"All right, we're stuck. Get my screwdriver," the Doctor sighed.

"Which pocket?" Rose asked.

"Left one," the Doctor grunted, then, "my left. My other left. In my- not in my pants! In my jacket!"

Rose grinned at him, then neatly pulled the screwdriver out of the correct pocket. The Doctor looked stern.

"You knew," he accused, all prickly offended dignity.

"Me?" Rose beamed innocently. "'Course not!"

"Oh, you-"

"So which button undoes the cuffs?" Rose interrupted, still grinning. The Doctor huffed.

"For your information, neither of them." He wriggled his shoulders. "The lock's been welded shut."

Rose examined the slim tool. "Which lever does the 'cut through manacles' bit?"

"I haven't gotten around to installing that one," the Doctor quipped, and jerked his head at the cell door's highly sophisticated door lock. "You'll just have to bust us out of here yourself."

She looked at the lock. Then she looked at the Doctor.

"No!" she said.

"Yes," he said.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. Just- see the round bit?"

"It's got lots of round bits."

"The roundest round bit. Press it in."

"Got it." She pressed it. The screwdriver gave a little twitch in her hands and heated up a fraction.

Encouraged, she beamed up at the Doctor, who smiled reluctantly back.

"Now pull back the little lever on the side. No- no! Not that one!"

The screwdriver gave off a bright flash of red light, and the Doctor jerked back and went tense all over.

"Rose," he said urgently, his Northern drawl suddenly thick with worry.

"Yes, Doctor?"

"Flip that switch back."

She flipped it, but it only make a loose ratchety sound. The Doctor remained tense as a wire.

"Is it broken?" she asked. She wiggled the switch a little. The Doctor sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.

"Yes," he said tightly. "It must have been when- Rose! Stop wiggling it!"

She stopped. "Are you okay?"

The Doctor nodded, tightly. "I'll be fine. Just, please. Treat it- carefully?"

She smiled again. "Boys and their toys," she teased. "I promise I won't get a scratch on it."

He smiled back, more than a little wanly.

"Good girl," he said. "Now get to it."

"Okay," she said, and ran her finger expectantly along the tiny buttons and levers of the metal shaft. The Doctor drew a long, measured breath in through his teeth, and then jerked his head over at the lock.

"Better go have a look at it," he said.

"It?"

"The lock."

"Ah."

The lock was a kind of boxy lumpy thing, with lots of wires and blinky things.

"It's blinky," she informed him, and prodded at a blinky thing with the front part of the screwdriver.

Behind her she heard the Doctor shift uncomfortably, his heels scraping across the floor.

"Change it to, ah, s-setting thirteen," he stammered, sounding strangely breathless. "That's pushing forward the, the round red button. All the way."

"Are you sure you're alright?" she asked, pressing forward the little buttons, the tool up close to her face.

"Must be something in the air," he said tightly. "Now twist the little, the ring in front, twist it halfway around."

She did so. The Doctor grunted a little, but when she glanced suspiciously over her shoulder he appeared to be sitting perfectly casually against the wall. He smiled at her with perfect insincerity.

"No need to tease, Doctor," Rose said stiffly, and waggled the tool at him. "Look, still in one piece."

"That makes one of us," the Doctor muttered.

"What was that?"

"Rotate the ring around one more time," the Doctor said loudly, baring his teeth at her. "The other way 'round."

His wide grin got a lot more fixed as she spun the ring slowly, her gaze fixed suspiciously on his face. She stuck her tongue out at him, then turned to examine the lock again. The lock was still a kind of boxy lumpy thing, and there were still lots of wires and blinky things.

"...I have no idea what I'm looking at," she announced after a long moment, and tapped the smooth end of the screwdriver against her lips.

The Doctor made a little scoffy sound. When she rounded on him he froze mid-stagger, halfway to getting up, and gave her another manic rictus. His legs were trembling underneath him, his face was flushed, and she knew that expression- it was his daft Why Rose I'm Certainly Not About To Do Something Stupid grin, complete with the No, Really eyebrows.

"Sit," she said firmly. "You're in no shape to be up and about anyway, never mind those awful cuffs- how hard did those guards hit you, anyway?"

"Harder than I thought," the Doctor said, and made a scrunchy face. He did sink back down.

"Just tell me what to do, yeah?" she said, tapping the screwdriver again. It was rather a nice thing to fuss with, really- she could understand why the Doctor was always fondling it. She gave it a thoughtful nibble.

The Doctor sniffed loudly, and shuffled his feet a bit. "Don't-" he said hoarsely, "don't chew on it, Rose, for gods' sake-"

"Oh!" Rose startled, and whipped it away from her mouth. "Right, sorry," she stammered, thoroughly embarrassed.

"The little notches on the rings," the Doctor interrupted, his voice still wobbly and strange, "are they aligned in a, a, a star shape?"

Rose examined it, and surreptitiously wiped a little spit off. "Five pointed, yeah?"

"Y- yeah. Yes." Another shuffly noise. "Right. Ah- ah- affirmative."

"Okay." Rose held the screwdriver up and waited. The lights on the lock were, yes, still blinky.

