The sky over Chiswick was clear and starlit. From the small hill behind her mother's house, Donna could see them twinkle despite the city's dazzling lights.

Sylfia had donated Wilfred's telescope to the community center, but even though Donna had been furious at the time, she had to admit that, just like her mother, she had no idea how to use the thing. Back when her grandfather was still alive, he used to point out single orbits or planets to her, but as much as she loved sharing those nights with him, she had never asked for him to teach her more about astronomy.

The cup of tea in her hand had long gone cold as she tried to find the few constellations she remembered on the night sky.

It was even harder then usual with her mind running wild. Her thoughts tended to go back to a certain demon, at whom she was to mad to think about right now. Still the memories came back whenever she wasn't occupied by any other mundane task. Suddenly, she'd miss the honesty of a genuine conversation or the easiness of flirtatious banter. She'd miss caressing hands holding her firmly and pulling her in a tight embrace as if they never wanted to let go. But most of all she'd miss the feeling of dark eyes boring into her, watching her with adoration as if she was the most important woman on earth and not just some chav from chiswick.

But only seconds after the longing engulfed her, she remembered the other side of the man who evoked those cravings in her and she immediately felt bad for yearning for the presence of a cold-blooded murderer.

The sound of footsteps chased her thoughts away. She rolled her eyes and clasped a hand over her face, not ready to talk to anyone yet.

"Mom, if I wanted to talk to you I would have stayed inside."

"Is there anyone you wanna talk to these days?", an all to familiar deep voice wondered.

Her head snapped to the side and she was faced with the very demon she couldn't stop thinking about.

"For christs sake, how many times are you going to sneak up on me?", she asked herself aloud. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I had my boys watch your mother's house. I knew you'd visit her sooner or later."

He came to a halt a view feet away from her and watched her cautiously like a small bird that would fly away every moment.

"Great, thanks for the creeps and now get lost." She turned her gaze back to the stars, he face an angry mask.

"What else was I supposed to do with all the demon traps around your house? I've gotta hand it to you, you've been very thorough. Where did you learn to make the sigils?"

With her eyes stubbornly planted on the stars, Donna kept quiet.

"So, you're not gonna talk to me. I gotta say I'm not surprised, you're just as bullheaded as I am."

Donna took a deep breath through her nose to keep herself from barking back at him and her fingers tensed as they grabbed the cup a little harder.

"But I was impressed when I found the tracking device I'd given to you. Darling, I've never been so angry and so proud at the same time as when I found out that for the last few days I had been tracking the route of your neighbour's cat."

He pushed his hands in his pockets and shifted from one foot to the other, impatiently waiting for a reaction from her, some teasing words like how she's always been superior to him or that she'd thought it would take him longer to figure it out, but she remained silent.

"Alright, I'm going to say something now that not many people have ever heard from me, so you better feel like a special snowflake. I'm sorry, Donna. I should have known that underneath all that snarky sarcasm you're just a human with a heart as big as her mouth and, and I - you gonna say something?", he stammered as she suddenly stood up and emptied the cup of tea into the closest bush.

She just couldn't sit there anymore and listen to him or she'd do something stupid like strangle him or even forgive him.

Without saying another word, she walked past him, but he grabbed her arm and turned her around.

"Don't you just walk out on me!", he barked at her and she turned stone-cold eyes upon him.

"Talk to me or-"

"Or what?", she snapped. "What, huh? Don't you come to me with your demon threats or you can slit my throat right here and now, 'cause I'm not gonna play that way with you!"

Immediately, he let go of her, as if her skin suddenly had catched fire.

"You know I'd never do that to you", he whispered, his voice as soft again as it has been before.

She rubbed a palm over her face. Of course she knew. In all their time together they had only been fighting with words and the only bruises he had left on her had been the results of too frantic lovemaking.

She took a deep, calming breath before she let her hand drop and let her gaze wander over the distant city lights.

"Do you remember when we watched HBO and I wondered how that mobster's wife could keep on living like a stepford wife even though she knew exactly how her husband earned his money?"

"Are you comparing us to The Sopranos?"

"I don't think I could handle being the mobster's wife."

"But you don't really know yet", he pushed her with a hint of hope in his voice. "But I don't think it would work."

"But you accept my apology."

"I-"

"Of course you do. Look at us having our cute couply back-and-forth discussion." He gestured between them, his trade-mark grin slowly appearing on his features.

"I hate you", she countered lamely with her arms hanging by her side in defeat.

"Everytime you say that, I'm getting all warm and tingly in my soft spots."

"You don't have any soft spots", she scoffed.

"What else am I supposed to call you?"

