Part 4
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The Doctor made careful notes of the hotel where he had apparently taken a woman earlier that evening. It was becoming increasingly clear to him that it might not have been a future escapade of his but rather a case of mistaken identity. This feeling was heightened when he was ushered into the drawing room and told to sit down, having passed several other people on the way who had stared expectantly at him.
"Why are we here?" he asked Sally who was retreating quickly from the room, having shown him there.
She merely flicked her gaze meaningfully towards a man stood three paces away from him.
"I hear you had a spot of bother upstairs," the man commented, "something about hitting your head."
The Doctor involuntarily brought a hand up to touch the bump that had risen on the back of his skull. "Yes, a minor detour in my hunt."
"Hunt!" the man snorted. "Is that how you are labelling it now?"
"Normally, yes," the Doctor insisted. "I assume you'd use an alternative. I was told there'd be refreshments down here."
"Of course, old chap," the man warmly replied. "Have you stashed away your filly for later?"
"Well I…," the Doctor started to answer, but Caroline Dangerfield appeared in the doorway to interrupt their conversation. He quickly deduced that she tended to gracefully frame herself thus to good effect.
"Doesn't he always have someone, Rodney?" she smirked. "He probably has her tucked up in his hotel bed ready and waiting for him when he gets back from this."
So the man was called Rodney, and they both expected him to be a womaniser. This was worrying for the Doctor. First, it implied Donna had been totally abandoned somewhere; second, that some poor woman had suffered a distraction due to him; and third, he had had to implement such a diversion. No doubt a Diklometron was to blame.
Rodney had made his way over to the drinks table and was pouring out generous measures into three glasses. "I think we'd all be tempted to have such a lovely piece of ginger totty warming up the bed, eh?" he remarked gleefully, and handed one of the tumblers to the Doctor, who cautiously took it and then placed it immediately down onto the nearest surface.
"This ginger woman you saw me with… what were we doing?" the Doctor tentatively questioned. It couldn't be her, it just couldn't! To his consternation Rodney burst into a wide lecherous grin and Caroline looked extremely angry.
"What weren't you doing?" Rodney's grin stayed put for some seconds until a thought occurred to him. "Are you saying that you don't remember pinning her up against the wall? I left you two alone to give you some privacy. It's not exactly a spectators sport."
The Doctor spluttered at the insinuation. "Are you suggesting I was kissing her?!" he almost squeaked out, and then coughed to clear his throat. Could he have really been snogging Donna, in the past and his future? Surely not. They didn't share that sort of relationship. In fact she'd rather avoid that sort of thing altogether.
Caroline huffed loudly and gracefully deposited her body onto a chair. "It was very far from a suggestion. You were practically drooling over the poor woman. She certainly looked surprised for a second, but then I assume such women rarely get that sort of attention."
"Come come," Rodney admonished her. "You make it sound as if she was unattractive when she is nothing of the sort. Peter here was highly taken with her, and I can understand why."
This was sounding more and more like Donna had been here, to the Doctor's ears; so that only left one question for him to ask. "Who is Peter?"
Both Rodney and Caroline stopped sipping their drinks and regarded him in stunned silence. Then Caroline offered an answer. "Why, you are Peter."
"Me?!" the Doctor spat out, pointing at himself. "I'm Peter?"
"Yes you are," Rodney agreed. "By my word, that blow must have been nasty!"
"It was," Caroline confirmed. "But that doesn't alter the fact that we need you to give an interview at eleven o'clock." This last part was directed towards the Doctor.
"I have to give an interview?" he queried. "Why do I have to do that?"
"For your DVD, darling," she supplied, blowing out an angry breath. "It's the reason you are here, to show of your magic skills." Seeing his eyebrow raise in surprise, she added, "Once you are done, a car will whisk you back to your friend waiting for you in the hotel, and you can resume your tête-à-tête."
Choosing to ignore her obvious disapproval, the Doctor asked Rodney, "My friend; what was she wearing?"
"Oh uhm, a cardigan of some sort, jeans and trainers," Rodney replied with some reluctance. "I don't tend to take notice of these things. But she was very noticeable for her curvaceous figure. I wouldn't mind her keeping me warm in bed! Peter, old chap, are you sure you are feeling well?"
"No, to be honest," the Doctor lied.
But before he could offer an excuse to leave their company Sally announced to all and sundry, "The gentlemen from ITV are here for the television interview, Mr Le Strange."
Caroline stood up and stage whispered at the Doctor, "Then you'd better hurry up and be okay, because you are about to earn your keep."
'Thanks for nothing,' he immediately thought; and then devised a plan.
~0~0~
Sitting comfortably in his hotel suite, Peter had been determined to remain the perfect gentleman as Donna gradually regained her strength as they sat on the settee in his hotel suite watching television and eating their meal. It would have been so easy to just take advantage of her weakened state; but where was the fun in that?! He wanted her, that much was true, but he also wanted her to desire him in return. If his intention was just to fuck the nearest body he might as well have bought one of those sex dolls from Japan. As it was, he suspected that his road manager had ordered one for him as a joke Christmas present; he was sick of being such a source of amusement for his friends and employees. It implied a shallowness that he didn't want to own up to anymore.
