For aprilmaclean on Tumblr, for the Class Secret Santa. These two would be adorable and I need it.
Bill isn't sure why the Doctor has taken her to London, why he has since ditched her in London to go chasing after something about beetles that had excited him terribly, or why she isn't more upset about it.
Maybe it's just that she's only been to London twice before, and the chance to go exploring on her own is pretty exciting, actually. And, alright, maybe it has something to do with there being lots of pretty, well-dressed women around too.
Bill spends the first part of the day just taking in the sights and admiring from a distance the variety of women she comes across.
Which is actually how, at an awful, crucial moment, she gets distracted while crossing the road. There's a girl. With an afro. A really cute afro. Possibly even cuter than Bill's, which is more 'amazing and powerful' than 'cute', or so she likes to think on days when she's otherwise not feeling her best.
And so, her attention is not on the bus headed right for her, and it isn't until the horn honks loudly that she turns, and her eyes widen in horror as she stares at the huge vehicle heading right for her, too fast to stop.
Before she can move, or think anything other than oh no oh god shit shit shit, there's a yank on her waist, and she's out of the path of the bus.
Strong, firm hands rest on her waist, and Bill, dazed, looks up into the face of an exasperated, annoyed angel.
"Were you trying to get yourself killed?" the woman asks her, staring at her incredulously.
"Uh," Bill says, because that's about all she can manage.
Her saviour is taller than her, if only because of the stilettos on her feet, and wearing a rather nice leather jacket over a dark spotted blouse and some tight jeans. Her hair is in a blonde bob, and she is staring at Bill with intense, fierce blue eyes that are searching Bill's face for any kind of answer.
"Was it that girl you were staring at? Because pretty women are one thing, but, trust me, you're far better preserving all of your limbs so you have all of your skills and assets at hand when it comes to trying to seduce them," the blonde says seriously.
"Wait, what?" Bill had only been half listening, still dazed and just far too gay to be trusted with the whole concentrating thing just yet. But now she has snapped to attention.
"I said that you'll have an easier time of seducing pretty women like that one over the road if you have all of your limbs and wits about you."
Bill laughs a little. "Right. Thanks for the tip. And the whole saving my life thing. I thought I'd really had it there, for a second."
The woman looks embarrassed. "Yeah, well. Don't worry about it."
"You must be really strong. And fast."
"Yeah. So?"
Bill holds out her hand. "I'm Bill, by the way."
The blonde eyes the hand with distaste, her lip curling just a little, but after a moment of hesitation, she takes the hand and shakes it. "Quill."
"Bill and Quill, funny," Bill says with a grin.
Quill just lifts an eyebrow. "If you say so."
"So… you saved my life," Bill tells her, biting her lip. "I don't suppose you'd let me… buy you a drink, or something? To say thank you?"
Quill looks surprised, for some reason. "Alright. Does that imply alcohol, or can we get coffee?"
"Coffee sounds good to me."
They make their way to the nearest coffee shop, Bill pays for the drinks, and then they sit down opposite each other in a table by the window. Bill is still a bit amazed that this trip to London has resulted in her getting coffee with a beautiful woman that just literally saved her life, but she's not about to complain. Sometimes the universe just works out that way.
Quill doesn't seem to be in any hurry to make conversation. She's very focused on her coffee, but she does keep glancing up at Bill over the top of her cup, which is vaguely encouraging.
"So…" Bill says, awkwardly, "you local or just visiting?"
For some reason, Quill snorts at this question, almost choking on her coffee due to laughter. Once she's swallowed the mouthful, she just smirks.
"I live nearby," she replies, which doesn't remotely explain her response, but Bill doesn't quite know how to inquire about it.
"And what do you… do?"
"If you're asking about my profession, I teach physics to snotty teenagers," Quill tells her, sighing.
"Really?" Bill asks, sitting up a bit straighter. "I love physics! Trying to learn it myself. Got a really awesome tutor who knows, like, everything."
Quill lifts an eyebrow, looking a bit more interested herself now. "Is that right? Well I'm sure your tutor is… really something." The last part doesn't sound sincere, but Bill can't quite pinpoint what's wrong with it.
"He's totally mad, but it's great," Bill says.
Quill doesn't seem too interested in Bill's tutor. She leans back in her chair and regards Bill thoughtfully. "So you're a student, then?"
