More than Just a Mate

Author Note: This fic is AU and pairs the Tenth Doctor with Donna.

Summary:

After taking some time out at an alien resort to relax with Donna, the Doctor takes her on a shuttle flight intending to view some mountains on a nearby planet – but disaster strikes when the shuttle crashes on the runway on attempting take off. Donna wanders about the wreckage in a daze, calling to the Doctor to help the people who are scattered at the crash site – until she realises he is one of the wounded.

Later, after having her cuts and bruises treated, Donna is shocked to learn the Doctor's back was broken in the crash, and despite the fact that they are on a planet with advanced medical techniques, she is told the Doctor will face a long recovery, taking as long as possibly five years – if the procedure is successful, only time will tell, and his chance of complete recovery stands at 60%.

When the Doctor regains consciousness and realises he is paralysed from the waist down and may never recover, he takes the news very badly – until his best mate Donna reminds him how lucky he is to have survived the crash. Thanks to the treatment to accelerate part of the healing process, the Doctor is soon able to leave hospital and go back to the Tardis, although he is now confined to a wheelchair - and he tells Donna he is taking her home, because to expect her to care for him would not be fair.

But Donna, who knows the Doctor can't cope alone, reminds him that he needs a nurse- and then reminds him she is more than qualified to care for him, because she once trained to be a nurse, but gave it up for office work at a time when her family was in crisis, because the pay was better. Then she also reminds him she is his best mate, and mates don't leave each other at a time like this...

The Doctor agrees to allow her to help him – despite the fact that he is struggling to accept his disability and the thought of his close friend helping him in both practical and intimate ways – especially the intimate ones, due to the fact that his injured spine has left him not only unable to walk but unable to control his bladder, and also has taken away much of the feeling in his groin, making him secretly fear he will never make love again.

Then Donna, who once swore she would never fall for the TimeLord because he is an alien, begins to realise that the Doctor is so much more 'human' than she realised - the aftermath of the crash is making her see him in a whole new light that is bringing her closer to him, as she realises there is nothing remotely 'alien' about the man whose body she has now come to know so well - and the Doctor begins to realise too that Donna could be so much more than a best mate – but can he bring himself to tell her that, after living so long in the shadow of his loss of Rose Tyler?

Rated M

Warnings: Lots! Whump,Medical fetish, mention of intimate personal care, disability, paralysis, incontinence, nurse/patient romance, some talk of mortality and depression, some erotica, sex/lovemaking (mainly focussed on oral), naughty talk and lots of emotional and heavy romantic content tons of H/C too.

Don't like? Don't read.

Don't come to me complaining you don't like the fic - if its not your thing - read something else.

You have been warned!

Voodoo Lady has made it clear!

If on the other hand, this fic IS your cup of tea, please read on – and welcome to my fictional worlds :-)

Disclaimer: I don't own anything apart from my own kinked imagination.

Chapter 1

Donna was sure she had been caught up in nothing more than a horrible nightmare if not for the fact that she ached all over and could smell death and fire and scorched metal in the air.

She stood there feeling alone as if the rest of this planet had slipped away and there was just her and the burning wreckage. The warm air was heated too much by the fire from the back of the shuttle – it was behind her at some distance away, she looked back, and as her long hair whipped out behind her over her torn jacket she thought how it almost matched the colours of the flames. So pretty, but so ugly with the stink of death and cries of the wounded in the air.

She was waking up now.

Donna blinked.

At the back of her mind as she took in the sight of the scattered pieces of the shuttle and the bodies strewn about the runway, an odd thought ran through her mind that if she had a bit more smoke to darken the ends of her hair and there was no death or disaster here, maybe this would have made a great back drop for an '80s pop video...

But this was real.

She knew it was real as she stumbled over a dead body – what was left of it – and looked up into the distance through smoke and shimmering tarmac as emergency services raced to the scene to help those who were still alive.

Others were stumbling out of the main body of the shuttle now, some bruised and bleeding,others dazed like her...

And it wasn't meant to be like this.

The Doctor had taken her to this planet for a holiday, it was a future Earth colony planet and beautiful. He had booked them a flight on a shuttle to see mountains on a nearby world...She hadn't wanted to go at first, but then she had remembered what had happened last time they had been away on a holiday break and he had taken a shuttle flight without her. It had seemed better to go with him this time, just in case anything went wrong...

She turned her head again, coughed as she staggered through smoke and it stung at her eyes. She wiped her stinging eyes with the back of her hand and then realised the back of her hand was bleeding.

Donna struggled to recall what had happened:

"You'll love this," the Doctor had said to her as he put on his seatbelt as the engines had started up, "I told you there's so much to see. You'll love the mountain range – it extends across the whole of the planet and it's only four hours from here -"

"Excuse me," a stewardess had said, pausing at her seat and looking to her and the Doctor, who was sat beside the window, "Would you or your husband like a brochure about the tour?"

