Right, sorry about the length of these chapters, I know they're a bit short, but I'm trying to update as frequently as possible. Please review guys.
She couldn't be sure which of them woke up first, but she had the sneakiest suspicion that he had only been feigning sleep as to not make it awkward for her. She slowly fluttered her eyelids open, her left eye taking significantly longer, although the swelling was no way near as bad as it had been a few hours previously; now that it had been given time to heal. She was in quite a comfortable position, although the majority of her upper half was sprawled across his torso, and her hands were resting on his shoulders. Her exquisite curls were resting right underneath his chin, tickling him slightly as she moved.
She wasn't aware of much, but she was certainly aware of the fact his hand was resting lightly on the piece of skin just below her hips and underwear. That was a bit of a…intimate touch, but she found herself unable to care as she yawned widely and sleepily looked up at him, smiling groggily. He grinned toothily back, and carefully removed his hand, not bothering to apologize, knowing she didn't really mind very much.
'So Miss Kingston, what brought you to my bed this morning?' he asked calmly as she rolled off his body and sat up slightly against the small backboard. The bed was now very crammed with the two of them snuggled up together, leaning on the wooden frame of the bed, but she turned her head and looked at him, her smile having disintegrated for now.
'Sorry about that Matt, bad dream you know,' she murmured hastily, feeling a little stupid about how she had reacted to it. He frowned a little, and struggled to find the room to put his arm around her shoulders, bare apart from the vest he had given her earlier on. 'You want to talk about it?' he asked, his tone telling her that it didn't matter if she said no, and he didn't want to force her into it.
He had planned on asking her about the three words she had mentioned to him when she had believed him to be asleep last night, but now this recent development had come to light, it didn't really seem the right thing to start talking about.
Not all to his surprise, she shook her head frantically and replied, 'No, it was just a…silly thing. I shouldn't have gotten so upset about it, but I was tired and it was late…' Her explanation was a little vague for his liking, and in all truthfulness he would've liked to have known what exactly her dream was about and why it was bothering her, but he wasn't going to push her. Whatever she said, she was still in a fragile state of both body and mind.
She sniffed back what looked like a few tears, but she dismissed it and he did too.
'You want some breakfast? I think I've got some bacon in the fridge,' Matt suggested dozily and Alex nodded, clambering out of the bed and out of his reach, bending down to grab the tracksuit bottoms and slid them back up her legs again. However, the most awkward thing about this situation was the fact it wasn't awkward at all. You would think that sleeping in the same bed (but not going that far) and having previously kissed someone you work with would be an incredibly inexpert thing to do, but it didn't feel strange at all.
And that's why it felt a little odd at the same time.
She could feel his eyes burning into her and she blushed slightly but then stood up straight and turned around, put her small hand around his and pulled him out of the bed, requiring a little more strength than a bulldozer. Gosh that man weighed a lot, no matter how skinny he was. He groaned when he came tumbling out of bed, but he quickly ran both hands through his hair to brush it back and followed her out into the kitchen.
Alex found the mirror outside the bedroom, hanging subtly on the wall next to the bathroom, and she quickly fixed her hair which was literally all over the place, looking the curliest she had ever seen it at this time in the morning. She attempted to pat it down, but it just bounced back up, springing all over the place, and she just left it, going to the kitchen where Matt had pulled out a pack of bacon, a few eggs and two frying pans and was currently frying up some breakfast.
He was a bit incompetent to be fair. She realized that he hadn't really cooked for anyone else before, and she felt a little sorry for Daisy how she had coped with him for three years. But she liked that about him, how he was trying anything to impress her. In the end, she pushed him out of the way and took over, and he smirked a little at how well she did it. Eventually, he realized that she needed to be distracted.
Creeping up behind her from the little island, Matt quietly approached Alex and quickly grabbed her around the waist, making her almost jump out of her skin. She tried to turn around and face him, but he held her firmly by the waist, and pressed kisses to the side of her neck, and she squirmed pleasurably, but also out of the fact she was very ticklish in that area. 'Matt, Matt, stop it,' she giggled, trying to slap him away whilst she cooked the breakfast, but he continued until she playfully elbowed him in the ribs and he stumbled back dramatically, pretending to be hurt by her reaction. It was funny how domestic they really were, even though they were currently stuck in the limbo between friends and…lovers, sort of. That word made her feel a little guilty though.
She served him his breakfast and then dished up her own before they sat at the chairs around the little table in the corner of his apartment. They had been sat for no longer then ten seconds before a loud song began playing through the kitchen, emanating from Alex's mobile phone in the pocket of her jacket.
Stars shining bright above you, night breezes seem to whisper "I love you", birds singing in the sycamore tree, dream a little dream of me.
Startled at first, she worried it might be Jack, but she hurried to pick it up, seeing the name to actually be Karen, and the conversation that followed was a little confusing for the both of them.
He saw her expression change almost instantly, and when she put the phone down, she ignored his cries of what was wrong, and stormed across his apartment and turned the television on, flicking straight to channel one. Matt left his breakfast on the side of the table, clunking his cutlery onto the table and he hurried over to her, trying to see what on earth could've caused this action to set into motion.
'Oh.'
'Well, that's probably the worst thing that could possibly happen,' she breathed out, her eyes wide with shock and fear. He trawled his fingers across in the air until he reached her hand and he unsteadily grabbed it and held her tightly, never diverting his gaze from the television screen.
