A/N: After much delay it's...short. Sorry. I'll get back to work. Yeh heathens. ;)
My eyes reluctantly unglued themselves, mostly because I still wasn't really dedicated to the idea of actually waking up. There was a sheet tangled around my limbs and I was sort of using the Professor as a mattress. About as comfortable as you'd think, but also not entirely unpleasant. As I groggily surveyed my surroundings, I realized we'd ended up on the couch that had conveniently reappeared at some point during the course of the evening. Providing further proof of my theory that the TARDIS was some kind of sick pervert with a hidden agenda.
Which made her, or it, very similar to me. So it was hard to judge too harshly. Except for the fact that she was a spaceship.
I stretched out as much as I could, parts of me groaning in protest that hadn't groaned in…well, a good long while. I may have been a bit overly optimistic about the odds of me keeping up with the stamina of a fully functional time lord, but that was alright. I wasn't complaining. I was absolutely prepared to try again. Several more times if necessary.
My stomach erupted in some kind of embarrassing symphony of a groan.
Okay. Trying again after some refueling. Noted.
I gingerly began to push myself up, but an arm tightened against me. Looking up, it appeared that the Professor was still asleep. Despite the fact that I was pretty much pinning him down, I was still a little surprised that he hadn't managed to disappear like last time. But that summed up most of my expectations pretty well, in the fact that they always seemed to be wrong. Still, it was even more of a shock to find him completely asleep. Not sure I'd ever seen him do that. Actually, not sure if I'd seen any of the time lords sleep. You know, without the aid of serious mortal wounds.
The perpetual frown that always marked his brow was gone, his face relaxed and smooth. There was still no mistaking him for ordinary, or even human, as much as I liked to pretend. But he was substantially less 'alien' looking than I first thought. He was like some kind of sculpture carved out of marble, all angles and soft lines and those god damn cheekbones. He was beautiful. In a terrifying kind of way. At least terrifying to me. And I should probably stop staring, because that was creepy.
With my kind of luck, shortly here he was going to wake up and find out how creepy I was being. So no more staring. Plus, I was still hungry.
As delicately as I could, I raised myself to my elbows and tried to remove myself from the couch. He made a grumbling noise above my head and this time his arm moved quite deliberately across my back, pressing me down against his chest again. So this was going to be slightly more difficult than I thought.
"Oh good," it was pretty tempting to just stay here forever. "I was starting to think maybe I'd killed you."
"Don't flatter yourself, I'm only half dead." He opened his pale eyes and looked at me with some amusement. "I'm afraid I rather underestimated how…vigorous humans were."
"I'll take that as a compliment, and you're welcome." I stuck my tongue out at him petulantly and he chuckled deep in his chest. The feeling of it nearly caused me to forget my appetite. Well, the one for food anyway. The one I had for this particular time lord didn't seem to be going away any time soon. He was comfortably warm, and still very much undressed beneath me. If I just shifted a little-
No. Don't do that. Focus.
Without any kind of sustenance I'd probably be good for all of five minutes and that'd be no fun at all. Besides, how long could it take for me to scarf down some toast? If anyone could set a record for that kind of thing, I was betting it was me. He was watching me intently, possibly with the same inappropriate thoughts as myself. That just gave me further resolve to leave, because if he got started, I'm not sure I'd be all that dedicated to stopping him.
"I'm getting some food." I said with a nod, convincing myself as well as him. I peeled myself out from under his arm and he graciously allowed it. Part of me suspected that it was just to see me out from under the sheet again, I did my best to pretend I didn't care. But damn, it was cold out here.
"Right," he said as he sat up and stretched his pale arms above his head. The sheet slid down across his torso and just barely caught on his hips. It was mildly distracting as I was trying to find my clothes from wherever he'd thrown them. "Stars, it is a bit late. Promised the Doctor I'd be down to help…well, ages ago." He scratched his head, looking as close to guilty as he was probably capable of.
"You were supposed to meet the Doctor?" I asked with a frown, shimmying back into my clothes as gracelessly as possible.
"The scanner picked up some unusual signal, he was worried it might be a glitch, or perhaps throw off the TARDIS entirely. I only intended to speak with you but…" the corner of his mouth curled upward. "It seems some of us got a bit carried away."
I glared at him and punched him in the shoulder as he rose from the couch and walked past, I also may have used it as an excuse to eyeball him again, but he didn't look remotely bothered by the idea.
