'Do you think grey is a stupid colour?'

'Mm?'

'Grey, you know, the colour of clouds and... Pigeons.'

'Right..'

'I mean, my cardigan, Mitchell. All my clothes, actually.'

'Wh- Of course I don't! I think it suits you.'

'... You would say that.'

'What?'

'You're my boyfriend. You're answering my question with a compliment. That's just a typical boyfriend answer.'

'And this is a problem because...'

'It's not! I just wanted, y'know, a non-boyfriend-esque answer, I suppose.'

'... Annie you really confuse me sometimes.'

'All the better to kiss you with.'

A soft chuckle, then no more is said.

Two days later, she's still not convinced.

'Mitchell, do you wish I could change my clothes?'

'No, course not. You're perfect to me, exactly as you are.' Compliments sometimes work, he figures.

A pause. She seems content with this.

'Yeah, but...' Apparently not. 'Do you ever get tired of seeing me in the same clothes?'

He considers this for a minute. 'No.' A beat. 'You change though, sometimes, don't you?'

She looks at him then, and the way her lips tighten slightly and she stiffens in his arms tells him that there is something she knows about that she saw on the other side that he should not ask her about. So he doesn't.

'I want to try something,' She says eventually.

He looks to her, interested.

'I want to try and take my clothes off.'

He figures this is another thing he shouldn't be asking about, so instead, he kisses her, and his fingers soon find the waistband of her leggings.

Curled up in his bed, later that evening, he asks, 'Annie?'

'Hmmm?'

'...Would you mind making me a cup of tea?'

The grin she gives him is blinding. He can't help but smile and lean over to kiss her icy nose, before watching her jump up and pop out of the room, presumably to go and put some clothes on again (somehow?).

Her smile gives him chills, he realizes, ironically.

The first time he saw her wearing grey, she must have been about fifteen. He wasn't too sure, it had happened years ago. He, of course, looked exactly the same, though he's pretty sure he'd had shorter hair (unfortunate incident with some beautician lover he'd briefly had).

Now, Mitchell hadn't been trying to be creepy but, really, it wasn't his fault she'd been there, right outside his apartment (It wasn't really his; just for a short period, before the smell disturbed the neighbours and the police got involved).

Late one night he'd stumbled out down the steps of the crummy apartment somewhere in the depths of Westminster, ready to go out on the pull (kill). And there she had been, wrapped up in a light grey coat and grey scarf, sitting on his bottom step.

'Are... Are you alright?'

In the dark of the night, a young Annie Sawyer hadn't seen the man's eyes flashing black.

She had sighed, deeply, instead, and glanced at the man behind her before jumping off the step and wrapping her coat tighter round her slim frame. He remembered remarking, despite the haze of bloodlust, just how ghostly she'd looked in the dark air of a London winter evening.

'Fine, thanks. Sorry about sitting on your step. I was waiting for someone. He's... Well, he's clearly not worth it.'

She seemed to have been saying this more to herself than to him. He'd stared at her gloves. They were grey too.

'Anyway. Goodnight!' She'd thrown him a smile, then spun away into the night, suddenly the only remnants of her presence a rapidly dissipating cloud of white air, a cloud of her breath.

He'd have gone after her, stalked her, charmed her, then later killed her, if it hadn't been for that utterly dehabilitating smile, he's sure of this now.

He'll never tell her this, never tell her that, actually, they'd met before. She'd probably dub the man she met that night as some "oddball perv" and move on from it, but he didn't even want that. He was already tainted enough with other people's blood, and now he'd discovered her chilly embraces and that smile she reserved especially for him, he wasn't going to go and add "distorted freak" onto the list of things he was to her.

She returns, fully dressed- in a different top, he notes- bearing tea.

'Here you go,' She's positively glowing.

'Thanks, Annie.'

'Need anything else?'

'You. C'mere.'

She giggles, then acquiesces.

Later, she'll tell him why she can change clothes.