A/N: My experiment worked yesterday and I got lots more of this done last night. :)

Part Eleven

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Chris swallowed, trying to clear the lump in his throat. What did he mean exactly again…? It had been so clear a moment ago. Oh yes! He wanted to say he was madly, deeply and truly in love with her. In fact he was desperate to make his confession; but having Donna in his arms, looking up at him with such trust, made him hesitate. How do you explain that you've poisoned yourself in the vain hope that the love of your life will fall for you in return? Should you be pleased that, in doing so, said love of your life was coaxed into your bed against her will and thoroughly ravished without either of you remembering it? No, that would never do.

That only left him with one option: he would have to continue lying.

"W…wh…what I mean is…" He pushed his glasses up onto his nose to try and calm himself down. "I'm here for you, Donna. Despite everything last night, I am still your friend and I'll help you find the right path to happiness. I erm… I don't like the idea of you having to deal with the Doctor and his moods," he anxiously acknowledged.

Still her friend! Where did that leave her? "Are you saying this because you don't like the Doctor, or is it something else?" Donna risked asking, hardly able to raise her voice above a whisper.

Oh God! If only he could blurt out his true feelings, let her know how much he really cared, but yet again fear held him back. There was no knowing what the Doctor would do to her if she suspected half the truth of their situation; and he couldn't risk that until the Doctor was purged completely from his system. The breaths came out slowly as he released the tension in his throat. "I want you safe and healthy." 'I want you in my life every day from sun up to sun down. I want to spend my whole life proving how much you mean to me and how I will never be worthy of you. Nothing means anything until I have shared it with you…' Words that went on and on in his head as he beseeched her with his eyes to love him back with equal ferocity.

"Chris?" she asked with deep concern, wrapping her arms around him in an effort to console him. His eyes seemed to be full of fear and something akin to love. It was obvious he was pleading with her to understand, but she couldn't fathom out what exactly. Was she right in thinking he was, to a certain extent, frightened to go home to where the Doctor waited, and was he using her as some sort of smoke screen? Had that been his sole motivation in taking her into his bed? There was only one way to find out, she reasoned. "Do you want to stay the night?" she whispered into his neck.

He could have sworn his heart stopped in his chest for some nanoseconds. "Can I?" he sought desperately to confirm. "I don't have to sleep with you… unless you want me to… but I'd understand perfectly if you'd rather not, since I suspect I rather cocked things up between us last night. Erm… not a wise choice of wording that, in hindsight…"

"Chris! Do you think you could actually finish one train of thought, please," she begged him. "For all your babbling I have no idea if you regret sleeping with me. If you do, then I would like to hear you say so; and then we can move on."

'No no no no no!' screamed through his head as he heard her unspoken question. Deliberately pulling back just enough from their embrace to hold her face tenderly between his hands, he said with great sincerity, "Any regret would only come from hurting you. I could not bear to do that."

"Is there any chance of you telling me what you can bear to do," she pondered. Well, it wasn't as though things could get any vaguer, was it? If things got any further away they'd be out the door.

"No; but I'll show you."

What should have been a perfectly fine kiss suddenly became a science experiment when he noticed the exact level of progesterone in her body. Something was off, as if… Oh no! The Doctor had artificially kept her on the brink of ovulation. If he gave into the desire his body was shouting at him, it was almost inevitable that he'd make her pregnant; and he was loathe to do that without her making a conscious decision to be so.

Panting heavily, he broke away to suggest, "I'd better go before we do something dangerous again… I mean, before I do something dangerous again. I'm sorry that I lost control last night."

"Chris, it's called being drunk. Unfortunately thousands of people do it on a regular basis."

"Maybe; but they aren't all me. I have certain responsibilities I have to worry about."

"Who elected you president of the world?" she teased.

"President? I was hoping I was king," he playfully retorted.

She grabbed his head then, forcing him to kiss her properly, headily, as their tongues and breath mingled. One more minute of doing this couldn't hurt, could it, he reasoned. He wasn't going to do anything more than this… apart from maybe push her back into the cushions.

"Let's go to bed," she offered after some shared kisses.

"Yes, let's," he murmured in answer.

"No pressure, no demands," she added, just in case.

He smiled in relief. "As long as I get to hold you all night, I'll be happy. We'll save everything else."

In unison they got up and headed for her bedroom, hand in hand, glowing with expectations and grateful for anything. For now their love would be unspoken but it would be treasured and displayed through gentle touches.