"Now you turn it on," the Doctor prompted.

"And how do I do that, Doctor?" Rose snapped.

"Oh! Oh, oh. Yes. Right. Ah, you press the little oval button. And, and then, ah, then you hold it down."

She did so. The little tool hummed to life in her hands with a pleasant whine, and the blue light on the end came on.

"Point it at the lock-" the Doctor said faintly, and swallowed hard, as if he were bracing himself, "-then thumb the little round knobby switch all the way forward."

When she thumbed the switch the machine gave a strong pulse and then was vibrating away like anything in her hands. The Doctor made another little noise behind her, almost a choking sob, and she whirled around in alarm. She didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't what she saw. The Doctor was slouched against the wall, eyes glassy, face flushed, breathing in shallow, frantic gasps.

"Doctor!" she cried, dropping the screwdriver. He bucked and cried out as it hit the floor, and Rose connected several dots all at once.

"Oh my god, I'm sorry!" she shouted, scrambling to pick up the tool and cradle it against her chest. "I'm so sorry, Doctor, does it hurt? Am I hurting you?"

He blinked hard, shaking his head as if to clear it.

"Just the- the what, the biological imprimatur, it's gotten stuck," he panted, eyes still unfocused, distant, "it's- the wrong w-way 'round, I'm, I'm afraid."

"So I did hurt you?" she asked, and reached out to him. "Doctor-"

He ducked away, looking absolutely wretched. "Rose- Rose, no, just go and- keep working- on..."

The last dot connected, and she jerked her hand back as if it had been burned.

"You're!" she exclaimed. "You're getting off on this!"

He looked, if possible, even more wretched. "Not by choice. Rose-"

"No," she said, putting her hands out. She set the screwdriver down and backed away. "No, okay, I'm sorry, but-"

The Doctor ground his teeth together. "Rose, you have to believe me, I would never have intend this to happen and if there was- if there were any other way-"

She ran her hands through her hair. "But it's- and you- I don't even!"

"Rose, they're going to execute us! We don't have time for this!" He leaned forward, awkwardly, to catch her eyes. "This doesn't have to mean anything. This isn't- won't- it doesn't mean anything, it's just a, an involuntary biological situation. I promise you, we'll never mention this ever again."

She stared into his wild eyes- lust-dark and desperate- for a long moment, then broke away, unable to bear it. Her own breath was a little short in her chest as she crept forward and gingerly picked the screwdriver back up.

The raspy tone in the Doctor's breathing was unmistakable, this time, and Rose felt thoroughly dirty, hopelessly confused and more than a little turned on. Sometimes the Doctor could be so blatantly alien, and sometimes it was at the same exact time that he was blatantly, magnificently male. He looked like any bloke getting a quickie, if that bloke were a funny, gangly Time Lord getting off on a girl fondling his sonic screwdriver clear across the room.

"I just hold it up to the lock?" she asked, her voice a little more unsteady than she'd like.

"Yeah," he breathed, and moaned when she did. She trembled a little, a hot wash of desire sheeting through her. She thought of the filthy things she could do to it, thought of licking up and down the smooth metal length, fondling the buttons.

The screwdriver clicked and whirred, as if reading her mind- who knew if it was?- and the frantic quality of the Doctor's panting kicked up a notch.

"What's it feel like?" Rose asked impulsively, then blushed.

"Rose," he gasped, writhing a little up against the wall, "This'sn't the... the, time."

"Can't blame a girl for being curious," she muttered, already regretting asking.

He shifted again, then abruptly blurted, "It feels- it feels fantastic. Like nothing I've ever felt before. It- ohhh, Rose," he moaned, her name a long, drawn out sensuous burr, that gorgeous Northern drawl and she could hear him throw his head back against the wall. "It's in my head, Rose, you're all around me and it's- it's so, so, so-"

The door unlocked with a chirp and the Doctor gave a ragged cry, thrashing mindlessly in his bonds.

Rose dashed back to him and stuffed the screwdriver into his slack hand, her face flaming, her core throbbing with heat. She was no stranger to desire, but techno-bio-imprimatur-whatsit handjobs were a bit much to deal with, and she hadn't exactly been expecting to pick up a brand-new kink when she woke up this morning. The Doctor lay on the floor, breathing hard, for a terrifyingly long while. Then he stirred, mumbling something unintelligible, and focused blearily up at Rose.

"Fantastic. My perfect Rose," he mumbled, and then his eyes drooped closed and he passed out, snuggling the screwdriver to his chest like it was a teddy bear.

Rose considered kicking him for one second, and going off and finding a private moment for herself for another, but discarded both ideas as fundamentally useless and instead set about improvising a makeshift sled from their jackets and the Doctor's bootlaces.

"Did you kids have fun?" Jack asked her when she dragged the Doctor through the TARDS doors. She left the Doctor sprawled over the grating, and waded over sparking console parts towards the sooty, greasy Captain, who was curled up on the flight chair reading a Venusian romance novel and eating chocolate digestives.

"Don't ever touch his screwdriver," Rose said, plopping down next to him.

Jack grinned. "I figured that one out last week," he drawled, and passed her the biscuits.