He reached out for her as he moved closer, but Donna kept the distance between them and raised her hand.

"Just because I forgive you doesn't mean we can straight go back to how we were."

A small part within Donna begged her to take these words back and just hug and kiss Crowley as she saw how his face fell, but she swallowed the unwanted feelings down and carried on.

"I'm no Bonnie Parker, I won't unconditionally love a man who's hobbies are illegal in all western countries."

"But you seemed to be fine with it before. You can't just make me fall in love with you and then back out!"

There it was, that bloody L-word. How dared this bastard!

Donna shifted on the spot uncomfortably, trying not to spill any words she could later regret. This is a man aspiring to become king of hell. You don't just stumble in a relationship with that! She didn't know what she had been thinking in the first place. This would be it. This relationship would end tonight, before she'd get involved any deeper with a guy without a conscience or any empathy, a demon of all things.

She was about to tell him so as suddenly her heart reached up and talked with her mouth without permission.

"I just need some time to think."

He nodded in understanding and shoved his hands back deep into his black coat's pockets.

Crickets clittered their chrous and in the distance a car drove past.

They stood in silence, glancing at each other, then letting their eyes roam over the dark of the hill until they landed on each other again.

"The sooner you leave, the sooner I can start thinking", Donna broke the quiet.

"Because this is strange, right? Talking, but no touching."

"No, but if I keep seeing that stupid grin of yours, my decision will be made pretty fast and it's not gonna be in your favour."

"Alright", he lifted his hands in surrender. "I won't bother you anymore. But please don't let me wait forever."

"Of course", she waved him off and turned to walk back inside the house.

"And call of your bum-bailiffs before my mom gets paranoid and takes it out on me", she advised him without looking back. "If she does, I'm gonna take it out on you."

Keeping himself hidden away, Crowley observed Castiel watching Dean Winchester. That angel seemed to have real issues. He obviously ogled the human the same way he had watched Donna last week, when she was gazing at the stars, unaware of her surroundings. There was love and adoration in his eyes, but also the fear of rejection. But unlike the demon, Castiel didn't take his chance and acted on his feelings. He just stood still like a statue with his eyes locked on the righteous man.

The Winchester boy was clueless about his observers. He sweeped together the leafs in his backyard as if there weren't more important things going on in the world, As if Crowley didn't just conquered a leaderless hell, as if there weren't a war going on in heaven. It wouldn't take much to overtake this man who had given up on the supernatural fight and completely let his guard down in his new mundane life.

But Crowley wasn't here for the Winchester and it surely wouldn't help his cause, if he took away his future business partner's favourite thing. Still he had to act now, before the angel would suddenly man up and talk to his man-crush.

Smothering his own feelings about a certain redhead, he was able to concentrate on his work. His anger and frustration even doubled his energy and gave him the strength to achieve his goal. He was the new king on the throne of hell, commanding an army of demons and securing and increasing his power. Nevertheless, he was sure that he would have reached all of this even faster with the woman he loved on his side, instead of always on his mind. Everything would have felt a little easier if he could have talked it through with her or if he could have fled into her arms after a long day of gruelling power games.

If Castiel would talk to Dean now, the hunter wouldn't turn him down and the heavenly soldier would feel the support and love that Crowley so missed. He couldn't let this happen, he needed Castiel uncertain and guideless, without a real encouragement to fight the war up in heaven. This way he could use the angel to his own advantage and gain even more power. If only he could stop thinking about his last meeting with Donna. It had left him uncertain and frustrated. The waiting was torture and her cold distance had hurt him more than he thought was possible. His fingers had itched to touch her soft skin again and his lips had prickled with the ghost of former kisses and the anticipation of new ones, but she had refused him. She didn't even deemed it as necessary to take one last look back as she stated her last request while walking away from him. Of course he had not called off his men. He had sent some of his thicker demons, that kind that doesn't ask any questions, to watch her steps, but it was only out of his concern for her and there was nothing wrong with that. He'd feel more assured if he could ask Belphegor or some of his other more intelligent demons to keep an eye on her, but he wass concerned that they could find out the real reasons for his action, which could easily make a target out of Donna.

He shook his head, trying to ban her from his thoughts. He had promised to wait for her to think it through and wait he would. In the meantime, he had other important things to do.

With a confident smile on his face, he willed himself visible to only the angel, a trick he had acquired with his rising powers.

Castiel didn't seem surprised to see the demon. Or he was just to tired to feel something as surprise anymore. With his hanging shoulders and the drawn out look on his face, Crowley couldn't really tell, but it was all the better for his plans.

The angel did not disappoint him and after one last look at the retired hunter, he turned around and went with the demon.

