A/N: I managed to keep within PG-13! But you might be amused to know that I went and wrote some smut after finishing this.

A/N2: there's a little something in here for raingirlkm, dm12, NotaPunk, and Way Worse Than Scottish.

Part Eighteen

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It was with a certain amount of effort that Donna managed to enthuse about Suzette's anniversary gift. The pagoda in the back garden was indeed a very fine example of gardening furniture, and the Russian vine growing up it would be beautiful by the end of the summer.

Sylvia had tried to pin her in the kitchen by the back door, and she had already had to admire Suzette's new double oven to please her mother. The things you do out of loyalty. So she was glad to see the Doctor making his way towards her, when there was a shout from behind.

"Donna!"

A tall, burly man in his thirties suddenly rushed up and hugged Donna tightly, adding in a twirl as he did so. "Fancy seeing you here!" he exclaimed.

She grinned with glee back at him. It was fantastic to see a welcome face from her past. "It's good to see you after all this time."

"What's this I hear about a wedding? Did you go and marry someone else instead?" he teased.

"Geroff, you berk!" She then collected herself and turned to introduce the Doctor. Oh dear! He did not look pleased at all. "Philip, this is my..."

Before she could get the word 'friend' out, the Doctor continued her sentence by sternly saying, "Her husband."

What did he go and say that for? That was twice in an hour. Although at least he hadn't grabbed Philip by the throat. Oh God! He wasn't going to punch Philip, was he? It was only a hug; nothing more sinister. "Erm… John," she cautiously said as she took hold of his arm, "this is a really old friend of mine that I'm sure I told you about. Philip is the one with the deeply religious mother."

The Doctor blinked back at her as his rage dissipated and his memory brought up the religious mother incident. That meant this was the closet gay friend. "Oh yes!" he recalled with delight. "It's lovely to meet you, Philip," he enthused as he grasped Philip's hand to shake.

"Same here, mate," Philip replied, shooting Donna a 'what's the matter with him?' glance. The atmosphere eased considerably as they exchanged pleasantries, and eventually promised to keep in touch.

Donna thought they had weathered the worse storm when Philip went to talk to someone else, but Sylvia had waited until they were the only ones left in the kitchen.

She folded up a tea towel and threw it down onto the worktop. "When were you going to mention the ring?" Sylvia began questioning Donna.

"What ring?" Donna asked in confusion.

Sylvia sighed in exasperation. "The wedding ring sitting on your third finger," she pointed out with a jab of her index finger.

"Ah, Donna's wedding ring…," the Doctor started to explain.

"Not you!" Sylvia testily halted him from talking and gave him a withering look. "Her!" She indicated towards Donna. "I want to hear it from the horse's mouth and not from a gibbering idiot."

The Doctor baulked at that insult, and Donna automatically reached out to place a calming hand on his arm. "Mum! Do you have to?!"

"Apparently I do, otherwise I'd have been told nothing. Well?!" Sylvia now added in a glare as she waited for her answer.

"The thing is, Mum… we er…we are sort of married," Donna stammered.

"Sort of?" Sylvia sneered. "How can you be sort of married? Either you are or you're not!"

"It wasn't a legal ceremony, but we stated our vows to each other," the Doctor put in. He wrapped a possessive arm around Donna's waist to draw her protectively close. "In all the ways that matter we are husband and wife."

"So are you saying you had some fart arse hippy wedding where you danced around naked at Stonehenge during the Summer Solstice? Sounds about right for you. You never could do anything that was remotely ordinary and normal," Sylvia loudly accused Donna.

The Doctor gave a chuckle at her words. "Thankfully Donna is far from being dull and ordinary; and our wedding was very special, taking place as it did on a London landmark."

"Doctor," Donna groaned. Why did he have to admit it had taken place in London of all places? Trouble was bound to happen now.

Of course Sylvia angrily leapt on this snippet of information. "You got married in London! And you didn't tell us?! I should have known you'd stoop so low as to not invite us to my own daughter's wedding. As if you hadn't done enough damage by stealing her away from her marriage to Lance."

That really got his anger up. "The universe does not revolve around your wants, Sylvia Noble. It's a shame you can't always remember Donna is your daughter in such a positive light!"

"I think you'd better leave," Sylvia ordered him.

"No!" Donna yelled out. "If you chuck him out I go with him. I won't come back until you apologise."

