Warm.

Comfortable.

Safe.

These were the first things Oracle felt when she woke the next morning. Singularly these things weren't new, just uncommon, especially in the last year or so. Together they were so alien that she just basked for a moment, ignoring the flashing from the nightstand that had woken her.

She was lying on her left side, the deep duvet cinched around her waist. The pillow under her head was gloriously soft. All in all, she felt she might never want to move again.

She'd meant it when she'd said she had never had a bed as good as this before. The ones from her childhood home were all battered hand-me-downs and as for the ones later – no, she wasn't thinking about that now. Not when she was so contented right here.

It would be better if the comm stopped flashing at her though. It was cutting through the predawn and, now that she'd noticed it, she couldn't stop noticing it.

She grumbled to herself as she reached out from under the duvet and opened the message.

Warren's ship docks at 06.30.

N.S.

Oracle smiled at the message and checked the time. It was 5.45 now, if she got a move on, she could get there by the time he disembarked.

Replacing the comm she reluctantly pushed back the duvet and scooted to the edge of the bed. At least she tried to. She was so tangled up in it that she couldn't move.

Sighing she threw the duvet off properly and tried again. That was when she realised the pressure round her waist hadn't changed. She looked down.

You've got to be kidding me.

That was an arm. Wrapped round her and apparently intent on cuddling the life out of her. It took her a moment to register why it was there.

Virgil!

She froze. Now that she'd had an early morning shot of adrenaline it wasn't just his arm she could feel. She was being held snugly against him, that wonderful feeling of warmth was being generated by him.

Shit. What do I do now?

She didn't want to wake him. Hell, she didn't really want to move. Selfishly she let herself relax for a moment. She knew she should move; he'd be so embarrassed if he woke now. She hadn't given any thought at all to the next morning when she'd all but dragged him into bed the night before. She'd just wanted that damn squeak to stop and sleeping in close quarters was nothing new for her.

His reaction last night had been something to see. Somewhere between half asleep, completely wrongfooted and embarrassed. He'd looked… She didn't know how to describe it, even to herself. Open? Honest? Adorable?

But Warren had been away for so long. It had been months since she'd seen the man she had basically adopted as a younger brother and she still felt responsible for him.

She sighed just enjoying being here a moment longer. Behind her Virgil shifted slightly in his sleep and briefly squeezed her to him. She really wanted to stay. But Virgil was leaving and Warren had been there for over ten years. She knew he needed her more and, as nice (wonderful) as this felt, it wasn't going to last.

She still didn't want to wake him though.

Very carefully she got from under his arm, realising in the process that he was so deeply asleep she needn't have worried so much.

"That's going to hurt in the morning" she said quietly as she saw he was lying on his injured shoulder. Feeling brave she rolled him onto his back and waited until she was sure he wouldn't wake, then she walked on silent feet to the living room and got changed.

It would suck, wouldn't it, if it were me and he'd just gone in the morning she thought to herself. A quick hunt round the room provided a pad and a pen.

Café Gardenia. 10am. Something came up so I'll have to settle for brunch instead of breakfast. Didn't want to wake you. Oracle. Jasmine.

She folded the borrowed shirt placed it on the coffee table and propped the note up on it. It wasn't perfect but it would have to do.

How the hell is this my life? She wondered as she shut the door to the suite and headed out into the crisp morning air.

Virgil woke suddenly and immediately knew the room was empty. He looked to his left anyway but it only confirmed what his senses had told him. She'd gone. He wasn't disappointed. He wasn't. It made sense, after all? Didn't it?

He needed coffee. Badly.

He shuffled out to the living room before remembering that there wasn't a coffee machine in the room. Just a kettle with the instant rubbish in a sachet. That wouldn't do. Grumbling to himself he about faced, caught the door frame to balance himself and made for the shower.

He checked his comm on the way past to see if there was a message. There wasn't. But then, there wouldn't be, would there? It was – he checked the time – just gone 7am in London, so it was early evening on Tracy Island. Actually, there probably should be a message from one of his brothers. That was the message he had meant, right?

Virgil decided to resolve it all by going to soak his head in the shower.

It didn't help as much as he had hoped. His half-awake brain kept replaying images from the previous night. Stupid things he had noticed but didn't matter, like how her hair had been roughly cut at her jawline but was growing out in places giving her almost permanent bed hair, but it suited her. Or how the deep green in her eyes shone against the dark forests in the photos he had shown her.

