London Docks, August 1901

Sawyer stood, speechless.

"You're alive." he muttered.

"I'm alive." she said. She was standing directly in front of him. Katherine Carvosso. She dropped her hat onto the jetty, reached up and started working the black ribbon out of her hair.

He took a moment to take in her appearance. She was wearing a heavy black overcoat, her skirts, visible underneath, were crimson. She had not changed much in two years; her hair was longer, he supposed, but she was essentially exactly as beautiful as he had left her, all those months ago. But looking harder, as she pulled the long, velvet ribbon from her mahogany curls and her hair fell to her shoulders, Sawyer noticed a long scar running from just above her left eye, down her nose, to her cheek.

He reached out and gently traced the scar with his fingertip. "How did you get that?" he asked softly, tilting his head.

"Nothing exciting," she answered, "I had a run in with an old friend of sorts."

Sawyer frowned, and tried to probe further, but she waved him off.

"Look, I'm sorry about the solicitor's letter," she ventured diffidently, looking vaguely guilty. "I just- well, I couldn't put anything down in words."

She shivered, the clouds overhead had obscured the sun and the air had grown suddenly cold.

"Come on," said Sawyer, leading her off the jetty. "you can come home with me for a while." He had no idea what he was doing. He shared his house with Mina, Rodney and Henry- how was he going to explain Katherine to them?

But he ignored this fact as the clouds split and it started raining; large, heavy drops, they were drenched to the skin in seconds, and with no refuge from the until Sawyer's house, there was no choice.

He took her by the hand and led her at a run in the direction of the League's household. They were yelling to each other while they pressed on through London's streets.

"WHY NOW?" asked Sawyer, yelling over his shoulder, barely looking where he was going. "WHY NOT BEFORE? WHY DID YOU COME BACK?"

"I LOVED YOU, TOM, I SWEAR I DID. I HAVE MY REASONS. WATCH OUT!!!!" she bellowed, as Sawyer nearly crashed into a pair of horses drawing a stagecoach. The horses bucked and reared, dousing them in yet more water.

Mina Harker was jerked from her seat as the stagecoach she was travelling in stopped suddenly and she was thrown forwards. Steadying herself, she stared out of the small window to see a pair of young people run off into the rain, hand in hand. Her lip curled in contempt.

"BESIDES, AREN'T YOU GLAD THAT I'M NOT DEAD?" yelled Katherine, as they turned a corner into yet another alleyway.

Sawyer stayed quiet.

They were running solidly for a further five minutes, splashing through deepening puddles. All at once, the rain got harder, the sky grew darker, there was a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning, and Katherine slipped and fell.

"KATH!" yelled Sawyer, skidding to a halt, ankle deep in a puddle. She was almost out cold, spread-eagled on her back with her hair plastered to her face. Sawyer brushed the limp curls off her face and tried to rouse her. "Kath, KATH!" She didn't stir; she had passed out.

With a muttered string of profanities, he slid his arms under her, and picked her up with little effort; she had lost weight in their two years apart. With one arm around her waist and his other under her knees, he proceeded back to his home at a stilted run.

It took a further ten minutes, but once he was firmly ensconced in the warmth and dryness of his hallway, Sawyer breathed a sigh of relief and carried Katherine up the two flights of stairs to the bedroom that he and Mina usually shared. He dared not lay her in Skinner's room, for he could hear Rodney padding around downstairs, saying inappropriate things to one of the maids. He stayed, too, away from Jekyll's room; lest Hyde broke out into the open.

Gingerly removing Katherine's sodden overcoat, Sawyer noticed something that made him shudder. Her chest, where visible above her dress, was marred with a mess of scars and half-healed cuts. Averting his eyes, he laid her on the bed and covered her with a blanket; heartened to see that she was breathing steadily.

He entered the bathroom, leant over the sink and gripped the edge until his knuckles turned white; today was turning out worse than expected. He stared at his dripping form in the mirror for a few seconds, before changing his clothes and half-closing his bedroom door as he exited into the hallway.

"Skinner!" he yelled down the stairs."Stop chatting up the maids!"

Rodney Skinner's leather coat appeared at the first landing, and Sawyer just had to assume that the invisible man was listening to him.

"Alright, alright," he said, and Sawyer knew that he was grinning. Sawyer watched the coat ascend the stairs and threw a small pot of white greasepaint from the sideboard at the coat.

"Paint on, please." The young American was bored of Skinner wandering around, completely invisible; who was to say that the gentleman thief would not stoop to looking into people's bedrooms?

