Chess had noticed something…odd about her. I mean, not that there wasn't anything odd about her usually, but it was an unusually different type of odd. She kept biting her lip and glancing about her, as if something would pop up and scare her half to death. He'd halfway wondered if she knew something that he didn't, like Voldemort being back. But she was fidgety, and not in the "I'm-prepared-for-battle-at-any-moment" type of fidgety, but just in a nervous sort of fidgety.

"Hermione," he said softly, making her gasp and jump up from her seat, "Are you…alright?"

"Fine, fine," she said dismissively, "Never been better."

Once she caught sight of his arched eyebrow and disbelieving expression, she sighed and slumped forward on her desk, "Do you think I should go?"

"Go where, exactly?" he questioned, "If it's Paris, sure, take me with you. But if it's, like, I dunno, a coven of vampires, then hell no."

She smiled tiredly up at him, looking over at his shaggy dark purple hair with pink tips on the ends. His yellow cat shaped eyes watched her face, awaiting her comeback. The first time she'd met her partner, she'd sucked in a breath to keep her mouth shut as her eyes grew. She hadn't spoken to him at all that first day, making him purse his lips and frown at her. As the day drew to a close, he slammed his hands on her desk and glared at her.

"Alright, what is your problem with me?" he'd ordered.

She'd bitten her lip and grinned, the smile spreading on her face before she began to laugh, "You look like the Chesire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, and I've been dying trying not to tell you so all day!"

He'd stood there, blinking at her before sighing with a grin, "And here I thought you hated me!"

And so they were friends, and Chess's real first name had been thrown out the window, making her wonder vaguely at night what it really was. As soon as she stepped foot into the same room as him, she'd grin and wonder instead why his parents hadn't named him Chess in the first place.

"Hermione," he called her attention again, using the tone of voice reserved for when he'd tried to weasel information out of his younger sister at Hogwarts. It hadn't been used since he'd met Hermione, actually, but she was putting it into good use now. "Tell me what's going on."

Hermione looked up into his yellow eyes, biting her lip for probably the hundredth time before grabbing his wrist and towing him away.

Chess was sitting on the floor of the broom closet, elbows on knees and head in hands as Hermione anxiously awaited his response.

"He's given you two days to think it over," he repeated, finally looking up at her.

"Yes," she nodded.

"Hermione, what makes you think he isn't some crazy – some crazy wackadoo who just wanted to give you a scare?" Chess questioned, still on the floor as he blinked up at her.

"He got into the police box, Chess," she said simply, a few shades paler.

"What?" he asked, wondering if maybe wackadoo-itis wasn't contagious and she'd caught a particularly strong case of it.

"The police box I said was on my neighbor's roof a few nights ago?" Her eyes were wide, "He got into it and disappeared."

"So he's some weird wizard," Chess threw his hands in the air before tugging himself onto his feet, "Hermione, do you really want to give up your job, no matter how much we both hate it, to go to some nutcase?"

She bit her lip, looking down at the floorboards, wringing her hands.

He sighed, holding her shoulders, "Look, don't worry about it. Ask him for proof when – if – he comes back. If it's legit, you can go with my blessing. Just send postcards from wherever."

She smiled at him, "Alright. Thanks, Chess."

"Anytime, Love," he smiled warmly back at her before loosening his tie and mussing up his hair before attacking hers. At her confused look, he grinned and winked before stumbling out of the closet, panting a few times as his coworkers looked at him and the ruffled Hermione. They would've bought it, maybe, if she wasn't rolling her eyes and shaking her head at him as she fixed her hair.

"And this is the idiot I get my advice from," she muttered to herself before fixing her skirt and walking off after her colleague.

Before we launch into the Who-niverse, I've got to ask if I should add in Chess as a companion now, later, or never. So…thoughts? Feelings? Contemplations of why, exactly, you're reading this story?

Oh, also, if anybody knows a good website to find most of the 10th Doctor's episodes – please share.

Thanks

- Ava