion...
He’s kneeling, straddling her hips, her hot thighs wrapped around him as he presses his stomach down to hers, his lips tracing a line from her navel upwards, the tip of his nose brushing at the boundary beneath her breasts, tracing the line of permanently flushed skin there - flesh that so rarely saw the light of day, teased with the tip of his tongue as he worships her body like a temple. His blood is rushing and his muscles are tightening as he nips at the soft, unblemished white of the skin that stretches firm over the curve, leading up to the painted circles of her nipples.
She moans, and he grins as he nudges her breasts up with the bridge of his nose, breaking them apart with a wet slap at the cleavage and nuzzling between, smiling softly at how right this feels; at how much he loves her hands tangled in his hair. His skin is slick with sweat, and he almost doesn’t notice when he runs into something cold and hard amongst the pillowy folds of flesh he’s currently admiring. It doesn’t go away, though, and he playfully catches it between his front teeth, tugging it out from between Donna’s bosoms.
“What’s this?” he managed as he clenched cool metal against his tongue, dropping it tenderly at the line of Donna’s collarbone, the TARDIS key gleaming against the glittering droplets of sweat gathering on Donna’s skin.
She smiles breathlessly up at him, face flushed, a tiny line of white just peaking out from her curving lips. “Have to keep it somewhere safe,” she pants, arching her hips into him as he abandons the key and take to lapping at the taut little mounds of her nipples.
“Your cleavage?” he finally fits in between tiny bites at her puckered, bruising flesh and the breaths catching in both their throats, smiling devilishly up at her from beneath his eyelashes, his hair tousled and his eyes sparkling as he presses his hips into hers, moving with her as she bucks wantonly back in earnest.
“So I always know it’s there,” she gasps before deciding that enough is most certainly enough, tugging hard at the skin behind his ears and pulling him into a desperate, maddening sort of kiss that steals his hearts and makes him feel undeniably alive.
There were words that followed, and the Doctor doesn’t know exactly what they were - but his mind fills them in as “close to my heart” - and he is quite satisfied with that.
--------------------------------------------------
...a bedtime story for a night on the thames...
“It’s less awkward if you talk, you know.”
The Doctor glances up, noticing her, and trying to keep his jaw from dropping. His hearts speed up as he sees that she’s settled at the very opposite end of the bench.
“You sat down next to me, Miss,” he manages to say without much trouble, trying not to look at her, trying to convince her to go away; he can’t handle seeing her like this, it’s asking too much...
“Miss? Miss? Do I look single?”
He can’t help himself. He stares at her full on, her hair falling in curls over her bare shoulders, framing the scooped neck of her blouse. “Not at all,” he grins lightly. “Just youthful.”
“And that’s not at all out of line,” she comments dryly with a toss of her head. “Random stranger, in the park, at night, in the dark, hittin’ on me. And look at you, too,” she exclaims, and he feels warm to know what she’s about to say - he’s missed it desperately. “You’re skin and bones, all gangly limbs. Don’t you ever eat?”
She gasps dramatically as he turns his eyes to the ground, studying the grass with a grin. “Are you a regular bum, sir?”
He chokes back a laugh, relishing this time, this taste of her - all he has left. “No,” he assures her. “I just like to watch the water.”
“Right,” she scoffs back at him, kicking her foot idly into the dirt. “And that’s not weird at all.”
“Why are you down here, then?”
She seems taken aback to be asked the same question, and pauses a few moments to genuinely ponder her reasons. “I’m... not sure really.” Her expression is whimsical, but melancholy, and it makes his soul ache to see it. “Just seemed like a good idea, at the time.”
“Hmmm,” he wavered, trying to hide his emotions behind humor - something he was exceedingly well-practiced at. “I generally smile upon good ideas that strike out of nowhere. But this one seems highly unwise.”
She screws up her face in that way he’s seen a million times before, but somehow it feels new. “How d’ya figure?”
“Well, like you said,” he shrugs, staring out at the Thames. “Mysterious stranger, eyeing you up from across the bench in the moonlight. Sounds a bit sketchy.”
“Who said you were mysterious?” He casts a sidelong glance her way to see her nose in the air as she chides him, puts him in his place. He misses that, too. “Don’t go giving yourself so much credit, mister. I’m certainly not.”
He nods in her direction and exhales slow and soft, breathing onto the wind. “Touché.”
