A/N: My favorite review for the last chapter was, "Punch her!" I laughed about that for a good five minutes. It seems that some of us saw this coming while others were taken just a bit by surprise (much like our tipsy Doctor). It seems that we're all curious to know what's going to happen next, too. Let's get on with it, shall we?
Wine gives courage and makes men more apt for passion. ~Ovid
I envy people who drink - at least they know what to blame everything on.~Oscar Levant
I.
The Doctor's arms were suddenly full of pale silken flesh. Áinfean twined around him sinuously, pulling him down to her as she pressed the little red bow of her mouth to his hungrily. He stood dumbly, all his reflexes stunned as she kissed him. His mind, still filled with the music of the dancing galaxy, could not process this new sensation that was overwhelming him. He let her do as she would, let her feast upon him.
She shuffled him back a step, two, and he did not resist her. When she nipped him lightly on the bottom lip, he opened in reflex and she smiled against his mouth before pressing her advantage and slipping her tongue in against his. His knees hit the bed behind him, and he sat down hard. Sitting now, he was face to face with her, and she ran a possessive hand over his cheek, down over his neck and shoulder.
"So lovely. So young and strong and handsome in form, and yet, when I look in those eyes, I can see ancient forever, Doctor. I shall so enjoy having you..."
"Áinfean," he began, trying to pull his mind back together, "we can't...I have to go..."
"Go where? What else could possibly await you tonight more delightful than this? I will make you happy, Doctor. I want to give you pleasure, pleasure that only another who can touch you mind to mind as an equal can give..."
She unerringly slipped her fingertips up to stroke lightly against his temple, and he shuddered. She stepped in between his thighs, pressed her naked body against him, covered his mouth with her own greedily as her hand delicately stroked and circled against his temple. She took his hand in her own, placed it on her waist and then reached up to loosen the knot of his bowtie, slip it off, cast it aside, unbutton the first buttons of his shirt. Then he felt her hand slide down his body, find his zipper, trace it with fingertips, begin to caress.
He couldn't deny that there was pleasure in her touch. He wouldn't lie and say that he felt nothing as she allowed her own need and desire to trickle through her touch, feed themselves to him in skillfully-crafted erotic images through the continued practiced motion of her hand against those sensitive places upon which she had chosen to focus her attack. He wasn't even going to pretend that he found her form unattractive, that body molded by elder gods and sat among mortals to tease and torment. He didn't find her kisses unmoving, for certainly she knew how to kiss a man, how to entice and incite him, and her mouth, her hot, lovely, experienced mouth was made for sin and tasted of honey.
Honey. Wild honey and cold, distant starfire and dark, dangerous dreams... No, not dreams...illusions...
His hands found her shoulders, and she murmured against his mouth, a pleased little sound of pleasure and triumph escaping her as they slowly slid down her arms. Suddenly, though, his hands found her wrists, grabbed with bruising strength, and pushed her away from him, holding her with her arms spread wide.
I wanted strawberries tonight, not honey. Needed truth and ginger, not lies and ebony.
Áinfean's eyes grew wide and she licked her swollen lips. She became very still as he held her away from him, his head down, staring at the floor, striving for control of the darkness inside himself that was suddenly raging, howling. She felt it swirling through him, feared it.
He raised his head, and she saw in his eyes the reason he was known as the Oncoming Storm, as the Lonely God. He smiled a terrible, terrible smile. The sweetness and passivity of the Lunacy was gone...
"What's wrong, Áinfean? Is this not what you wanted?" He jerked her back against him, continued to hold her arms out with a bruising grip. "Didn't you want to bed the great legend?" He turned his face into her neck, smelled her there, felt her shiver in fear...and under that, disgusting to him now, arousal...
Smells so wrong. Smells...Not Mine. Not my Mate. Would have taken me anyway, though, wouldn't she? Would have tried to make me untrue... Anger grew. He considered seconds only, lowered the formidable shielding that was second nature to his trained and regimented Time Lord mind, projected it, let her receptive telepathic mind see it.
