The road less travelled...

Title: Snow and Secrets
Author: katherine_b
Rating: Adult. Oh, so adult!
Summary: How do you keep yourself entertained when there's no power?
Word Count: approx 3,800 words
Characters: Ten and Donna,
A/N: A/N: This was also written for the thirty-fifth weekly drabble challenge with the prompt ‘blizzard’.
A/N 2: The idea for this story came from kgriess and pickledminx, who, in response to the ficspam thread, had the following to say: kgriess: “Since you asked, do you know what always gets me? What I'm a sucker for? Anything that embellishes the Doctor's special abilities. Especially telepathy...and telepathy and porn is an added bonus (or just some other differences in that arena). Show us the alien! Side of him, that is. pickledminx: Oh, god, so much this to telepathy... especially telepathy + porn!! Would love to see some Doctor/Donna mindsex”
Frankly, I still hate both of you. :-P
A/N 3: Also, happy birthday goodbye2pisces

“That wasn’t normal snow.”

“Don’t be so daft.” Donna rolls her eyes, not bothering to look up as she scrubs her hair, which she had to wash after they got caught in a blizzard as they made their way back to the TARDIS. “Of course it was. The only thing not normal about today is that my hair straightener won’t work, so my hair is going to look like a bird’s nest. Have you got any conditioner? I’ve run out.”

“Donna.” The Doctor’s voice is soft. “Look at me.”

She frowns at his tone and flips her tangled mass of curls back so that she can see his face in the mirror. He’s standing in the doorway of her bathroom, hands deep in the pockets of his pants and a worried look on his face. In fact, if she didn’t know better, she’d say he was frightened.

“Well,” she demands when he remains silent, “what is it?”

It definitely wasn’t normal snow.

The words drift into her mind and her brow folds into a puzzled frown as she realises she’s been hearing his voice in her head and not with her ears. “Quit fooling around,” she tells him. “Stop it.”

I can’t. The fear is more obvious now and he swallows hard, freeing a hand to slide it through his hair. Whatever was in that snow, it’s paralysed my vocal chords. Only temporarily, I think. I hope!

“What – you’ve got no voice?” she demands, letting the towel fall to the floor as she crosses the room to stop in front of him.

In response, he opens his mouth, and she can see his Adam’s apple bob as he tries to speak, but no sound comes out. This close, she can see the pitiful look in his eyes and can make a good guess at the thoughts in his mind. Sliding her fingers between his, she gives his hand a reassuring squeeze.

“It will come back,” she says firmly. “This isn’t like Midnight. There’s no alien entity controlling you, is there?”

No. He shakes his head. I checked myself over in the infirmary first, just to make sure.

“You did all those tests on your own?” She pulls their linked hands closer until they rest on her chest. “You daft git,” she scolds, angry because she’s worried, “why didn’t you call me?”

You were in the shower, he points out, gesturing with his free hand at the water-speckled glass screen beside them. I know what sort of reception I would have received if I’d burst in on you.

“Fair enough,” she has to admit. But then she sees the corners of the Doctor’s mouth pull back, and it’s not into a smile. “What else is wrong?” she asks anxiously.

The snow is affecting the TARDIS. He gives a soundless sigh. I don’t know if it’s because of her link with me or just because she was standing in the snow for so long. But the reason your straightener won’t work is because of a deeper problem.

“Which is?”

But the question is answered for her when the power suddenly goes out.

That, comes the flat response in her mind.

“Oh.” A thought suddenly strikes her. “Where are we – the TARDIS, I mean?”

In the vortex. His tone is reassuring. I got us away before I suggested you take a shower, remember?

“You did, too,” she agrees, feeling relieved. “So,” she leans against the nearby tiles, feeling them cool against her arm beneath her short pyjama sleeve, “if the TARDIS is affected, how do you know you aren’t suffering because she is instead of the other way around?”

You’re brilliant. She can hear the smile in his thoughts. And possibly right. I won’t know until afterwards, when I can run a full diagnostic, what the real problem is. The medical bay went down just after I was cleared of any possession. If I’d kept going once I got the generator started, it probably would died even sooner than it did.

“What does the generator work?”

It did work the lights and the water, he replies, aggravation in his mental voice. It doesn’t work anything now. I presume some of the snow got into it through the grill from the console room.

“And that means we’re, what, floating loose in the vortex?” Donna can’t help looking around, although the darkness around them is absolute and she can’t see anything. “So how come we’re not upside or something? I thought the TARDIS had a gravity field.”

It does, but the TARDIS is also physically weighted to remain upright. That’s why we’re not dancing on the ceiling.

