Barbara awoke in the cool air of the TARDIS to the sound of sobbing. She took a moment to gather her surroundings. As always, she sighed when she learned she was not in her house in 1963. The gentle tears were coming from behind her. Tired, she turned over, her felt pyjamas slipping gracefully against the nylon sheets. Susan had her covers thrown over her up to her neck, which was facing away from Barbara. Undoubtedly, the sound was coming from her.

'Susan?' said Barbara, worried for the girl.

The sobbing stopped abruptly. 'Yes, Miss Wright,' she said in her elegant accent.

'I told you to call me Barbara, Susan,' Barbara laughed. Her serious tone returned. 'You were crying. What's wrong?'

'Oh nothing, Barbara,' said Susan in a tone of voice that said 'Oh everything, Barbara'. Susan realized that the woman she used to dread confronting every time she was late handing in an assignment was probably her only source of comfort nowadays, so she continued. 'Ping-Cho.' That was all she could get out of herself.

'Oh, Susan,' said Barbara, understanding that the girl had lost a close friend but thinking she was overreacting given the circumstances of their parting. 'She couldn't have come with us. Nor could you have stayed with her. But she got her way in the end. She didn't have to marry, which is what you wanted for her.'

'Oh!' cried Susan, 'You don't understand, Barbara, you just don't! Me and Ping-Cho were more than friends. She showed me things more wondrous than all the marvels of the universe I've seen with grandfather. Wondrous things about myself. The bed just feels so empty without her…'

That last sentence shocked Barbara slightly. She knew the two had shared a tent, but she never suspected they had shared a bed. In 1963, they could have been arrested. This was too much and Barbara was tired. 'Get some sleep,' was the best advice she could give.

But Susan had told her too much to tell her that little of her feelings. By saying it out loud, she had only made the pain worse. The bed did feel so empty without Ping-Cho. The things she said to her, the places she touched her. Nothing but emptiness. 'Barbara,' she said timidly.

'What is it?' said Barbara, a bit annoyed now, turning again to face her. She had pulled the blanket down a bit now. Only slightly, just enough to expose her neck. And her eyes were staring directly at hers. An old woman's eyes in a young woman's body.

With her eyes meeting Barbara's, Susan's nervousness escalated. She lifted her hand to her mouth and bit down on the nail of her index finger for reasons lost to her. 'Barbara,' she said again, 'As I was saying, the bed feels so empty without Ping-Cho…'

'Yes,' said Barbara, not liking where she was getting at.

'Well,' said Susan, 'do you think I … do you think we could snuggle?' Having gotten that out, she suddenly felt embarrassed and needed to rationalize her statement. Rapidly, she blurted out a string of sentences: 'I don't fidget or snore. I won't try anything, I'll-'

Barbara sighed, considering her proposal. She had a question, 'Do you mean back-to-back, head-to-tail, or-'

'Well,' said Susan, 'I meant we spoon.'

Barbara assumed this was considered a reasonable request amongst girls these days. The students she taught in the late Fifties and early Sixties didn't seem to be too fussed about their sexualities. Things Barbara's generation would never dream of doing they did without fear. They had the ability to see intimate acts as not necessarily sexual, and Barbara appreciated that. It would be sexual for her, she realized, but she wouldn't act upon it in a million years. She'd seen futures where a third of the population were homosexual, and she understood there was nothing wrong with it, but there were certain prejudices that had been buried deep in her mind that could never be rooted out entirely. Besides, she hardly thought Susan was attracted to her, regardless of the nature of her relationship with Ping-Cho. 'Okay,' she said after much deliberation and held her blanket open to the Time Lady.

Susan was relieved, and couldn't hold back her thankful smile. She slipped out of her bed and, still biting her fingernail and smiling, dawdled over to Barbara.

Barbara was astonished. Susan was not wearing a shirt, nor was she wearing a bra. Her breasts bulged out in front of her chest. Goosebumps covered her flesh and her nipples were pricked up attentively. Her waist was thin, but curved.

Neither did Susan wear any pants, although luckily she did wear a pair of small black panties. Her legs were long and dainty. The underwear was soaked in sweat. She was hot. In this cold ship? Yet, the goosebumps and hard nipples seemed to imply otherwise. A seemingly nonsensical juxtaposition in a seemingly nonsensical young woman.

Susan approached the bed and turned her back to Barbara. Susan's underpants were tight on her large arse. The very ends of her cheeks poked through the leg holes. They looked soft and puffy. Barbara thought of butter when she saw them, but she didn't know why.

Susan sat down. The bed rippled. She rotated on her lap and lay down, pulling the covers up. Barbara rolled over so she was facing away from Susan. Susan had wanted Barbara to be on the outside, but she respected her decision. She took her time to look at Barbara. Her body was curved and voluptuous – not Ping-Cho's body at all. Her face was slightly wrinkled but the way in which her eyes and mouth were arranged made it intriguing to say the least. Her hair was shiny and pitch-black, just like Susan's. She couldn't deny how turned on she was looking at her, but understood and respected that Barbara was a very heterosexual woman. For now.

Susan wrapped her arms gracefully around Barbara's waist, pulling her in tighter. Barbara liked the way that felt. Susan rubbed her hands across Barbara's plump belly under the pretence that she was still adjusting, but really wanted to feel her smooth skin. She was not underwhelmed.

She pulled her legs in and arranged them in the same zig-zag pattern as Barbara's. She pushed her vagina against Barbara's arse in what was, anti-climatically, the least arousing part of the display. She pressed her breasts against Barbara's shoulder-blades and shivers ran down her spine. She lay her head on Barbara's shoulder. Barbara was in an ecstatic state of bliss and began descending into sleep. Susan, however, was very far from tired and spent the ensuing hours studying her bed-mate's hair.

Barbara was in another waking dream. It was the same as all the others; she was in her house in 1963, the way she had left it. As always, she walked towards her queen-size bed and knew from memory what she would find there – Ian, naked. She held the doorknob in her hand and opened it, expecting to find yet another daunting reminder of her inability to confess to Ian her feelings.

Laying on the bed, splayed out sexually without any clothes, grinning seductively was Ia – Susan Foreman. That peculiar nineteen-year-old girl from Coal Hill School. Her grin was infectious and Barbara began walking over to the b-

Barbara's eyes exploded open. She was not in London, 1963. She was in the TARDIS, yet again. She felt a constricting pressure on her right breast – a hand, with a thumb massaging her nipple. 'Susan?' she asked, confused.

The hand darted away. 'I'm sorry!' Susan cried. 'Do you want me to stop?'

Barbara contemplated saying 'yes', but instead she said 'No'. As if on cue, the hand returned. Barbara smiled and let out a sigh of pleasure. But that wasn't all. She could feel cold lips pressed against the back of her neck. A tongue slowly crept out of Susan's mouth and licked Barbara's neck.

Barbara stretched out her legs and clasped Susan's hand in her own. 'Show me what Ping-Cho showed you,' she said.