Áinfean was shaking. "Please, Doctor, I'm sorry..."
"You tried to make me untrue to my bondmate..."
"I did not understand...On Rishell, this would not matter... No one stays faithful to only their bonded..." Her voice was pleading, and she spoke rapidly.
He shook her lightly. "Oh, come now." He smiled that horrible smile again. His voice was soft, frightening. "You thought only of what you wanted, only of besting a queen dead four centuries and still three times your worth." He released her with the lightest of pushes.
Áinfean cried out in anger and pain as she stumbled away, off balance both physically and mentally, her mind reeling. "You would choose a human, a worthless girl-child mortal, one whose mind can never fully join with yours, one who will live like a flash of lightening, over me? Over an Empress of Rishell?" Her beauty was never as great as now, as terrible as at this moment when she stood with her hair tousled, her breasts heaving, her face twisted with passion.
The Doctor stood and walked to the door. When he reached it, he paused, and without turning, he spoke. "No, Áinfean. What I have chosen over you is a woman with more true heart and courage than you could imagine existed. What I have chosen over you is true love instead of a very pretty sort of toy doll I'd always have to worry about turning into a monster and devouring me one night when I slept too deeply. I chose the real over the illusion, you see, my dear. One day, I hope you will be wise enough to do the same."
He opened the door and walked out. He heard her high banshee shriek of anger and the crash of something fragile shattering against the heavy door as he went. A savage smile of satisfaction twisted his lips.
II.
His mood was black as he slipped down the darkened halls of the Citadel of the Moon. Much of the Lunacy's effect had worn off him, but some traces he knew would linger for hours.
Damn stupid of me to drink that stuff. I know how it affects me, knew it from the last time I was here. What was I thinking to sit there and drink it with Áinfean? Silly little fairy tart.
His anger fluxed, grew, and he fought it down. He turned into the corridor that led to their rooms, and he heard a noise. He quickly darted back around the corner to see Irial stepping out of Amy's room.
What? WHAT? What is this, then? How bloody long does it take to see someone up the stairs? That was...
He checked his internal sense of time.
That was two hours ago that he took her up these stairs. Why is he only just now leaving? What has he been doing in her room FOR TWO HOURS? And why don't I know? I should know. She's my bondmate. I SHOULD KNOW.
Irial was smiling and talking as he left. He closed the door to Amy's room and he headed down the hall. The Doctor stepped into an empty room and watched Irial go by. Irial looked happier than the Doctor had ever seen him.
Well, with the exception of when he was holding Amy in his arms on the dance floor that is... Bloody elves. Bloody Pond. I can barely feel her and I don't know why. I have had enough of this for one night.
The growling thing inside him agreed. It was time to get some straight answers.
III.
He slipped through the connecting door between his room and Amy's soundlessly fifteen minutes later. She was sleeping, her hair a spill of red across the snowy pillow that made his fingers ache to stroke it, to thread through it. His earlier craving for strawberries returned with a vengeance.
Not why you're here, though. You're here because you need answers.
He crept over to the bed, noted the stool sitting there, grimaced. Irial. He was sitting here, was he? How...kind. How convenient. He took a deep breath, managed to get the urge to kick it across the room under control, and studied Amy closely.
No signs of anything untoward. No signs of …. He didn't let himself finish that thought, even. Instead, he leaned down, reached out a hand and gently stroked her face, his fingers finding the necessary place to go into her mind automatically. She murmured in her sleep, her forehead furrowing into a frown.
She's pushing against me, pushing me out. She shouldn't be able to do that, especially not with the bond, he thought in frustration. He brought his other hand up, laid it on the other side of her face, strengthened his push.
Amy stirred restlessly, tossing her head a little. What little connection he had felt between them through the bond earlier in the evening abruptly disappeared. He felt something like a wall there, strong, flexible, utterly unmovable, and he gently tested it. It was like trying to shove his way through a portion of the Great Wall of China using only his hands. Then a thought occurred to him. Sometimes, when force wouldn't work...
