Part Three

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"Donna?! Are you okay?" Chris leapt forward to help her.

"I'm fine but wet. Stop the water"! she shouted at him as the whole room was threatened to be engulfed.

"Quick! Find the valve!" Chris yelled out whilst trying to avert the worse of the flow, getting a liberal helping on himself. "I think it hit the wardrobe." Together they frantically scrambled on their hands and knees on the carpet to find the missing radiator pieces as hot water continued to rain down on them from a mini waterfall.

"Is this it?" Donna held up a small metal piece aloft to get his attention.

'Finally!' Chris thought as he took the valve and forced it back into the radiator, using the key to turn off the hot cascade of water. A few seconds later there was a blissful calm within the bedroom. He turned to grin triumphantly at Donna.

"Don't look so pleased with yourself, Sunshine. We're both sopping wet here," Donna remarked as she shook out her sleeves.

"Just a bit," he agreed as he looked down to assess the personal damage.

"We'd better get out of these wet things… and don't look at me like that!" she admonished him as he frowned at her in bafflement. "Hand over your togs and I'll get them washed and dried. I can use the fifteen minute washing cycle."

"I think not!" he protested. "I'm not sitting about here in the nude. It wouldn't be seemly!"

Donna rolled her eyes in exasperation. "As if I'd make you do that! I can give you some temporary clothing while you wait for your stuff to dry. D'uh! I'm sure I can find a t shirt, some manly knickers and a pair of shorts that'll fit, for you to sit in."

"I don't know," he whined. "This still doesn't sound right."

"Do you honestly want to go out utterly drenched?" she asked him in wonder. "Because you'd be a bloody fool to." When he didn't argue back immediately, she squelched nearer and placed her fingers on the top button of his shirt. "Come on, get this off and have a shower while I bung our stuff in the washing machine."

"I can do it," he testily stated when she began to undo the buttons at a fast rate.

In a joint effort they had his shirt undone and stripped off in seconds, and then he let her grip the bottom hem of his t shirt and tug it over his head; revealing his bare chest underneath.

Oh! She hadn't expected his chest to be that hairy or that enticing once it was displayed. Gulping self-consciously, she allowed herself to be distracted by the object that hung around his neck. "You've got a St Christopher!" she blurted out before she knew it. "I expected you to have something else." The pendant glittered in the muted bedroom light, and she found herself reaching out to examine it more closely; turning it over within her fingers as she did so. "It's lovely. Were you given it for a special reason?" Looking up at that point, she saw the flash of pain that raced across his features.

Chris lightly coughed to clear his throat. "It was a gift from my erm… my mother when she…" His nostrils flared as he remembered that moment on board the TARDIS. "That was the last time I saw her on my own before I left. She wanted me to have it so that I'd always remember her," he said softly, speaking barely above a whisper.

Partly in embarrassment, Donna returned her attention to the St Christopher. "Blimey, the Lord's Prayer is small on the back!" she commented. "And oh look! It opens as a locket. What picture is inside?"

"Don't," he brokenly requested and he placed his hand over her inquisitive fingers. "Please don't open it. There's a picture of her and Gramps on one side, and her parents on the other."

She nodded to imply she'd obey and respect his request. "How did she die?" she asked compassionately instead.

He flickered his wet gaze away and then landed back on her face. "I don't know for sure exactly, but she died suddenly from some sort of aneurysm. I do know that Dad went bonkers with grief afterwards, never to recover." He gave a sniff then. "Sorry to bring down the tone; I don't know what came over me."

She tenderly caressed his cheek. "That's okay," she reassured him. "I understand what it feels like completely." That was when she flung her arms around his neck in a tight hug. "How about you pop into the shower while I put the kettle on? I know I could do with a nice cup of tea."

He smiled his thanks.

Chris wasn't quite so pleased when he was under the shower and she stormed into the bathroom. "Oi! What you playing at?!" he tersely demanded.

She waved a dismissive hand at him. "Stop getting so hot under the collar! I'm in here to pick up the rest of your wet things. Do you want toast with this tea?"

He did his best impression of a drowned and exasperated rat as he peered around the shower curtain at her before replying, "That'd be nice, thanks."

When he emerged wrapped up in a towel, she directed him to the clothes she had laid out. "I've pulled out my least feminine polo shirt and shorts," she informed him. "I wasn't sure what knickers you'd class as suitable, so I thought I'd let you chose from the top drawer over there. But only one pair, mind you."

