DISCLAIMER: Doctor Who and its characters belong to Terry Nation, Russell T. Davis and the BBC. No infringement intended.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
THANKS: To Ann for the beta.

Getting Settled
By ralst

 

The Doctor looked at herself in the full length mirror and sighed. "I don't have a thing to wear," she complained, smoothing her hands down the front of her shirt, only to have them swell to accommodate the full breasts that bulged beneath the too tight confines of her shirt. "Over nine hundred years of travel and not a single bra in the entire place that doesn't belong to Donna."

"Oi! You leave my bras alone." Donna peered suspiciously at the stunning brunette, before rolling her eyes and asking, "Are all Time Lords that skinny?"

The Doctor felt quite restricted in her older self's clothing, so she didn't quite understand the comment, but at that moment, she was more interested in finding something suitable to contain her squished bosom than in exploring her body image with the smirking redhead. "Martha?" she asked, turning to her second companion.

"I've only got the one I'm wearing," Martha explained. "And no, you can't have it."

The Doctor sighed yet again, the action causing another button to ping loose from her shirt. "You'd think at least one of my predecessors would have tried cross-dressing, but no, they all had to be Y-fronts and boxers men, whose girlfriends ran away and took their frillies with them." She undid the remaining buttons on her shirt and let it fall to the floor.

Martha's eyes went wide as she took in the smooth skin and generous curves of this latest version of the Doctor. "You don't look much like him."

"Unless he was hiding more than a second heart beneath his skinny little suits," Donna added, her gaze less appreciative than Martha's but no less interested in this new quirk in her relationship with the Doctor. "You can't go around like that," she said, pointing vaguely in the direction of the Doctor's straining nipples. "You'll have someone's eye out."

Her eyebrows disappearing into her hairline, the Doctor poked curiously at one of the nipples in question, a half smile tugging at her lips as she shivered in response. "Do they always feel like that?"

Martha and Donna shared a smile before the latter threw a T-shirt in the Doctor's direction.

"Are you telling us that after nine hundred years and God alone knows how many regenerations, this is your first time as a woman?" Martha asked.

"Yes." The Doctor was distracted by the way her breasts bulged beneath her T-shirt, adding new curves to the material. "Do my breasts look even?" she asked, lifting up first one and then the other and then watching them gently bounce back into place.

Donna threw up her hands and retreated to the main control room, muttering darkly about 'gravity defying boobs and legs that wouldn't quit' as she went.

"Was it something I said?" The Doctor abandoned her breasts and started pulling at the zipper to her trousers. "I thought women discussed this sort of thing all the time?" The trousers pooled on the floor, soon to be followed by the previous Doctor's boxers.

Martha squeezed her eyes shut and tried desperately to remind herself that she was a doctor and trained to deal with these types of situations in a clinical manner. "We don't usually strip off in front of each other," she explained, her voice unusually high. "Perhaps, in the future, you should think twice before throwing off your clothes."

The Doctor was paying scant attention to what Martha was saying, her interest having been captured by one of the many wardrobes containing the previous Doctors' clothing. She pulled out an outfit and held it up against her body. "What do you think?" she asked.

Gingerly, Martha opened her eyes, only to close them again when the Doctor discarded her first choice to reveal her mostly naked self beneath. "I think you should put on some underwear."

"Underwear," the Doctor mused, as if the concept was alien to her. "Boxers or briefs?"

"Anything."

The sound of rustling was followed by a contented, "There."

Martha hesitated but eventually opened her eyes. "That's better," she said, even as the image burned into her mind and sent unwelcome chills coursing through her system. Some women really were too damn beautiful for their own good. "So why don't you pick an outfit and then join me and Donna outside?"

"Pick an outfit?"

"Yes, just pick one." Martha didn't think she could take another discussion about clothing, at least with the Doctor wearing nothing but a tight white T-shirt and scandalously short boxers. "We'll be waiting outside," she mumbled, before following Donna's example and rushing from the room.

"And I thought women loved to talk about clothes," the Doctor mused.


"He could at least have had the decency to come back as an ugly bird," Donna complained, once Martha had joined her at the console. "It was bad enough travelling around with skinny-bollocks and having to watch the women swarm all over him, but one look at little Miss Luscious and every Tom, Dick and alien will be crawling all over itself to offer a helping hand."