As Skinner started smearing the stark white greasepaint on, his head turned slightly towards Sawyer's bedroom. He saw a look of piqued interest on what little of Skinner's face that was visible, and Sawyer leapt in front of the door, but the damage was already done.

"Who's that, then?" asked Skinner, his expression alight with sudden curiosity as he fixed his pince-nez to his nose.

"An old friend," said Sawyer, closing the door with a snap.

"An old, female friend?" said the invisible man, looking smug.

"As it happens." said Sawyer, feeling distinctly uncomfortable, shifting from foot to foot with a twisted look of shame on his face.

Just as Skinner opened his mouth to say something clever, a muffled squeak came from the room behind them.

"Go away, Rodney," said Sawyer, turning away and opening the door.

"No, no, no, ickle Tommy. Seeing as your lady friend isn't our dear Mina, I want to meet her."

"Ugh, fine," Sawyer said, exasperated. "But then, bugger off,"

"Tom?" Katherine sat up as the door opened and Sawyer stuck his head in.

"Hey. Are you okay now?" he was frowning, his expression concerned.

"Um... my head feels something akin to being chucked at a brick wall," Katherine answered, rubbing her head. "But aside from that, great."

Just then, Sawyer received a sharp prod in the small of his back. "Oh, for Christ's sake, Skinner,"

One of Katherine's eyebrows shot up. "What?"

Sawyer stepped aside and allowed Skinner into the room. "Katherine, this is Rodney Skinner."

"Gentleman Thief," he said, holding out a greasepaint-covered hand.

"Pleasure," said Katherine, ignoring Skinner's proffered hand and surveying the invisible man (or what she guessed was him and not thin air) with a certain amount of contempt. "This is 'Jack the Ripper' guy?"

Sawyer laughed, for the first time in two weeks. "Yes," he replied, grinning. "That's him."

"What?" asked Skinner, nonplussed. "What's the joke?"

"'Charming setting. Does Jack the Ripper live here?'" Katherine interjected, grinning. "Remember?"

"I... what? How do you know about that?" Skinner was even more confused.

"Just go, Skinner, bother Jekyll or somebody else!" said Sawyer, ushering him out of the door and closing it in his face with a resounding slam that had an air of forced finality about it. He turned back to Katherine, who had folded the blanket she had been covered by and thrown it over the desk-chair, exactly, Sawyer realised with a jolt, as Mina usually did. His eyes fell on the mass of scars, cuts and scratches on Katherine's chest once more, and he couldn't help wondering where she had got them.

Her eyes caught his gaze, and she hurriedly spread her palm over her chest to cover them, wincing as she pressed on the unhealed cuts.

"Kath," Sawyer began tentatively, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Perhaps-"

"It's nothing," she said, waving him off. "Just old battle scars."

"Old? You didn't have them before I left, and some of them are new!" Sawyer protested.

"It's nothing!" Katherine replied, dropping all pretence of politeness for her natural, Cornish accent.

"Quite obviously, they are something!" replied Sawyer acidly, losing his patience.

"FINE!" she said, throwing her arms up in a gesture of angry and reluctant defeat. "I may have had a lesser regard for my life once you left."

"Oh, Kath, you can't be serious," Sawyer moaned, hiding hs face behind his hands and exhaling, exasperated. "You went and tried to get yourself killed because I left?"

She looked suddenly shamefaced. "I suppose you could put it that way."

They sat in total silence for a few moments. Until Katherine broke it, with a very put-on facade of cheerfulness.

"I see your choice of dress hasn't changed," she said, surveying his white shirt and black waistcoat, his grey trousers and leather braces that never seemed to be of any purpose.

"I guess." he grinned. The moment of awkwardness had passed, for now, and neither of them wanted to stir it up again, so when Sawyer sat beside her and examined her scars and scratches, neither said much.

"When did these happen?"

"Within the last two months, the fresh ones, at least."

Sawyer just nodded in understanding.

"Tom," she whispered.

Sawyer looked up. Their faces were only inches away from each other, and the young American could hear his heart beating so loudly it was a wonder that she couldn't.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

And then it happened. He didn't wait to hear her answer, he didn't stop to think, he just pressed his lips hard against hers, awkwardness forgotten, his thoughts erupting into a feeling of inane ecstasy that he had not felt since he joined the League. Katherine was shocked for a moment, but responded, sitting forward slightly so they were pressed against each other. Both of Sawyer's hands cupped Katherine's cheeks as she put her hands on either side of him, leaning into him completely.

Lost completely, neither heard the front door slam, or footsteps on the stairs.

Mina opened the door.