It was agony to go a couple of days without seeing her. Boy did he have it bad, Chris realised. It had taken every ounce of his willpower to stop himself from invading her workspace and sweep her off to the nearest bed. There was even an alternative plan of using a relatively close and comfortable sofa. Not that the Doctor had done much to stop that train of thought since that night…

It irked him endlessly to know that both he and the Doctor were united in some part of their plan; except he wasn't hell-bent on getting Donna pregnant and dependent upon him like the Doctor was. Instead, he was willing to let her make every single choice that affected her life.

Saturday night could not come quickly enough for him, because Donna would be freed from running around organising Pete Tyler's social life and she would be returned to his willing attentions. The whole of the Christmas holiday spread out before them, with only each other to spend that time with. If he had his way, all of that time would be spent enjoying numerous bouts of sexual bonding.

Hang on…! He shook his head to clear his mind of those thoughts because they certainly didn't belong to him. In fact those sorts of thoughts had never belonged to him even though they had insidiously crept into his conscious mind since Tuesday night; which meant that the Doctor was responsible for poisoning his mind in such a way. It hadn't all been desire after all.

His phone persistently ringing halted his train of thought, and he was ecstatic to see it was Donna ringing him. "Hello gorgeous!" he readily crooned into the mouthpiece. "What can I do for you, bearing in mind that I have to take some woman to a Christmas party this evening?"

She giggled on the other end of the line. "That's why I was phoning, to tell you the truth. I was making sure you were still taking me, otherwise I need to hastily find some other sap, I mean, gentleman."

"Just you try stopping me. I've been looking forward to seeing you in that new dress of yours; and truth be told, I'm rather eager to see you out of it too," he leered down the phone.

Her heart beat faster. "Easy, tiger! We don't want you to peek too early tonight"

There was a slight scoffing sound. "There is no danger of that whatsoever. I have every intention of seeing this through to the bitter end. Well, when I say 'bitter' I'm expecting the end to be extremely sweet"

This wasn't like him to say that sort of thing. ""Who are you and what have you done with Chris?" she suddenly asked.

I'm the Doctor! "Oh erm… just some bloke," he anxiously answered. Where had that come from? He'd been carefully monitoring where and when the Doctor might try to appear, and he thought he had a clear handle on the situation.

You thought wrong, the Doctor gleefully crowed. I've been hiding for days, and you didn't even realise that fact. Do you remember those bottles of milk you bought on Tuesday? Try looking again.

'You didn't?!' Chris gasped in shock, examining the glass of milk in his hand with a cautious eye.

Oh yes I did! the Doctor sing-songed in his head. I've been slowly dosing you up; keeping the dosage nicely stabilised. Time to go and get Donna, I think. It's show time!

Their journey to the Torchwood Christmas party in a hotel conference room was unusually silent, but Donna put it down to Chris being nervous about whatever Mr Tyler had in store for him. He hardy said two words to her between getting in the limo Clarissa had organised for them to when they sat down at their designated table; and when he did it was as though he was talking to somebody else. It was almost with relief that she heard him remark, "I'm just going to check on something for a minute. I won't be too long."

Ten minutes later he sat himself back down next to her, and she turned to comment on how quick he'd been when she noted it wasn't Chris seating himself beside her but the Doctor. She blurted out the first thought that came into her head. "What are you doing wearing Chris' new suit?"

"This old thing?" he mused as he tugged at the cloth of his sleeves. "Who cares what I'm wearing when we can spend our time admiring you?"

Donna felt herself blush. "I'm sure that's not true," she spluttered.

The Doctor leaned in close, and breathily told her, "I for one have every intention of spending my evening detailing every nuance of your body; but for now I only have one question. Would you care to dance with me?" He stood and held out his hand in invitation, almost daring her to turn him down.

She found herself automatically taking his offered hand. "Where did Chris go?" she faintly asked.

"Donna, I don't care as long as I have you in my arms; and neither do you," he remarked, and crushed her body against him as they moved gracefully around the dancefloor for several musical numbers. "I even have a little surprise for you," he warmly promised her, speaking low in her ear.

"You do?" she murmured.

"Oh yes, my darling. I've procured us a room upstairs so that we don't have to wait until the end of the evening. Instead we can sneak off and have some fun all on our own. Say 'thank you, Doctor'," he ordered her.

"Thank you, Doctor," she immediately answered, to his satisfaction.

Frowning momentarily as he caught sight of Rose with Pete across the room, he briefly kissed Donna's lips. "It's time we were heading upstairs, and I got my reward."

Ignoring Rose's startled expression and Donna's blank look, he released his tight hold on Donna's body to place a possessive hand around her wrist and triumphantly led her out into the hotel lobby.