Two days. We had spent two days just waiting on the TARDIS. Knowing there were people out there, or what used to be people, ready to kill us. I'd asked Rhysik what exactly they were and he mentioned that they had been the very worst of the criminals. People who had murdered so many, and destroyed so much, that they weren't just imprisoned, they were erased. Someone came along and plucked them out of time itself. And locked them all here.

But it wasn't just that, because when the time war came, the time lords tried to hone them into pure fighting machines.

Who would have thought that would come back to bite them in the ass.

Ailla said we only had about a week to get the time vortex back. A week, and then it would be too late. We'd never get back home. Well, Ailla and Rhysik would probably still have hope, but the rest of us knew the truth. There weren't any more passing TARDIS' that could fly by, because they were all dead.

Not only that, but as the week dragged on, the TARDIS would grow weaker. Right now it would keep us safe, but tomorrow? Who knew? Soon the doors that kept all the monsters out would be nothing more than wood. Brittle, blue painted wood.

And we were just going to sit here. Waiting for it to happen. Because we didn't have any other choice.

Apparently, days in the Matrix weren't like Earth days. We had landed in bright sunshine, but it had already vanished an hour after we arrived. The sun hadn't come back since. The Unwritten, as Rhysik liked to ominously refer to them, were strongest in the dark. They had trouble with the direct sunlight. They were freaking vampires. I was stranded outside of the universe with an army of criminally insane vampires that wanted to kill us all.

I'd had better days.

So we were waiting. Waiting for the sun to come back up so we could cross the ocean in the 'daylight'. The ocean where most of the creatures slept. The ocean that was filled with unnatural black silt, looking spooky as all hell.

The good news was that I wasn't having nightmares. The bad news was that I wasn't having nightmares because I was incapable of getting any sleep. I'd accumulated two hours last night, and it hadn't been much better the night before. Which is why it was some ungodly hour in the morning and I was sitting in our bright yellow kitchen staring blankly into the cup of tea I had made for myself.

It tasted like crap.

Still, somewhere along the way, I had decided that tea was useful for calming me down. It would have probably helped if I had ever learned how to make it properly, but that wasn't really my fault because someone had always insisted on making it for me. Couldn't very well ask for his help, because he'd think I was insane. Or more insane than usual.

Still, it would lead to questions. Questions I was even less eager to answer now that we had met the radiant, and very capable, Ailla. It was nice to meet old companions of the 'Master's'. Nice in the way that I was considering opening the doors to the TARDIS and taking my chances with the vampires. What redeeming qualities could I ever possess that could come even close to competing with this woman? My strangeness? Something told me that didn't really qualify.

She had fought in a war, she was part of a sophisticated time lord government organization. She was brilliant. And she had been fighting off fucking vampires for years in this place.

What had that idiot ever seen in me? An easy target? Sure, beat yourself up. That will make everything much better. Moron.

My lack of sleep was clearly making me grouchy. And the fact that it was the morning. And my stupid bitter tea, and waking up queasy. Everything was stupid and I hated it.

"Hey there!"

Speaking of things to be miserable about.

Ailla came striding into the kitchen, a broad smile stretched across her beautifully tanned face. She looked like one of those damned morning people. "How are you today? What was it again, Fist?" She tilted her head to the side charmingly. Two days. We had been here two damn days and she still didn't know my name. Probably because Princess Bubbles had spent most of her time reminiscing with the Professor.

Wonder how charming she'd look if I popped my fist into those pretty teeth of hers.

Gah. Even I was starting to worry myself with attitude. Impending doom and lack of sleep was really wearing down my toleration of anything that wasn't to my liking. Besides, she'd probably look just as lovely with a few missing teeth. People would say it gave her 'character'.

"It's Fitzgerald." I corrected her in as pleasant a tone I could muster. She opened the cabinets and found a mug instantly, like she had lived on this ship her entire life. It still took me thirty minutes to find anything I was searching for, and I was pretty sure the TARDIS liked me. Relatively.

"Oh, what an interesting name!" The worst part was that she sounded completely sincere. Who was she? Some kind of Disney princess? How was that even remotely fair?

"Thanks." I said blandly, watching her produce a kettle from who knew where. Well, she knew, of course. Because she was perfect. From her dark blue eyes to that edgy blonde pixie cut that I could never hope to pull off in a thousand years. Already, I was making a pros and cons list about the benefits of just lighting myself on fire at this point. Her beverage of choice, coffee, was ready in less than a minute. Then she came to sit at the table across from me.