"No we're not married," the Doctor had said, and Donna had waved away the brochure.

"No, no, not married. Just mates..."

How many times had they both said that before?

She had lost count...

Donna coughed again in the smoke.

The rest of it had come back to her now:

The engines had roared into life, the shuttle had sped up down the runway and began to lift from the ground. Then there had been a loud crack and a boom that had sent hot air rushing through the shuttle. Donna had remembered everything being torn apart, as if the shuttle had broken in half...

She had turned her head as the cabin had split, caught a flash of alarm in the Doctor's dark eyes. She had not been able to measure that moment, but it had seemed to last much longer than it did as she looked at him and wanted to say, 'Were going to die!This thing is going to crash!'

It was as if the Doctor had read her mind.

"I'm sorry!" he had yelled above the screech of tearing metal, and he had grabbed her hand – then they had been pulled part as the shuttle broke up...

Donna's side was aching and felt bruised. She guessed her belt must have snapped...

She heard more cries for help and looked to the front half of the shuttle. Survivors were helping the wounded out. For a moment the thought ran through her head:

Why didn't you get seats at the front instead of in the middle, Doctor?

No, that was a stupid thought.

No one could have expected this to happen...

Then it hit her that she couldn't see the Doctor amongst those who were staggering away from the wreckage,

"Doctor?" she called, and then she turned again, feeling dizzy as more smoke drifted over.

She called to him again, and it was then she caught sight of a man lying on the ground close to some torn metal and some shattered seating that had lie broken on the runway,and she recognised him at once.

"Doctor!" she called again, and ran through the smoke and dodged debris, then she fell to her knees beside the Doctor, who was on his side and unconscious. His brown suit was torn and his long coat was marked by smoke. Blood ran from a cut to his head and soaked through his dark hair and streaked down his cheek. His eyes were closed and he did not stir even as more blood ran over his eyelid and through his lashes and continued to trickle down his face. He was sprawled at a painful angle, too – but Donna knew better than to try and move him.

"Doctor?" she said, and he gave no response.

Then she looked over her shoulder and saw rescue workers were now closer as more emergency vehicles moved in.

She waved at them.

"Over here!" she yelled, "Hurry up, he needs help!"

Six hours later:

Donna had let them treat her cuts and bruises, even though all it had really consisted of was cleaning her up and scanning with a handheld device to check her for fractures, of which she was clear.

Then she had waited and waited.

As the time went on, her worry increased.

She turned her head and looked out the window at the sight of the sea close by, rolling to a beach where the sand caught the sun and glinted as if filled with tiny diamonds. This planet was beautiful, this had been meant to be a break, a chance to get away with her best mate and have a lovely time.

Now she struggled to find anything remotely lovely about this planet...

She had already heard others talking while she had been waiting, saying something about a crack in the insulation that was linked to the fuel. Something about heat and pressure causing the shuttle to break apart. And there had been mentions of compensation.

Donna didn't doubt the pay out would be hefty and deserved because the flight company was to blame – but it didn't mean much to her, not until she knew the Doctor was going to be okay. And she wasn't sure that he was, because the medics who had scanned him had told her his injuries seemed serious. Donna had written that off as an assumption that they didn't know anything about his species. It was never far from her mind that her best friend was an alien...

She thought back again to how many times that subject had come up:

Too many.

Then she thought of how she had seen him lying there on the runway after the crash. He had looked human then, because he looked broken, and humans were easily broken. She had expected him not to be hurt, because he was alien... What a mistake that had been. Of course he was hurt, he'd been in a crash that had seen a shuttle break in half. It was starting to become obvious now, because this was a planet many thousands of years ahead of the Earth that she knew – this place was medically advanced, yet even in a hospital here in the future, they had been working on him for six hours...

Six bloody hours.

Donna gave a heavy sigh and ran her fingers through her long red hair, as she did so she caught the stink of smoke and fire that still clung to her. She wanted to go back to the Tardis and have a shower and change her clothing.

But she couldn't leave until she knew the Doctor was okay...

She looked down at the polished floor and rubbed the back of her neck, trying in vain to rub away the ache she had felt ever since the shuttle had ripped apart.

"Donna Noble?"

She looked up to see a female medic standing over her.

"How is he?" she said as she got up.

"You can see him now, please come with me," the woman said, and then as she reflected on the scale of the tragedy, her lined face seemed so much older, as her tied back grey streaked hair caught the light and she shook her head.

"There have been so many deaths today. All because the shuttle company don't carry out enough safety checks. It's scandalous. The Doctor, is he your husband?"

They were walking up the corridor now.

"We're just friends," Donna replied as worry crept into her voice, "Close friends."

And the woman in the white coat paused by a door as they reached the end of the corridor and looked into her eyes.