"Hey, if either of us was supposed to have self-control, it should have definitely been the wizened old alien." I accused him.
"Perhaps you're not remembering much of my personal history. But from what little I recall, I can assure you, relying on me to be the responsible one is largely a mistake."
"I bet," I snorted. He'd found his clothing easily and was completely dressed by the time I was still pulling my sweater back over my head. Though his shirt still hung open, because I had ruined it. That made me grin, until he caught me staring. Oops.
"So," I cleared my throat and threw on my jacket to try and give myself more of a 'I did not just have an obnoxious amount of sex' look. "See you around?" Wow. That came out awkward. I wasn't especially good with the 'morning after' and I had run out of bantery things to say. Well, I wasn't really good at mornings either. Or knowing how to act in this situation. Let's just say there were very few things I was good at, generally. I turned for the door but he grabbed my arm before I could escape.
"Fitzgerald," the way he said my name now made something jump inside of me. "What's the matter?"
"What?" That caught me a little off guard. "Nothing."
"You've got that look on your face that says otherwise." He said with narrowed eyes.
"What face?" I scoffed at him. I didn't have faces; I was the master of discretion. What did he know?
"That face that says you're thinking about how best to avoid me again."
"I don't have-" okay, I probably did have a face for that. And he was probably pretty good at recognizing it at this point. "Okay, fine. But I wasn't thinking that. I was thinking about orange juice and toast. I'm just…I'm awkward." Was it awkward admitting I was awkward? Well, of course it was, that was my thing.
"Is there a reason for that?" He frowned.
"No. I mean, it's just kinda how I am. You know that, obviously." He stared blankly, as though maybe he didn't know that at all. Idiot. "Well, and it's just, I don't really know how to act around you with this kind of…you're not really typical boyfriend material, you know?"
"Boyfriend material?" He raised an eyebrow. Damn, he had caught that hadn't he. My face flushed red hot as I got busy avoiding his gaze.
"Not that you are my boy-" No, bad idea to say it again. "I'm just trying to say that if you were you're not completely…um." Total humiliation detected in T minus ten seconds… "I mean a onetime hookup doesn't make us together or anything-" Oh god, take a breath, this is only getting worse. "No. Actually, this is exactly the kind of awkwardness that I'm talking about. And is this freaking you out? Because I have no idea, I feel like it should be freaking you out, but you're always so damn serious and frowny it's hard to tell."
"I don't recall being either of those things last night."
Oh, I could punch him right in that beautiful face. "Yeah. Fine. Not always. But you have to know what I'm talking about. It's hard to know where I stand because you're always so closed up. I don't want you to think I'm all invested in this just because we got together the one time. I mean, this can just be fun and that's alright. I don't even know if time lords do relationships, or if that's what they'd call-"
He interrupted me by grabbing hold of my chin and pulling me forward. He crushed his mouth against mine and erased whatever else I had planned on saying pretty effectively. His lips left me a little breathless as he finally pulled back and stared down at me with those icy eyes of his.
"Okay…I might be over thinking things a little." I admitted. Serious or not, it was fun, did I really care what it meant long term?
"I want you Fitzgerald. In every possible meaning of the word for as long as you'll have me." His voice caused my stomach to flutter wildly. "Does that clarify things for you?"
"A little." I swallowed. He smirked and bent to kiss me again. Softer this time, but no less intimate. His fingers released my chin and trailed down my throat, the sensation making it difficult to recall what other plans I may have had for the day.
"Good." He said finally. "Now go get something to eat before I decide you need more convincing." There was just enough of a glint in his eye that made me certain he was serious. Which sort of made me want to challenge him, but that seemed like a bad idea.
"Aye aye," I gave him a mock salute as I took a step backward. "Probably want to change that shirt though." I said with a grin, something in the way he watched me go made me think I was going to pay for that comment later.
The kitchen was, thankfully, empty. While I secretly suspected everyone would instantly know what had happened because they'd just know. Realistically, they'd know because I'd do something stupid like blurt it out. The fact that I was dancing to Billy Idol while making eggs was probably slightly damning, so I was glad in any case that there was no one around. Unfortunately, about halfway through my omelet, the person I least wanted to see showed up.
"H-hey," I said, sputtering a mouthful of OJ back into the glass as Ailla walked through the door. She watched me curiously as my hand swatted at the small stereo to silence it. "Sorry about the noise."
