Hi! This is my first Survivors fic, written as like so many I just love Tom and Anya. Hope you enjoy! Set during the night between when they first get together and the deliciously awkward scene where Tom asks Abby for a plan in 2x05.

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Dr Anya Raczynski was probably the safest and most comfortable she had been for months but she just couldn't sleep. She had gone down to typical country kitchen that fed the idyllic community of The Valley for a glass of water and was staring out of the window, thinking about the tragedy of Sarah and Al just when they found love but mostly about her afternoon with Tom Price down by the river; how much of a mistake it probably was and with a degree of guilt, how much she had enjoyed it when she caught sight of his reflection standing silently in the doorway. She raised her head to meet his reflected gaze but didn't dare turn around to face him, she still felt conflicted about the days…events. They remained motionless and silent, just holding each others gaze when she saw his eyes shift slightly, narrow and his head tilted slightly to one side and she knew he was about to ask her something. How strange, she had thought, that she could pick up this little quirk from a man so desperate to keep everything about him hidden.

"Is that a tattoo?"

Instinctively she raised a hand to cover the small skull and cross bones that sat just below her left shoulder. Pat had always hated it, trying to cover it up with her hair or a strap of a top. She said she couldn't understand why Anya had put something so ugly on a body so beautiful and so she had humoured her, keeping it hidden from her as much as possible, but she never could think of getting it removed. She had briefly flirted with telling him the same stupid story she told other people when they first noticed it, that it was a reminder to her that as a doctor death was always looking over her shoulder etc etc but looking down into the sink she felt this strange need to tell him the embarrassing truth, if anyone he would probably appreciate it

"Yea I got really drunk during my rebellious stage in Uni and some friends talked me into it"

"Rebellious stage eh?" She could sense rather than see him slowly making his way across to the kitchen to her

"Tattoos, heavy drinkin, cigarettes, sexual experimentation…" he drawled in his heavy Manc accent while she fought the urge to roll her eyes as managed to drag her sexuality into it again

"…anything else? Drugs? Gambling? Illegal activity?"

He was right behind her now she could feel his breath on the back of her neck. She tried to ignore the affect that was having on her racing pulse and instead she was slightly annoyed that he obviously found it all funny that someone who believed in doing the right thing as an adult couldn't have a couple of wild years as a teenager. That she had made a choice to help others that was as difficult for her then as it had been for him today when he'd stopped Al from killing himself going inside that house with Sarah and when he stopped her kissing him long enough to, briefly, question her motives.

"All of the above" She replied sticking her chin in the air defiantly, eyes locking to meet his gaze in the window. He returned her gaze for a few moments, seemingly taking that information in before the corners of his mouth begun to twitch into a slight smirk

"Pity I weren't around then, sounds like my kind of scene"

Instead of getting more annoyed that he still wasn't taking her seriously, she too started finding the humour in the situation and laughed and was surprised to hear him let out a low chuckle too, Tom Price could laugh?

"Yes, yes I'm sure it does!"

The smile slowly disappeared from his face as he glanced back down to her shoulder

"Can I look?" he asked in his normal gruff manner, raising only his eyes to hers in the window to ask permission. She too had stopped laughing and could only give a stiff nod in consent

A distant part of her brain was screaming at her to stop it all now. He stood for everything she hated, everything she had stood against, they were just too different. He said he could change but she knew that he couldn't, not enough to make it right and he shouldn't have to change he was Tom and she was Anya and they should both just be able to be who they were without having to change to be in a relationship that would ultimately make them both miserable. However a larger part of her brain was playing her memories of Al and Sarah so happy and in love and then so miserable and devastated, so quickly. It played her a thought of her catching the mutated virus and dying the same agonised death she had already witnessed hundreds of times over. She thought again about how good it had felt down by the river today to be kissed and touched and close to someone again.

As Tom slowly pulled aside her hair and started to trace the outline of the tattoo with surprising tenderness she felt so much pleasure that she unconsciously gripped the sink a little tighter, shut her eyes and bit her bottom lip. Maybe her behaviour could be explained away by psychology or whatever but right now Tom was making her feel good and after the past few months she really needed to feel good again.

As his finger started to come to the end of its course she knew that it wasn't going to take a lot to convince her that more sex was a really good idea and wondered if Tom would do anything to let her know that he wanted it to go further or if he was going to let her do the running again. She quickly got her answer as he gently laid a hand on each shoulder and slowly brushed his lips against the tattoo, his stubble prickling around the soft skin on her back causing her to exhale a ragged breath she didn't even realise she had been holding.

Her eyes snapped open and she spun around to face him, shaking one hand free of her shoulder but as she reached up to run her hand over his cheekbone as she had earlier today she felt it snake around her waist instead. When she moved in to kiss him he was less surprised then earlier and so a lot less awkward, starting out by keeping the kiss relatively chaste but as it deepened letting her know exactly how he felt and what he wanted.

"Have you got any tattoos, Tom?" she asked breathlessly when they finally come up for air

"None that I'm willing to show off down here" he replied pointedly

"We'd best go upstairs then" she suggested in all seriousness

"You sure?"

She kissed him again to show him she knew what she was doing but she knew he would probably need little persuading, he hadn't this afternoon. Why was it he could happily shoot someone or break their necks with hardly a second thought but on this point he had to be the gentleman? She briefly wondered if he had been the same with Sarah or if he only acted this way with her really did love her.

"I showed you mine now you show me yours" she teased with a smile, attempting to bring some lightness back into the moment

"Your wish is my command" he replied with a whisper of a smile before taking her hand and leading her to his room.

It was only as she snuck back to her room early the following morning (she couldn't handle the inevitable questions that would come if people found out) that she realised she never did look to see if he had any tattoos after all.