"Sort of, yeah, at St Luke's in Bristol," Bill replies, beaming. "I serve chips, then I go for my private tutor sessions."
"Chips? Really?" Quill says, with more interest than she's yet displayed at anything Bill has said.
Which is fine, really, because… chips.
"Yeah," Bill says with an easy grin. "Do I detect another chip lover?"
"I'm a lover of food in any form, but chips are particularly excellent," Quill says seriously, and Bill finds herself laughing at how strangely Quill had phrased it. "Could we go and find some chips, now? I'm starving."
Go somewhere else? With this absolutely gorgeous, if slightly strange, woman? To get chips? Things really are looking good for the rest of the day.
"Definitely," Bill says, and they finish their drinks and head out.
They stop into several pubs, where Bill asks the bar staff some basic questions about their chip preparation, to ascertain that they will be of a decent quality, since Bill herself is an expert. The third place has answers that satisfy her, and she and Quill order and sit down in a corner.
Quill, having regarded the endeavour with vague exasperation, now seems amused. "You're very particular."
"Only about chips," Bill says sheepishly. "It's what I know."
"Fair enough," Quill says, shrugging. "I suppose I'd be the same if it was something to do with physics. Or… other things. Besides, I am looking forward to good quality chips. Not that I'm particularly fussy when it comes to chips, but still."
Bill feels relief that her chip intensity has not driven Quill to think that Bill is weird.
"So, chips and physics," Bill says, tapping her fingers on the table. "Do you… think we have anything else in common?"
"It's possible, if vaguely unlikely," Quill replies. "Do you like cats?"
"Admittedly, more of a dog person, but yeah, of course I like cats, who doesn't like cats?" Bill laughs. "I'm a lesbian, I'm pretty sure it's illegal for me to dislike cats. They'd revoke my lesbian membership."
Quill looks at her with alarm. "What? Really?"
Bill stares at her. "That was a joke."
"Oh."
"There isn't a lesbian membership."
"Oh."
"You're kinda weird, you know that?"
Quill chuckles, somewhat morosely. "Yes, it has been mentioned. Thankfully I'm not exactly known for giving a fuck what anyone else thinks of me."
"Wish I was more like that," Bill says enviously.
"Is it a problem?"
"What?"
"Me being weird?"
"No."
"Oh."
They sit in silence for a while, and Bill thinks that she might have possibly found someone more awkward than she is, if only because Quill is odd in a way Bill can't work out, as opposed to Bill's nerves and foot-in-mouth syndrome.
Still, nothing wrong with odd. Especially when odd is a beautiful, beautiful stranger who has saved Bill's life.
"So… about that advice you gave me," Bill says, figuring she might as well find out now whether she needs to put a lid on this crush that is blooming wildly. "The seducing pretty women thing?"
"What about it?" Quill asks, just as the chips arrive at their table.
"Is it something you do a lot, then?" Bill can't help but ask, making Quill lift an eyebrow at her. "Seduce pretty women, I mean."
"No," Quill says, to Bill's considerable disappointment, until she adds, "though not for lack of wanting to. I've just been rather… lacking in freedom, until recently. And, frankly, even now I lack the social skills."
"I dunno, you're doing okay," Bill says, with a little grin, and Quill looks pleasantly surprised.
"Yeah?" She then frowns. "I feel like I should clarify that I haven't in any way been trying to seduce you. Even if now I'm wondering if that was an oversight on my part."
"You really don't need to try, with a face like yours."
Quill stares at her for several moments. "Hang on. Is this your way of telling me that you want to have sex with me?"
Bill chokes on the chip she'd just put in her mouth. "Um-"
"Because if so, I would be okay with that."
Bill manages to swallow the chip and hopefully regain a bit of her dignity, even if she can't believe her ears. Quill is looking at her with complete seriousness in her eyes.
"Wait. Really?"
"Is that so surprising?"
"I don't know. Maybe. Also, not really the sort of thing people tend to say to people they've just met."
Quill lifts an eyebrow. "Untrue. People have sex with people they've just met all the time. That's half the reason you lot go to nightclubs and bars anyway, isn't it?"
"Well," Bill tries to argue, before frowning. "I dunno. This is different. For one thing, we didn't meet in a nightclub."
"Thank god, they're horrible." Quill looks at Bill expectantly. "So. Sex?"
