DISCLAIMER: Doctor Who and all associated character names and likenesses are owned by the BBC. Used here without permission.
This story is rated M for Mature, for depictions of sexuality between two consenting adults.

"Thank you, and please, come again!"

The customary customer farewell is rote, but Sally Sparrow tries her best to make the smile that goes with it more genuine. There is a fulfilling sense of accomplishment that she gets, after all, from helping a stranger find what they're looking for among the shop's mixed stacks of old books and uncommon DVDs, to see another person's face light up with satisfaction and (sometimes) even joy, even if it's for something so simple as a forgotten favourite hardback or a long-anticipated limited release.

It's another simple – though no less gratifying – pleasure to lay her hand on the OPEN/CLOSED sign dangling from its metal hanger and flip it around, to ensure that no more curious travelers traipse into the store, no matter how nice it might feel to help them find a hidden treasure.

But it's the subtle shiver that runs along her spine right after that that's her favourite pleasure, regardless of the little victories and satisfactions she may feel during the day. Because this joy is just for her: the joy of feeling Larry's hips press close to hers, and his hands squeeze gently at her shoulders, and his breath tickle the patch of skin beneath her ear.

"We done?" he asks in the abrupt quiet of the shop.

Sally nods, humming in the affirmative, her hand still resting upon the glass of the door.

"Finally!" Larry says with a low snickering. Then he folds his arms around her waist and puts his chin in the space between her neck and shoulder, murmuring, "Fancy some supper with me?"

She chuckles, placing her hands upon his as he begins to sway side to side with her, very gently, as though in a timid dance. "Cooking, Mister Nightingale?" she asks, half-looking back at him from over her shoulder. "Really?"

"Reheating," he corrects, and then he snickers again. "But I'm good at that! And I thought you liked tandoori...?"

She giggles, playing coy. "I love tandoori!" she answers.

Now he turns her about, so that they're standing (swaying) chest-to-chest. "So, come round and help me finish it off?" he suggests, and grins. "I've got us a film to watch, too! You'll love it."

Her nose wrinkles up before she can quite stop it from doing so. "Your opinion of what films I would like is not always one hundred percent," she says. "Remember that one in the cabin in the woods, where that idiot was chasing his own hand around the room?"

Larry shifts back, his jaw falling open comically. "Evil Dead II is a classic!" he argues, and then he wags a finger beneath her nose. "And you laughed at that Farewell to Arms joke!"

Despite the seriousness of his expression, she finds it quite difficult not to start laughing again, now; he always turns an adorable kind of cute when she pushes his buttons. But then he shakes his head, and his face turns a different kind of handsome, as a gentle and coercive smile stretches his lips.

"Come on," he cajoles softly. "Just trust me, yeah?"

It doesn't take more than a few seconds for Sally to decide, but she lets him stew nearly a minute anyway, because it's fun to tease him, and because his arms feel so very comfortable around her. "All right," she says at last. She runs her hands up to the tops of his arms and gives his shoulders a pat. "Do we need anything else for supper?"

Larry shakes his head again. "No." But then he sucks a long breath and bows his head toward hers – so their noses are almost touching – and murmurs in a quiet voice, "Unless you want to stay tonight?"

She purses her lips together, to hold back her sudden grin. This is another simple pleasure for which she's been hoping: the softly-spoken, tentative invitation that always makes her pulse patter just a little bit faster than before, no matter how many times he's made it to her.

"I could do," she whispers to him, and that makes them both snort a brief chuckle that sounds equally amused and embarrassed. "Just let me run home and change," she says then, still looking into the small space between them, "and then I'll come by?"

"Perfect," he replies, and he lifts his chin, as though to step away, but not before briefly pressing his lips to her forehead.

Sally raises her face, to look at him fully now, and this time she doesn't stop her smile.