There is a silence that takes them, and he feels more at home in this nondescript little alcove near the water, in the faceless, bustling city of London, sitting next to her, than he has anywhere else since she’d left him. He wants this moment, this precious, beautiful moment, to last forever. He wonders if it can.
“So, you should talk.”
He shakes himself out of his thoughts at her interruption, somewhat confused. “What?”
“I don’t like it quiet,” she continues, her tone short. “Not anymore.”
He has the sense not to ask.
“I could tell you a story, I suppose?”
He turns his head to face her, and he can’t help but smile when he sees her playful grin mocking him from across the way. “What, like a bedtime story?”
“If you’d like.” He shrugs, but he hopes she accepts the offer. Hopes for it more than he should.
She tosses her head over the top of the bench, spreading out her arms so that her right hand almost brushes the cuff of his shoulder. “What the hell,” she laughs, open and carefree - gorgeous. “Humor me.”
So he does: “There once was a woman, from London.”
“Is this, like a nursery rhyme?” she asks, eyebrows raised in speculation. “Like the man from Nantucket?”
“No, no,” the Doctor is glad for the dark; it hides his blush. “Not like that.”
She flicks her index finger over at him warningly before closing her eyes and relaxing her neck backwards again. “I’m watching you, skinny boy.”
He flushes deeper as he whispers; “I don’t mind.”
He shakes himself free of the images of her, of the residual feeling of her in his arms. “Anyway, this woman, from London,” he steeples his fingers and leans forward onto his knees. “I didn’t think much of her at first. She was loud, and coarse, and goodness, she could shout!” He smiles at the memory - he doesn’t remember being beckoned quite like that before; and he certainly doesn’t remember complying so readily.
“But even then,” he murmurs, “she was brilliant.”
He’s quiet, and he watches her, because he can now without her noticing - he can study the lines of her face, the round curves of her cheeks, can revel in the way her chest rises and falls with undeniable life. He misses this - the ordinariness of it. The wonder.
“Anyway,” he picks up as soon as she stirs the slightest bit, avoiding most of her suspicion. “This fiery woman; she traveled with me for a time - we went so many places.”
“I like to travel,” Donna interjected, eyelids still firmly shut, lashes gently splayed upon her creamy flesh. “I wish I did more. I haven’t gone anywhere since, well,” she pauses with a sad smile, almost sheepish. “Can’t remember when since.”
“Try Egypt. Remember to bring bottled water, though.”
“Why?” She snorts in response, and he aches to tell her everything, to hope that somehow it won’t destroy her, so he can have this back - so he can have this glorious woman at his side once again “So I can burn like a fire in Cairo?”
“It was just a suggestion.”
She sounds unconvinced, and watches him strangely before leaning back into the metal rungs of the bench. “Right.”
“This woman, as I was saying,” the Doctor picks up, and he sounds aggravated at the interruption, even though he isn’t. He’s already steeling himself for when he has to go back to doing without that sort of simple pleasure. “She and I traveled together.”
“Is that a euphemism?”
He scowls a bit, because that’s dirty pool, even if she doesn’t remember why. “What do you think?”
She doesn't answer, and he thanks the universe for that much. He can already feel the ghost of her touch on his skin, his trousers suddenly tight and he has to take a deep breath, has to calm his hearts before he continues, trying to pretend that it all means nothing when really, it means the world. “Anyway, it got very hectic for a while, dangerous,” his voice lowers here, and she leans towards him in order to hear; he can barely speak as he feels the warmth of her body so close to his own. “And she was always there, she never faltered. Always matching me, step for step. She was...” he swallows hard against his parched lips, his dry tongue; “perfect, really, now that I think about it.”
“Oi, boney-man; are you having me on?”
He turns, and is hurt - more than he has any right to be, given the circumstances - by the genuine offense that’s flooding her expression. “Pardon?”
“This chicky of yours,” she says, filled with the attitude that captivated him from the beginning, that kept him from tossing her out, wedding gown and all, without a second thought. “What was she, a blowup doll?”
His frown deepens, and he crosses his arms in protective indignation. “What?”
“‘She was brilliant, she was perfect,’” her hands are waving and her head is wagging back and forth, and she’s mocking him; and he feels something break inside him. This was such a bad idea. “‘Fiery woman, never faltered.’ What was she, a bloody robot?”