Sylvia seethed. "Then you'll have a long wait, missy!"

"What's all this noise? Have I missed something important?" Wilf suddenly appeared through the door to ask.

"It's her and him," Sylvia also spat out, "talking nonsense; claiming they are as good as married."

"Just a spot of bother; all sorted now," the Doctor cheerily faked his reply.

Wilf stood in confusion. "I saw the ring on Donna's finger, but I assumed you'd come to say you were engaged; not married."

Brenda who stood next to him, eating a piece of cake from the plate she held, commented, "I thought she was going to announce she's finally pregnant." All eyes looked at her. "What? Can't I chip with what I thought now? Sorry, I didn't know it was a private argument, what with the amount of noise Sylvia was kicking up."

"I didn't…," Sylvia started to deny the accusation.

"You did, sweetheart," Wilf interrupted her. "The whole house could hear you going off at them. That's why I came in, to shut you up."

That caused a deep blush to form on Sylvia's cheeks as she stammered an embarrassed apology.

"Time to leave, I think, Donna," the Doctor declared, and firmly grasped her hand before she could refuse. "Say goodbye to everyone."

To her amazement, Donna found herself doing just that, finding that many people gazed with sympathy and understanding on them as they did so; and she was just as eager to get out of there and back home. Home to the TARDIS, that is.

The Doctor didn't let go of her hand for a second; which was extremely puzzling, but she waited until they were safely inside and they had dematerialised before she asked any question.

The fact he made her help out was an added bonus; what with running his hands down her arms and personally guiding her hands to press buttons and push levers as he did so. Not only that but his breath played over the back of her neck the whole time and his body remained so close behind hers that the only way to be closer would involve intimacy.

Now there was a leading thought!

And then he said the words that set butterflies scurrying in her stomach and caused goosebumps to rise on her skin.

"We need to talk," he said in low tones directly into her ear.

Before leaving the kitchen, Donna adjusted her skirt over her hips, smoothed down her hair, picked up the fully laden tea tray and set off to meet the Doctor, as arranged. When she got to the library she found it empty. Where the heck was he? Didn't he know how anxious she was about this talk, the swine? It wasn't as though she'd had enough to think about lately, what with the whole living in a different era thing, him posing as a human, and the whole sex topic that hung over their heads like the Sword of Damocles.

She garnered her bravado and resolved to quiz him about those little slipups he had made, embarrassing her in the process. What had he been thinking?! Yes, anger was good; it felt comfortable.

"Doctor?! Where are you?" she called out as she returned to the corridor in search of him.

"In here!" he cried from several doors down.

A door stood ajar, so she kicked it open to avoid knocking the tray and found herself standing in his bedroom. "There you are," she said with some relief. "I thought we were having tea in the library."

"Now that you are here we might as well have it in here," he evenly suggested

Walking properly in, she looked for a place to set the tea tray down and chose the desk. It was as she turned to speak to him that it happened.

The Doctor stood in the middle of the bedroom, and brought out from behind his back a cane; a schoolmaster's cane. He wielded it purposely about and then brought it down hard onto the bed in front of him.

WHACK!

Despite jumping, Donna immediately felt herself melt. What was the matter with her? She thought she had gotten over this stupid fetish. Judging by the way her heart sped up, she hadn't.

"Erm… Doctor, where did you get the cane from?" she asked, although it practically came out as a groan.

He turned the darkest look he could muster onto her. "Why do you ask, Donna? Have you been naughty?" he breathily wondered.

Eek! Had he rumbled her? Was he aware this was her version of Kryptonite? With an anxious lick of her lips, a lick that his eyes followed in minute increments, she stammered, "I er… I don't think so, but I might have been. You certainly had the odd moment.

With an annoying quirk of his eyebrow, he stepped nearer to examine the flush upon her skin and smell her pheromones. He'd been right; she secretly liked this sort of thing. "You seem to have something to tell me."

"No, nothing at all," she instantly denied. Nothing she was remotely willing to own up to with this scenario. It was only a stupid fantasy, after all; one that she wasn't insisting on playing out.

A step closer.

"I disagree. You were like this the day we first shared love, after you had come to my classroom."

Donna shook her head. "That wasn't you, it was John Smith"

He frowned briefly in anger. "I am John Smith."

Why was he saying this? What stunt was he trying to fool her with? "No you're not; you're the Doctor. John Smith died."