"You can't just… ask that," Bill says helplessly, even though her brain is starting to have to scramble for reasons as to why that is, and why she isn't just screaming yes, yes, take me now and draping herself across the table between them. Well, other than the obvious one of that it would probably get them kicked out of the pub, though with male-run establishments one can never be sure.
"Why not? I find you attractive, you clearly find me attractive-"
"Yeah, well, I like to be romanced first," Bill retorts.
"Romanced?" Quill asks, blankly, like it's a foreign concept. "Well, alright, what does that involve? I'm willing to put in some effort here."
Bill lifts an eyebrow. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. Why not? You're the first person I've met in this whole damned city that I can actually stand. And you're rather pretty. Why shouldn't I want to?"
Bill blushes obscenely and picks at a loose thread on her jumper. "Oh. Okay. Thanks. And I dunno, I guess I'm not used to it. I'm used to being the one doing the chasing. And then, you know, falling over in front of a pretty girl and embarrassing myself and getting absolutely nowhere."
Quill snorts. "Does that actually happen to you?"
"Once or twice, yeah," Bill admits, making a face. Quill laughs more genuinely, though not particularly unkindly. "Plus, my dates have a really bad record of getting interrupted."
"Well, I'll punch any unwelcome interruptions in the face."
Bill thinks of the Pope, and then the guy from the United Nations, and just how mortified she had been by the whole thing. She downright giggles at the wonderful image of Quill punching such interruptions in the face.
"So… is this a date, then?" Bill asks with a sly smile.
"Don't dates have to be decided upon in advance?"
"I dunno. Maybe."
"Give me time to go away and google romantic things," Quill says seriously, "I'll give it a proper go. This is just chips in a pub."
"To be fair, chips in a pub is, like, my ideal date anyway," Bill tells her, chuckling.
Quill blinks. "Look, do you want romance or not? You're being incredibly inconsistent here, Bill whose last name I don't know."
"Potts. Bill Potts. How about you?"
"Legally my first name is Andrea, but everyone calls me Quill," Quill tells her, and Bill is surprised for all of a moment before deciding that it makes perfect sense, because she looks nothing like an Andrea anyway.
"Good to know," Bill says. "Does this mean I get to see you again?"
"I think we've established we both want to see more of each other." Quill smirks. "Figuratively and literally."
Bill nearly chokes on her food again, but ends up smiling like an idiot. "Well, yeah."
They make their way out of the pub once the chips are gone, then linger on the street. There's a text from the Doctor that had come in a good twenty minutes ago, telling her to meet him in Hyde Park. Something about a dinosaur. She's not sure she wants to know, but figures she'll find out when she gets there.
"So, can I get your number, then?" Bill asks.
Quill relays it to her with military precision, and Bill sends her a text so Quill has her number too. Bill can't stop smiling. It should be embarrassing, but Quill seems happy too in her own, less smiley, way.
"I don't live in London. So, I'll have to plan when I can come back to see you, or whatever, but that shouldn't be too hard," Bill says.
"We'll work something out," Quill says with an easy confidence.
"Cool." Bill's hands are in her pockets. "Well. I guess this is goodbye for now, then."
"I suppose it is."
"Thanks again for saving me. It's not every day I get quite literally swept off my feet, you know," Bill says, with a bashful smile. With a bravery she's not sure she knew she had, she leans in to press a kiss to Quill's cheek.
When she pulls away, her grin only widens when she sees how bewildered Quill looks.
"You're cute when you're confused," Bill tells her, backing away. "Just for the record."
"I don't think I've ever been called cute in my life," Quill replies, frowning at the very idea of it.
"Well, you might have to get used to it!"
Quill doesn't reply. She's too busy touching her cheek, apparently still stunned and bemused, and as Bill reluctantly turns around to head off to Hyde Park, she can't help but feel a sense of accomplishment.
Bill smiles like a lovestruck idiot the whole way to Hyde Park, and once she gets there and helps the Doctor deal with the - thankfully rather minor - dinosaur problem, the Doctor asks how her day has been. She tells him she met a girl. (And, you know, there's no questioning that Quill is a woman, not a girl, but details.)
He shakes his head and pretends to find her human antics ridiculous, but she can see his little smile.
It might be weird that her most supportive parental figure is an alien who dresses like an idiot and runs like a penguin with his arse on fire, but she isn't about to complain. Her chest is far too warm for that.
Thanks for reading, please let me know what you thought!