She scoffs loudly, and he looks away, trying to lose himself to the timbre of her voice instead of paying any attention to what that voice is saying; trying to remember how it sounded when he touched her at the very peak of her arousal, trying to remember the tone she used when she whispered in his ear as he fell against her when it was all said and done. “Lovesick sod, you are,” she’s laughing sardonically, but he hears her panting, begging him not to stop. “Tell me you didn’t live happily ever after.” He winces, trying to drown it out with the sound of her telling her she loves him.
It almost works.
“You’re in luck. That was most certainly not how it ended.”
“Then how’d it end?” She expectant, and he cannot disappoint.
“She forgot about me. Entirely.”
“Oh.” She has the good grace to at least look abashed, almost apologetic as she breaks eye contact and fiddles with a chain around her neck, reaching down into her shirt and extracting the pendant that hung just there beneath the neckline, a key he knew well enough that he hadn’t had the heart to take from her, still buried soft between her breasts.
“I’m... sorry,” she speaks slow, fiddling with the ridges of the key, running it anxiously through her fingers, a habit - a nervous twitch.
He breathes the scent of the water in deep, centering himself and letting his eyes drift shut as he remembers. “Me too.”
“Yeah.” Her voice is lost on the breeze, but he catches just its shadow; it sounds sadder than he ever wants her to feel.
“I should be going,” she finally declares, standing abruptly and wrapping her jacket tighter around her frame. “Work in the morning.”
He sees her feet in front of him, and slowly lifts his head, drinking in her figure before meeting her eyes, those lovely eyes. “Thank you for the story, Mister...”
He takes the hand she offers, savoring the feel of her palm in his for the very last time. “You can call me John.”
She cocks her head, studying him with intensity, her hands fiddling again with the TARDIS key hanging from her neck. “You don’t look like a John.”
She walks away, and he doesn’t quite think he’ll be able to carry on after this. Not anymore.
Rating: PG-13, NC-17, PG
Pairing: Ten/Donna
Word Count: 3,152
Summary: A matter of life and death, a moment of passion, and a bedtime story for a night on the Thames. For dana_cz’s doctor_donna Fic Prompts Prompt #19: Where does Donna keep the Tardis key? Spoilers for Doctor Who 4.13 - Journey’s End.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Nor do I own The Man From Nantucket.
Author’s Notes: Because apparently my muses are indecisive, and can’t answer a prompt in just a singular fashion, you lovely people get three answers to the question of where Donna keeps her key. Drama, sex, and angst; in that order, in various lengths. Hopefully they’re satisfying :)
Once Upon A Time
...a matter of life and death...
“Donna!”
His hearts are hammering as he reaches her, her body eerily still. His hands grasp at her shoulders, shaking her, and his stomach drops sickeningly as her head lolls lifelessly from side to side. He hadn’t meant for this to happen. He hadn’t meant for it to get so out of hand.
Why did this always have to happen to him? Why was he so cured to be the one who always caused the people he cared for most to come to such harm?
“Donna,” he urges, his voice growing louder and higher in pitch as the moments pass without a response, and he only shakes her harder. “Donna, wake up!”
He presses his fingers to her wrist; terrified to feel nothing, he moves to her neck, massaging the veins, but to no avail. Desperate, he lays his head to her chest, closing his eyes and searching, wanting to imagine that every subtle shift is from the breath flowing through her lungs, from the heart beating beneath him, but it’s not, he knows it, and the air leaves him without warning, his pulse doubling and only serving to choke him as he laces his fingers together and presses the heel of his palm to her chest, compressing in quick succession and leaning forward to breathe deep against her lips, making certain that her chest is expanding with the air before pulling back and repeating the pattern.
“Breathe, damn you!” he growls when she remains unresponsive, placing his mouth over hers and hating himself for wishing - hoping - that these weren’t the circumstances under which he’d finally gotten the opportunity to taste her new tangerine lip gloss, or sample the faint trace of spice that lingers inexplicably around her teeth.
His hands are slipping on the silky material of her shirt, and he doesn’t think as he rips it off of her, exposing her navy blue bra, the tops of her breasts bouncing with every press he makes, jostling about - he’s distracted for an instant by something silver and shining between the the peaks, nudging out with the movement; he lets the TARDIS key fall from between her covered nipples and clang to the floor as he continues to breathe for her, growing more frantic by the second as she grows colder beneath his touch.
He needs a jolt, and he’s short on resources; but he can’t lose her, and certainly not like this, so it’s without a second thought that he snaps his sonic screwdriver in threes against the edge of a control panel nearby, pulling at the wires and using the sparking components as a makeshift means of resuscitation.
He’s a Doctor after all; he can figure it out.
Her spine arches violently off the floor as she heaves a breath of her own accord, her eyelids snapping open as she gasps once, twice - his hearts are in his throat as he feels for hers, finally beating again; fast, but seemingly fine.
“Are you alright?” he asks her breathlessly after a few minutes, and she glares at him, supporting her weight awkwardly on her elbows and looking a bit worse for wear.
“Bloody fantastic, quite obviously,” she tosses at him harshly, still breathing heavily as she presses a hand to her chest, trying to steady herself, to calm her throbbing pulse. Her hand meets skin where it should meet blouse, and it’s then that her eyes drift to her side, where her top is crumpled in a heap on the ground next to her.
“What were you doing?” she asks him, suddenly looking much healthier, her skin tinged with a rosy glow as she eyeballs him, at first looking suspicious, and then approaching positively scandalized.
“Were you feeling me up, Spaceman?” Her jaw stays dropped as he watches the emotions flicker across her face in rapid succession - anger, disbelief, mortification, and something else; something odd.
“What?” he exclaims, himself taken aback of her accusation, moving away from her in order to emphasize the innocence of his involvement with her... derobing. “Of course not, I-”
“Taking advantage of a girl while she’s unconscious,” she shoots at him, eyes narrowed and jaw clenched as she gathers the wrinkled material of her shirt and presses it to her bust, covering the worst of her exposure. “Is that what you Time Lords do?”
“Donna, sit still,” he urges, ignoring her irritation for the moment, not so soon forgetting how scared he’d been, how still she’d looked. “You’re not well.”
“I ought to be offended,” she continues, paying him little mind as she struggles to her feet, bracing herself against the wall as her vision clears enough to regain her balance, “is what I ought to be.”
“Outraged!” she adds, slowly and somewhat drunkenly stumbling away from him, mumbling on as she shakes her head and makes her way towards where she can vaguely make out the TARDIS some fifty meters away. “I ought to be outraged!”
He’s dumbfounded, and not just slightly worried as he watches her walk away; and though he’s on his feet and next to her in an instant, supporting her weight and helping her towards the door, walking her home in way, he can’t help himself - he has to ask:
“You should be outraged and offended, you say,” he ventures, helpfully reminding her of her words. “Does that mean you’re not, then?”
She slumps against him with a slap to his arm, but doesn’t say anything more on the subject.
--------------------------------------------------
...a moment of passion...
He’s kneeling, straddling her hips, her hot thighs wrapped around him as he presses his stomach down to hers, his lips tracing a line from her navel upwards, the tip of his nose brushing at the boundary beneath her breasts, tracing the line of permanently flushed skin there - flesh that so rarely saw the light of day, teased with the tip of his tongue as he worships her body like a temple. His blood is rushing and his muscles are tightening as he nips at the soft, unblemished white of the skin that stretches firm over the curve, leading up to the painted circles of her nipples.
She moans, and he grins as he nudges her breasts up with the bridge of his nose, breaking them apart with a wet slap at the cleavage and nuzzling between, smiling softly at how right this feels; at how much he loves her hands tangled in his hair. His skin is slick with sweat, and he almost doesn’t notice when he runs into something cold and hard amongst the pillowy folds of flesh he’s currently admiring. It doesn’t go away, though, and he playfully catches it between his front teeth, tugging it out from between Donna’s bosoms.
“What’s this?” he managed as he clenched cool metal against his tongue, dropping it tenderly at the line of Donna’s collarbone, the TARDIS key gleaming against the glittering droplets of sweat gathering on Donna’s skin.
She smiles breathlessly up at him, face flushed, a tiny line of white just peaking out from her curving lips. “Have to keep it somewhere safe,” she pants, arching her hips into him as he abandons the key and take to lapping at the taut little mounds of her nipples.
“Your cleavage?” he finally fits in between tiny bites at her puckered, bruising flesh and the breaths catching in both their throats, smiling devilishly up at her from beneath his eyelashes, his hair tousled and his eyes sparkling as he presses his hips into hers, moving with her as she bucks wantonly back in earnest.
“So I always know it’s there,” she gasps before deciding that enough is most certainly enough, tugging hard at the skin behind his ears and pulling him into a desperate, maddening sort of kiss that steals his hearts and makes him feel undeniably alive.
There were words that followed, and the Doctor doesn’t know exactly what they were - but his mind fills them in as “close to my heart” - and he is quite satisfied with that.
--------------------------------------------------
...a bedtime story for a night on the thames...
“It’s less awkward if you talk, you know.”
The Doctor glances up, noticing her, and trying to keep his jaw from dropping. His hearts speed up as he sees that she’s settled at the very opposite end of the bench.
“You sat down next to me, Miss,” he manages to say without much trouble, trying not to look at her, trying to convince her to go away; he can’t handle seeing her like this, it’s asking too much...
“Miss? Miss? Do I look single?”
He can’t help himself. He stares at her full on, her hair falling in curls over her bare shoulders, framing the scooped neck of her blouse. “Not at all,” he grins lightly. “Just youthful.”
“And that’s not at all out of line,” she comments dryly with a toss of her head. “Random stranger, in the park, at night, in the dark, hittin’ on me. And look at you, too,” she exclaims, and he feels warm to know what she’s about to say - he’s missed it desperately. “You’re skin and bones, all gangly limbs. Don’t you ever eat?”
She gasps dramatically as he turns his eyes to the ground, studying the grass with a grin. “Are you a regular bum, sir?”
He chokes back a laugh, relishing this time, this taste of her - all he has left. “No,” he assures her. “I just like to watch the water.”
“Right,” she scoffs back at him, kicking her foot idly into the dirt. “And that’s not weird at all.”
“Why are you down here, then?”
She seems taken aback to be asked the same question, and pauses a few moments to genuinely ponder her reasons. “I’m... not sure really.” Her expression is whimsical, but melancholy, and it makes his soul ache to see it. “Just seemed like a good idea, at the time.”
“Hmmm,” he wavered, trying to hide his emotions behind humor - something he was exceedingly well-practiced at. “I generally smile upon good ideas that strike out of nowhere. But this one seems highly unwise.”
She screws up her face in that way he’s seen a million times before, but somehow it feels new. “How d’ya figure?”
“Well, like you said,” he shrugs, staring out at the Thames. “Mysterious stranger, eyeing you up from across the bench in the moonlight. Sounds a bit sketchy.”
“Who said you were mysterious?” He casts a sidelong glance her way to see her nose in the air as she chides him, puts him in his place. He misses that, too. “Don’t go giving yourself so much credit, mister. I’m certainly not.”
He nods in her direction and exhales slow and soft, breathing onto the wind. “Touché.”
There is a silence that takes them, and he feels more at home in this nondescript little alcove near the water, in the faceless, bustling city of London, sitting next to her, than he has anywhere else since she’d left him. He wants this moment, this precious, beautiful moment, to last forever. He wonders if it can.
“So, you should talk.”
He shakes himself out of his thoughts at her interruption, somewhat confused. “What?”
“I don’t like it quiet,” she continues, her tone short. “Not anymore.”
He has the sense not to ask.
“I could tell you a story, I suppose?”
He turns his head to face her, and he can’t help but smile when he sees her playful grin mocking him from across the way. “What, like a bedtime story?”
“If you’d like.” He shrugs, but he hopes she accepts the offer. Hopes for it more than he should.
She tosses her head over the top of the bench, spreading out her arms so that her right hand almost brushes the cuff of his shoulder. “What the hell,” she laughs, open and carefree - gorgeous. “Humor me.”
So he does: “There once was a woman, from London.”
“Is this, like a nursery rhyme?” she asks, eyebrows raised in speculation. “Like the man from Nantucket?”
“No, no,” the Doctor is glad for the dark; it hides his blush. “Not like that.”
She flicks her index finger over at him warningly before closing her eyes and relaxing her neck backwards again. “I’m watching you, skinny boy.”
He flushes deeper as he whispers; “I don’t mind.”
He shakes himself free of the images of her, of the residual feeling of her in his arms. “Anyway, this woman, from London,” he steeples his fingers and leans forward onto his knees. “I didn’t think much of her at first. She was loud, and coarse, and goodness, she could shout!” He smiles at the memory - he doesn’t remember being beckoned quite like that before; and he certainly doesn’t remember complying so readily.
“But even then,” he murmurs, “she was brilliant.”