"That's okay," she said, forcing a small smile on her face. It was probably still hard for her to be in even a remotely good place right now, but she didn't look as miserable as she had the last time I'd seen her. "It's a nice change. Things have been pretty dreary recently."
I swallowed, trying to keep up my awkward smile. There wasn't anything to say to that. Should I be happy that she could appreciate my good mood without wanting to throttle me? Or feel bad that I was probably one of the only people on this ship still capable of feeling joy right now? I just nodded.
"Have you seen the Professor?"
The second sip of juice didn't come spewing out, but it definitely went down the wrong pipe.
"Uh, no." I choked, trying to clear my throat. "No I haven't. Not really. No. Why?" My voice was raspy as I coughed again. Hadn't really been prepared for that. Didn't handle it very well either. Probably shouldn't be trying to drink juice when talking to people. That was just asking for trouble. Or just stop talking to people all together, drink all the juice I wanted. Yes. That seemed like a much better plan.
"You okay?" She asked after I started to turn slightly purple. She seemed more worried about my ability to breathe than why I was choking in the first place. Really, I didn't need to agonize about it. The reality of what had actually happened was so insane, there was no reason for it to occur to her at all. So I had that going for me, sort of. Honesty was probably the best policy. I didn't know if I was up for hiding that sort of thing long term, but, I was guessing right now she didn't really want to know that the last place I'd seen him was half-naked in my bedroom.
"Fine." I croaked, nodding as I stifled another cough.
"Alright, I was just working on something, going to need his help with it." She shrugged.
"Oh yeah?" Hope it wasn't something like a romantic dinner, because that probably wasn't going to go over too well. Unless he was a two-timing piece of crap. Oh, hello paranoia, I've missed you terribly.
"Yeah, I…" she was suddenly fighting back a grin. That had to be a good sign. "I think I may have figured out how to save Gallifrey."
"Wow." That was…well, that was incredible. And not that surprising since it was Ailla. "That's amazing!" My enthusiasm may have been slightly bolstered by the fact that it also changed the subject from the Professor's whereabouts.
"It is a bit of a stretch," she admitted. "But I think I've figured a way to use the Matrix computers so they can release the Unwritten."
"Oh," my smile slipped a little. "That's…nice." She still seemed genuinely excited. Which was confusing because it sounded like a terrible idea. And one that wouldn't work if the TARDIS was to be believed.
"I know, I know. But I think I've got a workaround. And then we can use the same computers to break through the time lock surrounding Gallifrey. It'll take some tweaking and…well," she laughed, picking at her fingernail. "It's all a bit of a long shot."
"Well," I scoffed, trying to keep my face impassive. "Everything we do around here is usually a miracle. That's probably why we've gotten so good at it. I'm sure the-" who? The Doctor? Did he really seem like he'd be interested in this little scheme? The one that sounded like she was going to enslave an army of very hard to kill psychopaths and unleash them to start up a war. Again. Yeah. I guess he would be interested in that. But probably more in a 'shutting it the hell down' capacity. I was feeling similarly. "I'm sure you'll get it all figured out." Really, I had no idea if what she was proposing was even remotely feasible, god I hoped not. But someone smarter than me could shatter that little illusion for her. Someone like the Doctor, who I was immediately going to find, and warn about this. Because it had all kinds of 'holy crap, Ailla may have lost her marbles' written all over it. It's usually not good when the resident crazy starts to question your sanity.
"I hope so," she walked with me as I started for the door. "I was also wondering, do you think I could ask you a favor? There's this important bit that I think you'd just be perfect for." She smiled.
"Oh sure," my voice squeaked. "Anything to help." Like hell I was going to help her go totally batshit. Though it was surprising she was asking me at all, apparently she didn't remember how generally useless I tended to be when I helped on any kind of project. Hey, maybe I should help. That'd be a surefire way to screw it up.
"I knew I could count on you." She leaned forward and hugged me, and then her hand came up to press against my forehead, which was just as awkward as it sounded.
"Um. Ailla? What are-" my eyes grew heavy and suddenly holding the glass of juice was too tiring an exercise. I felt it slip from my hand, shattering on the ground. The last thing I remembered was Ailla holding me with both arms, slowing my descent to the floor. And then everything went black. I spent way too much time unconscious.
Also. This was probably a bad sign. A really bad sign.