Donna watched as the Doctor splayed his hands at her,

"Scare! You need me to scare you!"

"Shock! I need a shock!" he said as swallowed the pickled WHATEVER. Donna took a deep breath,

"Alright, one big shock, coming up!" She grabbed his face and pressed her lips to his, swiping her tongue across the seam of his lips. She stepped back and saw that he still looked panicked, now gasping for air,

"Not enough! Wow, but not enough!"

"Alright! Um, um..." Donna suddenly realized the one thing that could shock the Doctor. She grabbed his hand and pressed it to her abdomen,

"I'm pregnant!" The Doctor stumbled back and black smoke seeped from his mouth. As soon as it cleared, he looked at Donna, truly shocked,

"You're...you're..." he muttered. Donna nodded. The Doctor squeaked out, "Who's the father?"

"You are." she said solemnly. The Doctor threw back his head and coughed out the last bit of black smoke. He looked at Donna,

"But...we never..." He took two steps forward and took her hands in his, holding them tightly, "I'll protect you. I promise. With every regeneration left in me. I'll protect you and our baby. You're beautiful, Donna Noble, beautiful and wonderful and...not pregnant." he said as Donna nodded in the condescending way he knew too well. Donna shook her head,

"You dumbo. You honestly thought I was up the duff? Have I put on that much weight?" she said. The Doctor shook his head,

"No, you haven't. Just forget it. Anyway, mysteries to solve! Allons-y!" he said, running away. Donna was about to let him. She had wanted it in that moment too, to tell him and have it be the truth. Donna had never really put thought into the idea, but once she said it she wanted it no other way. She'd come on this trip around the universe under the strict understanding that the Doctor and her were friendly mates, nothing more. Somewhere along the line, that had changes from mates to mated-for-life in Donna's mind. Somewhere amidst the running and the smiles, some part of her had claimed that stupid spaceman for her own and now she wanted to...to procreate. Donna could hardly believe herself. She wanted to procreate. With the Doctor. Was very much in favor of the idea, in fact.

"Bollocks." she muttered to herself. Then a thought occurred to her and she chased after the Doctor, "Hang on, if we haven't done it and you believed me...is that possible?" she shrieked, running through the house of Agatha Christie and chasing the potential father of her children.

Later, once Agatha was safely returned to her own timeline and everything set to rights, Donna had slowly wheedled out of the Doctor if what he had insinuated was even possible. He rolled his eyes,

"Donna," he said in the tone that clearly showed his distaste for humans, "humans can't just get pregnant from being in the general vicinity. Honestly, what are they teaching these days?"

"But you believed me," she said, ignoring his slight on her species for once, "you honestly believed that I was pregnant."

"Well it was possible that something happened before I picked you up!" said the Doctor defensively. Donna shook her head,

"When I said you were the father, more black smoke came out. That shocked you too. Which means you believed me!"

"I was just surprised that it would happen and I wouldn't remember it!" said the Doctor. Donna simply shrugged,

"Would that be so bad?"

"What, me not remembering? Yes, very bad. Don't go getting any ideas." said the Doctor, wagging his finger at her. Donna shook her head,

"No. Me. Pregnant. With a Time Baby."

"Technically it wouldn't be called a Time Baby-"

"Doctor. Answer the question." said Donna. Now she had to know. She didn't know if it was the stress of the day, knowing there was a very real chance that she would lose her friend and quasi-boyfriend (apparently everyone else thought they were dating), or even Lady Edison's story, but now Donna had to know what he thought of the idea. The Doctor swallowed and said in his most serious tone,

"Donna, don't even think of it. Humans and Time Lords-"

"But what if-"

"No what-ifs. It cannot happen." said the Doctor. He turned on his heel and walked away, effectively ending the discussion with Donna in an empty control room with a heart she could feel shattering. Eventually, she turned around and walked back to her room, silent for the first time since the Doctor had ever heard her. And he heard her walk back. He was so used to hearing Donna railing at the universe over something or other that it was almost second nature to use her voice to track her whereabouts in the TARDIS. Now she was silent, ranting replaced by the soft shuffling of feet down the hall to the room next to his. The room next to his. That was something else he had studiously not thought about. The TARDIS often took it upon herself to create new rooms for each new companion. She never moved those rooms because sometimes the Doctor needed to know where to avoid and where to go, and more often than not the companion would get lost anyway. Not even Rose's room was next to the Doctor's. Hers was up on the second floor, next to the wolf sanctuary. But Donna, Donna was right next door. Sometimes, if it was two in the morning and one absolutely had to talk to the other, the TARDIS would create a temporary door between their rooms because walking two yards through the hall was simply too much effort.

