A/N: Many of the ensuing popular culture opinions may or may not be my own. Sorry if I offend someone who really likes one of the people or media mentioned and perhaps disparaged, but I'm drawing from my own personal experiences for the most part. The rest is made up. And again, I'm sorry for the glitch on the chapter last time. Hopefully it's smooth sailing from here on out.

Interlude: Getting to Know You

"Hey."

John hung his head over the back of the couch, looking upside down at the Wolf as she came walking into the Media room. "Hey. What's your favorite color?" he asked abruptly.

The Wolf cocked her head and gave him a confused look. "TARDIS blue. Why?"

"That history book I read while you were unconscious said that some fundamental personality traits could change after a regeneration even if your main ones were constant, so I was curious to see which ones of yours had," he reasoned. "Changed, I mean."

"Well, my favorite color is one that won't ever change. Have you seen my ship? She's a marvel." The Wolf collapsed on the couch next to John, sinking into the cushions with a happy sigh before looking over at him. "So. Twenty questions, is it?"

John flipped himself right side up so he could talk to her normally. "If you don't mind. Could be fun," he shrugged.

The Wolf nodded agreeably. "Alright, fire away."

"How do you take your tea?" John asked, getting into it.

"Three sugars and a bit of milk," the Wolf answered immediately.

John paused. "See, that one is different. Used to be just milk."

"Think I have a bit of a sweet tooth this go 'round."

"Alright." He thought of another one. "I'm assuming it's fair to say that Dickens is still your favorite author?"

The Wolf grinned. "Yup. Good old Charlie. Very much superior to other authors of the age – Doyle, for one."

"Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle didn't even write in the same genre, Wolf. You can't honestly compare them," John protested. "You'd have to debate – Dickens versus Hugo or something."

"Ah, Victor, good man, he was. Always looking at the small things and making them big. Like that rebellion, for instance. All of history forgot about the student rebellion except for him, and now everyone knows about it. Who's your favorite author?" she asked him.

"I'm partial to Homer," John answered.

"Homer?!" She shook her head. "Nah, never did like him much. He always went on and on for paragraphs and paragraphs about which army was led by which general and which country it came from and how many men were in each squadron and if they rode horses or marched or sailed boats," she rambled on. "Pages of it. Besides, all the 'gods' the Greeks ever worshiped were just aliens from a galaxy a few doors down anyways. Why do you think the Greeks never checked to see whether their gods actually lived on Mount Olympus? It's a very climbable hill."

John stared at her, bewildered. "Homer wrote tales of adventure and intrigue. They were the first epics of our time," he tried to tell her.

"Maybe the first, but certainly not the best. No, those would belong to J.R.R. Tolkien," the Wolf said firmly.

"Come on, you're a Lord of the Rings fan?" John scoffed.

"Those are truly great novels."

"The movies, I understand. But the books? No, I don't see it. The plot is entirely impossible to follow, everything is always being interrupted for a song or two, and they only succeed in their mission through sheer dumb luck. And Frodo's a bit of a wimp, who for some reason decided to make the very avoidable error of trusting a creepy quadruped to lead him on his world-saving mission," John tacked on as a final thought.

The Wolf grinned at his own ramble. "We're just gonna have to agree to disagree on that point," she said. "I don't think we're going to convince each other."

"Fine," John conceded good naturedly. "Favorite movie?"

The Wolf thought about it. "I think I would like any of those classic Disney movies right now, but I've also always sort of liked the Matrix. Now there is a movie that makes you think about existentialism. Just the original, though. The rest of the trilogy is a little bit weak. Oh, and making fun of historical documentaries. That's always been one of my favorite pastimes."

"Why?" he asked, confused.

"They're so often wrong," she answered simply. "And whenever they're wrong, they have no idea what to do with that new information, whether it's someone wearing clothes they shouldn't be or random objects found in graves that make no sense for the given time period. Keeps them on their toes." The Wolf had a small smile as she finished speaking.

John narrowed his eyes, suspicious. "Hang on. So all the strange things archaeologists find at dig sites," he began, "is that just you throwing stuff in there to confuse them?" The Wolf's grin only widened. "Oh, my God, it is! Like coins and stuff? I've seen that before." John couldn't help but laugh when the Wolf chuckled. "That is so devious and mean," he told her reprovingly, unable to keep his laughter in check. "Why do you do it?"

The Wolf only shrugged. "They're archaeologists. I like to point and laugh at them," she replied, as if no other answer was needed.

John shook his head, unable to fathom it. "Okay, moving on. What else do you like?"

The Wolf thought for a moment. "Charlie Chaplin was always good for a laugh. And he could sass with the best of them. He stood up to Herbert Hoover once, back when he was still head of the FBI and not President. Really took the mickey out of him. Got himself landed on a Communist watch list because of it. Right in the middle of the Red hysteria. But his films are golden."

John nodded. "I always liked silent films," he agreed. "Everything was simpler back then. People had to rely on expressiveness. It's hard to lie when you can't use any words."

The Wolf nodded. "What about Shakespeare?" she then asked.

"You like him?" John groaned.

"Everyone loves old Will," the Wolf defended herself. "You don't?"

"Not really. I prefer Robert Burns if I'm going to read some kind of poetry. Plays aren't really my thing. I always find it difficult to keep track of who is related to who and which person is speaking. And I could never get the hang of his sonnets. And really, Romeo and Juliet was not a love story," John complained. "It was two immature teenagers who ended up getting themselves and a lot of innocent people killed over the course of a few days."

The Wolf grinned at his rant. "I'm not a fan of Romeo and Juliet either," she acknowledged. "The star-crossed lovers ideal never rings true for me. I like Hamlet though."

"Me too," John admitted. "That one's good. I think my favorite is Twelfth Night, though. Everyone pretending to be someone else, and falling in love with the wrong people while in disguise. That one makes me la-laugh." He was interrupted by a yawn.

"Tired?" the Wolf asked, amused.

"Maybe a bit," John replied. "But not really sleepy. Too long spent wandering around in my own head today, I think."

The Wolf winced, nodding. "The psychograft was slowly crushing your mind. It wouldn't have stopped until you were completely obliterated. It's brutal – that's why it was banned almost immediately after it was invented."

"Why was it invented?" John asked curiously.

The Wolf rolled her eyes. "Why is anything like that ever created? Someone rich wanted to live forever," she told him.

John grimaced. "Yeah, now I'm never going to sleep."

"Sorry," the Wolf said apologetically.

John shook his head. "No worries. I'll go to bed at some point. In the meantime, movie?"

"Brilliant! Got anything in mind?"

"Well, The Lion King's been stuck in my head ever since you quoted it on the Sycorax ship," John suggested.

The Wolf scrunched up her face in distaste. "Not one of my more sophisticated moments," she said, embarrassed.

"Ah, it was cute," John teased. The Wolf shoved him off the couch unceremoniously with her foot. "Hey!"

"For that, you can watch from the floor," she said haughtily.

Grinning, John crawled back on. "But then how would you hide your face for the really scary bits like you did for the jelly fish in Finding Nemo?" he kept teasing mercilessly. The Wolf gave him a glare, but just asked the TARDIS to start the film, not deigning to answer him.

She did hide her face when Mufasa died.

And she railed at the screen when Simba was banished, yelling about the injustice of it all while John tried to hold back his laughter. Eventually, she settled back into his side with a huff, John's arm falling around her shoulders.

They fell asleep together on their sofa again. The TARDIS shut the movie off and quietly dimmed the lights, humming peacefully to her Thief and their precious Stray as they slept on.