She chuckles at what she can tell is his attempt at humour. “Hello,” she jokes in return, “is it me you’re looking for?”

His hand tightens around hers and she can feel his mental laughter. At the same time, the hand in hers relaxes a little and she understands how tense this situation is making him.

“So what are we going to do to pass the time?” she asks. “I suppose dinner’s out of the question.”

’Fraid so. She feels his hand lift and guesses he’s shrugged. But I promise we’ll go somewhere afterwards. First class, silver service, nine star dining. Best in the Universe.

“No anti-gravity restaurants though,” she adds warningly. “I don’t want to end up wearing my dinner instead of eating it. And I don’t think we should go anywhere that makes us think of Midnight. Let’s find somewhere I can dress up a bit. Maybe some dancing or something.”

But I don’t like dancing, he’s beginning, a hint of a whine in his tone, when she brutally speaks over him.

“After tonight, considering I can’t even dry my hair, and I’m starving, and I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight for both those reasons, you owe me dancing,” she snaps, poking his chest with the index finger of her free hand. “At the very least!”

I suppose so, he grumbles, catching her fingers in his spare hand, presumably to stop the onslaught. Come on, he tells her. There’s no point in standing around in your bathroom. We’ll be more comfortable sitting down. Or lying down. Or something.

He moves closer, sliding his arm around her shoulders, and gently guides her out of the room. She moves slowly, wary of tripping over something on the floor, trying to remember where things were lying.

It’s all right, the Doctor’s voice tells her, his tone soothing. I know you can’t see at all, but I can make out enough that I won’t let you fall over.

“You’re reading my mind now,” she teases, before a thought strikes her. “I didn’t know you could talk in my head like this.”

I usually can’t. His tone reminds her of his first glimpse of the Vespiform, the same awe and wonder she’s heard on many other occasions too. I hadn’t thought about it before. Maybe there was something about the snow that’s affected me. Or it could be the TARDIS having somehow unlocked the part of my mind where she talks to me so that I can communicate with…

Donna suddenly yawns, the sound loud in the otherwise silent room, and the Doctor stops talking in her head as abruptly as if she had placed her hand over his mouth.

Sorry, he says apologetically. Here we are. Bed.

His hands are firm on her shoulders and she feels herself being turned around, able to feel the mattress behind her legs the next moment. With a sigh of relief, she sits down, only to give a smothered shriek as she slides off the bed and onto the floor with a thud.

“Oi, Spaceman,” she yelps indignantly, unable to help feeling that the Doctor is using his inability to make a sound to disguise the fact that he’s chuckling. “Want to use your superpowers to clear the pillows away first before you let me sit down?”

I’m sorry, he replies after a suspicious pause. Here, it’s gone now. Are you all right? he adds a moment later, as if the thought has only just occurred to him that she might have hurt herself.

“Just peachy,” she retorts sarcastically, reaching out for the bed, but letting go as suddenly as if she’s been burned when her fingers close around a slim, fabric-covered leg.

I’m not a ladder, he tells her, amusement in his tone. Here, take my hand instead.

His fingers slide into hers and she scrambles to her feet, grateful that he’s unlikely to be able to see the blush in her cheeks. His hand comes to rest on her back and he guides her to the bed. There’s a soft ‘whump’ that she guesses is the blankets being tossed back and then she is placed in the best position to sit down. His hands are gentle on her legs, but despite guessing what he’s going to do, she can’t help giving a yelp when he lifts them onto the mattress and then covers her with the blankets.

“I feel like a baby being tucked up in its cot,” she complains.

Well, considering you can’t keep your feet any better than one… he teases.

“Oi!”

He laughs again and then she hears him move away from the bed. She can’t help the way her heart sinks a little at the sound, but she hears his voice again before she can say anything – not that she knows what words were going to come out of her mouth.

Have you got any spare blankets?

“I think there’s some in the cupboard next to the door,” she says, waving a hand in that general direction. “Why?”

Because the heating is down along with everything else, and you’re the one who’s always talking about it being cold in here. She hears rustling and then the doors of the cupboard open with a faint creak. Good, here we are.

A moment later, a pile of what Donna hopes are blankets are dropped on her feet. Then she hears the sound of something being shaken before one of the blankets is draped over her. It’s almost too warm, but if he’s right about the heating, and she has to assume he is, then she’s going to need it.

I’m going to put the others at the foot of the bed, if you need them during the night. The weight lifts off her feet and she hears something soft drop onto the floor. I know you’re probably not tired yet, he adds, but hopefully everything will have dried out in a few hours, and there’s not a lot else we can do in the meantime.