The Doctor sank onto his rarely-used bed and lay back, his head sinking into the six pillows he kept piled up. Now that he thought about it, there were a lot of things that he had studiously not thought about. Donna's room placement, Donna's eyes trailing up and down him when she thought he wasn't looking. The way the TARDIS seemed to have a better handle on what Donna wanted than Donna did when even he still had to ask the old girl very specifically for many things. And of course, the dream.

In Donna's first week on the TARDIS, the Doctor had had a dream. That fact in and of itself was unusual. After he turned about four hundred or so, he had stopped dreaming. If he dreamt at all, they were nightmares of people he couldn't save and screaming children he couldn't help. Those were the nightmares that woke him in a cold sweat and he often didn't sleep for weeks afterward. After another hundred years though, even those had stopped. But with Donna had come the dream. It had been her and him in a nondescript hallway of the TARDIS. He had been at one end, she at the other. Half way in between them was a toddler with flaming red hair, looking at him. He could hear his own voice saying, "Come to Daddy!" The child had toddled toward him, eventually less trying to walk and more trying to keep the momentum so as not to fall. He had caught the child in his arms and swept her up to his ear, where she had screamed the Gallifreyan word for 'father'. Donna had smiled at him from the other end of the hall and put a hand on her unusually swollen belly. Just as she had opened her mouth to speak, the Doctor had been woken up by the kettle whistling as the real Donna made tea. It was the only dream the Doctor had had in three hundred years and he tried to forget it because it was dangerous to want that. Donna had joined him as a friend, nothing more. When Donna had told the Doctor she was pregnant, he had believed her because had seen it. He'd seen her warm and happy and round with his child. But it couldn't be. Even gestation of a half-Time Lord consciousness would touch her mind in a way that human brains weren't mean to be touched and she would burn from the inside out, her and the baby. No, it could not happen. There would be no Time Babies.

Next door, Donna lay sobbing on her bed. The TARDIS had tactfully soundproofed her room, preventing the Doctor from hearing the wailing sobs Donna let loose into her pillow. When she truly thought about it, Donna wasn't even sure what she was crying about. It was ridiculous, wanting to have a child while she travelled with the Doctor. All the running and the saving and the general life-threatening-ness of life aboard the TARDIS that had brought her there in the first place wouldn't be conducive to having a child. Donna could only imagine trying to keep up with the Doctor while eight months pregnant. The idea of running like that made her shudder, but even as she did, Donna felt a deep longing to even have those problems. Donna had never given much thought to having children, accepted that it would happen when she met a man and as her chances for meeting a man dimmed, she had almost unintentionally accepted that she would never be a mother because no man would want to make her one. Then she had met the Doctor, with his ability to accept her how she was, never telling her to be quiet or harping on about her failings. He had met and accepted her how she was. No one had ever really done that. Donna had to snort in bitter amusement at herself. Her most fulfilling and stable relationship was with a 900-year-old alien who didn't even properly love her. The fact that Donna wasn't even bothered by it probably should have concerned her more, but somehow it didn't.

But he does love you, whispered some voice in her head that Donna generally tried to ignore. It usually spouted some bollocks about love and look how all that had turned out, a string of boyfriends with varying degrees of creepiness and evil. But the Doctor was different. He was absolutely mad but kind, so kind to everyone even if they didn't deserve that. And while Donna wanted love and possibly a baby very badly, she needed him in her life more. With finality, Donna made her decision: She would shut up about her feelings if it meant that she got to stay with the Doctor. She would not lose him because she had kind of juvenile crush. It would not happen.

