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“No, you don’t understand, you can’t just marry us while we’re high out of our minds on your toxic atmosphere- great job with that, by the way. I thought London had a smog problem,” Donna bit out, deriding a rather uninterested clerk who might not have had ears to listen to her tirade.
“Well, it happens all the time with your lot, doesn’t it?” the Doctor cut in pensively. “Go off to Vegas, have a few too many drinks and next thing you know it- What?”
Donna was looking at him with an expression sandwiched between rage and absolute incomprehension.
“What do you mean ‘our lot?’ You think that’s what I do, do you?” she snapped. Before he could start to respond she continued in a hiss painfully close to his ear. “And why would you give them any precedent? Don’t you want them to call this whole thing off?”
He leaned just as close in to her ear. “Why is it such a big deal anyway? It’s just the one planet where we’ll be married. Everywhere else is none the wiser.”
She let out a sniff of indignation. “I’m not going to be Mrs. The Doctor. It’s demeaning.”
He smiled despite himself at her self-possession. It was one of the things that made her so admirable. He rubbed his thumb along her shoulder and smiled at her. “Wouldn’t dream of it. I’d be Doctor Noble, for sure.”
A spark of curiosity lit in her eyes. He gulped. She returned her lips to his ear in a far less harsh tone.
“I thought you would be the one freaking out about this, spaceman.”
He shrugged deeply. “Why would you think that?”
She rolled her eyes. “Commitment-phobe?”
He inclined his head to get a good, scornful glare at her, which was difficult while she was leaning her head back on his shoulder and looking up at him with a mischievous smile.
“I am not a commitment-phobe,” he insisted.
“You told me 5 minutes was too long for a microwave dinner.”
“What if I changed my mind before it was done?”
She just barely held in a snort and teasingly tugged at his shirt collar. “Proving my point, spaceman!” she sang out.
He felt his hearts flip. He might have gone slightly mad, in that moment.
“Besides,” he drawled, carefully stopping himself from pulling her any closer, letting her lean back against him, “there’s a few benefits. To uhm, being married.”
“Such as?”
“…Well, erm—“ He hadn’t thought that far ahead.
She tilted her head, casting him a teasing glance. “Taxes?”
“Oh, yes.” He agreed with a solemn nod. “And joint bank accounts.”
“Oh, then we would never be rid of each other.”
“Would you like that?” His teasing manner dropped in an instant and he was gazing down at her, searching her features.
She blinked up at him. “Like what?”
His mouth suddenly felt dry as he sucked in a breath. “Never being rid of me.”
She smiled back up at him and reached up to cup his cheek. “Yeah.” She slid her hand down to his chest to emphasise her point. “I’m gonna be with you forever, spaceman. Long as I have.”
“I would like that.” He rumbled, savouring her touch.
She must have been feeling slightly mad too. “Spaceman, I have a weird question for you. When you say you’d be happy to never be rid of me, do you mean—”
“Yes.” He declared earnestly, taking courage from her hand still resting on his chest.
She cocked an eyebrow. “Are you going to let me finish?”
“My answer is yes.” He took her hand and placed a bold kiss on the back.
Her lips twitched in amusement even as her cheeks coloured. “I was going to say, do you mean that in a ‘just mates’ way?”
He mentally buffered for a moment, caught up in the feeling of her soft skin against his lips and watching her cheeks turn the most gorgeous pink he’d ever seen, before finally catching up to her words. “Oh. Well, um, no, actually.” He replied awkwardly.
She grinned at him. “Good.”
She framed his face in her hands and stood on her tiptoes. Then she kissed him.