No more than an hour later, she's still smiling as she stands on the step of the two-story house where she's spent nearly a third of her nights over the last year and a half. There's a plastic bag in one hand and her familiar overnight bag slung over the opposite shoulder, its weight heavy with the rolled-up change of clothes she'll wear tomorrow (not to mention the matching lacy rose-coloured bra and pants set that took the longest time for her to choose, as she vacillated between tarty and demure). This she shifts higher, then presses the buzzer beside the door with slightly more insistence than before.

After another quarter-minute, Larry swings open the door, looking a bit flustered with his shirt tails flapping and his hair flying in front of his eyes. But then, he always looks like that: tousled and comfortably sloppy. And cute, if she's to be completely honest.

He's even rather cute as he frowns at her. "Why do you always ring up if you've got a key?" he asks, and Sally simply shrugs.

"I don't like to presume," she murmurs, dropping her chin toward her chest. Then she raises her gaze from beneath her fringe and shoots him a sly smirk. "Besides," she adds, "I never know when you might be walking around with your kit off."

The frown deepens, and he narrows his blue eyes at her. "I'm never going to live that down," he grumbles. "Am I?"

She regards him for a second, then rolls her eyes away to the sky, making a show of pondering. "No," she decides at last, but then she looks back at him again and breaks into light and playful laughter.

Larry sneers. "Oh, you're so droll."

Her laugh softens, and she leans up close to him. "I appreciate a man who doesn't hide anything from me," she murmurs, and now he laughs, too, a sudden happy and relaxed sound that makes her smile.

"Go on," he says, nodding toward the top of the stairs with a grin, the could-have-been tiff forgotten.

Sally curtsies playfully, brushing past him as she moves inside; the touch is fleeting – less than a second – but she still manages to pick out, among the piquant aromas wafting from the kitchen above, the smell of lavender soap and, beneath that, the particular warm, faintly metallic odor that's all his own, the one that always makes her think of him hunched over hardware in the rear room of the shop, tiny spanners and soldering pens littered around him. Then she's up the stairs, bouncing into the pressing warmth of a kitchen at work.

"Smells good," she says as she rests her overnight bag on the back of one chair.

Larry comes to stand behind her a moment after, pausing briefly at her shoulder. "Almost ready," he tells her. "You want something to drink?"

"I have that," she replies, lifting the bag in her hand between them. And this she settles on the small table in front of them, pulling from it a plastic carry container holding a mango-coloured liquid.

"Lassi?" he guesses with some surprise, and she nods, and for this little effort she's rewarded with another joyful grin. "Oh, you're spoiling me!"

She giggles at how easy it is to please him, and then moves over to the hutch for a pair of low glasses. "So, what are we watching tonight?" she asks. "'The Intergalactic Love Escapades of a Space Ship Captain'?"

"No," Larry drawls. But then his timbre changes, and even without looking, she can imagine that familiar smile he gets when something strikes his fancy. "But that would be brilliant! I mean, I like Picard; he has a certain gravitas befitting a starship captain. But there's something refreshingly visceral about a maverick like Kirk. When he seduces the alien guard in episode forty-six..."

Sally snickers to herself as she pours the thick drink into the two glasses, while Larry chatters on behind her, to the background soundtrack of pans being shuffled across the stove top and dishes clattering on the counter.

There's a lot that she still doesn't understand about many of his interests, despite his innumerable attempts to enlighten her to the finer nuances of this or that fiction...but he always turns so animated and gleeful whenever she gives him the chance to expound, that she doesn't mind when he rambles off on some tangent or other. It is, she knows, one of those singular joys that he appreciates, just as she appreciates those times when he lets her wax rhapsodic about Shakespearean sonnets or Victorian novels.

Not that they haven't had the unexpected happiness of a crossover of sensitivities – like when she found him one afternoon sitting behind the front counter of the shop, completely engrossed in a matted paperback copy of Frankenstein, because he wanted to know if the book was better than the film; or when she squeezed herself close to his arm beneath the quilt, while she watched and wondered what was going to happen next to the intrepid investigative sceptic-and-believer duo of American government agents – but it's rare. Though, even for its rarity, it always opens her eyes just a little bit wider to the greater possibilities of his companionship.