It had taken him a long time to get to sleep the night before. Though his body was finally fully relaxed and comfortable his mind refused switch off. Thoughts chased themselves round in circles and refused to let him find the peace he wanted.

By contrast Jasmine had fallen asleep astonishingly fast. Though he couldn't really see her in the darkness of the room, her breathing had quickly evened out and she stopped shifting minutely.

Why do I trust you?

Her question was just as perplexing for him as it was for her. There was a very real threat to him personally, yet, he'd trusted his brothers both immediately older and younger enough to come here in the first place. By the end of that first day (was it really only yesterday?) he'd known she wasn't a threat and he thought he might trust her too. He also realised he wanted to earn her trust and remembered how glad he'd felt when she'd said she trusted him. Even if she didn't understand why.

He'd pushed it all aside, the fear and trepidation at being asked to effectively take an undercover mission solo. Those emotions had been roughly manhandled away by his anger at Scott for thinking the same as their father; that Virgil's contribution wasn't good enough because he wasn't military. On his darkest days Virgil knew that it didn't matter what he did, he would never measure up to his other brothers. Two with military careers their father had sung the praises of for years and one so academically gifted he'd skipped grades at school and begun earning PhD's (plural) before Virgil had even completed his own engineering degree.

He sighed. He might not measure up to his brothers in his father's eyes but that didn't mean he'd ever abandon them and right now John needed all the help he could get. Virgil knew Scott spent many late nights talking with John and he also knew from subsequent conversations with Scott that John was struggling. If Virgil could help in any way, then he would. But his desire to do so had somehow, incomprehensibly, lead him here, into the same bed as a woman that their father was convinced was kind of sleeper solder killing machine.

As he'd lain there, he'd turned his head towards her realising that his night vision had adjusted and the soft glow emanating from the clock was now enough to see her by. She was still facing towards him but where he'd expected to see her relaxed in sleep, he instead saw tension. She'd pulled the duvet tightly up to her chin, one hand fisted in the sheets in what he was sure would be a white knuckled grip. Ever so slowly she was drawing into herself, curling into a ball as though to protect herself. She didn't appear to be dreaming.

Virgil thought back to what she'd revealed earlier. She'd told him quite a lot, probably more than she'd meant to, but one thing stuck in his mind. He had briefly looked into Congenital Insensitivity to Pain during a trip to the bathroom. The reading was stark. People with the condition tended to live short lives as they inevitably missed a major injury that killed them. Psychologically the few cases on record seemed to be all over the map. The majority leading normal lives with the help of their loved ones but those who hadn't had the same support seemed to have all kind of behavioural and emotional issues.

It's better than it was though, when I was little it bled into other things. Some days I couldn't tell you if I was standing if I couldn't see my feet on the floor.

Virgil had stared at her sleeping form that seemed so determined to protect itself and tried to imagine what that might have been like.

When they'd been younger, he and Scott had played what had turned out to be a very cruel joke on John. They'd only wanted him to play with them but he had kept saying no, he had an extra credit project for school that he wanted to do. By the end of the second day, they'd decided that if he wasn't going to play, they were going to pretend he didn't exist. John hadn't noticed at first as they passed food over him at the dinner table or put what they wanted to watch on the tv without asking him. Neither had been old enough to realise that, with his preoccupation with work, their father was doing the same thing. Only their mother had caught on to what was happening and when she'd confronted her boys John had broken down in tears asking if he was really as important as his brothers? and was he even real in the first place? Virgil had only been six at the time and he'd never felt guilt like it.

He tried to imagine what John had been feeling and combine with not being able to feel your surroundings. How could you possibly know anything was real when the world around you only seemed to work for other people?

He'd eventually fallen asleep and, in his dreams, he'd done the one thing he'd wanted to as he'd watched her sleep. He took her in his arms and held on, anchoring her into reality and proving to her that she was real, that he was as trustworthy as she her subconsciousness thought he was, showing her that he saw her as a real person.

The dream had felt so real. But then he'd woken up and she was gone.

Annoyed with himself he scrubbed at his hair. She wasn't like anyone he'd ever met before. But there could be a very good reason for that.

Damn it why had he agreed to do this? It has to be the least well thought out thing he'd ever done. With the possible exception of the time he told dad he wanted to become a full time sculptor and had ended up shipped off to summer school devoted to engineering. But then again, he was still friends with Jim from that summer and he'd gotten to build a trebuchet and test it – something that had become infinitely valuable living with Gordon.