“Can’t you fix it?”

If I could, I already would be, he assures her, and she detects only the faintest hint of aggravation in his tones.

“Sorry.”

I know. There’s a pause. Thanks, he adds. Sweet dreams, Donna.

She strains her ears to pick up movement that suggests he’s leaving the room.

“Stay with me,” she says suddenly, and hears the sound of his feet on the carpet stop.

What? She guesses he’s turned back in her direction, and she can picture him staring at her, eyes wide in shock.

“It’s… awfully quiet,” she admits somewhat reluctantly.

Oh. He hurries on. I suppose it is. You get used to having the TARDIS in your head, and when she’s not there…

She can tell he hasn’t moved any closer to the bed, apparently giving her the chance to laugh off her comment and send him away. However Donna realises that, right now, she’d rather be with a babbling alien who never shuts up and happens to be her best mate than alone in an unnervingly silent room where she can’t even see what’s around her.

Trying not to think of the last time she was in a similar situation only brings memories of the Library even further to the front of her mind and she can’t suppress a shudder.

Then she hears hurried, light footsteps on the carpet and feels the Doctor’s hand come to rest on hers with reassuring pressure.

I never thought about – of course, if you want me to stay, I will.

“Thanks.”

Trying to speak lightly, she pats the other side of the bed and feels him give her fingers a gentle squeeze before letting go. In the otherwise complete silence of the room, she can hear him moving around the room and then she feels the weight of his body settling on the mattress on the other side of the bed.

Donna can’t help the way her breath catches in her throat. It’s like she’s imagined it happening, the way she dreamed it might be, even though she’s struggled to fight off those thoughts and feelings. She doesn’t know quite when she started imagining him slipping into her room at night, only that it began as a thought she quashed instantly, but has developed into something of a fantasy that she’s had to suppress ruthlessly each day.

Suddenly, with a feeling of horror, she remembers that the Doctor is in her mind to communicate, and she suspects he will be unable to stop himself picking up on her feelings. She tries desperately to catch the thoughts before they escape.

And then she feels him freeze and knows it’s too late.

There’s a long, painful moment of silence, which Donna is determined not to break, doing her best to keep her mind blank.

I’m not trying to pick up on your thoughts. His voice in her mind is soft. But I can’t block them out without losing my link to talk to you. There’s a long pause. I’m sorry.

“What are you sorry for?” she can’t help asking, unable to help wondering why he hasn’t leaped up off the bed and fled the room. “I should be the one who’s apologising.”

She starts at the feeling of his hand on hers. You’re assuming that I’m unhappy at knowing you feel that way, comes the soft reply.

“You just wanted a mate,” she reminds him forcefully. “Remember?”

So did you. His thumb strokes her head. Does that meant things can’t change, if we both want them to?

Donna can’t help feeling that she’s at a disadvantage, as if he’s somehow found out how she feels by cheating. Maybe it’s frustration, after all the time she’s spent trying to hide her emotions, only for it to come out now, when she’s not sure she’s ready for it.

Donna. His voice is soft, and she can’t help thinking that he understands what she’s feeling. Would it help if I told you what I feel, how I only realised after our discussion in the laneway behind Adispose Industries that, while I might have said I only wanted ‘a’ mate, what I really wanted from you was anything but? Would you feel better if you knew that, every time you kissed my cheek to say ‘good morning’, I thought about moving my head so you’d kiss my lips instead? Should I confess that there were nights when I would sit in here and watch you sleep, trying to imagine how it would feel to be sitting where I am right now, but with you curled up against me instead of this distance separating us like it is at the moment? Do you want me to admit that I’ve fantasised about you just as much as you’ve dreamed about me? That I’ve dreamt about kissing you and holding you and loving you and having you love me back, but that I’ve had to fight just as hard to prevent you from knowing any of it? Would that make things easier for you?

She’s left speechless by the power of the words flowing into her mind, and then, as if he can’t bear it any longer, she feels the weight of the mattress shift beneath him and then his free hand is cupping her cheek and his cool lips are pressed against hers.

The next moments are a blur, and then she realises that his weight is on top of hers, which she knows he would only have done if he’s received some sort of signal from her. The blankets that were once covering her have somehow been shoved aside. That’s the instant when she realised she must have leaned into his kiss, which was clearly the sign he had been waiting for. She feels that he’s released his hold on her hand, and that her fingers, of their own accord, are busy on the buttons of his shirt. His hands are in her hair and on her shoulders and caressing her breasts and back and everywhere once, and she can hear soft moans, which she realises vaguely can only be coming from her, as the Doctor is incapable of making a sound.