And sitting next to a divine creature that had no knowledge of her attractiveness was proving to be intoxicating for him. She was all he could think of in that moment; all he cared about. The rest of the world could go sod itself, for all he cared. This was his moment to be graced by an angel. Yes, he really did think of her as a heavenly body; or certainly one that was unworldly. Every now and then he glimpsed an ethereal quality, daft as that may sound.
He knew this wouldn't last; couldn't last much beyond this evening; but he savoured every precious second. This was a wonderful dream, and he didn't want to wake up from it yet.
"What are you looking at?" Donna asked him, blushing self-consciously as she sat beside him watching the latest edition of Graham Norton's show.
"Just you," he softly admitted. "Are you feeling any better yet?"
"Yes thanks," she gratefully acknowledged. "How many rooms have you got here in this place?" She swept her gaze around the room with open curiosity.
"Why don't I give you the grand tour now that you're feeling okay," he suggested, and stood up with elegant ease to hold out a hand towards her in invitation. "Come on."
She took it, and let him pull her up to stand beside him. "I'd better put my shoes back on," she commented and looked down to try and seek her shoes out from under the settee where they had been pushed earlier before their meal.
"There's no need," he assured her. "And I think you might like some of the views," he continued, trying to entice her further. "If you can bear to look somewhere other than me," he leaned in to tease.
Inevitably she giggled at his silliness, but he pleased to see that she allowed him to keep hold of her hand.
"I think you've got enough self-admiration for the two of us," she retorted. "Just get on with the sightseeing tour."
"For you anything," he gushed, and flung open the first door. "This is the second bedroom, where any possible guest sleeps. That door there leads out on to the balcony; but it's a bit dark to go out there yet. And this one…" He turned to the ornate glass one next it. "…I think you might like this room, judging by the sort of holidays you said you've had." He gestured for her to help herself.
Half expecting a tanning booth or something, she thrust her hand out in order to enter the room.
"Oh look! A swimming pool; you've got an actual swimming pool in your room!" Donna squealed with delight as she pushed open the frosted panelled door.
It wasn't a massive pool, not by the standards she was used to swimming in when she gained her divers licence and nowhere near the size of the one in the TARDIS; but she hadn't been expecting a public sized pool. In fact she hadn't been expecting anything beyond the size of a hot tub, and this was incredible to find in a hotel suite. The whole room was tastefully tiled and decorated with potted palms; and it had a vaulted glass roof that revealed the stars in the sky above. It was exquisite, and she clapped her hands in glee.
"Why yes," Peter answered with a knowing grin. "Do you fancy using it?"
"Don't be daft," she immediately admonished him. "I can't go around having a swim whenever I fancy it. Anyway, I don't have a swimming costume."
"That doesn't have to a problem. There's a way around it. We could always try skinny dipping," he suggested, bobbing his eyebrows at her.
She gasped. He couldn't mean it really, could he? She shook her head, fervently; and a modest blush appeared on her cheeks. "Oh no, I couldn't do that. We hardly know each other and I wouldn't even do that with…" The Doctor's name stayed caught on her tongue, as though to say it would defile his character.
Peter eased forward, gently encouraging her to enter the room properly and stand by the pool side. "I'm tempted to say you obviously are not as good friends as you claim to be if you couldn't envisage skinny dipping together," he quietly argued. "We don't have to be naked. All we have to do is remove most of our clothing. That wouldn't be so bad, would it?" He peered intensely at her. "Or I could ask the concierge if there is a bikini or something you could borrow, if you like?"
The note of hope in his voice was not lost on Donna; she was already fantasising about swimming in the cool clear water that beckoned so strongly. Her resolve began to waver.
"It'd be no different to borrowing a scuba diving wet suit," Peter continued, speaking deliberately softly.
"It'd be wrong," she weakly protested, still gazing longingly at the water.
Hmm, he was sure he had a t-shirt and some shorts that would fit her, somewhere hidden in a drawer. "Then I could alternatively offer you some underwear to use and get wet. Such items can always be easily dried out," Peter tried again; using a different tactic this time. "That way your original things would stay dry."
Keeping her cool, Donna reached into her pocket and checked her mobile phone. There was still no message from the Doctor, despite all the earlier messages she had been forced to leave him on his answering voice mail. Goodness knew when he would bother to get back to her with an answer, especially if he had found yet another blonde to entertain him.
Oh sod it! Why shouldn't she have a little fun with this Peter bloke? It wasn't as though she'd ever see him again, was it? He'd be flying back to his bat cave in Las Vegas very soon, and she'd be back with the Doctor in the TARDIS… if she ever found him again, that is. If the worse come to the worse, she could always beg this Peter for a temporary job as his personal assistant to escape the 'I told you so' wrath of her mother.
Having made her decision, she turned to Peter and announced, "Alright, I'll swim in my underwear, as there is no way I can get away with displaying nothing once I'm wet."
~0~0~
