This story is a follow up to 'Its The Middle Of The Night,' which has adult content so can be found on Archive Of Our Own. However, if that's not your thing, this story works fine on it's own as long as you know Tilly is in a relationship with Admiral Cornwell.

Tilly let herself into her room as quietly as possible, just in case Michael was still sleeping. She needn't have worried, however; her roommate was fully dressed and perched on the edge of her bed, as if waiting for her. Tilly smiled as she crossed to grab herself some clean clothes for the day's shift.

'Morning. You ok?'

'I wanted to apologise for interrupting last night,' Michael responded. 'It was thoughtless of me to not realise that you and the Admiral would want to spend some time together, especially as it was nine months for her.'

'That's ok,' Tilly grinned. 'We'd spent some time together before you got there, if you know what I mean. And afterwards, and this morning..' she trailed off, flushing. 'Sorry. That's probably a little too much information, isn't it. Never mind.' She turned away for a second, pulling her undershirt over her head and swapping it quickly for a new one.

'What is that?' Tilly looked to where Michael was pointing and realised that the bite mark Kat had given her last night had developed into a full blown hickey.

'Wow, that's bigger than I thought. Still, at least the uniform will cover it.'

'Do you need to go to sickbay?'

'What? No, it's fine.'

'How did it happen?' Tilly stared as the questions racked up.

'You've never seen a lovebite before?' Michael frowned.

'A what?' Tilly giggled nervously.

'Ookay.. well, erm, a lovebite is something that one partner in a relationship will give another, usually.. ahem.. during.. y'know, sex.'

'The Admiral bit you?' Michael looked horrified.

'Not in a bad way! It's fun, you know?'

'Ash never bit me,' Michael stated.

'Well, it's not something that always happens. Just sometimes, in certain moods, people like to bite each other.'

'Why?' Michael looked completely mystified, and Tilly was running out of answers.

'I don't know. Why don't you ask Kat?' Michael nodded.

'Ok. I will ask the Admiral.'

'No!' Tilly yelped. 'God no, that was a joke! Please don't walk up to her on the bridge and ask her why she gave me a hickey!' The image was too much, and Tilly dissolved into giggles. When she calmed down, she saw that Michael was still watching her with an expression of confusion on her face. 'Look, I have to get to engineering. Maybe we should talk about this later. With alcohol.'

'Why with alcohol?'

'Well, when I've had a drink I tend to go into far too much detail about my sex life anyway, so that actually works quite well in this case. I get drunk, you learn about sex – everyone's a winner.' Michael nodded seriously, and Tilly resigned herself to the fact that this really was going to happen.

'Ok. What time do you get off shift?'

'Actually, can we do it tomorrow night? Kat's still on board tonight so I'd like to spend the evening with her.'

'And then we will have more material to discuss,' Michael agreed, straight faced as always. Tilly laughed nervously.

'Yeah. Though I'd prefer it if you didn't mention this to anyone; I don't want Kat to feel like a science project. It's not cool to kiss and tell.'

'Kiss and tell?' Tilly sighed.

'Okay, we'll cover related slang terms as well. Now I really need to get going or Stamets will kill me.'

'Tomorrow night?'

'Tomorrow night,' Tilly affirmed, adding internally, 'And there'd better be a shit-ton of alcohol involved!'