So. Not going back to her room to leave me in peace.

Awesome.

"So Fitzgerald," she said my name like we were suddenly best friends. "What's the deal with Koschei?"

Maybe now would be a good time to just pour the scalding tea over my face just to get it over with.

Because of course she knew his name. His 'secret' name. It also wasn't hard to guess why. Not that it wasn't blatantly obvious just from looking at her. Why they had split up, I had no idea. I mean, who would ever leave her?

I shrugged, trying to choke down more of my tea. I bet her coffee tasted like caramel and sunshine. God damn her.

"Well," she sighed, oblivious to my desire not to talk. "It's just so strange. He doesn't recognize me at all. I thought all that time we spent together would have left some impression." She seemed genuinely upset by the idea and let me tell you, I knew the feeling. There should have been some decency within me that made it possible to sympathize with her. Unfortunately, it was buried under my overwhelming urge to throw my drink at her.

I resisted, but only because I knew if I did throw it at her, I'd have to explain myself. And then she would be the sympathetic one. Probably completely understanding and apologetic. And then we would hug.

Plus, if I were being totally honest, she could probably take me. In a heartbeat. I'm not sure she'd even have to break a sweat to lay me out. Not that someone like Ailla would sweat. No, she would glisten. Or glow.

Seriously, stop clenching the mug so hard. You're going to give yourself carpal tunnel. Easy girl, easy.

"I guess the regeneration didn't go smoothly." That was an understatement. Not to mention it had been my fault. Well, and his. But mostly mine, it was my brain the parasitic time lord had decided to attach itself to. And me, the Professor, in his infinite idiocy, had chosen to save.

We didn't need to get into that.

"I heard about Rassilon." She swallowed, shaking her head. Genuinely upset, again. All I could do was be petty about how cute she was. Oh self loathing, how I've missed you. "It's so amazing, what you did. Thank you," she reached out and gave my hand a gentle squeeze. "Really, I'm glad you could save him." Again with the sincerity. She was killing me, on the inside. "Actually, you probably saved a lot of people."

"No problem." Yep, I had definitely done it for the universe at large and not my own selfish reasons. Totally.

"I've been talking to him the last couple days, trying to help him." Oh, help him. Is that what that was? "Nothing has really triggered for him, it must be frustrating." It was really reassuring to know they were spending so much time together trying to trigger memories about what awesome fun times they used to have together.

"Probably."

"So," she said with a coy grin. "What was he like before?" Suddenly we were just girlfriends, chatting about boys. If I hadn't already been nauseous, I would have started then.

"He was shorter." She was so warm and friendly. Couldn't she understand that I just wanted to sit there and glare at her? Why was she trying to make that so difficult. I sighed. "He was blond too. More sturdy looking." Devilishly handsome grin, though I was going to keep that to myself. My thoughts drifted back to the concert, the way those icy blue eyes had pierced straight through me. That wasn't to say he wasn't handsome now…

"Oh, I love blonds." She laughed. "That's too bad, we could have had some fun. Though, I suppose we still could. He always was an excellent kisser." She chewed her lip, staring into space. My cheeks were starting to burn when she finally looked back and burst into laughter. "Oh, I'm sorry. I suppose you don't really want to know about that."

I offered a thin smile. See? See how civil I was being? None of the obscene words I was thinking about her had crossed my lips.

"Unless…you already know?" Her grin turned conspiratorial for a moment, but she shook her head. "No, I'm sorry. I was just teasing. Not really his type anyway."

My outward appearance was still mostly civil, but my thoughts had deteriorated into a fantasy where I was just smashing my cup over her pretty little nose over and over until it was crooked on her pretty face. That was a little dark, even for me. But maybe I could just hit her once. Just to get her to shut up.

"I mean, not that there's anything wrong with you." She added sweetly, possibly because she could sense the waves of hostility rolling off me. "It's just that you're human."

Oh lord, give me strength.

"He was sort of put off…well. Anyway. That's not really important. You got a guy back home?" I couldn't blame her for trying to change the subject after she had buried herself so deeply in the last one, it was just too bad she hadn't picked a good topic.

"Nope." Didn't even bother smiling that time. I had hit my quota for polite smiles for the year.

"Oh. Well. That's okay," she shrugged. "Might want to get on that sooner rather than later. You humans don't stay young forever." She winked, like the fact that my limited lifetime compared to hers was so absurd it was a cute joke. "Oh! I know, when we get out of here, I'll take you down to the bars at Gamma-Ultra. It's a huge thirtieth century military base. Everyone loves a man in uniform, right?" There was that disarming smile of hers, trying to convince me we were somehow friends. That would be just what I needed, Barbie as a wingman. So everyone could see how fantastically plain I was in comparison. That was bound to cheer me up about being single.