Martha would have liked to disagree, but one look at the new Doctor in her underwear, and she'd been willing to forget her on-again, off-again fiancé and follow the Doctor anywhere. "She might not be as pretty with her clothes on," she suggested, even though she didn't believe that for a second.

"Oh yeah, a right dog," Donna agreed, looking pointedly towards the entrance from which the Doctor had just emerged. "Nothing to like there at all."

The Doctor had chosen the simplest of outfits, consisting of faded blue jeans, a crisp white shirt and cowboy boots. It was the type of outfit worn by thousands of women, but very few had the figure, complexion and bountiful brunette hair to pull it off so magnificently.

Donna reached over and closed Martha's slackened jaw. "Like I said, just one look and they'll be all over her like a rash."

"Is this all right?" The Doctor enquired, as she began experimenting with exactly how many buttons she could loosen on her shirt before her breasts started to peek through.

"It's fine." Martha made a mental note to stock up the TARDIS with an assortment of bras; she was thinking silk, front clasp, with tiny little ... She gulped. "Fine, fine."

Donna looked from one woman to the next, a tiny smirk taking up residence on her features, as she contemplated this latest turn of events. It didn't really matter to her what the Doctor looked like, he, or rather, she was still the same eccentric and slightly barking genius underneath, and that was all that matter to her. So, she looked like a model and had turned Martha's head to putty, it was all just another part of the craziness that was life with a Time Lord. "So, where to next?" she asked. "And will Martha be joining us?"

The Doctor looked at Martha, a hopeful expression on her face. "You'll stay, won't you?"

"I really shouldn't..." Martha had been at UNIT headquarters when she'd received a frantic phone call from a terrified Donna screaming about the Doctor changing into God knows what. She'd rushed from the building, without so much as a hint of an explanation, and had driven all the way to Land's End where she found the TARDIS precariously parked on the edge of a cliff. She'd had no intentions of staying. No intentions at all. "I guess I could come along for a quick ride. Just until you get settled," she said to the Doctor.

"Splendid!" The Doctor jumped forward and gave her a hug.

"Yeah." Martha tried not to notice the feel of the Doctor's breasts against her own. "I just have to make a few phone calls," she said, excusing herself from the Doctor and hurrying out of the TARDIS.

"She likes you," Donna said helpfully.

"Martha and I have always been good friends," the Doctor agreed.

"No, skinny-bird, I mean she likes you." She wiggled her eyebrows in a very unbecoming manner. "You know, as in wants to clean your drain pipe with her tongue, kind of like?"

The Doctor looked down at her body. "I don't think I have a drain pipe anymore."

Donna rolled her eyes and promptly gave up on that line of questioning; if Martha wanted to go a little soft in the head over this latest version, that was up to her, but Donna refused to get in the middle... Unless, of course, she could take the piss, then all bets were off. "So, as I said before, where to next?"


The three time travellers were panting hard as they raced through the doors of the TARDIS and set about making their escape for somewhere less volatile. Donna collapsed just inside the doors, her chest heaving as she fought to control her breathing, while simultaneously berating the Doctor for her latest harebrained idea.

"What kind ... of idiot ... takes two women ... to a planet full ... of ... misogynist bastards?" she wheezed.

The Doctor swung her mallet confidently at the TARDIS control panel before turning to face her accuser. "They were awfully nice the last time I was here," she said, a touch of confusion edging her voice. "I can't think what's come over them."

"I'll tell you what's ... come over them," Donna panted. "Those melons you've got ... stuck down your shirt."

The Doctor and Martha both looked towards the shirt in question and the protuberances beneath. "She's right," agreed Martha. "One look at your new body, and they were ready to kill us on sight."

"Very primitive," mused the Doctor. "Perhaps we should go back and..."

"No!" Chorused the women. "I'd rather sit through a Crossroads marathon," Donna added.

The Doctor found their response somewhat disheartening, but she had promised them a carefree adventure or two while she adjusted to her new body, so she decided not to push the issue but rather save it for another day. "I never realised such a simple thing as changing ones gender would have such a knock on effect."

"And she calls herself a genius," Donna mumbled.

Martha chose to believe that particular lack of insight was a residual effect of the Doctor's regeneration and not a sign of mental instability. "Perhaps next time we could go somewhere a little less stuck in the dark ages?" For the moment, all Martha wanted was to crawl into bed and grab a few hours of uninterrupted sleep; she'd forgotten how exhausting it could be, running around with the Doctor, especially when people were running after you. "But for now, I'm heading for bed."