Somehow she had always known that, if they ever took this step, it wouldn’t be slow and careful. Perhaps because she knows how quickly his mind works and how impatient he can be, or maybe it’s because she knows that she’s probably even more impatient than he is. Whatever the reason, she wriggles down in the bed a little, only to find that one of the pillows from the pile against which she had been sitting falls on her face. The Doctor removes it with a mental chuckle and she’s impressed that his fingers don’t miss a beat, even as he’s projecting the sound into her mind.

Multi-talented, Donna, that’s me, he assures her, his tone smug.

“Shut up and get on with it, Time Boy,” she shoots back somewhat breathlessly, her hands venturing down in the direction of his waist. When he doesn’t react, she undoes the button and zip, sliding her hands into his pants and feeling him buck against her hand as she runs her finger and thumb up and down his hardened cock.

Tease, he scolds.

“God, you can think at the same time?!” She rolls her eyes as he peels back her pyjama top before gasping as he begins to suckle and lick her breasts, the nipples already erect in anticipation. She doesn’t even notice if he responds to her comment or not.

His hands push down at the elastic waistband of her pyjamas, and for one wild moment, Donna is grateful that the room is dark because she worries what he would think of the sight of her naked body. However that thought is gone almost before it has the chance to form at what his fingers are doing inside her pants.

It’s so unbelievably much better than she ever dreamt it would be, his movements sure and yet gentle at the same time. He’s careful when he finally enters her, slowing down at last, as if afraid of hurting her. She clings to him, her fingers digging deep into his back and his buttocks, as he begins to settle into a rhythm, although she realises that he’s not so caught up in his own desire that he neglects her.

Thanks to his attentions, she reaches the heights of ecstasy at much the same time as he does, and at that moment, it doesn’t matter than she can’t see him because, even if the room was fully illuminated, she wouldn’t be able to fix her gaze on anything anyway.

As things around her begin to make sense again, she finds herself in a place she’s only ever dreamt about – held safe and securely in the Doctor’s arms, his damp, cool skin a relief when she feels so flushed and hot. Perhaps he realises that she’s able to think again and he dips his head a little to capture her lips in a chaste kiss.

All right?

“Better than ‘all right’,” she assures him, smoothing a hand over his bare chest. “Bloody brilliant, actually.”

Good. There’s a tone of immense satisfaction in the voice echoing in her head. After all that imagining, I wouldn’t want the real thing to be a disappointment. Although, he adds teasingly, we might have to leave the chocolate sauce for another time.

“Oi!” She prods him gently. “Out of my fantasies, Mister! I’ve got the right to some secrets!”

Imagine a door in front of them, he instructs, his fingers sliding through her sweat-soaked hair. Anything you block that way, I won’t go near. But right now, you’re bombarding me with everything and I can’t help seeing it all.

“Tell you what.” She yawns, resettling her head in a more comfortable position against his shoulder. “If the TARDIS is still not well in the morning, you can teach me how to do it then. Oh,” she goes on before he can interrupt, “and I can’t be blamed for anything you might see in my dreams. I’ve got no control over them.”

The chuckle echoes in her head again and his arms curl even closer around her, his long fingers stroking her bare arm, the other hand gently pulling up blankets to cover them as she relaxes into the best sleep she can remember having in ages.

And the sound that wakes her up some time later is almost certainly the best thing she’s heard in a long time too.

“Donna?” The voice is a whisper, but an instantly familiar one, although it takes a few seconds to remember why she should be so glad to hear it. “Are you awake?”

As she opens her eyes to find the bedside lamps dimly lit and Doctor’s nose only a few inches from her own, she can also feel the faint hum of the TARDIS in her mind. For a moment, it’s as if everything is just the way it always way, until her eyes slip down a short distance and she realises that both she and the Doctor are still naked.

Returning her gaze to the Time Lord’s face, she can’t help seeing the slightly smug expression in his eyes, as well as the obvious delight at having his voice back, and she leans in to dot a kiss on his cheek, as if she was merely greeting him in the kitchen, the way she does every morning.

Quick as lightning, he turns his head slightly so that his lips meet hers and the fingers of his hand slide into her hair. The kiss is long and slow and languorous, a stark contrast to the previous night’s frantic session of lovemaking. It’s as if, instead of just a kiss, it’s a vow that means they won’t keep secrets like that from each other again.

“No more secrets.” A grin plays around the Doctor’s mouth when the kiss finally comes to an end. “I like that idea.”

“I bet you do, Spaceman,” she says with an answering smile as her fingers begins to creep down over his stomach. “I just bet you do.”