"Morning." The Professor arrived, just in time to complete my hell-tastic morning. He was wearing a dark burgundy shirt that probably closely matched the color of my face, and a pair of trousers that matched his black tie. We were in some kind of ununiverse with bloodthirsty monsters banging at the door, and this was his casual dress. Of course, he looked ridiculously good in them. Probably showing off for his girlfriend.

"Morning Koschei," Ailla beamed at him from the table. I merely grunted. Spending my morning with Miss Wonderful wasn't great, but spending it with the both of them was enough to make me wish I had just stayed in my room and stared at the wall for a few hours.

"Please, call me Professor." He smiled thinly as he walked toward us. Okay, so maybe he had improved the morning somewhat. I had to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from full on grinning, that would probably be poor form. Ailla, of course, hardly looked ruffled. Though her smile did diminish, ever so slightly.

Try not to get too much enjoyment out of that you sick bastard.

"Ah, sweetheart. You've made us tea. Excellent." I frowned, that couldn't have been him that just said that, could it? My head turned sharply. Yes, it had been him. He was also much closer than I thought, now hovering just above my shoulder with his hand on the back of my chair.

Wait, was he talking to me?

Was this some kind of insomnia induced hallucination? It…it all seemed real. In fact, if I had been hallucinating, I was pretty sure this cup of tea wouldn't be so crappy. It occurred to me to ask him what the hell he was talking about when he leaned down and caught my stunned mouth with his own.

It lasted less than a second but it felt like my whole body had suddenly lit itself on fire.

"Thank you dear," He rumbled somewhere close to my ear. I shivered. There was a smirk pulling at his lips when he stood up and I couldn't be sure whether the urge to slap him, or grab a handful of his hair and pull him forward, was stronger. He picked up my mug and sipped from it once, watching Ailla expectantly over the rim. That's when I remembered, a little belatedly, that we'd had an audience.

She opened her mouth once, twice. Looked from me to the Professor and back again. Boy, she really was much prettier when her eyes weren't bulging out of her skull. Of course, my mouth was probably still hanging open too.

"Well," she said in a high voice. "It was great chatting with you Fitzgerald. I'll just go see what they're up to in the control room." She took her coffee as she stood and nodded politely to us both before making a hasty retreat from the kitchen.

"Augh. This is rubbish." He sniffed at the tea when she was gone. "Who taught you how to brew?" He wandered over to the counter and set to work as he dumped my attempt into the sink.

Had he said something? I was still struggling to get my heart out of my throat and back into my chest where it belonged. Didn't really matter what he had said, because I was completely incapable of responding to it. Because, what the hell just happened? I should really be outraged. At least a little.

Where the hell was my outrage?

Maybe it was just delayed, because of the shock. Yes. I'm sure it'd be along shortly. I'll just wait here for it. Trying to remember how to breathe. Any minute now.

"I apologize if that was forward," he said as he seated himself across from me, setting down two steaming cups of tea. How long had I been sitting here trying to breathe? "She was being terribly rude."

"You were listening to us?" My annoyance at being spied on was what finally got my brain functioning again. Thank god for that.

"Well, it's been in my experience that when a mysterious woman appears who knows all about you, the only way to get information is to eavesdrop." He raised his eyebrow at me. Ouch. That hurt a bit. "Her voice carries rather well in the TARDIS, I only caught the tail end of it."

"I don't know all about you." As far as excuses went, that one was pretty pathetic. Maybe I didn't know everything, but I did know some things, and I was deliberately withholding them.

"I'm sorry," he said in a gentler tone. "I only meant that as a joke."

"It's fine." I plastered a smile on my face because I was a trooper. It wasn't really fine, but only because it was a fair point to make.

"So," he leaned back in his chair, eyeing me intently. My eyes stayed fixed on my tea because that seemed like the safest option. "Was she right?"

"About what?" He had to be talking about Ailla, but I honestly couldn't remember much from our conversation. Other than what had just short-circuited my brain, all I remembered was feeling like a worthless slug and struggling with my seriously overwhelming urge to reach across the table and smack her. And then feeling badly about wanting to. The details of why were already a little fuzzy. When I glanced up at him, there was something familiar in his eyes. That same asshole smuggery he used to wear.

