Disclaimer: Me as the BBC (the real owners of the Doctor and Donna), would have had this interlude relegating others featuring a certain blue leather jacket-clad character to 'deleted scenes' extras.
Three times
She didn't know how long she been asleep, could've been 20 minutes. Could have been hours.
Didn't matter really, he was still there with her, and that was the most important thing.
She could feel him, wrapped around her like a blanket, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.
His warm breath fanning through her hair and tickling her ear, his hearts beating a steady, contented rhythm against her back, his arms linked with hers, tucked under her breast, his…
Her eyes widened in mild alarm. Despite all the times they'd slept together like this - like no-space-between-us – she couldn't recall….this….ever happening before.
I mean, I would have remembered something like that, surely. You don't forget when someone reacts to you like that. Would I? Maybe it has happened before but I just blocked it out, like people block out unpleasant events or people or a particularly embarrassing night out at the pub...no, wait, there's no WAY I would have forgotten something like this…
Her mind now a swirl of embarrassed confusion, questions with no answers, denials and counter denials, Donna tried to work out the best course of action, but found herself too flustered to even speak, let alone move.
She could feel her face getting hotter. She could feel other parts of her getting hotter.
STOP IT!
We are NOT having these thoughts.
What the heck was happening?
How had reunion with Rose suddenly turned into I think I fancy my best friend?
Thank God he was still asleep, maybe if she could somehow move his hands off….
"Where're you going?"
His arms tightened around her, and with a little sigh he snuggled his head into the crook of her neck, taking the opportunity to kiss her softly there.
"Um, Doctor, I think we'd better…."
"Think later. Cuddle now." he said sleepily but firmly.
"Yeah, look, I don't have a problem with the cuddling per se, but…ah…perhaps we shouldn't be cuddling quite so….enthusiastically."
"Whadda you mean, so enthusi….?"
His voice trailed off as the penny dropped, and he started to scoot his lower body away from her a little.
"I'm so sorry. Must have happened after I feel asleep." He looked as embarrassed as she felt.
She rolled over to face him, but averted her eyes.
"Can't imagine why, I mean it's only me…"
He looked askance at her, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing and assumed a serious, almost chastising tone.
"What do you mean 'it's only me'? Exactly, it's only you! Therefore, entirely within the realms of possibility, in fact highly probable, that I would react to you just like this. I mean, particularly seeing you how I see you, it's not to be unexpected in the slightest"
He must be bloody nervous, what with that epic babble.
More than a little rattled herself and not quite knowing how to respond, Donna continued to employ her usual self-deprecation.
"Don't be daft! I think that Dalek must have fried your head a bit."
"Did nothing of the sort," he sniffed. "Your problem is that you just can't see how magnificent you are." His eyes darkened to a distinct smoulder and his voice dropped an octave. "Not to mention incredibly sexy."
Desperate to deflect the conversation away from what was looking like extremely dangerous territory, she steered the subject to something, anything not directly referencing body parts and their reactions.
"So tell me this then, Martian genius, how did I go from also-ran to the essence of magnificence in less than 24 hours?"
She raised her eyebrow in challenge, bravado and more than a little bit of fear.
On second thoughts, I don't really want to know the answer to that question.
Oh well. Too late now.
The Doctor, ignoring her slight snippiness, gently grasped her forearms, and slid one leg across to tangle with hers.
"First of all, you're hardly an also-ran. And secondly, I think you reached 'magnificent' some time ago, I was just too caught up trying to recapture the past to notice what you'd become to me."
"Which is?"
"Everything." he replied matter-of-factly.
Donna swallowed, hard, at the raw simplicity of his words.
Then, the barest of whispers: "What do you mean, everything?"
She asked it for the sake of saying something even remotely coherent, so rapidly was she being overcome by powerful emotions unknown to her in thirty-plus years of existence.
The waves of…God, she was afraid to even name it…..overflowed and surged into her mind and her heart and … her body. She squirmed a little at the not at all uncomfortable feeling.
He seemed a little bewildered that she found clarification necessary, but responded carefully and with aching tenderness.
"Everything? My companion, my best friend, my comforter, the person who pulls me back and pushes me forward, who trusts me and believes in me and tells me what for."
He smiled knowingly.
"The person who wants to be with me. In every sense of the word. "
He gave a small but unmistakeable smirk, his meaning crystal clear.
Donna gasped audibly.
First shock.
In fact, she was too stunned to even do what she would have normally, a round slap to wipe that uncharacteristically lascivious expression off his face.
Instead she stared at him, mouth agape, in a way that she was sure must've made her look like the village idiot.
Or perhaps not.
Without warning, he kissed her hard, ravenously, and without mercy until she was literally breathless.
When their lips finally parted, his expression had changed again and was now all quiet confidence, the look of a man who was exactly where he wanted to be and basking in the blissfulness of it all.
His limpid chocolate eyes caught her gaze, gently but firmly filling her whole being with reassurance.
"Don't you see?"he said.
"I love you."
Second shock.
Somehow, she had known for such a long time, but to hear him just say it like that, out loud, it gave what was between them form and presence and power. It made it more real than she realised she had ever been prepared to acknowledge, for it meant taking down the protective walls she had built up, exposing her very soul. It meant letting him in everywhere, not just the bright places, but the places where hurt and sadness and not enough were, and trusting him to stay with her there.
Can he read all that in my eyes?
"Doctor, I'm scared" she choked out in a whisper.
He smoothed her face and then her hair, pouring in calming white energy, soothing her fear and doubt.
"You don't have to be afraid, Donna".
He paused and looked at her, and for a moment, she thought she saw a touch of sadness in his expression, but quickly dismissed it as a probable trick of the light.
"And you don't even have to tell me how you feel about things right now, I can wait, I'll wait for you. A hundred years, if I have to".
She remembered back to a time when she had sat out under the stars with her Gramps and said those very same words about the Doctor. Unbidden tears welled up and ran down the side of her nose. She felt him thumb them away.
Donna realised then that she had to tell him, no matter what. And hadn't he just given her a safe space to do it?
She took a deep breath.
"I love you, Spaceman. God save me, but I love you".
There. It was done. Least I can say I held nothing back.
He smiled the smile of someone who had just been given everything he could ever possibly desire or even dream of, and his eyes reflected the glistening in her own. He kissed her then, gossamer-light.
Then he spoke again.
"And just in case I haven't made my feelings completely clear tonight, I need to tell you this: I want you. For always, and in every way. Whenever you are ready. I know now that I'm ready, and when you are too, we can take that next step together."
He squeezed her hands in his and then brought them up to his chest.
"I don't want to rush you, or scare you, but I do need to be honest with you. That next step for me is commitment. To you. Forever." He smiled softly at her.
Oh God, I think I know what that means.
Third shock.
Donna was at once elated and frightened out of her wits.
She loved her Spaceman and she knew she wanted to be with him until the end of time.
But she had also been down this road before and it had ended…well, "disastrously" probably wasn't strong enough a word. Perhaps "end-of-the world-as-we-know-it carnivorous spider infested cataclysmically bad" was probably a more apt description.
"Can I think about it and get back to you?" She gave him a gently flirtacious smile.
"Weeelll, alright, but you think about what you're missing out on." His suggestive eyebrow waggle left no room for the imagination.
She swatted his arm.
"Shut up and come 'ere, you", she said, letting her lips sate him for at least a few more hours.