The road less travelled...

Title: Dona nobis beatitas Coda
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Summary: The Doctor has a willing pupil.
Word Count: approx 1,300 words
Characters: Ten and Donna
A/N: A lot of people asked for this, but of course it’s dedicated mostly to time_converges whose series this is. This is: “the promising bits” (bas_math_girl), “a sequel” (babumonkey) and “the breaking point” (dana_cz). I certainly hope it lives up to expectations!

Coda

“Doctor,” he feels Donna’s fingers give his a gentle, reassuring squeeze and looks down in time to see her nod at the TARDIS, “let’s go home.”

The Doctor stares at her for a moment, comprehension of her words struggling to override his fears that she will want to change her mind and stay here. Then her fingers tighten around his, a grip so firm and warm that he can no longer be in any doubt of her presence before she tugs on his hand again, taking a small step away in the direction of the TARDIS.

A flash of fear slices through him, irrational and terrifying, that she’s trying to leave.

Before he can consciously understand what he’s done, the Doctor has drawn Donna back towards him, his hands once more cupping the warm skin of her cheeks, only this time with his lips pressed lightly against hers.

As he wakes up to the full enormity his actions, the Doctor waits for a slap, a poke or some other sign that Donna is unhappy with his actions. Instead, to his surprise, he feels her draw closer to him, her warmth melting the last minute vestiges of anxiety that had frozen his core. Her hands come to rest on his chest for a moment before sliding up around the back of his neck.

They are both clearly nervous about this change in their relationship so that it takes time for the kiss to change from the chaste touch of her lips against his to something a little more passionate. The tilt of Donna’s head, however, as well as the way her fingers rub the hair at the nape of his neck encourages him to be a little more adventurous, and her taste is something he had only ever dreamed about before.

“Told you so.”

The Doctor’s superior hearing only just makes out the softest whisper in a male voice with a distinctive American accent from the far end of the street. However it’s enough to break the spell and he loosens his hold on Donna, raising his head in time to see two figures, male and female, tall and short, draw back into the shadows on the far side of the TARDIS.

“What is it?” the woman in his arms murmurs, turning to look just a fraction too late.

“We have an audience,” he tells her with a smile. “It sounds like certain people had suspected that something might, you know, happen.”

She giggles softly, her head coming to rest on his shoulder as they gaze in the direction of the blue box. “Did you?”

“Ever think about it?” he asks understandingly. “No.” He shakes his head a little. His voice becomes a little more passionate as he adds, “Only dreamed about it.”

Donna turns back to face him, and somehow the sight of her gaze fixed on him, the glow of her beautiful eyes and the lights from the shop window making her hair blaze, causes him to forget their unwanted audience.

She draws his head down a little so that she can reach his lips comfortably with her own without having to stretch too far. He yields to her touch, deepening the kiss with her encouragement, wanting nothing more than for this moment to last forever.

When it finally ends, however, Donna doesn’t pull away far enough for him to feel as if he’s lost her. Instead her body remains pressed against his, her eyes gazing into his, and her words make his hearts swell with feeling beyond anything he’s felt in longer than he cares to remember.

“So did I.”

* * *
Donna rests her head against the Doctor’s shoulder, listening to the constant, irregular pattern of his two hearts throbbing in his chest beneath her ear. His fingers are drawing slow circles on her bare upper arm, from which the faint sheen of perspiration is rapidly drying, and she can hear her own heartbeat gradually returning to its regular pace.

She tilts her head up to consider the frankly smug look on the Doctor’s face – a far cry from the lost, heartbroken expression she saw there so recently, when he was showing her that corridor lined with forgotten rooms. The change is a relief. She’s happy to have been able to cheer him up so quickly and thoroughly. She also can’t deny that he’s improved her mood, too.

“So,” she remarks lightly, seeing as his eyes snap around to her face almost instantly, “I suppose you dreamt about this, too.”

He chuckles, resting his head against hers, his breath soft and cool against his skin. “Oh, you have no idea!”

“Hmm.” Donna considers him for a moment. “Actually,” she goes on at last, “considering some of the things I’m sure I heard you say at intervals, I can probably make a pretty good guess.”

“Oh, you were listening, were you?” His hand begins to creep down from her arm and slides against her chest, brushing the side of her breast. “I’d hoped I was keeping you busy enough that you wouldn’t have time to listen.”

“Female, Doctor,” she point out teasingly, moving so that she’s rearing up over him, her hair hanging loose around his head as if enclosing them in a tiny, private room. “Multi-tasking is my best feature.”

“Oh, I can think of a couple of others,” he says with a grin, his eyes darting briefly down to her breasts, which are brushing his naked chest.

“I bet you can.” She contemplates slapping him, but somehow kissing is infinitely more appealing now, so she does. “I just bet you can.”

He chuckles, pulling her down against him, kissing her passionately in return and rolling her onto her side that he can gaze directly into her eyes. She’s still a little drained from their last frantic session of love-making, and perhaps he realises because rather than doing his best to get her going again in a hurry, he deliberately slows down the pace, stroking here, brushing there, lightly touching somewhere else until she’s impatient for more.

Stray thoughts drift through her mind at moments like this, slightly alien ideas that she know come from the Doctor part of her mind, which generally lies dormant as a result of the energy having been redirected into her artistic skills by the TARDIS. Donna admits to herself that, in the past, she did wonder if the Doctor had any other alien features other than his two hearts. She really did try not to look when the other Doctor formed in front of her, so it was something of a relief to discover that her initial unwilling glance at the man left behind with Rose was confirmed in the man holding her in his arms.

“Donna?”

The Doctor’s voice wakes her out of her thoughts and she blinks, looking at him, she imagines, with the same mild confusion that she has seen on his face time and time again.

“Mm?”

“You,” he says, his voice low with meaning as he brushes his lips against her neck, “are not paying attention to me.”

She smirks. “And that’s bad?”

He lets out a soft chuckle, and his hand strays lower. “Oh yes,” he assures her, pulling her against him with his other arm so sharply that she actually lets out a gasp of surprise. “Very,” he kisses her with tantalisingly soft touches of his lips, “very,” more kisses, heading down, “very bad.”

Her own hands stray lower, but rather less gently, and it’s his turn to gasp.

“Well,” she replies as calmly as she can considering the way her heart has begun to race, “we’ll have to do something about that, won’t we?”