'The tease!' he thought as she left him on his own and went to have her own shower. The polo shirt didn't look too incriminating, the shorts were Bermuda ones, so again not too bad; but the underwear drawer seemed a bit daunting. With a decisive pull, he opened the drawer and peeped in. Oh my goodness! The choice was wide and varied; and he tried to resist running his fingers over the various textures, he really did. There were even bras in there to add to the temptation; and he had just plucked out an innocent looking pair of white briefs when he became aware of the sound of the shower hitting flesh. Painfully aware, especially when there was an accompanying groan from within the bathroom. "Are you okay in there?" he called out.

"Fine, thanks!" was the reply. "I don't know what you did, but the temperature you left this setting on is perfect."

Best not to think about the conditions within the shower, he told himself as his imagination tried to feed him images. "I'll meet you in the kitchen, shall I?" he yelled out, and then hastily donned the clothing Donna had left him on the bed. The waist wouldn't do up, a predicament that wasn't helped by his current condition, but the rest of it was alright for now.

As he examined his bizarre outfit in the mirror he was startled from his thoughts by Donna appearing in the doorway dressed in only a bathsheet. She laughed merrily when he tried to cover himself up. "Believe it or not," she told him, "but I have been married; so a horny bloke isn't exactly a shocker. And no, I don't expect you to be interested in me like that. If, however, you try to get a quick jolly, I shall slap you from here until next Tuesday."

"Oh no," he quickly blustered. "I wouldn't dream…"

She smirked at him. "I thought so."

"Talking of your husband… your ex-husband…," he amended with a nod of the head, "how come you haven't got any of his clothing?"

She snorted in scorn. "Why would I want to keep his gear? No, I chucked out all of Derek's stuff as soon as I could. I even had myself a merry little bonfire to celebrate once his family buggered off and left me on my own."

"I'm sorry," Chris sympathised, and stepped forward to wrap his arms around her wet body. He then realised what he was doing when the compulsion to kiss her was almost overwhelming and he deflected it into a kiss on the forehead. "This is more than a bit wrong isn't it?" A large part of him really didn't want to let go of her; he was enjoying the feel and smell from this 'fresh from the shower' experience far more than was healthy.

"Just a bit," Donna agreed as she looked up at him. Would he kiss her properly? No, of course not, logic told her.

His mind was telling him that no, he shouldn't. "I'll just go and erm..," he stammered. That's when he left her to get dressed and headed to the kitchen to get started on their tea and toast. Phew! He'd saved their friendship just in time.

As prearranged, they met for lunch one December day; but conversation between them was unusually slightly stilted. The problem was that Donna felt deeply anxious as she waited for her moment, and then awkwardly asked her question. "Chris, are you going to the first Christmas party tonight?" Blimey! Was this what it was like to get a prom date, she mused.

"First?" he wondered in confusion. He frowned back at Donna as he bit into the last bite of his packed lunch.

"Yes, each office is having their own party, and the first one is in the conference room on the fifth floor," she explained. "So… are you going?"

Chris pulled a disconcerted face. "I don't think so." All those unknown people, all that noise! No, he couldn't envisage enjoying such a thing; and he had his experiment ready and waiting in his lab. "I have something I need to attend to tonight."

"Well, if you change your mind, there should be some people from your department there," Donna encouraged him. Not that she was hopeful in the slightest. There were only certain times in the week Chris seemed to be able to tolerate her company after all. Perhaps all geniuses were like this? "I'll erm, I'll see you later, and don't forget it's my turn to cook dinner tomorrow."

"I won't," he answered absently; hardly noticing her respectfully leaving him alone as he sat and thought about his up and coming experiment. He could hardly wait!

Chris glanced up at the clock on the wall, subconsciously noting that the party upstairs had started. All things considered, his plans were going ahead swimmingly despite not having a TARDIS to help; although one day he hoped his piece of coral could earn that title. And there was the little matter of lacking a second heart. Most his research had concluded in the fact he would not be able to mutate his genetic makeup to fix that one; so he decided to carry on as best as humanly possible. It would be a slur on Donna Noble to hate his physical predicament, and he really didn't want to do that; instead he wanted to become the best person he could scientifically become. The end was in sight now and he could finally test out the concoction properly, as it was intended. His earlier tests on plant life and lab rats had been encouraging, and he was eager to try it out on himself.

One more; just one more drop of the final component and his experiment would be complete. Or it would be once he had tested it out, of course. It needed one twirl of the liquid within the beaker, and then it was ready. "Here goes," he said to no one in particular as he took a swig of the potion. "Next stop Time Lord, if I'm lucky."

Oh my! It burned. Chris felt it flare all the way down to his gullet and hit his stomach. Once there, the mixture did some dizzying dance of the seven veils as it stripped away the lining. After that it hit his veins and thus every cell in his body. With a scream he noticed a faint glow around his hands; he convulsed, and he hit the deck as he blacked out.