"Yeah, me too." Donna shook her head as she passed the Doctor, a mumbled 'calls herself a genius' vaguely audible.

As adventures went, it had been something of a disappointment, but the Doctor had gleaned one or two useful facts from her time on Withacre IV. The first was that she really didn't much care for the men of Withacre IV, not a particularly useful fact, but a fact nonetheless. Secondly, she discovered that she greatly enjoyed the feel of Martha's body pressed up against her own, no matter what the circumstances.

"I wonder..." Looking to where her two companions had disappeared, the Doctor decided to extend her enquiry and perform a controlled experiment.


"What are you doing!" Donna yelled, as the Doctor squeezed in beside her in the bed.

The verbal barrage and elbow to the ribs was enough to make anyone second guess their intentions, but even before Donna's reaction had been given free reign, the Doctor had concluded that she felt little of the stimuli she experienced with Martha while cuddling with the redhead.

"It doesn't feel quite right," the Doctor muttered, as she dodged yet another elbow aimed for her ribs.

"I'll give you doesn't feel right, you time travelling pervert!"

"Now, Donna, there's no need for violence, I was only trying to..."

"I know exactly what you were trying, young lady, and it's not gonna wash with me." With one almighty kick, she sent the Doctor sprawling onto the floor. "If you want a little night time company, you should try..."

"What's going on?" Martha's eyes widened as she caught sight of the Doctor's semi-nude form wheezing for breath on the floor beside Donna's bed.

"...Martha," Donna finished, just as the woman herself appeared. "Good, you're here," she said, "why don't you take the wandering lunatic with you and leave me in peace?"

Martha was far too confused to take exception to the tone and merely helped the Doctor to her feet and into the corridor, leaving Donna to call names and colourful epithets at their retreating backs.

"What was all that about?" Martha demanded once they were free from Donna's scalding words. "Are the two of you...?"

"No. Most definitely not. Not at all." The Doctor put a tentative hand to her ribs, but thankfully none of them were more than mildly bruised. "I was carrying out an experiment."

"In Donna's bed?" Martha had conducted a lot of experiments during her years at medical school, but they had never once involved her climbing into someone else's bed. "What kind of experiment?"

"To ascertain whether or not my new body reacts in a pleasurable way to all close encounters or just those with you."

Martha didn't quite know what to say to that. "And what conclusions did you reach?"

"It's too early to tell, but my initial research would lead me to believe that your affect on my physiology is unique."

A smile slowly worked its way onto Martha's face, and taking a slow look at the Doctor's body, which was once again covered by nothing more than a T-shirt and skimpy boxers, she couldn't deny her own pleasurable reactions at such close contact. "Is there a stage two, to your experiment?" she asked.

"Yes."

"And that would be?"

The Doctor scratched the back of her head as she contemplated the possible repercussions of stage two; she could end up with more than a bruised rib to start with, or she could end up discovering that she was utterly besotted with the woman before her and, from her prior selves' memories, she knew that to be a devilish feeling if the emotion was not returned. A lose-lose situation, she believed it was called, but one she just couldn't bring herself to deny.

"Stage two involves me accompanying you back to your room and ascertaining exactly how my body reacts to certain stimuli."

"What kind of stimuli?"

"Stimuli of the tactile variety."

"Touching," Martha translated, her smile growing wider. "I think I can help you with that." Taking the Doctor by the hand, she began leading her in the direction of the nearest unoccupied bed.


She was in hell, Donna concluded, it was the only logical conclusion. The TARDIS had obviously thrown another wobbly, and she'd been transported to some new hell dimension where everybody and everything was determined to drive her insane.

"Do you have to do that?" she asked for the fifteenth time since that morning.

"Hmmhm?" Martha drowsily tore her lips away from the Doctor's to stare at Donna. "Did you say something?"

"What, me? What could I possibly have to say?" Donna prepared to issue her list of complaints, starting with the fact that they'd been cooped up in the TARDIS for the past five days without sight of land and ending with a reiteration of the mental scars that could be inflicted on the single woman's psyche when forced to watch nauseating displays of affection on an hourly basis. Unfortunately, by the time she'd mentally prepared her list of grievances, Martha had returned her lips to the Doctor's and neither woman was paying her the slightest bit of attention. "No, don't mind me, just carry on with what you were doing," she said.

And they did just that; neither caring if they ever sighted land again.

The End

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