OK, so i've talked about making a carry-on fic after Finding Sky and here it is, fresh and raw. I'll just explain what's going on here - Sky and Zed live in London together after graduating school in America, and are going to separate collages/universities in London, each studying different things of course. The reason i'm not including Phoenix or Yves too strongly so far is that i haven't actually read Stealing Phoenix yet - i know, blasphemy! I'm scheduled a Waterstone's visit this weekend, and i had an almighty list of books to buy, and believe me what i say that SP is no. 1. So enjoy, try to ignore the typos as best you can and get back to me about initial ideas. As the characters have progressed, so have i progressed the interpretation of them, hence some very mild adult suggestions, but to be honest i'm not into that whole detailed sexual descriptions thing, so any shut-your-eyes-kids scenes will be lead towards suggestively but not outright in your face XXX material, OK? Thanks, and again enjoy!

A scream came from the apartment, and dark shapes wrestled violently behind the curtains. An onlooker stopped to regard the shadows, moving frantically back and forth, one trying to shake off the other. The stranger stopped and stared, their eyes wide and moth slightly open. It was raining outside, but it did not affect the stranger; their hair was matted and greasy, and their clothes were past hygienic. Hidden in an alleyway, they remained mysterious as the night itself. The stranger's mouth closed and they smiled in a way that could only mean trouble.

Sky screamed. She couldn't help it – she opened her mouth and wailed as loud as she could.

"Stop!" she begged, tears streaming from her eyes "Please, I beg you, stop!"

"No way!" Zed yelled back, renewing his attack even more. Sky yelled again, this time ending it in an explosion of giggles. "How come I didn't know you were ticklish before now?"

"Because I didn't want this to happen!" she giggled back, wriggling and writhing like a baby in an attempt to get away from Zed, who was tickling the soft curve of her waist in that sensitive spot right below the ribs. She kicked her legs and tried to shimmy backwards, but it didn't do any good; she just ended up getting tangled in the purple blanket that was always on their bed. The evening had started off innocently enough, with Zed coming back to their small but homely apartment after work, but after a long time of boredom Sky was in the mood for some fun. A hair-mussing-up quickly turned into Sky jumping on Zed's back, which led Zed to experiment with whether Sky was ticklish or not.

She was. Very ticklish.

"Ok, Ok, I'm sorry!" she finally shrieked breathlessly "I won't do it ever again, whatever it was!" exhausted, Zed relented and collapsed on his back next to Sky, taking her in. She had changed a lot since the first time he saw her, all those years ago in High School; she had grown into her eyes a little more, although they were still big, blue and utterly beautiful, and cheekbones had been revealed under a layer of baby fat. She was still small in figure and had skin like a Clearasil model, but she had developed a way of walking and carrying herself that looked more like a queen would walk, graceful and elegant in a way that you couldn't quite pin down. Her hair had stayed long and curly, and it now reached her waist in a silken sprawl of gold.

"We will never speak of this again." Sky said after a few minutes of getting their breath back

"Oh, I don't know," Zed reasoned, looking at her mischievously "I think Xav and Yves would find this very. . . interesting." Sky smacked his arm lightly.

"Oh, no you don't. You know what I can do to make your life difficult." She warned with a grin.

"Oh, please, babe," Zed rubbed his chest, making a fake-arrogant face "you know you can't resist me." Sky didn't reply – she just reached forwards and rested her hand on his cheek. Her eyes went distant and her irises went from blue to white-gray. As with all other Savants, Sky's other, lesser powers had developed not long after her first. A very useful one was to be able to sense where people had been within the last few days by skin-to-skin touch. She could do it with objects too, sensing strong emotional imprints that could linger for years and years.

"Oh, no," Zed grumbled "you know it freaks me out when you do that 'looking into the past' stuff. Reminds me of my Mum." But he knew better than to try and get away – when she went away, it was like her skin fused with his for a little while.

"Green Park," she said after a second's pause "you walked past Buckingham Palace today. And a shop with green-blue paint and gold leaf on the title lettering. It had big glass windows." With a painful wrench, Zed pushed Sky's hand away from his skin. Her eyes snapped back to blue and she smiled. "Something you don't want me to know, sweetie pie?" Sky drawled in a fake American accent – she had never quite picked it up, despite her life in America with the Benedicts. Zed didn't reply – he was too busy hissing and rubbing his cheek from the pain of breaking contact.

"I told you not to break the bond." She said factually, standing up briskly.

"I always forget how much it hurts." He said to himself, catching her wrist as she walked away and pulling her back onto his lap "Kiss it better?" with a brooding look, Sky slowly settled onto Zed's lap so that her legs were wrapped around his hips and her hands behind his neck. She leaned forwards and kissed his red cheek, then the other, then both eyelids and, finally, his lips. Without breaking the kiss, she pushed him backwards so that they were both lying on the bed.

"Feel better?" she whispered against his lips.

"Oh, much." He replied gruffly, before turning her over so that she was on her back and kissing her passionately.