It was a wednesday, her mother's bridge evening. How could she have forgotten that? Otherwise she surely wouldn't have stood on her mother's front porch, taken by surprise by two pairs of, for their age surprisingly strong, female hands pulling her inside with the words that Margie, that fine friend, hadn't shown up and now they were missing a player.

Now she was seated infront of her mother, her two backbiting friends on either side of her, trying to get the rules of the games right so that Sylfia would stop nagging her every round they lost.

Luckily for Donna, there was alcohol, not only in form of wine, but also some herb-flavoured liquor that suspiciously tasted like cough syrup. Why not kill two birds with one stone?, Donna thought and not only drank until she'd lost her urge to yell at the women at this table for being plain stupid and annoying, but also preventively had fought of any loomimg coughing fit.

"You know what Kelly's boyfriend did this week?", the woman to Donna's left, Rosie, started as she poured herself another glass of wine.

Donna loved stories about Kelly, they always made herself look much better as a daughter. She leaned forward, intrigued about what that girl and her small time criminal boyfriend had done this time.

"She had lent him her car and he drove straight against a ticket machine. Kelly says it was an accident, but you know what he did after it happened? He didn't call Kelly, no no! That machine was crashed and all the money for the parking tickets was leaking out onto the street, and so he grabbed as much as he could carry and then went down to The Stag and bought a round for the whole pub!"

"That man is so stupid!", Edith, the woman to Donna's right, commented. "Wasn't he on probation?"

"What about the car? Does his insurance cover that?", Sylia asked.

"The court hearing's gonna be next month, I really hope they send him behind bars. He'd brought enough havoc upon us. Kelly's gonna have to pay for the whole mess and she's angry at me when I tell her to split up with him!"

"It's the old dilemma, women have a weakness for bad boys!", Edith winked and the words sounded strange out of the mouth of the grey-haired woman wearing a rose cardigan.

Rosie immediately protested. "That's a stupid stereotype! No one wants to spend her life with an arsehole."

"Right, no woman in her right mind let's herself be treated like that", Donna supported her. "What about dad?", she turned to her mother after playing her card. "He wasn't a goody two-shoes but he never treated you wrong."

"He was always a gentleman. I mean we had our fights, but I wasn't completely guiltless." She tilted her head to the side as she remembered the time with her deceased husband. "But he was quite the idiot at his younger age. You should have seen him when he drove by on his small moped without wearing a helmet. He thought he was the king of the block. Did you know he was in a gang? Nothing serious, they just fine-tuned their autocycles and tried to show off, but I was still so proud when he asked me out."

"There's the catch, nothing flatters a woman more than a man who acts like an arse towards the whole world but treats her like a princess."

"There is no such thing as a nice arse. He's either a good man or a bad man."

"But he can still have a nice arse!"

The three woman howled at Edith's joke, their faces turning red and puffy from the laughter.

"Donna, it's your turn", her mother reminded her and pulled her out of her thoughts. "Quit those pouty lips and play. Can't you bear some old women still having some fun?"

"That wasn't a pout, it was dismay", she countered flippantly and played her next card.

Edith's words had hit a bit too close to home. She had enjoyed the attention and she had felt special to be the lover to a creature that most people wouldn't think of bing capable to love. And she would lie if she said that she didn't miss it.

Frustrated about being a stereotype, she poured herself another glass.

It was close to midnight when the cab dropped her infront of her home. With some difficulties, she unlocked the door and stumbled inside.

Her hallway wasn't as cosy as it used to be, it reminded her more of a meeting room for a coven of witches, but the pentagrams and devil's traps seemed necessary to keep an unwelcomed demon out of her house. The rest of the rooms didn't look much better. Every window seat was riddled with a thick line of salt, a consent reminder of the supernatural being in her life and the promise she had made.

She was thinking about her relationship with Crowley, she really was racking her brain, but everytime the thought about what he had done, it angered her like nothig before, and yet the thought of never seeing him again saddened her to an amount that was already scary.

To tired to care, she threw her bag and jacket onto the shoe cabinet and climbed the stairs up to her bathroom, where she got ready to sleep. After brushing her teeth, she changed into her pyjamas and went to bed.

She rolled sleeplessly around in her bed for half an hour, her mind not shutting up for once and keeping her awake, before she threw the covers aside in frustration.

Barefoot, she padded down the staircase to stop and sit on the lower steps, her eyes inspecting the giant demon defence she had drawn across the inside of her front door.

Donna didn't have guests since she'd demon proofed her house. She didn't know how to explain all the scribblings on the wall and lines of salt on the ground. Sometimes she wished the old times back, before she was an expert on the field of demonology.

