The Doctor knew better than anyone in the universe that hindsight was twenty-twenty. Things always seemed clearer after the fact.

Consequences; that was the word.

Unfortunately, even he couldn't quite always foresee consequences. That was his excuse, he decided, as he pulled on his trousers and, not bothering to fasten them, reached for the shirt lodged under Donna's pillow as gently as he could.

Really, this was her fault as much as his, with all her talk about sex.

When the shirt was free and she didn't wake, he found himself releasing a breath.

Donna did, however, stir and turn, letting the blanket slide quite low on her body.

Screwing his eyes shut, he felt around for his jacket on the floor – he clearly remembered it landing there – and, upon finding it, fled the room.

When he finally shut the door quietly behind him, he leaned on the wall just outside her bedroom, and closed his eyes again, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Well, he would have to talk to her in the morning. He'd learned his lesson with Martha; nothing good could come of pretending not to notice someone else's feelings, and he couldn't very well pretend after this.

When he opened his eyes, he realised he was, in fact, holding Donna's blouse.

* * *

A few hours earlier…

"…and then there was Lance, of course, you met him – nice bloke until I found out he was poisoning me and planning to feed me to giant spiders, but all the same, least I got a few months of some really great sex out of it –"

"Oy!" the Doctor exclaimed. Donna could be a great conversation partner, really, but tonight, something had prompted her into filling the Doctor in about every man she'd ever dated.

Somewhere around Donna's GCSEs, he'd started working on calculating the Sigma Theorem to the one-billionth decimal place; calculating pi was much too easy to block out her chatter. He's got to two hundred thousand and one decimal places when Donna brought up Lance. "I don't want to know that!"

She turned to him, smirking. They were sitting around the table in the main kitchen; the Doctor had walked in when Donna was brewing some of the tea they'd bought at an alien marketplace that day, and he'd joined her. "What, did I embarrass you? It is because you met him? Didn't seem to have a problem when I told you how I lost my virginity." She looked away from him again and took a sip of her third cup of the evening.

"Well…" The Doctor wondered how painfully she would hurt him if he admitted he hadn't been listening for the past – oh, he hadn't been counting how long. "I don't want reminders of that day, thank you very much. You think I enjoy taking part in terrorising London at Christmas time?" He put on his best outraged expression.

"Well, excuse me," she said, waving her free hand, "for talking about my life for a change. Got any idea how many nights I've sat here, listening to you prattle on about some alien invasion you stopped or some alien you introduced to his future wife? No? Me either, because I've lost track."

The Doctor gaped at Donna's outburst for a few moments, but quickly regained his composure. "That's – that's different – I was trying to broaden your horizons. Educate you about the universe."

Donna smirked again. "Okay, then, I was trying to educate you about women."

"Oy, I know women!"

"Oh, please, you live alone in a box. When was the last time you had a shag? D'you even remember?"

"Uh -"

"Don't even try lying to me, you think Martha and I didn't talk about you after that Atmos thing got sorted out? According to her, you're rubbish even when a woman does pay some attention to you! And you ran the other one off to a parallel world!"

"I did not run her off -"

"In fact, she did mention you and this Jack looked quite cosy in the end; are you gay?"

"Donna!"

"Because it's great if you are, really, it's all right with me, and it would explain a lot -"

"Bloody hell, do you ever shut up?"

Donna stopped talking and gaped at him for a few seconds.

"Good." He turned and took a sip of his long-cold tea, satisfied. "I'm an alien. Gayness doesn't apply to me."

Donna looked from him to the table. "What does that mean?" She set the empty mug down. "Does that mean you're not all there down your pants or what?"

"I'm all there down my pants, I'm very much all there!" he proclaimed, louder than necessary. Then he shook his head. "Means I can be a bit flexible. You know, Jack, Rose…. a lot more went on in this TARDIS than you think." He set his mug down as well.

Her eyebrows shot up. "Oh. Please do tell, then."

He grinned and shook his head. "A gentleman doesn't tell."

She smiled. "Fine. Suit yourself. I was alone for a while after Lance because I went travelling, but it wasn't too long after I got back that I met John and David -"

"We met Jack in 1941," the Doctor said, quite quickly. "His spaceship blew up, and we saved his life on account of the fact he'd saved Rose's life earlier. And he was quite fit." The Doctor raised his eyebrows and grinned suggestively on the last sentence, hoping Donna would be put off the story in some way.

"Go on."

The Doctor sighed and frowned. "You know what, Donna, time for you to go to bed. I reckon you've been up at least twenty-four hours now."

Donna shook her head. "No, mister, I want to hear the rest of it… you aren't getting off that easy. Oops, bad choice of words."

The Doctor felt himself blushing slightly, though it was evident that Donna had not made the slip accidentally. "It started out with a pot of tea Rose made - actually, kind of like this. Jack came in here and graced us with thrilling stories about his escapades at the Time Agency. He and Rose thought they were hilarious."

"When you say escapades, do you really mean sexcapades?" she asked, miming air quotes over the last word.

"If you knew more about Jack, you wouldn't need to ask. He's a bit flexible as well." The Doctor smiled. "The first time they kissed, though, Rose kissed him, because he digressed into something about bullets and lasers."

"She just grabbed him and kissed him right in front of you?"

"Well, yes, she did, but she kissed me too a minute later." He winked at Donna playfully. "And so did Jack."

"Like this?" she asked, putting her hands on the Doctor's lapels.

"Sort of…"

Donna's hands bunched up the fabric and his lips were on hers a second later. Donna had nice lips – they were soft and gentle, and kissing her was pleasant indeed. Before he knew it, they were standing, his arm around her waist, and making tentative, careful steps towards the doorway.

"A lot like this, actually," he managed to say, as their lips were briefly apart. They didn't stop even when they were at Donna's bedroom door, not even when they were on the bed.

Donna had been right, it really had been long, and he'd almost forgotten how nice sex was.

"Well, at least you're not skinny all over," Donna breathed, hands in his hair.

* * *

The Doctor was busy in the kitchen when Donna woke up the next morning.

He'd been torn, unable to decide what to prepare for breakfast. He wanted to let her down gently, and the way to do it was probably through a good meal.

Pancakes wouldn't do. Weren't they a traditional post-coital breakfast back on Earth? Eggs and cereal were much too ordinary. Baked beans were, well… baked beans. Toast would simply not do either.

He'd thought of landing the TARDIS somewhere, and going out for pastries, but he was statistically too likely to end up having to save the world again, and Donna would only miss out.

He'd decided, in the end, that simple was better. The Doctor had toiled over the stove, bur when Donna walked into the kitchen, he was prepared with fresh tea, and a full English Breakfast, beautifully – even if he did say so himself – arranged on a large plate.

"Morning!" she said cheerfully, throwing his crumpled jacket at him. "Here, left that in my room last night. So, what's for breakfast?"

"Full English," the Doctor said meekly, not having expected the jacket catapult.

Donna looked surprised. "Blimey, I thought I was the only one who could cook here!"

The Doctor stepped from one foot to the other as he watched her stir three spoonfuls of sugar into her tea. "Donna... we need to talk."

"Yes?"

"Last night…"

She rolled her eyes.

The Doctor could not believe it. She actually rolled her eyes.

"I knew this would happen." Donna sipped her tea, then continued. "Have a shag one time, everything changes."

The Doctor sighed again. "That's what I wanted to talk about, actually -"

But Donna cut him off. "At least I get a decent breakfast, though." She sat down at the table. "Not everybody in the bloody universe is in love with you, you git. We had sex; let's move on. Where are we going today?"

-end-