Donna kept her resolve, being the Doctor's best mate and running madly with him through the universe. Neither of them brought up the detox because neither of them knew what to say. Donna smiled and laughed and ran with him while carefully bandaging up whatever parts of her fractured when they denied that they were married. The Doctor shoved the detox into the very back of his mind, putting it in a box just next to the Dream that he also resolved not to think about. Both of them played their parts flawlessly. Until Midnight.

After that adventure, with the Doctor quiet and a different kind of hollow that Donna never wanted to see, she pulled him into her arms. He went willingly, let her hug him tightly and almost pull him into her own skin, trying to protect him from whatever unspoken evil he had known. That night, as they both trudged into the TARDIS, it was decided that he would sleep in her room. Donna put on her pajamas, separated from the Doctor by a folding divider the TARDIS had provided. He couldn't bring himself to leave her and she couldn't bring herself to order him away, even for the time it took to put on pajamas. Donna crawled into bed and the Doctor crawled in beside her, wrapping his arms around her torso like an octopus and tangling his legs with hers. Donna didn't comment and finagled a hand up by his head, soothingly scratching his scalp until his breathing evened out and she knew he was sleeping. She followed him into oblivion moments later.

The Doctor caressed Donna's naked thigh with his hand, the elastic waistband of her pajamas pulling against his wrist. She was curled up against his chest, her head just below his chin and her fiery hair tickling his cheek. She made a pleased hum and pushed up against him, unwittingly grinding her pelvis against his. The Doctor felt himself hardening and he dug his fingers into her hip. Donna responded by bringing a hand up to his shoulder and running her hand up and down his fabric-covered arm. The Doctor removed his hand from her hip and his other from where it had been gently holding Donna at the small of her back and unbuttoned his pajamas. Donna took the opportunity to remove her own pajama top, revealing bare breasts. The Doctor's breathing stuttered and his fingers stopped unclothing himself as he looked at the breasts he had only glimpsed when he thought Donna wasn't looking. Donna reached up and finished unbuttoning his top, gently pushing it off and over his shoulders. He shrugged it off and Donna ran her hands over his torso, whispering soft words into his ear,

"It's alright, I've got you. I love you."

"I love you too," he whispered back, "even if this is a dream." Donna's hands abruptly stopped and she pulled back from him, meeting his gaze,

"Doctor. This isn't a dream. This is real."

"Of course it's a dream." said the Doctor with a lazy smile. His brain felt fuzzy and that was a sure indicator of sleep. Donna shook her head and pinched his arm. The sharp twinge in his arm shot through him and the Doctor jerked. Dreams didn't come with quite so realistic physical pain. This was not a dream. The Doctor's gaze flicked to Donna's very real bosom and he felt himself flush, "I am so very sorry. I didn't mean to- I should have- I'm sorry-"

"I'm not." said Donna quietly, barely even a whisper. But the Doctor still heard it and his flustered babbling stopped,

"What?"

"I'm not sorry. You're hurting. Sometimes when you're hurting, feeling nothing or everything helps. I'm not sorry for what we started and I wouldn't mind finishing it. I know that real-me probably isn't much compared to dream-me, but-"

"Donna, stop it." said the Doctor. He put a hand on her upper arm, "The dream you would be nothing compared to the real you. The real you is wonderful and unpredictable and desirable and sexy. Very very sexy. As a matter of fact, those might be the sexiest freckles I have ever seen. Look, those freckles just there on your clavicle." A hand came up to poke said freckles and the Doctor continued talking faster and faster, "In fact I'd like very much to lick those freckles along with the rest of you. I bet you taste great. Not in the cannibal way but in the human way that other humans lick each other in a show of social grooming left over from their days as apes and I'm very surprised that the instinct hasn't died out yet since it has approximately no actual use for the rest of your existence in this universe and my you humans are incredibly interesting things all soft and squishy and illogical and-" The Doctor's next words were cut off in a muffled collection of vowels as Donna pressed her mouth to his, very effectively shutting him up. When Donna knew she had derailed his runaway train of thought, she pulled back with a gasp,

"Less talking. You had some pretty good ideas of what to do with that mouth of yours. Do them." she said. The Doctor smiled, just a little quirk in the corners of his mouth and a hand came up to gently cup Donna's cheek,

"Donna Noble, I think I just might love you."