"-And you've completely tuned me out," Larry says now, stepping close to her shoulder again. "Haven't you?"

Caught in her neglecting ruminating, Sally stops. She raises her attention from the glasses on the table and turns, offering him a placating smile. "I'm sorry," she murmurs. "I was just thinking-"

"It's all right," he says, with a low and rueful shake of his head. "I know it's trivial, and boring."

"No," she begins, in an effort to contradict, but before she can say anything more, he lays one hand near the small of her back, ushering her toward the front room.

"Which is why," he says, "tonight is for the lady." And the winsome smile returns, as he bows his head ever so slightly toward the television.

Sally follows the direction of his gaze. It takes her eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light in the room off the bright kitchen, but then she focuses on the large main screen situated in front of the long sofa and the old, lift-top cocktail table. And then she smiles, too, and gives a surprised little laugh, to read the wholly unexpected title card on the screen:

"Sense and Sensibility?" she croons aloud, and she turns back to him with a whimpering coo. "Oh, that is one of my favourite stories!"

"I know," he says from around a witting smile.

"You do?" she asks, incredulous.

He nods. "Yeah. You mentioned it when we were up at Oxford."

She gives a squint of no small surprise, as she recalls said event: browsing the jumble of a rainy day estate sale in search of hardback treasures to bring back to the shop. "That was months ago...!"

"I have a good memory for detail," he mutters, shrugging in something not unlike embarrassment. Then he smiles and nods again, this time toward the television. "Now, go start it up," he tells her as he turns back to the other room, "while I get our supper."

But she ignores him, of course, instead following close behind him into the kitchen, where she picks up their glasses from the table and twitches her nose at him in impish disregard...just as he slaps one hand to the round of her right buttock.

Sally drops her jaw open in mock dismay, and Larry lifts his long nose toward the front room again, offering her his charming baritone laugh in reply.

Shortly after, they're settled comfortably together on the sofa, munching on vegetable samosa and spiced tandoori chicken and sipping cooling lassi between, while the movie starts up. By the time the charming John Willoughby first catches bold young Marianne's eye, the empty dishes are stacked on the table and Sally has her stockinged feet curled up to one side while she leans ever so slightly against the comfort of Larry's arm. Though in between the alternately flirtatious and clever banter of the Dashwood daughters, and the simple, quiet attraction of the staid Colonel Brandon to the spirited Marianne, Sally finds herself more and more often turning her gaze away from the television and toward the simple, quiet man beside her, whose blue eyes watch the flickering images with an engrossed interest that both impresses and amazes her.

"You're actually watching this," she murmurs of a sudden, and smiles at him.

Larry blinks, turning to her with somewhat startled surprise. "Yeah," he says, and then he smiles, too. "It's good." But then the smile fades, and he purses his lips, somewhat chagrined. "There's more to me than just photon torpedoes and space vampires, I'll have you know."

She sits back from him a little. "Have I ever said otherwise?" she asks with a chiding click of her tongue.

"No," he admits in a shallow voice, and then the sheepish smile returns. "But I have to keep you interested, somehow."

Sally gives another click. "You worry too much about that," she scolds, gently and quietly.

He hums, his gaze darting away. "Well," he mutters. "What if some dashing...doctor or other swoops into the shop one day, to take you on some grand adventure to who knows where? What happens then?"

She stares at him for a long second. "Some dashing...doctor?" she echoes lowly.

"Or something like that," he mumbles, though she knows that it is not at all "something like that" that concerns him; she sees it in the bow of his head, and the shade of his eyes, and the subtle twitch of his frown. And she has to admit that, in her dreamier moments, she has fantasised about the exuberant, time-traveling Doctor tripping the chime on the shop's door as he swings it wide, to offer the chance to step once more into that bright blue phone box that she can't ever forget, the one that's bigger on the inside and full of the most fantastic sights and sounds.