"Am I still a good snog?" He asked the same way he might have asked if his tie was crooked. And yet, his eyes were definitely laughing at me. The edge of his mouth just curling enough that I knew he had found my dumbstruck reaction amusing. I had to look away quickly as I felt even more blood rush to my face. At this rate, I was going give myself a nosebleed.

"Well," I scoffed. "It's not like you can really gauge on that." Trying to be nonchalant. But my brain was all over the place and being a real bitch about cooperating.

"Did you want more to go on?" Now his voice was laughing at me too.

Yes.

"No." I said quickly. "I'm sure you know what you're doing." That was all he was getting out of me, and I was definitely not looking him in the eye again. That was to be avoided at all costs. Forever. I sipped at my tea instead, trying to look disinterested.

"You don't seem very surprised. Is it possible we've done that before?"

"Gurk." Was the last thing I said before sucking a mouthful of the scalding beverage into my lungs. I coughed so hard that tears were in my eyes. Leave it to me to drown on dry land. More importantly, this wasn't good. This can't look good.

"Are you going to be alright?" He asked hesitantly.

I nodded, blinking back tears. "Fine." I croaked, still sputtering to clear my throat. "Hotter than I expected." That was such a lie. A stupid one too, since he had the same drink sitting right in front of him. He glanced at it suspiciously. "Thanks though, it's delicious." I stood up, stifling back another cough. If I could just make the door, there was hope of escaping with a shred of my dignity still intact.

"Don't patronize me, you don't like tea." He smirked, guess he wasn't as dumb as he looked. But his arm shot out, grabbing my arm before I could step away from the table. When I looked back to glare, I realized he wasn't looking at me, he was frowning, his forehead crinkled in concentration. It was the same look I got when I tried to remember where I had left my keys.

"I'm branching out." That's when it hit me what was wrong. My throat went dry as his eyes slid back to mine and trapped me there.

He didn't know I hated tea. That had been a conversation with another man.

"Why- how do I know that?" He stood up, very suddenly in my personal space again. If he was going to make a habit of this, I was going to have to start enforcing some kind of boundaries, because the capillaries on my face could not handle this much action in a day.

"I dunno, something I said? I'm always talking." Or rambling. Same thing. Besides, who could say for sure I hadn't mentioned it at some point? Especially since I knew him to be an eavesdropping ninja.

Well. I knew. If that lead weight in my gut was any clue.

"I don't like tomatoes either. See? Now you're learning all sorts of things about me."

"Fitzgerald," he said in a warning tone, the look in his eyes was desperate. It wasn't just the tea. Something was bouncing around in his head, trying to breach the fog that had settled in his mind. My not wanting to be there when it happened was directly related to the fact that I had the feeling I wasn't going to like it. "I've been having- Who are you?"

"Still…just me." I shrugged. If he stared at me any harder, he was going to drill a hole through the back of my head. "Are you feeling okay? Cause you're kinda hurting my arm." His grip had gotten weirdly tight, but it was more my needing to step back so there might be space to breathe than from any pain I could feel.

"Yes, of course. Sorry." He shook his head, releasing my arm. Whatever had been rattling in his head was gone. "I apologize." So sorry he had to say it twice? Too bad the apology didn't really solve my distance problem, and neither of us moved. In my defense, my limbs were pretty much jelly at this point and I'm not sure they were up to taking commands just yet.

"Fitz, you bout ready to practice shoot- Oh." Jack stopped in the doorway, looking between me and the Professor. He didn't bother disguising the smirk on his lips. "If you two are busy…I can come back-"

"No." I said quickly, glad for an excuse to look away from those piercing eyes. It was easy to forget the likelihood of my death when boys were involved, but Jack had promised to teach me how to fire his gun. No, not that gun. Jesus, get your mind out of the gutter. "I'm ready to go. Thank-" I turned back to the Professor only to remember that he was still way too close. Sure, the guy who made sure he distanced himself like I had the plague any time we were within shouting distance of someone suddenly had no regard for personal bubble space. "Thanks for the tea."

Shooting would help take my mind off things. Things like the way he was still staring at me. Or the way my stomach was coiled up all tight. Or how his warm lips had felt pressed against-

No. Stop it. That's not what we were thinking about. Furniture. Shoe polish. Shooting. Killer vampires.

Definitely not what it would feel like to run my hands through that thick hair of his.

Dammit.

Okay, starting now.

"So uh, what's going on back there?" Jack mumbled as we walked down the hall. I was making the fastest beeline of my life to get anywhere that wasn't the kitchen.

"Shut up, Jack."

"Yes ma'am."