"Don't be spouting rubbish now. We'll talk more about those nonsensical notions of yours later." It had to be nonsense. Donna refused to let herself believe it now, if only because she was sure it wouldn't be true by the time morning rolled around. The Doctor, meanwhile, was too busy pressing fleeting kisses to each and every one of the freckles that dotted Donna's body. As his mouth explored by taste, his hands explored by touch, one tentatively trailing up her side and lightly ghosting over her breast. Donna groaned and pushed herself more firmly into his grasp. The Doctor's other hand held Donna's shoulder as he slowly turned them from their sides until Donna was on her back with her head nestled in between their pillows and he was straddling her. His erection still stood proud in his pajama pants and continued to brush up against Donna's opening, feeling her heat despite the layers of clothing that still separated them. The Doctor's mouth finally made its way to Donna's breast and he took her nipple in his mouth, laving the tip with his tongue and nipping lightly. Donna gasped and couldn't stop herself from again pushing her breasts out and up into the Doctor's face. As he licked one nipple, the other did not go wanting. He tweaked her nipple and then trailed his finger lightly around the perimeter of her dark areola. The other hand had other designs on her body. It trailed down her side and over until it met the tie on Donna's pajama pants. It paused there and Donna nodded enthusiastically to the unanswered question,

"Yes. Yes yes yes GOD yes." His fingers slowly breached the waistband and kept close to her skin, slipping beneath her underwear and meeting a mass of curls. He quickly found her warm center, astounded and ridiculously proud that she was already wet for him. One finger quickly breached her opening and Donna found herself grinding down, growling, "More." The Doctor obliging slipped one, two more fingers into her. Three fingers in and Donna was fucking herself on his fingers as best she could while still being pinned to the mattress. She kept emitting little breathy moans and each one tugged the Doctor closer and closer to orgasm. Finally, he felt himself almost ready to explode and he had to focus on something mundane like the color of the sheets to keep himself from coming in his pants like a teenager. He grunted from the effort and said,

"Donnaaaaaaaaaa..."

"Yes. I'm ready." The Doctor removed his fingers from her wet cunt and ruthlessly pulled down Donna's pants and underwear, a disconnected part of his brain appreciating the red lace of her underwear. Donna reciprocated by shoving his pajamas and boxers down, allowing his erection to be free. A bead of precum was already gathered at the tip and Donna reached down, swiping it onto her index finger and sucking it, closing her eyes and moaning. The Doctor growled at the display and slowly entered Donna where his fingers had vacated. They groaned in twin pleasure, the Doctor giving Donna a moment to adjust before pushing in further. Finally, he bottomed out and was fully sheathed in Donna. It had been so long since he felt so close to someone. Time Lords thrived off of connections, their constant telepathic link a comfort. With the loss of that link, the Doctor had long ago stopped realizing how alone he felt. Now though, becoming one with Donna as she moaned and growled at him to bloody start moving, he didn't feel alone. He and Donna were linked in the most intimate way humans could be and the Doctor felt for a split second that it was okay. He was alright. As he started to move in and out of Donna, setting a pace they could both maintain, he felt more and more alive, more connected. He hadn't been connected in such a very long time. The Doctor was so lost in the connection that his orgasm caught him by surprise as his body tensed up and he came with a roar deep in Donna. His spurting was the final push Donna needed and she came tight around him, screaming into the dark TARDIS. Each tried to pull the other through their orgasm until the Doctor collapsed on top of Donna, panting. Donna's arms came up and weakly shoved him off to the side of her. He grinned at her and she grinned back. There were no words. The next morning was bound to be six different kinds of awkward, but right then, everything felt fucking great. The Doctor wordless spooned himself up behind Donna and she smiled, pushing back until the two were pressed flush together.

"Good night, space man." said Donna. The Doctor kissed the side of Donna's neck,

"Good night, Donna Noble."