Why was she denying his existence? He brought his hand up slowly to delve into his open jacket and pull out his wallet. "Do you recognise this, Donna?" he asked as he flipped it open and showed her the contents; one specific item held within a tiny plastic bag.

She gasped. "You kept it! That's the lock of my hair you… John cut as a souvenir. Why have you still got it?"

"Why does any man keep something precious in his wallet? It is held safely next to my hearts," he answered sincerely.

"No, John Smith did all that. You've merely inherited it," she insisted. "It's a nice gesture though."

Nearer still.

With a resigned sigh, he kissed the packet and replaced it from where he had taken it. Did she still not believe he could be one and the same? Needing to convince her, he asked, "Look into my eyes. What do you see?"

A flippant answer tried to force its way passed her lips as she stood nervously before him, one where she mocked him for being a madman, but she batted it away and went for honesty. "I don't know anymore," she blurted out. "I only know that I was allowed to love John Smith, and he loved me."

"If you look in my eyes, Donna, you'll see he's here, inside me. Everything that John Smith is and was, I'm capable of that, too," he softly stated.

"You are?" she wondered. There was a sob. "What are you offering me exactly? Another arranged marriage of convenience, friends with benefits, purely friends or a one way ticket back home? In case you hadn't noticed, I don't tend to get permanent offers."

"How permanent can I make this…?" he pondered as he wrapped his arms around her and brought his lips as close as possible. "Be mine," he begged, bringing their lips finally together. "Stay with me, please."

"Yes," was the only word she was able to reply with; her mouth, lips and body did the rest.

Donna entered the branch of W. in Oxford Street and joined the queue of people waiting for their signed copies of the book written by Verity Newman.

Without looking up, Verity grabbed a book, opened the front cover and went to write her message. "Who is it for?" she asked with the merest glance.

"Donna. Donna Smith-Noble," Donna stated proudly. "And that there is the Doctor," she added, pointing towards the man standing a few feet away watching them.

That seemed to affect Verity, and she took off her reading glasses to peer intently at her customer. "You know, my grandmother knew a…" She then gasped. "It can't be! You look exactly as you were described in her notes. There was even a sketch or two. She never forgot you."

Trying not to embarrass herself by welling up, Donna asked, "Was she happy?"

"Very much so," Verity confirmed, and signed the book with a flourish. "My grandfather made her happy. And what about you, Donna?"

The Doctor approached them both, and took Donna's hand, smiling contentedly.

"Yes, we're happy together; ecstatic even," Donna said as she smiled back at him. "Thank you," she continued as she took her copy of 'The Journal of Impossible Things' from Verity's hand.

"If you would wait just one moment," Verity requested as she bent down to open her handbag, rifled through it and pulled out her phone to snap a photograph of them both; but when she lifted her head, they had gone.

Verity sat glumly contemplating the empty space before her, knowing her grandmother would have been pleased to know that her friend Donna and the Doctor were happy too.

They lay snuggled up in bed, trading small kisses that were slowly building in intensity as their arousal grew.

"What happened to Jenny? We never went back and checked," Donna thought to ask before her senses were swamped by the essence of him.

"Your fledgling Suffragette, you mean?" he teased. "She bought herself an education, started a business and became a leading light in the Labour Party."

She stopped kissing him long enough to consider, "She didn't make it through the war, did she?"

"No," he reluctantly supplied. "She was killed by one of the first doodlebugs. I'm sorry, my love."

"But it wasn't futile, was it?" she sought to confirm.

"Oh no," he agreed. "She did an enormous amount of good, helping girls reach their potential."

It would always be like this with him. They'd get to meet people, form friendships and know they'd die having made their mark on society. It would take a time to get used to.

"Come on, no bad thoughts," he interrupted her musings, "or I will have to bring out my cane."

She laughed, just as he hoped she would. "I love you, Dr John Spaceman; and the fact we're the Dynamic Duo."

He grinned and gave into the temptation to kiss her again. "I love you, Donna Spaceman-Noble; although we might have to change the label of Dynamic Duo in the near future."

"Why? Has someone brought out a patent on it?" she wondered.

With a delighted giggle he laid a hand on her stomach. "No, just a little addition to change things."

Her elated tears spilled over as they celebrated their joy by demonstrating their love; and the TARDIS quietly added a nursery next to their room.

~o~0~O~0~o~

Thank you for reading.