"Your friend has come out of this rather badly."

"How badly?"

"He had a lower back injury, his spine was broken and partly severed the spinal cord. He may never walk again."

Donna stared at her in disbelief.

"He's paralysed?"

"I can show you the scan results, then you'll understand," she replied, and she opened the door and Donna followed her inside.

As they entered the room and Donna saw the Doctor in a bed with sheets folded to his waist and bruises all over his body, she folded her arms and glared at the medic.

"Okay," she said quietly, "So far all I've had from you is your blunt attitude about saying he's broken his back like it's no big deal. You could have told me a little more carefully, just because I'm only a friend doesn't mean I don't care for him!"

The woman paused.

"Miss Noble, it would be hard for you to understand in medical terms as you lack understanding. It would be better to show you the scan results post surgery."

And she went over to a light box on the wall and switched it on, showing up a scan of the Doctor's lower back.

"The Doctor had many fractures caused by the accident. They have all been artificiality sealed and are currently healing well from within, hence the bruises. His spine was reconnected and also sealed," she indicated to a small, dark area deep in his spine, "We were able to fill the damaged part of the spinal cord with a substance that will encourage the spinal cord to re grow and join back together. This process could take up to five years, depending on how his species responds to the treatment. He will have limited sensation in his lower body until the treatment is complete and the success rate is sixty percent. Due to the acceleration of the healing to the worst of the injuries, he will be able to leave within forty eight hours – are you thinking of staying on here or returning to your home planet? Because if you are considering staying, he will need to employ a nurse to attend to his needs. He's going to be in a wheelchair for a long time and the paralysis and lack of sensation in certain areas will make his life very difficult. I can arrange for an agency to send someone over once you have decided where you will be staying -"

Donna held up her hand.

"That's enough, thanks. Firstly, it's up to the Doctor, not me. We travelled here in his ship and I don't think he will want to stay. And as for hiring a nurse, that won't be necessary."

"But he is partially paralysed," she reminded her, "You must grasp the fact that until the time comes - if the time comes – that his healing is complete, until that happens, his injuries are life changing and -"

"Just listen to me for a minute," Donna replied, and then she looked to the scan result.

"I have already explained in a way that you will understand, given your limited knowledge," the woman said to her.

She shot her a look that clearly said, I don't think so, and then Donna indicated to the scan:

"Lower lumbar damage radiating into the supra sacral spinal cord. So not much movement or sensation in his legs and due the way the lower part of the spine is affected. I'd say he's in spinal shock, meaning his water works will be affected too – incontinence because he can't feel or control his bladder. So he's going to need a catheter for a few months, hopefully after that if your super clever future world space age treatment works, he should get the control back, although the feeling and movement in his legs could take much longer due to the nature of the injury. Am I making sense now?"

The female medic looked at her in surprise.

"What? " Donna said, "Don't I look smart enough to understand this? A long time ago, I once trained to be a nurse, but the pay was lousy and my mum got ill and I had to go back to office work to help with the mortgage. I ended up sticking with office work - but I still remember all I learned about nursing. Any questions?"

The medic shook her head.

"Good," Donna replied, "Now, enough about me and the tale of going from nurse to super temp...I think I'm right in saying this will hurt like hell? I mean, if he's healing from the inside as nerves reconnect that's going to be painful. And I mean, painful ! What's your plan to handle that?"

The woman hesitated.

Donna felt like her patience was wearing thin:

So much for this future world being all bright and clever..

"The Doctor is an alien species and we are not sure how to best proceed with regard to pain control."

Donna rolled her eyes.

"Oh please... you don't know how stupid that sounds! He needs low dose morphine, just to take the edge off the worst of it. Anything more would mask the return of sensation as the nerves heal. Don't you know anything?"

"Clearly you know enough," the woman replied, "Please instruct me."

"My instructions are, we do nothing, make no decisions until the Doctor wakes up, because it's his life and he has to make the choices. You don't seem to hold much respect for consent or next of kin around here, I haven't once been asked to sign anything on his behalf and I don't care if that's your way around here, I think that stinks! So for now, we wait, okay?"

She nodded.

"I shall return in a while. He should be waking soon."

And the medic turned away and headed for the door.

Donna's eyes flashed with anger.

"Yeah, off you go. Leave me to tell him he's paralysed from the waist down!"

And then she turned back towards the bed, and met with the Doctor's gaze. He was looking at her with a flash of panic in his dark eyes.

"How long have you been awake?" she said in a hushed voice.

The Doctor blinked away tears as he struggled to move his legs and found it impossible, because more than half the feeling was gone from below his waist.

"Long enough," he replied as emotion choked his voice.

Donna's jaw briefly dropped as she looked at him in alarm:

Oh god no, he had just heard everything that had been said about him.

What a way to find out...