The night had fallen, dark and all-consuming, bringing with it a fierce chill and a light December snow. I lifted my brown eyes up to the falling flakes and crossed my arms around my body, attempting to warm myself up. Stephen, on the other hand, didn't look cold; in fact, he seemed like he was deliberately try to hide the fact that he was cold, as if admitting to something as simple as that was a thing he couldn't show, not even to me.

This was stupid. I was cold, and a cold Rory is not a happy Rory, as the famous phrase goes. Not that I didn't appreciate the beauty of the falling snow around me; I did, the calm and peace of it, falling against the backdrop of London, all lights and old buildings and, wandering in between, thousands upon thousands of ghosts, lost and lonely.

But not cold. I mean, they were cold, but that was like a constant state for them, the chill of the afterlife. I of the warm Southern sun was used to a different spectrum of the temperature scale. I wouldn't have minded it if I had remembered to bring my coat, my large, puffy one that made me look like a discolored marsh mellow, but all I had was a thin blue cardigan I had worn over my light pink dress and leggings.

This was Boo's horrible idea. A date with Stephen. A proper, actual date. Dinner at a fancy restaurant, trying not to eat your food like a ravenous animal in front of the other person, then a wander down the streets, trying desperately to come up with at least something to talk about. Everything about dates seems so forced, like you must have a magical evening ending with a perfectly planned kiss under the stars. No thanks. But Boo had insisted on it, and Stephen and I had obliged. Mostly I felt like Boo had suggested the idea so she and Callum could have the flat alone together.

The snow landed on the dirty piles that had fallen a few days back, dumping layers of sparkling white on the old brown-tinted clumps of snow already on the ground. Stephen kicked his black shoes absently into the drifts.

"Well," I said, because it seemed like the right thing to say at the time, "The food was pretty good."

"Yeah, yeah. Good food." Stephen adjusted his glasses.

Another silence followed. Usually, a silence between Stephen and I didn't bother me, or him, probably. He wasn't one for small talk, or even pleasant conversation. If you were to get Stephen talking, it would be like he was reading straight from a text book, a long and wordy monologue that became strangely endearing after a while, once you got to know him more. His passions spewed from his brain to his mouth in a direct flow of perfectly phrased phrases and eloquent word choices, and although he never looked "happy", you could tell a sparkle came in to his gray eyes when you asked him to explain something. What a little Eton, sweater-wearing nerd.

Stephen cleared his throat, as though the perfect conversation topic lay hidden somewhere in his long and lengthy throat. "How's Wexford? How's exams?"

My first instinct was to laugh, because that's what my school life was now: laughable. Since the Ripper attack, my grades hadn't exactly been at the forefront of my mind. Well, they were; I mean, I realized how deep a hole I had dug myself into at this point. There was no climbing back up to the ladder of success; the bottom rung was too far out of reach. I cared, but there was nothing I could do about it, except pretend that I knew all about the angles of triangles and old, dead British men. But that wouldn't work; my guesses weren't even that educated.

"Yeah, I mean, pretty good, but, you know...not great?" My voice rose at the end, turning into a question. There was no question. The answer was obvious. And I knew he knew the answer.

"You should try to keep some handle on that, you know. It's the only way you'll be able to stay in London." Stephen didn't sound too angry, not even disappointed. Just stating a simple fact, like he was pointing out the weather.

For some reason, I felt like I had let him down. I knew Stephen really didn't care(or did he?), but admitting to my total lack of control on my educational situation right now made me feel like I was making myself extremely vulnerable to him. He would have had no problem dealing with this. But me, I couldn't handle it. Not at all.

"I know. But it all just seems so pointless now. There's no way I can catch up to where I am supposed to be." We stood on Tower Bridge, and I rested my arms on the railing, slick with snow. "I just want to run away from it all, you know? I'm not like you or Jazza. I can't do all the school work now. I can't catch up."

"Understandable." He followed my lead and rested his lanky arms on the bridge as well. "But that doesn't make you any less than a person because of it. Just because I could turn into a robot and still manage to pass all my exams with perfect marks, after my sister overdosed, that doesn't mean I'm better than you somehow."

He talked about his sister so casually, like he didn't feel the pain anymore. Again, like it was the weather. I couldn't tell if it was because he was trying to open with me, or if it was because he really was like a robot or a machine, able to talk about her death as simply as that. I felt uncomfortable about sort of bringing the topic up, even slightly.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay." He said quietly. A little more emotion this time, but not enough for me. I didn't want to make him upset, but I wanted to draw something out of him. A soft shake in his fingers. A tremor in his usually steady voice. Something that I could brush away with a touch of my hand, or a painful memory that I could temporarily blot out with a kiss. But Stephen wasn't like that. His grief was something he caged deep inside. I wasn't even sure that he knew where the key was.

His gray eyes roamed over the breathtaking view of London in front of us. The lights of the buildings looked like stars that had landed on the Earth. "She died somewhere over there," he said, waving his hand to the left, "alone, I'm pretty sure. She was found between the bed and the wall. No one but her and the bad interior design."

Wow, maybe I was going to get a little something out of the usual blank page. No tears or voice tremors, but I was getting his words, which was possibly even better. "Do you wish you would have been there?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Part of me wouldn't have wanted to see her like that, reduced to...skin and bones." He was quiet for a moment, still facing the city."Could I have made it any better for her?"

