A/N: So I haven't written in a while and this is a new fandom for me, let's see how this goes... If you can tell I really do imagine characters acting this out, so if it ever seems a little script like, well that's why!

Disclaimer: Not mine, never mine (but i wish Stephen was ;) )

Stephen looked at his timetable as he followed the crowd to the lecture theatre. Natural History I with Prof. H. Cutter. He imagined, as with the other lectures so far, a stuffy old man with elbow patches reciting a speech in the same monotone he had used for years.

He walked into the theatre and saw James from the palaeontology class yesterday sat halfway up. He grinned and headed up to join him. They sat watching the crowd file in until the stream stopped and the noise had slowly escalated into a loud babble of unintelligible voices. Eventually the lights went out, which quickly got everyone's attention and the room quietened. A huge picture filled the screen on the wall behind the podium, which was empty. The screen showed the shrunken fossil of some kind of elephant. Several of the girls and more than one of the guys looked away or screwed up their faces but Stephen was already jotting down 'Best preserved mammoth fossil' in his notes, having already read about this in some magazine or other.

Suddenly a door opened at the back of the theatre, letting light flow down the steps and the students turned to see the new entrant. Silhouetted in the doorframe Stephen saw it was definitely no stuffy old man.

"Mammuthus primigenius – the best preserved fossil of a woolly mammoth ever found. This particular specimen was uncovered in northwestern Siberia by a Nenets reindeer herder in 2007." The woman said in a husky voice, striding down the stairs to the centre of the room, letting the doors close dramatically behind her so the room was once again lit only by the slideshow. As she walked, passing quite close to where Stephen sat, his friend nudged him and whispered appreciatively "Check it out!" Stephen just raised an eyebrow at him, grinning, before turning back to the front.

"The Ice Baby was preserved by falling into a peat bog over 40,000 years ago in the Pleistocene era, where the lack of oxygen meant no aerobic detritivores could begin to work on it and the natural shifting of land meant the creature did not see light again until it was once more lifted to the surface. Due to the frozen conditions it could have lain there for anything from a few months to a few hours before it was found." By this point she had reached the podium and leant over the stand. The males in the room noticeably shifted forwards in their seats. One person at the back wolf whistled, to which Professor Cutter smirked.

"Thank you. Now that I have your attention we can begin the introductions. I am Professor Helen Cutter and in this module I will try to impress upon you the fact that while this may be titled Natural History there is still a huge future in the subject, limited only by the speed of research - some of which is happening at this very institution - and the technology we have available."

After an hour of scribbling notes on the best preserved fossils yet found and what had kept them that way, the class began packing up their things. James leaned across, grinning. "I think we picked the right course, mate"

Stephen laughed and sarcastically said, "Oh right, you've been checking out Professor Walding?"James wrinkled his nose at the reference to the stumpy lady from the earlier lecture and the only other female professor on the course.

"Now that's worth getting up for at 9am on a Thursday" said Gary, just joining them from the next row. The boys began laughing among themselves as they shoved the last of their books away and slung their bags over their shoulders.

"So what've we got next?" James asked. Stephen didn't start walking with them, causing the other two to look back and Gary said "You alright?"

"Yeah, go ahead, I just want to ask something." He answered, regretting it as his friends immediately began a cacophony of "Oi oi" and "Get in there, Stephen" He just shook his head at them and turned to go back down the stairs, thinking of his parents favourite mantra – 'Shy bairns get nowt'.

He joined the small group of people stood around the front desk, talking to the Professor. After listening patiently to all of their queries, making mental notes of the books and papers she recommended to them he was finally one of the last few there, everyone else having asked their questions and left. She turned to fix her eyes on him.

"Hi, erm, I just wanted to say great lecture, it was really interesting" he started nervously, "...and also...you mentioned that there is research going on here at the university. Well, what I really wanted to say was I would be interested to get some work experience done this summer and who would be a good person to talk to, to get my name down early to help here?" He said this all fairly quickly. Again Professor Cutter just smiled and then said,

"Well I would definitely call this early." she paused and studied the young man in front of her, "But you can consider this your name officially down."

"Oh great, thanks!" he said and began to turn and walk away before suddenly realising something. He turned back on his heel and said "Stephen, by the way, Stephen Hart" She smiled again, eyes slightly narrowed as he turned and quickly walked out of the lecture theatre.

Helen looked thoughtfully after him before quickly taking a pen from the hand of a student stood in front of her, his tongue practically on the floor and his eyes nowhere near her face. She smirked to herself as she wrote the dark haired student's name on the back of her hand then turned, paying no attention to the next person asking some question about book titles or saying what a good lecture.

In the meantime Stephen ran to catch up with his friends, who immediately commenced the joshing and filthy, schoolboy comments. Never one to sit back and take it, Stephen immediately retorted with remarks of a similar nature as they walked to the next lecture.

Review please so I know whether to continue. And I know Stephen seems a little OOC but this is only his first year of uni, don't worry