Reaching out with his left arm he shut off the water and groped round for the towel belatedly realising that his arm didn't pull the way it had been. He rotated the shoulder carefully and ran through his morning exercises, pleased by the movement he now had. It definitely wasn't back up to a hundred percent, but it was noticeably better than yesterday.

Throwing on some clean clothes he decided to check in with home.

"Hey Virgil." Scott sounded far too chirpy for this time in the morning. "Wow, you look beat, how long have you been up?"

"Uh" Virgil said slumping down on the couch and running a hand through his damp hair. "Maybe half an hour?" He yawned.

"Oh yeah, London time. Are you okay to have this conversation?" Scott said in mock seriousness. "How many cups of coffee have you had yet?"

"None" he grumbled. "They don't have proper coffee in the rooms. I have to go get it."

"Look out London" Scott said. "Do they have procedures for grumpy bears on the loose?"

"Haha." Virgil was starting to regret his decision to call home before coffee. It could have been worse though. He could have got Gordon.

"So," Scott changed the subject. "How's your wild cat? Managed to coax her any closer yet?"

"What?" Thank goodness for being half awake. It meant he didn't squeak in surprise so much as sound completely confused.

"You really need coffee, Virgil."

"I know, I know."

"John said you were finding Oracle a little unpredictable. Apparently, you thought she was like a wild animal you were trying to entice with food."

"I did not say that."

"Well, something along those lines."

Virgil was not awake enough for this. Unfortunately, Scott knew this and had decided not to let him off the hook.

"Seriously, though? You're alright? You managed to talk to her?"

"I know how to talk to a girl, Scott" he said.

"Are you sure? Remember Judy Mc-"

"We are not going there. Especially not at this time in the morning."

"It's evening."

"No, it isn't."

"What about the mission?" The Field Commander stepped up.

"Going well, I think. She had a nasty cut on her leg from a fight which I sorted."

"Do you have a sample of her blood?"

"Yes" Virgil replied suddenly feeling uneasy. "Sort of. I have the old bandages."

"Good, send it to Lady Penelope. Your part is done, Virgil" Scott looked relieved. "Get yourself to France and enjoy the break you should be having." There was a lot going on in Scott's tone there. He was clearly glad Virgil had succeeded and wanted Virgil way from London soon. But that wasn't just the older brother, proud of the younger. This was a command that Scott dearly wanted followed. Unfortunately, Virgil was hung up on something else.

"You want me to send a packet of bloody bandages to an English Lady?"

"Yes, I'll tell her to expect them." Scott replied like it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Uh, right… She'll be alright with that, will she? I mean, I don't even know her that well."

"Virgil" Scott looked briefly annoyed, "she's an IR agent. This is part of her job."

"Okay" Virgil sounded unconvinced. "Send me the details and I'll sort it. I could even take them out to the manor."

"No, you've been in England long enough. Any longer and I won't be able to keep it from dad. Also, grandma is looking forward to hearing about the piano competition. You need to have something to tell her."

Virgil might be running un-caffeinated but he finally caught on to something.

"She isn't dangerous, Scott" he said softly. "Gordon and John were right."

At his words his brother visibly relaxed. Gordon was known to make impulsive choices. John might not be but he was literally thousands of miles away making his decision based on phone calls. Virgil knew Scott trusted his family implicitly, but the two of them had a closer working bond, clearly Scott had been waiting for Virgil to pass judgement before coming to a decision of his own.

"I hope you're right, brother."

Or maybe not though Virgil.

"Either way we can tidy this up now. Also," all traced of the Field Commander left, "you really do need that break. You've earnt it these past few days alone, never mind what happened before."

"I thought I was shipped off to France so I'd stop annoying dad?"

Scott frowned.

"You know that's not the case."

"I know it was."

"Anyway" Scott said pointedly. "You have the time, you might as well use it for something fun."

Virgil smiled slowly.

"You know what, I think I will."

"There you go. I'll let you know when we have the results back."

"Thanks Scott, talk to you later."

"Bye, Virgil."

They disconnected, Scott none the wiser about Virgil's sudden change in attitude. He'd only just caught sight of his spare shirt and the note sitting on it.

A quick stop before he headed out to France wouldn't hurt, right?