With a huff, she tore her eyes away from the door and stood up to walk into the kitchen. Somewhere in her cabinets had to be a bottle of wine. She found it after some rummaging and poured herself a generous glass. Why shouldn't she keep up this evening's activities, just because she was home alone now? Maybe the alcohol could help her find the answers that she couldn't come up with herself. Veritas in vino, or something like that.

With the wine glass in her hand, she walked back into the hallway and leaned against the staircase to continue staring at the front door.

The glass was half empty as she decided to stagger back into the kitchen and get a knife out of one of the drawers.

Keeping a thight hold on the handle, she made her way towards the painted door. Some of the wine spilled as she balanced it in her left hand and used her right one to raised the knife towards the paint.

With a few misguided scratches, she managed to put a crack in the perfectly drawn circle.

She hold her breath and looked around, straining her ears for any treacherous sounds, but nothing happened.

"I'm not gonna wait the whole night for you", she slurred to the empty room, but the house kept quiet.

She shook her head, feeling like a fool, and emptied her glass in a big gulp, before she turned around to put it into the kitchen sink.

Her heart missed a beat as she suddenly noticed the figure standing behind her, and she nearly dropped the objects in her hands.

Crowley lifted his hands as an act of reassurance and apology, but Donna still slapped his chest with the back of her hand.

"Was that really necessary?"

"I'm sorry, but you used to notice when I arrived", he remarked with a disenchantment she wasn't used to hear in his voice.

"Yeah, I know", she agreed with him as she put the knife and the glass on the last bit of space on the top of her shoe cabinet. "We should change that, you should visit me more often again."

Swaying slightly, she put her hands on his shoulder to steady herself and then stood on her toes to press a firm kiss to his lips. Crowley catched up immediately and put his arms around her frame. She moaned at the tight hold, as he pulled her closer and deepened the kiss.

Donna had to pull back and lean her head against his shoulder as she ran out of air.

"You're drunk", Crowley stated as calmly as if he talked about the weather. His tongue darted out as if he tasted the wine on his lips.

"Don't you try to tell me I don't know what I'm doing." She tried to pull out of his embrace to argue with him properly, but the grip around her shoulders didn't ease.

"No, I'm actually glad you are. Drunk decisions are made with the heart, not with the head."

She looked into his deep brown eyes, trying to find a witty remark, but her brain couldn't come up with anything. Instead she put a hand on the back of his head and pulled him into another eager kiss. She let her other hand glide under his coat and pushed it down his shoulders. Realising her intentions, he loosened his grip and helped her to undress himself. His shoes were hastily kicked off and the tie was thrown over the banister rail as they stumbled up the stairs.

Crowley had already lost his shirt and half the buttons of Donna's top had been undone as they passed the bedroom door. He pushed her down on the mattress and kneeled over her to kiss down the exposed skin of her cleavage. With her fingers entangled in his hair, she pulled his face back up to kiss him again. His tongue felt hot in her mouth and her hips started to move on their own with the intense feeling of finally being in his arms again. Her hazy mind wondered how she could have pushed him away in the first place, when her thoughts were interrupted by a jolt of pleasure caused by Crowley pinching her nipple softly between his fingers.

Driven by lust, she pushed against his shoulders and rolled them both over so that she was lying on top of him.

The sudden movement had her head spinning and the feeling of nausea rose in her chest. She immediately sat up, one hand held against her pounding forehead.

"What's wrong?", Crowley asked worried as he rose on his forearms.

"Nothing, just moved a tad too fast", she reassured him, but her voice couldn't even fool herself.

He sighed, before he lied back down and beckoned her to do the same.

"Come here."

With strong guiding hands, he pulled her to his side and tugged her head under his chin. Their legs entangled on their own in a comfortable position.

"Sleep tight", he mumbled before he pressed a kiss to her hairline.

Within seconds, Donna's eyes fell closed and her breath evened out as she tumbled into a sound sleep.

Donna felt confused and disoriented as she woke a few hours later between dishevelled sheets. The sun wasn't up yet and the only light glimly illuminating the room came from the street lamps outside the window.

She blindy groped her way to the other side of the bed, finding it empty and cold.

Tears prickled in the corner of her eyes, as she damned her wild imagination. This must have been the most stupid dream she had in a long time. And still it had felt so good. Too good to be true actually.

She turned on her side and pulled the sheets closer around herself. The alcohol still had her head in a dizzy state with every vast movement and she tried to push the feeling away by squeezing her eyes closed.

With a pounding head and a heavy heart, she fell back into a restless sleep.