*Amy? Amelia Pond? Do you hear me? It's me, the Doctor. Won't you let me in?*
The wall fell and her mind opened to him once more. The bond restored itself, and he sighed with relief at the renewed connection, at the joy of her mind with his again.
Then she opened her eyes.
IV.
"Hello," he whispered softly. His hands were still cupping her face.
"Hello," she responded in the same tone.
For long moments they sat still, simply looking at one another. Then something potent seemed to spark between them.
It surged through him powerfully as he looked down into her green eyes, this desire a combination of many things amplified by the effects of the Lunacy still lingering in his veins. Mixed here was his ever-abiding love for her, his desire that had been carefully tucked away since he'd seen her in the green gown with its risque cut, his worry over her taking the dangerous wine, his need to claim his mate after watching Irial dancing attendance on her all evening long.
Moonlight and strawberries and oh how I want them...oh how I want Amelia Pond...
He leaned down to brush his lips against hers, softly, softly, careful to keep the vastness of the need inside him leashed, controlled, careful to keep his kisses slow, undemanding. He couldn't quite prevent, however, his hand from slipping up and into her hair, fisting there, as she made a small noise of pleasure at the sensation of his mouth on hers, opened for him.
This. This. Yes. Strawberries and Mine and everything that is real and good... No politics, no greed or games. Just this, oh please. This...
Her hand slid tremblingly out from under the covers to rest against his cheek. Sweetness washed through him with the touch, and he let it echo in the kiss, in the way he softly brushed his thumb over her cheekbone.
Doctor, she thought, and in his name was contentment, simple joy that he was there with her at last as she'd wanted him to be all night. All her anger, all her frustration, all her jealousy was gone for the moment, and there was only this moon-silver tenderness. Storm-clouds would undoubtedly gather on later horizons, but for now, when she still felt so weak, this was what she wanted. She slipped her arms up around his neck, let the weight of them pull him down to her.
Unwilling to stop kissing her, even for the time it would take to shed his clothes and slip into the bed, he simply kicked off his shoes before lifting her slightly in his arms as he moved and sliding in to lay under the covers beside her as he was. Desire shimmered through them just like the moonlight across the polished stone floors.
As he gently pressed his mouth to hers, he listened to the little sound of need she made, took stock of her body through the bond, and made a decision. She can't bear this tonight. She's still too ill. The mind is willing, but... The hand that came up to press over one of his hearts shook ever-so-slightly with fatigue and the after-effects of the Lunacy.
He broke the kiss, pulling back to run his thumb lightly across her swollen lips. Her emerald eyes opened in confusion and mildly irritated puzzlement.
"You know you're just not up to it, Pond," he said softly, responding to her unspoken question.
"I might be," she husked. "You should give a girl some credit, anyway." She smiled, but he saw it in her eyes.
Because she knows I'm right.
"I never said you're right. You are so arrogant sometimes," she murmured. He smoothed her hair, grinned, tucked her more fully against him.
"Possibly. Although I like to think of it as an extreme and assertive form of very well-founded self-confidence."
She laughed sleepily, poked at him gently with one finger.
"And tell the truth, Amelia Pond. Would you have me any other way?"
She leaned up and kissed him gently. "No. You're my Doctor, for better or worse, lumps and all, just this way, I suppose." She snuggled back against his shoulder.
He was moved powerfully by that blind acceptance, and for a moment could say nothing, only hold her tightly. Finally he found his voice again, forced a note of lightness in.
"Right you are. Now go to sleep, my little tippler. I've a feeling tomorrow is going to be a rather busy day." And he pressed a loving kiss to her bright red hair and kept watch over her, seeing the moon sweep across the floor as the hours passed, listening to the rhythm of her breathing, and reveling in the simple sensation of being with the woman he loved.
Will there be a throwdown later? Yeah. The reason it took me SO long to get this post to you is because I went back and forth about when the throwdown is coming. I decided we needed little sweetness before the lightning strikes. But it's a-coming...
Forgive the chapter slow-downs, too, folks. The new school year is rolling, and it's largely rolling over me, so...I might not be posting every three days like I have been. Remember, patience is a virtue...