Who the hell had seen that? And who the hell had sent it to the BBC news?
'Doctor Who stars Matt Smith and Alex Kingston were seen sharing a kiss outside of the Ritz, London last night at half past eleven. Our source has informed us they spent two hours in the restaurant and afterwards took a taxi back to Mr Smith's London apartment. We have also been informed that Miss Kingston was heavily bruised around the left eye area, showing she may have suffered some kind of attack before going to her co-worker for support. It is presumed that they are still together at this time. On to other news, the government…'
Oh, and if that report wasn't enough, during the information stream came the three pictures, one from far away and what looked like from inside a taxi, a close up, proving beyond a doubt that it was in fact them, and then the moment she had leapt towards him and kissed him again. The rest of the news blared across the screen, but both were completely ignorant to it. Their hands almost slipped from each other's, but something made them keep holding on so tightly that it hurt sometimes. Both of their mouths were just hanging open in shock.
'Matt…what do we do?' Alex enquired almost soundlessly, turning to look at him. He just shook his head, showing he didn't know. And then, something terrible pounded into her head like a tennis ball to her forehead. 'Matt, what's Jack going to do to me?'
That snapped him from the trance and he instantly turned to face her and grabbed both of her hand and pulled her up close to him. 'Alex,' he said seriously, his brow creasing with the severity of what he was about to say, 'I'm so sorry, this is all my fault.' She tried to shake that off, to tell him that he was being ridiculous, that she was the one who had called him first, but he cut her off mid-stream, continuing to say, 'Alex, you can stay here for a while if you want to, you know that don't you?'
She so awfully wanted to say yes, because, in all honesty, she would give everything not to go home and face her husband again, but she couldn't hide in his apartment for the rest of her life. She didn't know what she had been thinking, but she knew she had just been trying to put it off until this moment. Now she actually had to make the decision.
'I've got to go home Matt, I can't stay here forever, and it's better late than never.' She slowly slipped from his grip, but he pulled her back around and held onto her more tightly than ever before, holding her body ridiculously close to his. He tucked a stray curl behind her left ear, but then brushed the back of his hand against her bruise, accidentally making her wince, 'But Alex, he doesn't love you, and I do. I know you feel the same. I can't let you go back and let him hurt you, because he will.'
However, she didn't hear the latter sentence. "He doesn't love you, and I do". Oh God, this was all too fast, it was too fast. Yes, she had said it to him last night, but he had been asleep, hadn't he? She looked deep into his face. Oh that git, that sly, sly git. 'You…you were awake weren't you?'
Matt smiled for the first time in the last five minutes and just simply nodded, and she hit him on the arm before he wrapped both off his arms around her waist, dipped her over his arm like in the old black and white movies and gently kissed her. She brought her body back up, still connected to him, and consciously kissed him back, hoping it wouldn't be, but knowing this should probably be the last time.
'Will you drive me home?' she asked as she changed into her dress around ten minutes later as he watched in from the doorway, and he looked at her sadly, extraordinarily concerned for her wellbeing and wondering whether he could let her go, and then slowly nodded. She grimaced, knowing she might well be going to her nightmare. She handed him back his clothes and he chucked them into his room before going and fetching her coat for her from the cupboard behind the front door. He opened the front door, the bright light outside bursting through the huge windows almost blinding them at ten in the morning, and she followed him out, restraining her huge sobs that were threatening to splurge from her eyes and destroy her emotions once again.
The car journey was completely silent. When he reached her apartment block, only fifteen minutes around the corner, although the traffic held them up for a few moments, she thanked him and went to leave, but he took her hand and pulled her back inside the car. He looked at her, melancholy and sombre, and it almost broke both their hearts.
'Alex, please look after yourself. Please, this is hard enough already for me to let you go back, so if you need me at all, call me. I don't care at what time, if you're worried or upset, you call me and I will come and pick you up. I care about you too much for you to get hurt again,' he murmured, and she almost collapsed into tears, several pouring from her eyes down her lips and dribbling down her chin onto her chest. She bit her lip, attempting to hold the droplets of water steaming in her eyes back.
'Matt, I don't want to go back to him,' she wailed and with that, Alex brought her hands up to her eyes and broke down again, her whole body wracking and shaking with sobs. It was difficult to comfort her inside the car, and so Matt jumped from his seat, slammed the door behind him, walked around to her side of the car and gently unpacked her from his Ford and gathered her weeping form into his arms.
'Alex, Alex, Alex,' he whispered in her ear, shushing her soothingly, trying to calm her whilst people in cars stared as they drove past the busy street. 'You know you can stay with me for as long as you like, and you know I don't like the idea of you going back, but maybe you can talk with Jack about it, and then you can call me. I'm always here.' He heard her sob even louder at that, and he pulled some tissues out of his pockets and gave them to her in order for her to wipe her eyes.
'Do you want me to walk you to your apartment?' he asked kindly, his own eyes beginning to water, a single tear leaking from his forest green eye. She shook her head sharply, knowing that if she allowed him to accompany her, she wouldn't be able to let go and she would run away with him. 'Hey, remember that I'm here for you,' he said as she began to detach herself from him. He put his left hand on the back of her head and kissed her on the lips for the briefest moment, leaving his taste fresh upon her lips as she began the walk of shame to her apartment, knowing she was making one of the worst decisions on her life.