Because it's magnificent to imagine strolling along the same picturesque Georgian era English moors where Emily Bronte might have dreamed her Heathcliff and Catherine falling in love. Or to stand amid the eager, anticipatory crowd as a chorus of actors recites the opening lines of Henry V for the very first time at the Globe. Or to stare out in wide-eyed amazement at an array of unfamiliar stars speeding by, where God only knows what wonders await.

But no matter how much she fantasises about such marvels, she can't imagine any of them without her uncomplicated, tender-hearted lover at her side. Because – after all of the days and nights spent growing closer, learning and laughing and loving – how magnificent would any of those dreams truly be, if she couldn't share them with him?

She spares a glance to the television, where Marianne's rakish wooer smiles his disarming grin, and purses her lips to one side, wittingly. "Do you mean, someone like handsome young Mister Willoughby, there?" she asks, inclining her head at the screen in suggestion.

Larry glances over, too, and snorts. "Yeah," he says. "Like handsome Willoughby." He gestures with one arm toward the television. "I mean, look at him; Marianne can't even help falling for the bloke. How is the boring old colonel supposed to measure up to that?"

"Colonel Brandon isn't 'boring'!" Sally objects firmly, and at his pointedly disbelieving sneer, she straightens up, her nostrils flaring. "He has plenty of favourable qualities," she says. "He's loyal, and steady, and supportive. He's very comforting-"

"You just described an old pair of shoes," Larry interrupts, muttering from between his teeth. Still looking at the screen, he frowns, and at the sight of that dejected look, she softens, shifting both knees onto the sofa to face him fully.

She reaches over and cups his far cheek in her hand, turning his head toward hers. Stroking gently at the prickly stubble beneath her fingertips, she lowers her chin to look at him and murmurs, "I've always liked Brandon better."

In the flickering light of the television, he blinks, as though perplexed. So she scoots a little closer to him and puts her other hand on his other cheek, her fingers framing his face.

"So what if he isn't as exciting or as debonair as Willoughby?" she says softly. "He's dear to Marianne in a way that Willoughby could never be. He protects her, and he cares for her. He stays by her," she says, caressing the sharp line of his jaw with her thumbs. "She's not so blind in her sensibilities that she doesn't realise how very special that is. Or how very much he loves her," she murmurs, letting the words hover for a moment in the warm and still breath-space between them. Then she leans up very close to him, so that their faces are almost touching, and whispers, quite quietly but with unswerving affection:

"Because she loves him, too."

There's a pause of a single breath, and then, finally, Larry smiles. "By accident," he says, but Sally shakes her head.

"It makes no difference of how," she tells him in another whisper. "She does. That's what matters." And before he can make any other silly, self-conscious, unsubstantiated protest, she pulls his face the last inch toward hers, hushing him with a gentle press of her lips that makes him suck in a deep and longing breath over her cheek.

There's another long pause while their mouths clutch softly at each other. Then he echoes her kiss with one of his own, and this time it's Sally who sighs, as a welcome warmth blooms between them where their lips and tongues touch. He tastes both sweet – like mango and cardamom – and savory – like mace and coriander – at the same time, and she smiles inwardly at this piquant complexity. So when he starts to pull back from her, she leans in against him further, so that they stay locked together in their kiss for another moment.

At last, Larry lets go a broken little hum as he gets one hand between them. He pushes her away, though it's just far enough that their lips still seek to hold fast to each other even as he murmurs:

"Should we pause the film?"

Sally considers the option only for as long as it takes for her to blink. Then she tells him, quite plainly, "No."

"No?" he echoes, sounding almost wounded as he shifts further back from her. "But, I thought this was one of your favourite stories...?"

"It is," she assures him. Then she clambers up from her seat, to stretch one leg across him. She settles down again a second later, facing him in his lap with her hands on his shoulders, and smiles. "But, I like this story better," she says, and her answer makes him smile, too.

"Oh," is all he says, just before she hooks her hand behind the base of his skull, pulling him close again for a new series of kisses, each one deeper and more fervent than the one to come before.

Larry doesn't stay passive, circling his arms around her and hugging her tightly to his chest as their kisses stray briefly to cheeks and jaws and necks, before returning to thirsty lips. