(no subject)
Title: Men Are From Mars (1/2)
Author: Megan/darthsemicolon
Pairing(s): Ten/Donna
Rating: NC-17
Warnings (if applicable): None - not even spoilers for S4.
Prompt: 036. Ten/Donna on honeymoon
Author's Notes: Thanks to the wonderful x_los for betaing, and the equally awesome starxd_sparrow for all her help during the long and arduous writing process.
“Right!” The Doctor hit the button to dematerialise quite emphatically. “Definitely not going back there again. Rubbish holiday, that.”
“Well,” Donna pointed out helpfully, “perhaps you ought to have been more familiar with the local customs.”
“Of all the planets in the universe, I’m supposed to keep track of one marriage festival on one lousy little backwater planet?” The Doctor looked taken aback for a moment; the idea clearly hadn’t occurred to him. “I think I’ve got bigger things to worry about, thanks.” He leaned over, fiddling with a lever for a moment, then suddenly straightened up and stripped his sodden tunic off, hurling it violently across the console room. “Where did they even find a legally binding Gallifreyan wedding ceremony? Or Gallifreyan anything?” He started pacing back and forth irritably, hands behind his back; Donna wondered if being married to the Doctor gave her the right to pin him down and make him eat a bloody sandwich. “Weddings haven’t even been performed on Gallifrey for millennia.”
“And do they consummate weddings on Gallifrey?” Donna asked, feeling that there was no sense in beating round the bush. Really, travelling with the Doctor had been hell on her sex life - even if she’d been able to pick up a one-night stand with the proper anatomy, there was certainly no way she was going to bring him back to her transdimensional wooden police box for a shag.
“What?” The Doctor halted dead in his tracks, staring at her blankly. He looked a little panicked, running his long, thin fingers through his damp hair. “No, I’ve told you, Time Lords reproduce asexually. No need for that sort of thing.” He looked down at his bare torso, seeming to notice his partial nudity (or possibly the slightly predatory gleam in Donna’s eye) for the first time, then back up at Donna. “I’m…just going to go get dressed now,” he added, his voice skipping up half an octave.
Donna was not going to be dissuaded quite so easily. “What about the honeymoon?” she called out, trailing after him.
“Honeymoon?” The Doctor turned his head to glance back at her over one pale, freckled shoulder. Donna folded her arms over her chest, just in case the Doctor had noticed that the rain had made her top more than a little transparent, though she doubted that Martians really paid attention to things like that.
“Yeah, you know, where the blissfully married couple jets off to some exotic location to…do what couples do?”
The Doctor turned around to face her, glaring sternly at her - though she could tell that he was still a bit panicked, proving, she thought, that even alien men were completely commitment-phobic at heart. “Look, Donna Noble, I don’t care what some spotty little aliens think, we are not a couple, let alone a blissfully married one.”
Donna gave him a stubborn look right back. “Oi, Martian boy, don’t you pull that trick on me. I’ve got a bit of paper with little circle-y scribbles on it that you claim is quite legal on Gallifrey and any other planet you choose to name, not to mention a bloody ring, so don’t think you’re escaping quite that easily.” It was, she had to admit, a rather nice ring, with her name and the Doctor’s inscribed on it in Gallifreyan. Nicer than the set she and Lance had picked out, at any rate.
He stomped into his room, acting more like a five-year-old throwing a temper tantrum than a nine-hundred-year-old alien who could manipulate time and space at will, and slammed the door behind him. “No!” he called through the thick wood of the door. “No honeymoon, no consummation, no bloody marriage!”
Definitely a temper tantrum, Donna thought. She tried the doorknob, hoping that the TARDIS would humour her for once and see her side of things, but it didn’t budge. “Bloody ship,” she muttered under her breath. “Don’t you think he’d be much less tetchy if he got laid?” She wasn’t sure when she’d acquired the habit of talking to the TARDIS, but it was a good listener, at least, even if she’d never quite gotten over the feeling that it was some sort of voyeur - another reason to avoid having sex within its confines. It was bad enough that it got to watch her shower.
Though, she thought as she pounded on the door, waiting for the Doctor to give in, the TARDIS probably had the same sex drive as its owner, which was to say, none. At least it made sense for the TARDIS, though; sentient though it was, it was still a machine, whereas the Doctor, as far as she knew, was flesh and blood.
The door opened just a crack. “Would you stop making such a racket?” the Doctor hissed through clenched teeth.
Donna looked him square in the eye. “No.”
“Now I know why Lance tried to feed you to the Empress of the Racnoss,” the Doctor mumbled, just barely audible.
That comment, in Donna’s opinion, had been quite uncalled for, and she decided that she was through trying to play nice. She shoved her foot in the crack of the door, using her shoulder to force it open. For once, Donna was going to use the fact that she weighed more than the Doctor to her advantage. And if he happened to get in the way of the door, well, tough.
“Oi!” he protested as he was thrown aside. “This is my room, in case you hadn’t noticed!”
Donna closed the door behind her, resisting the urge to slam it shut. After all, someone had to be the mature one. Slowly, she advanced on the Doctor, making him scuttle backwards toward the bed. “We,” she said, her voice low and dangerous, “are going to talk.”
“Talk,” the Doctor repeated as he sat down on the edge of the bed, eyeing her warily. “Usually people who say they want to talk have more sinister motives in mind. Not,” he added hurriedly, “that you do or anything. It’s just something I’ve noticed from time to time.”
“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it?” Donna barged ahead. “Someone says something like that, and you think ‘Oh, nine hundred years of experience proves that’s a bad thing,’ so you just disregard the suggestion completely and run away.”
“Yeah, and you’ve been travelling with me long enough to know that running away is usually the right solution.”
“But not always,” Donna pointed out. “Sometimes you’ve just got to face your problems head-on. Haven’t you ever learnt that?”
The Doctor gave her a funny look. “This isn’t just about a honeymoon, is it?”
Oh, God, did he think she wanted a relationship? All right, so maybe they had accidentally entered into a marriage that was legally binding in several different galaxies, but he still was just a skinny little alien, hardly the sort of bloke she wanted to bring round to her mum for Sunday tea.
“Yes,” Donna said firmly, “It is just about a honeymoon. You are taking me on a holiday, and there will be sand, sun, and loads of alcohol, and you will have a good time.”
He rubbed one eye with a pair of fingers for a few moments, clearly close to capitulating. “Time Lords can’t get drunk,” he said finally. “Our metabolism makes it a biological impossibility. But all right. Just a couple of days on a resort planet, mind you. Nothing fancy, nothing…relationship-y. Just two mates having a good time. And I’m going to chuck that piece of rubbish into the fire at the luau.”
“As long as it doesn’t spoil the pig,” Donna retorted.
***
“There,” the Doctor said, pushing the TARDIS doors open to reveal an expanse of deep green sand, glinting like emeralds in the sunlight. Donna could see a number of humanoid creatures - and a few not-so-humanoid creatures - basking on the beach.
She looked back at the Doctor and examined him for a moment, arching an eyebrow. “Aren’t you going to change?” she asked.
“Hm?” He glanced up from the console, a distracted look on his face. “Oh, yeah. Right.” He fidgeted, rocking back and forth for a few moments. “You just…go on ahead, all right?”
Donna sighed and pulled her sunglasses down over her eyes from their perch on her head. She’d not expected him to change, really, but it had been a nice thought. She slung her beach bag over one shoulder and resolutely set off toward the collection of small buildings that made up the resort.
Halfway there, she kicked off her mules, burying her toes in the sand. She couldn’t shake the feeling that it looked a bit like mold - gorgeous mold, but mold all the same. Before she could pick up her shoes, what appeared to be a miniature velociraptor darted in and picked it up in its needle-sharp teeth.
Donna winced as she saw the fangs puncture her shoes. “Oi!” she shouted. “Those shoes cost me fifty quid, I’ll have you know! Drop it!”
Somewhat surprisingly, the dinosaur did drop her shoe, hanging its head in what looked like guilt.
“Forgive Ssthiss,” a sibilant voice said quietly. Donna turned around to see a larger velociraptor - this one at shoulder-height, rather than knee-high. “He’s teething, and this is his first big trip out of the nest. He’s a little over-excited.”
She flushed, suddenly feeling embarrassed - had she really just yelled at an innocent baby dinosaur? “Er, sorry,” she apologised. She started to offer her hand, then looked at the velociraptor’s foreclaws and thought better of it. Instead, Donna bent over and picked up her shoes, smiling at the baby dinosaur - Ssthiss, had she called him? “First time at the beach, eh, Ssthiss?”
Ssthiss jerked his head up to look at her, his slit-pupiled eyes wide, and ran behind the other dinosaur’s legs quickly, peering at her. Clearly, some reactions were the same from species to species.
“I’m Donna Noble,” she introduced herself to the larger dinosaur.
“Rrrys,” the dinosaur trilled, bobbing her head in greeting.
Donna smiled, a bit awkwardly. “Well, Rrrys, it was nice to meet you and Ssthiss, but I’ve got to get going and check in.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Hope to see you around sometime.”
“It was a pleasure meeting you as well, Donna,” Rrrys hissed. She nudged Ssthiss with one foreclaw, obviously prompting him.
“Byeeee,” Ssthiss chirped shyly, poking his snout out around Rrrys’s leg. He was, Donna thought, quite cute, once you got past the whole flesh-eating dinosaur bit. Or the fact that she wasn’t much of one for kids, regardless of species.
She started walking across the sand again, waving bye to Ssthiss one last time - though she wasn’t sure how well the body language translated into…dinosaurese, but he seemed enthusiastic enough about it. After dodging a few other herds of kids - including an actual herd of bipedal bovines - she finally made her way to the resort’s offices, located in the center of the cluster of small, hut-like buildings.
The woman at the front desk ignored Donna for a few moments, tapping some keys with her long fingernails. “Can I help you?” she asked, without looking up.
How was she meant to get them rooms, anyway? The Doctor hadn’t mentioned that - what if they were full up?
As she opened her mouth to speak, a familiar brown-clad arm thrust its way into her field of vision. “Reservations for Smith,” the Doctor said, flipping open the wallet he kept his psychic paper in.
The Doctor seemed rather closer to her than usual; his outstretched arm was brushing her shoulder, and he was practically pressed right up against her back. She imagined she could almost feel his double heartbeats against her bare skin through the fabric of his shirt.
Or maybe that was the vibrations from a thundering herd of children stampeding through the lobby. Somehow, that seemed far more likely to Donna.
The concierge reached out and offered them a pair of key cards, pinched in between two of her talon-like nails. Tucking the psychic paper into his jacket, the Doctor took the key cards, handing one to Donna. “You’re in the main compound, just out back,” the concierge chirped. “Lovely suite, opens right out onto its own private pool area.”
Donna felt the Doctor tense against her back. “Pardon?” he asked politely, pulling out the psychic paper and glancing down at it for just a moment. “I thought I reserved separate rooms.”
A few more keys clicked. “No, definitely a suite. I’m afraid we’re all booked up, sir. You know how it is - Smarch school holidays.”
“Right, Smarch. Of course. Come on, Donna.” The Doctor took her arm, tugging her away from the desk.
“What’s Smarch?” Donna hissed once they were out of earshot. She took a good look at his outfit. “And what the hell are you wearing?” The top half looked normal enough - suit jacket, shirt, and tie - but instead of matching pants, he had on a pair of swim trunks in a ludicrous banana pattern, and he’d even changed his ubiquitous trainers out for sandals.
The Doctor looked hurt. “Well, you asked me to change.”
“Yeah, but I meant something normal. Do you have any idea what normal is, Doctor? It doesn’t involve wearing a suit jacket to the beach.”
“Fine,” the Doctor huffed angrily as he peeled his jacket off, shoving it into Donna’s arms, and rolled his shirtsleeves up. Donna decided to refrain from pointing out that he still looked ridiculous - after all, it really was nice of him to try. And, truth be told, she found it all a little endearing, especially the horrible shorts. She found herself wondering for a moment what he thought of her sundress before realising that she really shouldn’t care.
She shifted the Doctor’s jacket into her other arm to slot the keycard into its lock, peering in as the door retracted into the wall. It was a nice room, large and airy, and decorated in a tropical theme that somehow managed to keep from being too tacky. A four-poster bed with sheer, gauzy curtains dominated one corner, while a small kitchenette and minibar was at the far end of the room, just by a door that Donna hoped led to the lavatory. Her heart sank a bit when she realised that the room was lacking in, well, other sleeping arrangements.
“Don’t worry about it,” the Doctor said lowly, coming up behind her - and how did he manage to keep sneaking up on her like that? “I’ll sleep in the TARDIS.”
Donna tossed the jacket over the back of a chair. “Don’t be ridiculous, Doctor.” God, he was being ridiculous about all of this, though, and it was rather starting to grate on her nerves. There had best be plenty of margaritas in her immediate future. “It’s not like we haven’t slept in the same bed before. Remember that time on Ceta IV?” She certainly remembered it; she had discovered then that Time Lords had lower body temperatures than humans and a tendency to steal the bloody duvet to make up for the temperature difference. “This bed’s loads bigger - look, we can make a nice little wall of pillows right down the middle if you really want. And you can even have the duvet.” All right, so maybe she sounded a little condescending, but it was only because he was being so damned immature about everything.
“The weather’s warm here - no need for a duvet.” And there was the Doctor, missing the point again. Donna eyed the minibar longingly.
“What is there to do here, anyway?” she asked, deciding to change the subject.
“Well, it’s a tropical resort - same as on Earth, just with more aliens.” He flashed a charming smile at her. “Just what you asked for: sun, sand, and alcohol.” Gesturing to the patio doors with one hand, he began unbuttoning his shirt with the other. “I’m going to go out back and have a swim, I think. Good for the constitution, swimming. I used to have a pool in the TARDIS, you know, but I had to jettison it once when I needed to take off in a hurry. Always missed it, though. Somehow, I never get the chance to go for a swim, no matter where I go.”
Donna tuned him out, her eyes following his fingers as he unbuttoned the shirt, slowly revealing his pale, freckled skin. “You’re going to get burnt,” she interrupted suddenly. “Probably worse than I will.” She rummaged through her tote for a moment, then pulled out a bottle of sunscreen, tossing it to him as she banished thoughts of rubbing him down with the lotion from her mind.
“Nah, Time Lords don’t burn.” He threw the sunscreen back to her, grinning again as he let his shirt fall to the floor.
She shook her head, bending over to pick up the shirt. “I don’t believe half of what you say, you know.”
“Good.” He pushed the door open, looking back at her for a moment - and had his glance darted down to her cleavage for just a moment, or was that her imagination? “You probably shouldn’t.”
Donna sighed, watching him go - and wondering if she ought to take him a sandwich - before crossing the room to the minibar. Though most of the alcohol was unrecognizable, sniffing the bottles revealed one that she was pretty certain was some sort of banana-ish schnapps. She poured herself a healthy measure in a glass, then tossed it back, grimacing at the taste - it burnt on the way down, though, so at least it was alcoholic enough.
After changing into her swimsuit - a tasteful black one-piece number, without any straps - Donna went out back to sunbathe. The Doctor was splashing around in a small waterfall-fed pool, looking completely ecstatic - and as though he ought to be wearing waterwings round his wrists. She rolled her eyes at him and reclined in a chair, picking up the discarded bottle of sunscreen and squirting some into her hands. Maybe Time Lords didn’t get sunburnt, but ginger humans definitely did.
“Oi, alien boy!” she called out as she rubbed the lotion down her legs. “Come over here and do my back for me, will you?”
The Doctor turned and looked at her, getting that deer-in-headlights look again. “Er,” he stammered. “I’m…not sure if that’s entirely appropriate, Donna.”
Oh, God, ostensibly being married was making everything so complicated. She wondered if it would’ve been this way with Lance, had he actually had the proper intentions and not, you know, actually trying to feed her to a giant spider. Donna heaved an exasperated sigh and rolled over onto her stomach, trying to rub the lotion on herself. It would be easier to do than arguing about it with the Doctor, that much was certain.
…all right, so maybe she would just stay on her back. She’d spent enough time vacationing in tropical locales - and getting attractive cabana boys to apply her sunscreen - to know that if she did leave her back uncovered, she would be in for a world of pain.
Donna gave up, shifting onto her back again and closing her eyes. She had to hand it to the Doctor; he had picked one hell of a place to go on holiday. The sunlight was warm on her skin, with just the barest hint of a breeze to cool her, the sound of the waterfall was wonderfully soothing, and the Doctor seemed to have calmed down for the moment. Everything was perfect.
Which, of course, meant that it was just the right time for the sound of an explosion to rend the air. Donna swore and jumped up, nearly folding herself into her lounge chair in the process.
“What the hell was that?” she demanded, even though the answer was fairly obvious. Black smoke billowed over the trees; it appeared to be coming from deeper in the rainforest. Not quite close enough that the resort would be at risk, but still troubling - it seemed rather like the sort of thing that would put an end to her holiday.
“A bomb,” the Doctor replied, hauling himself out of the water. “Plasma ion, it sounds like. Pretty expensive - and pretty destructive.” He turned toward the trees, then looked at Donna. “You coming?”
“Well, of course I am!” Though Donna had no idea what they could do in their swimsuits - or, for that matter, if it was quite safe to venture into the jungle practically naked. Nevertheless, she followed the Doctor into the thick foliage, wincing as thorns bit into her legs.
Click here for part two
Author: Megan/darthsemicolon
Pairing(s): Ten/Donna
Rating: NC-17
Warnings (if applicable): None - not even spoilers for S4.
Prompt: 036. Ten/Donna on honeymoon
Author's Notes: Thanks to the wonderful x_los for betaing, and the equally awesome starxd_sparrow for all her help during the long and arduous writing process.
“Right!” The Doctor hit the button to dematerialise quite emphatically. “Definitely not going back there again. Rubbish holiday, that.”
“Well,” Donna pointed out helpfully, “perhaps you ought to have been more familiar with the local customs.”
“Of all the planets in the universe, I’m supposed to keep track of one marriage festival on one lousy little backwater planet?” The Doctor looked taken aback for a moment; the idea clearly hadn’t occurred to him. “I think I’ve got bigger things to worry about, thanks.” He leaned over, fiddling with a lever for a moment, then suddenly straightened up and stripped his sodden tunic off, hurling it violently across the console room. “Where did they even find a legally binding Gallifreyan wedding ceremony? Or Gallifreyan anything?” He started pacing back and forth irritably, hands behind his back; Donna wondered if being married to the Doctor gave her the right to pin him down and make him eat a bloody sandwich. “Weddings haven’t even been performed on Gallifrey for millennia.”
“And do they consummate weddings on Gallifrey?” Donna asked, feeling that there was no sense in beating round the bush. Really, travelling with the Doctor had been hell on her sex life - even if she’d been able to pick up a one-night stand with the proper anatomy, there was certainly no way she was going to bring him back to her transdimensional wooden police box for a shag.
“What?” The Doctor halted dead in his tracks, staring at her blankly. He looked a little panicked, running his long, thin fingers through his damp hair. “No, I’ve told you, Time Lords reproduce asexually. No need for that sort of thing.” He looked down at his bare torso, seeming to notice his partial nudity (or possibly the slightly predatory gleam in Donna’s eye) for the first time, then back up at Donna. “I’m…just going to go get dressed now,” he added, his voice skipping up half an octave.
Donna was not going to be dissuaded quite so easily. “What about the honeymoon?” she called out, trailing after him.
“Honeymoon?” The Doctor turned his head to glance back at her over one pale, freckled shoulder. Donna folded her arms over her chest, just in case the Doctor had noticed that the rain had made her top more than a little transparent, though she doubted that Martians really paid attention to things like that.
“Yeah, you know, where the blissfully married couple jets off to some exotic location to…do what couples do?”
The Doctor turned around to face her, glaring sternly at her - though she could tell that he was still a bit panicked, proving, she thought, that even alien men were completely commitment-phobic at heart. “Look, Donna Noble, I don’t care what some spotty little aliens think, we are not a couple, let alone a blissfully married one.”
Donna gave him a stubborn look right back. “Oi, Martian boy, don’t you pull that trick on me. I’ve got a bit of paper with little circle-y scribbles on it that you claim is quite legal on Gallifrey and any other planet you choose to name, not to mention a bloody ring, so don’t think you’re escaping quite that easily.” It was, she had to admit, a rather nice ring, with her name and the Doctor’s inscribed on it in Gallifreyan. Nicer than the set she and Lance had picked out, at any rate.
He stomped into his room, acting more like a five-year-old throwing a temper tantrum than a nine-hundred-year-old alien who could manipulate time and space at will, and slammed the door behind him. “No!” he called through the thick wood of the door. “No honeymoon, no consummation, no bloody marriage!”
Definitely a temper tantrum, Donna thought. She tried the doorknob, hoping that the TARDIS would humour her for once and see her side of things, but it didn’t budge. “Bloody ship,” she muttered under her breath. “Don’t you think he’d be much less tetchy if he got laid?” She wasn’t sure when she’d acquired the habit of talking to the TARDIS, but it was a good listener, at least, even if she’d never quite gotten over the feeling that it was some sort of voyeur - another reason to avoid having sex within its confines. It was bad enough that it got to watch her shower.
Though, she thought as she pounded on the door, waiting for the Doctor to give in, the TARDIS probably had the same sex drive as its owner, which was to say, none. At least it made sense for the TARDIS, though; sentient though it was, it was still a machine, whereas the Doctor, as far as she knew, was flesh and blood.
The door opened just a crack. “Would you stop making such a racket?” the Doctor hissed through clenched teeth.
Donna looked him square in the eye. “No.”
“Now I know why Lance tried to feed you to the Empress of the Racnoss,” the Doctor mumbled, just barely audible.
That comment, in Donna’s opinion, had been quite uncalled for, and she decided that she was through trying to play nice. She shoved her foot in the crack of the door, using her shoulder to force it open. For once, Donna was going to use the fact that she weighed more than the Doctor to her advantage. And if he happened to get in the way of the door, well, tough.
“Oi!” he protested as he was thrown aside. “This is my room, in case you hadn’t noticed!”
Donna closed the door behind her, resisting the urge to slam it shut. After all, someone had to be the mature one. Slowly, she advanced on the Doctor, making him scuttle backwards toward the bed. “We,” she said, her voice low and dangerous, “are going to talk.”
“Talk,” the Doctor repeated as he sat down on the edge of the bed, eyeing her warily. “Usually people who say they want to talk have more sinister motives in mind. Not,” he added hurriedly, “that you do or anything. It’s just something I’ve noticed from time to time.”
“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it?” Donna barged ahead. “Someone says something like that, and you think ‘Oh, nine hundred years of experience proves that’s a bad thing,’ so you just disregard the suggestion completely and run away.”
“Yeah, and you’ve been travelling with me long enough to know that running away is usually the right solution.”
“But not always,” Donna pointed out. “Sometimes you’ve just got to face your problems head-on. Haven’t you ever learnt that?”
The Doctor gave her a funny look. “This isn’t just about a honeymoon, is it?”
Oh, God, did he think she wanted a relationship? All right, so maybe they had accidentally entered into a marriage that was legally binding in several different galaxies, but he still was just a skinny little alien, hardly the sort of bloke she wanted to bring round to her mum for Sunday tea.
“Yes,” Donna said firmly, “It is just about a honeymoon. You are taking me on a holiday, and there will be sand, sun, and loads of alcohol, and you will have a good time.”
He rubbed one eye with a pair of fingers for a few moments, clearly close to capitulating. “Time Lords can’t get drunk,” he said finally. “Our metabolism makes it a biological impossibility. But all right. Just a couple of days on a resort planet, mind you. Nothing fancy, nothing…relationship-y. Just two mates having a good time. And I’m going to chuck that piece of rubbish into the fire at the luau.”
“As long as it doesn’t spoil the pig,” Donna retorted.
***
“There,” the Doctor said, pushing the TARDIS doors open to reveal an expanse of deep green sand, glinting like emeralds in the sunlight. Donna could see a number of humanoid creatures - and a few not-so-humanoid creatures - basking on the beach.
She looked back at the Doctor and examined him for a moment, arching an eyebrow. “Aren’t you going to change?” she asked.
“Hm?” He glanced up from the console, a distracted look on his face. “Oh, yeah. Right.” He fidgeted, rocking back and forth for a few moments. “You just…go on ahead, all right?”
Donna sighed and pulled her sunglasses down over her eyes from their perch on her head. She’d not expected him to change, really, but it had been a nice thought. She slung her beach bag over one shoulder and resolutely set off toward the collection of small buildings that made up the resort.
Halfway there, she kicked off her mules, burying her toes in the sand. She couldn’t shake the feeling that it looked a bit like mold - gorgeous mold, but mold all the same. Before she could pick up her shoes, what appeared to be a miniature velociraptor darted in and picked it up in its needle-sharp teeth.
Donna winced as she saw the fangs puncture her shoes. “Oi!” she shouted. “Those shoes cost me fifty quid, I’ll have you know! Drop it!”
Somewhat surprisingly, the dinosaur did drop her shoe, hanging its head in what looked like guilt.
“Forgive Ssthiss,” a sibilant voice said quietly. Donna turned around to see a larger velociraptor - this one at shoulder-height, rather than knee-high. “He’s teething, and this is his first big trip out of the nest. He’s a little over-excited.”
She flushed, suddenly feeling embarrassed - had she really just yelled at an innocent baby dinosaur? “Er, sorry,” she apologised. She started to offer her hand, then looked at the velociraptor’s foreclaws and thought better of it. Instead, Donna bent over and picked up her shoes, smiling at the baby dinosaur - Ssthiss, had she called him? “First time at the beach, eh, Ssthiss?”
Ssthiss jerked his head up to look at her, his slit-pupiled eyes wide, and ran behind the other dinosaur’s legs quickly, peering at her. Clearly, some reactions were the same from species to species.
“I’m Donna Noble,” she introduced herself to the larger dinosaur.
“Rrrys,” the dinosaur trilled, bobbing her head in greeting.
Donna smiled, a bit awkwardly. “Well, Rrrys, it was nice to meet you and Ssthiss, but I’ve got to get going and check in.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Hope to see you around sometime.”
“It was a pleasure meeting you as well, Donna,” Rrrys hissed. She nudged Ssthiss with one foreclaw, obviously prompting him.
“Byeeee,” Ssthiss chirped shyly, poking his snout out around Rrrys’s leg. He was, Donna thought, quite cute, once you got past the whole flesh-eating dinosaur bit. Or the fact that she wasn’t much of one for kids, regardless of species.
She started walking across the sand again, waving bye to Ssthiss one last time - though she wasn’t sure how well the body language translated into…dinosaurese, but he seemed enthusiastic enough about it. After dodging a few other herds of kids - including an actual herd of bipedal bovines - she finally made her way to the resort’s offices, located in the center of the cluster of small, hut-like buildings.
The woman at the front desk ignored Donna for a few moments, tapping some keys with her long fingernails. “Can I help you?” she asked, without looking up.
How was she meant to get them rooms, anyway? The Doctor hadn’t mentioned that - what if they were full up?
As she opened her mouth to speak, a familiar brown-clad arm thrust its way into her field of vision. “Reservations for Smith,” the Doctor said, flipping open the wallet he kept his psychic paper in.
The Doctor seemed rather closer to her than usual; his outstretched arm was brushing her shoulder, and he was practically pressed right up against her back. She imagined she could almost feel his double heartbeats against her bare skin through the fabric of his shirt.
Or maybe that was the vibrations from a thundering herd of children stampeding through the lobby. Somehow, that seemed far more likely to Donna.
The concierge reached out and offered them a pair of key cards, pinched in between two of her talon-like nails. Tucking the psychic paper into his jacket, the Doctor took the key cards, handing one to Donna. “You’re in the main compound, just out back,” the concierge chirped. “Lovely suite, opens right out onto its own private pool area.”
Donna felt the Doctor tense against her back. “Pardon?” he asked politely, pulling out the psychic paper and glancing down at it for just a moment. “I thought I reserved separate rooms.”
A few more keys clicked. “No, definitely a suite. I’m afraid we’re all booked up, sir. You know how it is - Smarch school holidays.”
“Right, Smarch. Of course. Come on, Donna.” The Doctor took her arm, tugging her away from the desk.
“What’s Smarch?” Donna hissed once they were out of earshot. She took a good look at his outfit. “And what the hell are you wearing?” The top half looked normal enough - suit jacket, shirt, and tie - but instead of matching pants, he had on a pair of swim trunks in a ludicrous banana pattern, and he’d even changed his ubiquitous trainers out for sandals.
The Doctor looked hurt. “Well, you asked me to change.”
“Yeah, but I meant something normal. Do you have any idea what normal is, Doctor? It doesn’t involve wearing a suit jacket to the beach.”
“Fine,” the Doctor huffed angrily as he peeled his jacket off, shoving it into Donna’s arms, and rolled his shirtsleeves up. Donna decided to refrain from pointing out that he still looked ridiculous - after all, it really was nice of him to try. And, truth be told, she found it all a little endearing, especially the horrible shorts. She found herself wondering for a moment what he thought of her sundress before realising that she really shouldn’t care.
She shifted the Doctor’s jacket into her other arm to slot the keycard into its lock, peering in as the door retracted into the wall. It was a nice room, large and airy, and decorated in a tropical theme that somehow managed to keep from being too tacky. A four-poster bed with sheer, gauzy curtains dominated one corner, while a small kitchenette and minibar was at the far end of the room, just by a door that Donna hoped led to the lavatory. Her heart sank a bit when she realised that the room was lacking in, well, other sleeping arrangements.
“Don’t worry about it,” the Doctor said lowly, coming up behind her - and how did he manage to keep sneaking up on her like that? “I’ll sleep in the TARDIS.”
Donna tossed the jacket over the back of a chair. “Don’t be ridiculous, Doctor.” God, he was being ridiculous about all of this, though, and it was rather starting to grate on her nerves. There had best be plenty of margaritas in her immediate future. “It’s not like we haven’t slept in the same bed before. Remember that time on Ceta IV?” She certainly remembered it; she had discovered then that Time Lords had lower body temperatures than humans and a tendency to steal the bloody duvet to make up for the temperature difference. “This bed’s loads bigger - look, we can make a nice little wall of pillows right down the middle if you really want. And you can even have the duvet.” All right, so maybe she sounded a little condescending, but it was only because he was being so damned immature about everything.
“The weather’s warm here - no need for a duvet.” And there was the Doctor, missing the point again. Donna eyed the minibar longingly.
“What is there to do here, anyway?” she asked, deciding to change the subject.
“Well, it’s a tropical resort - same as on Earth, just with more aliens.” He flashed a charming smile at her. “Just what you asked for: sun, sand, and alcohol.” Gesturing to the patio doors with one hand, he began unbuttoning his shirt with the other. “I’m going to go out back and have a swim, I think. Good for the constitution, swimming. I used to have a pool in the TARDIS, you know, but I had to jettison it once when I needed to take off in a hurry. Always missed it, though. Somehow, I never get the chance to go for a swim, no matter where I go.”
Donna tuned him out, her eyes following his fingers as he unbuttoned the shirt, slowly revealing his pale, freckled skin. “You’re going to get burnt,” she interrupted suddenly. “Probably worse than I will.” She rummaged through her tote for a moment, then pulled out a bottle of sunscreen, tossing it to him as she banished thoughts of rubbing him down with the lotion from her mind.
“Nah, Time Lords don’t burn.” He threw the sunscreen back to her, grinning again as he let his shirt fall to the floor.
She shook her head, bending over to pick up the shirt. “I don’t believe half of what you say, you know.”
“Good.” He pushed the door open, looking back at her for a moment - and had his glance darted down to her cleavage for just a moment, or was that her imagination? “You probably shouldn’t.”
Donna sighed, watching him go - and wondering if she ought to take him a sandwich - before crossing the room to the minibar. Though most of the alcohol was unrecognizable, sniffing the bottles revealed one that she was pretty certain was some sort of banana-ish schnapps. She poured herself a healthy measure in a glass, then tossed it back, grimacing at the taste - it burnt on the way down, though, so at least it was alcoholic enough.
After changing into her swimsuit - a tasteful black one-piece number, without any straps - Donna went out back to sunbathe. The Doctor was splashing around in a small waterfall-fed pool, looking completely ecstatic - and as though he ought to be wearing waterwings round his wrists. She rolled her eyes at him and reclined in a chair, picking up the discarded bottle of sunscreen and squirting some into her hands. Maybe Time Lords didn’t get sunburnt, but ginger humans definitely did.
“Oi, alien boy!” she called out as she rubbed the lotion down her legs. “Come over here and do my back for me, will you?”
The Doctor turned and looked at her, getting that deer-in-headlights look again. “Er,” he stammered. “I’m…not sure if that’s entirely appropriate, Donna.”
Oh, God, ostensibly being married was making everything so complicated. She wondered if it would’ve been this way with Lance, had he actually had the proper intentions and not, you know, actually trying to feed her to a giant spider. Donna heaved an exasperated sigh and rolled over onto her stomach, trying to rub the lotion on herself. It would be easier to do than arguing about it with the Doctor, that much was certain.
…all right, so maybe she would just stay on her back. She’d spent enough time vacationing in tropical locales - and getting attractive cabana boys to apply her sunscreen - to know that if she did leave her back uncovered, she would be in for a world of pain.
Donna gave up, shifting onto her back again and closing her eyes. She had to hand it to the Doctor; he had picked one hell of a place to go on holiday. The sunlight was warm on her skin, with just the barest hint of a breeze to cool her, the sound of the waterfall was wonderfully soothing, and the Doctor seemed to have calmed down for the moment. Everything was perfect.
Which, of course, meant that it was just the right time for the sound of an explosion to rend the air. Donna swore and jumped up, nearly folding herself into her lounge chair in the process.
“What the hell was that?” she demanded, even though the answer was fairly obvious. Black smoke billowed over the trees; it appeared to be coming from deeper in the rainforest. Not quite close enough that the resort would be at risk, but still troubling - it seemed rather like the sort of thing that would put an end to her holiday.
“A bomb,” the Doctor replied, hauling himself out of the water. “Plasma ion, it sounds like. Pretty expensive - and pretty destructive.” He turned toward the trees, then looked at Donna. “You coming?”
“Well, of course I am!” Though Donna had no idea what they could do in their swimsuits - or, for that matter, if it was quite safe to venture into the jungle practically naked. Nevertheless, she followed the Doctor into the thick foliage, wincing as thorns bit into her legs.
Click here for part two