You'd think I'd have expended all my mushiness during Dalek week. NOT so!

Alek looks appalled. "He told you you could fly with them?"

"Aye."

"With butcher paper and twigs."

"Aye, Alek!"

Alek shakes his head, certain she must be having a go at him this time for sure. "And you believed him?"

Deryn laughs at his unrelenting incredulousness. "Of course! He's my brother! I was five!" She laughs fondly at the memory and absentmindedly strokes the physical reminder of it that's been etched into her skin. "They really did look like real wings. He did a fine job."

Alek forgets himself and touches the scar Deryn's long ago fall from the roof left on her arm. "Well, I certainly hope your father gave him a stern talking to."

She snorts at this. "Aye, our folks had a few things to say to him. And the cast they put on me made a good club." She smirks. "Walloped him right on his attic when Ma had her back turned. He didn't spout so much yackum after that."

The boy chuckles. "Tell me another one."

"Alright. See this one?" Deryn cranes her neck to display a thin ribbon of paler flesh that runs the underside of her chin. "Got that one from sliding on my belly on ice the winter of '09. Nicked it with the zip on my coat."

"What on earth were you doing sliding on ice?"

She looks at him like this should be obvious. "Pretending I was a penguinesque. All of Jaspert's friends were at it, an' the lads from school. It's good fun when you don't mess yourself up."

"Is your brother responsible for all of your childhood injuries?"

"Not this one." Without thinking, Deryn pivots on the bed and lifts the back of her oxford so Alek can see the carving on her lower back. He's instantly flustered at the sudden exposure of a lady's skin, but with her face turned away from him Deryn can't tell. "Fell out of a tree and cut myself on a branch—nasty little blighter. Ma forbid me from climbing any more trees after that, but—" she turns and flashes him an impish grin, "I did anyway."

"No more falls, I hope," Alek manages to say.

"Oh of course not." She waves her hand dismissively. "I never fall."

Deryn re-tucks her shirt with the self-satisfied look she often wears, and which Alek loves simply because it belongs on her fine features. She's certainly earned the right to it, having made it this far with so many little victories along the way, and the fact that such unreserved smugness on a woman's face is so alarming it's refreshing does not escape him either.

"That's unfortunate," he finds himself saying, "because when next you injure yourself I would gladly kiss it better." The words are out before he can catch himself—where did such a thought even come from?—but she seems not to mind.

On the contrary… "Is that so?" She cocks an eyebrow, apparently intrigued.

"Certainly."

She grins wickedly. "I did bite my tongue this morning, come to think of it."

He turns bright red—she can see it this time, even in the dim light of her cabin—but says with as much suaveness as he can muster, "Then I shall have to remedy it, won't I?"

"Aye, doctor," she says with a snort, and leans in for the kiss. In no time the two are wrapped up in each other, breathing the same hot air with hungry breaths, fingers clasped tight around locks of hair and handfuls of clothing, so that every tangible bit of the other possible is ensnared in small cages. Deryn wants with the same unrelenting fire she always wants with, but she has one last watch shift to attend to still this evening. Reluctantly she withdraws her tongue and attempts to pick up their conversation where they left off.

"And where might your scars be?" she murmurs against his lips. She kisses his jaw while he answers.

"There are none that can be seen, I'm afraid."

"Mm?"

"Yes. They're all… under the skin."

Hands still knotted in his rusty curls, Deryn draws back to look at him. "Well, how in blazes am I supposed to treat those?"

He smiles shakily and removes her hands from his hair, keeping his hold on them. "In a way, you already have."