"Who knows?" I reached over and found his hand as I said it, and instant warmth flooded through me. I'd never held his hand properly before. I liked it. I liked it a lot. It was much more personal and intimate than kissing. It felt a like a promise, clasped between fingertips. "But at least she wouldn't have been alone."

Stephen gave my hand a slight squeeze. A tighter promise. I won't leave you alone.

"Anyway, you'll be fine. You're coping well. You're not shutting it out like I did. I think that makes you stronger. And smarter."

I wanted to kiss him right then and there, on the bridge, feel the stubble on his cheek poke my skin. And I could have, and I'm sure he would gladly have kissed me back, but I liked the feel of his hand in mine. A kiss would have taken us back to the awkward "date" feel that we had only just broken between each other mintues ago.

"Thanks." It felt so inadequate, because I had so much more to thank him for than just that little sentence of compliments. I tried to put everything into that thanks, all the things I had to be grateful to him for, which was enough to fill the whole of the Thames that was shimmering below. I think he got it, because he looked down at me and smiled a little. Stephen always smiled in a small way, but it was more powerful that most people's broad, cheek-stretching grins.

"Of course. And thank you, also. For...yeah. The same."

The whole of London felt dead, like it was just us two left in the world, the constable and the Wexford girl, who had both saved each other. An odd couple, but what did that matter? It was just us, and the cars rushing past behind faded into oblivion.

"We should get back." I was sorry to break off the moment, but I was so cold I couldn't possibly stand it any longer. I longed for my warm bed across from Jazza's, with the Cheez Wiz on the radiator and the stack of unfinished problem sets and essays on my desk. My back turned from Stephen, I started to walk off from our spot on the bridge, my shoes making crunching sounds in the snow. All in all, it had been an okay night. A bit depressing and cold, but, well, that's life. I walked on, sure Stephen was already following behind me, trailing along.

My mind was filled with thoughts of my warm bed and the lingering warmth from Stephen's hand on my own, and the cold blast hitting my back shocked me into silence. I turned around, and in the light of the streetlamps, I saw Stephen a few paces behind me, his hand covered with snow.

And so was my back. Stephen had thrown a snowball at me. That was a sentence I never thought I would have heard myself think; Stephen wasn't the "having fun" type. His eyes traveled from his hand to me, staring at both things with an open-mouthed, wide-eyed, shocked look on his face, a look I was sure I was also making right back at him. It was like he wasn't even aware he had thrown the snowball, like he had been possessed or something. An invisible puppet master had pulled his strings, making him mold the fluffy snow into ammunition.

He stared for a few more minutes, and the people and cars of London carried on around us, unaware of the strange thing that had just happened to both of us.

And then Stephen laughed. Like, properly. He tilted his head back and opened his mouth, letting out a sound that I decided right then and there was better than anything I had ever heard, better than my favorite songs. A sound that seemed to carry Stephen's very soul, everything he was and everything he was scared to be, carried and lifted out into the world in one gut-bursting laugh. I joined him, laughing something less beautiful, more dying cat. What can you do?

Bending down, I grabbed my own handful of snow, crafting into a ball, and throwing it into his face. His glasses smudged, and he laughed even harder, if that was possible. He threw more snow back at me, and we chased each other down the street, dodging grumpy pedestrians as we pelted each other. I slipped in an icy patch, and Stephen caught up and grabbed me seconds before I hit the ground. Smooth as the ice beneath me.

I slowly stood back up, looking at him. The laugh was still in his eyes and in the corners of his mouth. Would a kiss now ruin the moment? Or would a kiss bring the laughter crawling out again?

I didn't have time to debate this in my head, because Stephen had already made up his mind. He brought his mouth closer to mine, and I angled up eagerly, accepting his snow-covered lips.

Our kisses were so much better than the ones Jerome and I had shared. Those were hormone-fueled, sloppy make-out sessions that had been nice, because I had known nothing different. Then, when I had kissed Stephen, I didn't have any desire to brush my lips against anyone else's but his. The kisses between Stephen and I felt more real than anything, more real than the ground beneath our feet. They were soft and special, new and unfamiliar, but at the same time they felt like home and safety.

We pulled away from each other, and his signature small smile played across his lips.

When we reached the Underground station, Stephen walked me to the entrance.

"Well, that was fun." Stephen said, a serious expression on his face.

"Yeah, actually. Dinner was good, too." Now it was back. The "date" vibe. Oh, how I had missed it.

"Hm, yep. Good food, good wine. Boo knows all the good places."

"Definitely."

He cleared his throat. "Here." Stephen took off his large coat and put it around my shoulders. "It's cold out. Long train journey, long walk back up to your room."

It really wasn't actually; he had the longer walk. "Are you sure? I'll-"

"No, take it. You were shivering all night. You need it more than I do. Can you get home safe?"

His concern made me ridiculously happy, more than it should have. I needed to get myself under control. "Of course. So, I'll see you again...when?"

"Sometime soon. A couple days, give or take a few."

I nodded. Already, I couldn't wait. "Thanks for the snowball fight.," I told him.

Smiling, he replied, "No problem; thank you. Good night, Rory." He leaned over and kissed my forehead, which I also liked a lot, and then he was off, another figure in the crowd.

I bit my lip to keep from grinning stupidly, and wrapped myself up in his big coat, breathing in his scent, still feeling a tickle on my forehead where his lips had been.

That made feel warmer than his coat did.