Chapter Three:

A Mess

Koschei breathed out, his anger slowly fading. He had lived with the girl for five months, now. How the months were passing. Even for Time Lord, this was excruciating. He hit the counter with a loud slap. His eyes flashed back to two months previous, remembering the bright red mark on Delta's hand. Did he feel bad? Yeah, but something else was there too. He was angry at himself. The silence was driving him into an angrier person. He hadn't dreamed that was possible.

Delta walked into the kitchen and gently patted his hand. "Did it say something nasty?" She asked – her voice quiet and teasing. She smiled at him, despite the continuing glare he gave, and started to work on their small lunch. Her movements were slower than normal, and she was caught off guard when Koschei lifted her up and onto the counter. She cowered in fear for a moment before seeing the expression in his eyes.

"What happened when you went to go get supplies, Delta?" He asked, widening his eyes, all-seeing into any lie she would utter.

She looked away, pulling up her sleeves and showing the grab marks of another person. "It wasn't anything. I was in someone else's way." Her hair swept defensively onto her shoulders, wind from nowhere but the TARDIS trying to ease the fear and anger that radiated in the room. Delta's breath stopped when Koschei's hands softly touched the bruises on her arms.

He was careful, quiet, and easily checking beneath her skin to see if there was further damage. Without any sort of warning, he lifted her arms to his lips and kissed each mark with hot breath. How sweet.

That thought stopped him in his movements of continuing up her arms. He was heading into dangerous territory. This was not some stupid earthly romance and he was not the bad-guy-gone-good because some damsel in distress was pretty.

He swept her off the counter, put her back on her toes, and stormed from the kitchen. He went into a back room; a room locked in the mazes and wouldn't be found by Delta. It was his anger room. The chaos of his anger was a bright flurry of colors, a terrible sign of caution, and a constant drumming that echoed through the TARDIS' walls in this very room. He had used what little bit of Time Lord Influence he had to make the room every much the image of the Master that he could stand less he was driven insane once more. Glasses were shattered, pieces of this and that trampled on the ground, and Koschei stood, hands swiped clean from the destruction as he stepped out of his anger room.

Delta stood before him in sleeping robes, her eyes not looking past him, but directly at him, observing the way he merely shut the door before turning to her. She rolled her eyes at him, side-stepping for him to see the robes on the walls that were for him. They were darker than what he was currently wearing. Silently, she pointed to the table which held his food. She needn't speak and she understood that.

Merely nodding his head, he looked away from her, feeling an odd emotion. Embarrassment. She had so much power in her silence that he felt embarrassed at his actions in the room.

"How long have you been standing there?"

"Two minutes."

Koschei nodded, stepping forward. He opened his mouth, intending to speak, but closed it again, finding no words to say.

"Your anger is matchless, but I'm sorry to say that your movements remind me of someone I met a long time ago. Or, in the future?" She grinned, much like he did when he was being odd. She shrugged, stepping forward and undoing his robes. He always had clothes on underneath. "Your walk, your hand movements, it's very much like someone… I forget who, but he was very mad, too. Though, maybe more mad." She turned her back to purposefully miss the glare he began to give her. She stepped around him to place his own sleeping robes on his shoulders. "It's okay to be mad, Koschei. But to be angry at everything without talking, it won't shelp you and probably won't make the TARDIS continue to clean up in that room of yours." She stepped back to face him, her eyes clear and blue, reminding him of the Doctor. She started to button his robes loosely. "I'm only saying. We're lonely people, don't make things worse." She turned to walk away, but before she took another step turned and with a glare that was the Doctor's lit his embarrassment and anger to higher tone. "Don't you dare try going to find anyone to hurt, either. You've made a mess of your anger as it is. I don't want Rassilon hurting you anymore than he does on a normal basis."

Koschei was up before Delta. Technically, Koschei was out of his room before Delta and in the kitchen. He looked around, finding stashes of breakfast food in one counter, lunch in the other, dinner in another and a snack counter. He hadn't ever felt the need to actually look inside the counters because when they wanted to, Delta prepared the food.

"Obsessive compulsive, much?"

He felt a tap on his back.

"Heard that." She reached over him, to grab a snack. "And don't forget to close those." She needn't specify what she was talking, the Bond of the two clearly flashing in his mind what she meant. Delta was a particular thing when it came to specifics. What was miniscule needn't be mentioned, but, for instance, her telling him last night to behave, was voiced and enforced with her mind. Behind her enforcement, was a quiet sadness. Oh, sure, she didn't know it, but Koschei heard it.

Maybe that was why he behaved with her? Or, at very most, was nice to her. Nicer than how he was with anyone else. He was still rude. He slammed the last cabinet door shut.

Unnecessary, dear.

He turned to look at her, she sat at the table, eating without any recognition that she flinched at the noise or was annoyed. She was infuriating sometimes.

It was at that thought that she overheard that, slowly, she looked up at him. In her eyes was no anger, not even pain, but understanding. Delta was much her own person and many found that annoying. She didn't succumb to anyone else. She was stubborn. Maybe that was why he nicer to her? He scowled to himself, but Delta noticed.

She smiled in a kind way at his thought nonetheless. "I gotchya," she replied in that human-slang he despised. "No worries, sweetie."

That pet name broke his straw. He threw the cup of cold tea on her and grinned at her wide eyed expression.

"Food. Fight."

Then it began. Anything they could find. Anything that would be worth tossing and easily made a mess. They were covered in slime and with heaving breaths, collapsed into equally disgusting chairs.

"I have never!"

Koschei laughed wholeheartedly before sagging against the table, his shirt off and letting his bare chest make him feel better.

Again, the TARDIS cleaned up after the two of them as they retreated to their own rooms and felt better about themselves. A bit of the ice was broken.