He’s quiet, and he watches her, because he can now without her noticing - he can study the lines of her face, the round curves of her cheeks, can revel in the way her chest rises and falls with undeniable life. He misses this - the ordinariness of it. The wonder.
“Anyway,” he picks up as soon as she stirs the slightest bit, avoiding most of her suspicion. “This fiery woman; she traveled with me for a time - we went so many places.”
“I like to travel,” Donna interjected, eyelids still firmly shut, lashes gently splayed upon her creamy flesh. “I wish I did more. I haven’t gone anywhere since, well,” she pauses with a sad smile, almost sheepish. “Can’t remember when since.”
“Try Egypt. Remember to bring bottled water, though.”
“Why?” She snorts in response, and he aches to tell her everything, to hope that somehow it won’t destroy her, so he can have this back - so he can have this glorious woman at his side once again “So I can burn like a fire in Cairo?”
“It was just a suggestion.”
She sounds unconvinced, and watches him strangely before leaning back into the metal rungs of the bench. “Right.”
“This woman, as I was saying,” the Doctor picks up, and he sounds aggravated at the interruption, even though he isn’t. He’s already steeling himself for when he has to go back to doing without that sort of simple pleasure. “She and I traveled together.”
“Is that a euphemism?”
He scowls a bit, because that’s dirty pool, even if she doesn’t remember why. “What do you think?”
She doesn't answer, and he thanks the universe for that much. He can already feel the ghost of her touch on his skin, his trousers suddenly tight and he has to take a deep breath, has to calm his hearts before he continues, trying to pretend that it all means nothing when really, it means the world. “Anyway, it got very hectic for a while, dangerous,” his voice lowers here, and she leans towards him in order to hear; he can barely speak as he feels the warmth of her body so close to his own. “And she was always there, she never faltered. Always matching me, step for step. She was...” he swallows hard against his parched lips, his dry tongue; “perfect, really, now that I think about it.”
“Oi, boney-man; are you having me on?”
He turns, and is hurt - more than he has any right to be, given the circumstances - by the genuine offense that’s flooding her expression. “Pardon?”
“This chicky of yours,” she says, filled with the attitude that captivated him from the beginning, that kept him from tossing her out, wedding gown and all, without a second thought. “What was she, a blowup doll?”
His frown deepens, and he crosses his arms in protective indignation. “What?”
“‘She was brilliant, she was perfect,’” her hands are waving and her head is wagging back and forth, and she’s mocking him; and he feels something break inside him. This was such a bad idea. “‘Fiery woman, never faltered.’ What was she, a bloody robot?”
She scoffs loudly, and he looks away, trying to lose himself to the timbre of her voice instead of paying any attention to what that voice is saying; trying to remember how it sounded when he touched her at the very peak of her arousal, trying to remember the tone she used when she whispered in his ear as he fell against her when it was all said and done. “Lovesick sod, you are,” she’s laughing sardonically, but he hears her panting, begging him not to stop. “Tell me you didn’t live happily ever after.” He winces, trying to drown it out with the sound of her telling her she loves him.
It almost works.
“You’re in luck. That was most certainly not how it ended.”
“Then how’d it end?” She expectant, and he cannot disappoint.
“She forgot about me. Entirely.”
“Oh.” She has the good grace to at least look abashed, almost apologetic as she breaks eye contact and fiddles with a chain around her neck, reaching down into her shirt and extracting the pendant that hung just there beneath the neckline, a key he knew well enough that he hadn’t had the heart to take from her, still buried soft between her breasts.
“I’m... sorry,” she speaks slow, fiddling with the ridges of the key, running it anxiously through her fingers, a habit - a nervous twitch.
He breathes the scent of the water in deep, centering himself and letting his eyes drift shut as he remembers. “Me too.”
“Yeah.” Her voice is lost on the breeze, but he catches just its shadow; it sounds sadder than he ever wants her to feel.
“I should be going,” she finally declares, standing abruptly and wrapping her jacket tighter around her frame. “Work in the morning.”
He sees her feet in front of him, and slowly lifts his head, drinking in her figure before meeting her eyes, those lovely eyes. “Thank you for the story, Mister...”
He takes the hand she offers, savoring the feel of her palm in his for the very last time. “You can call me John.”
She cocks her head, studying him with intensity, her hands fiddling again with the TARDIS key hanging from her neck. “You don’t look like a John.”
She walks away, and he doesn’t quite think he’ll be able to carry on after this. Not anymore.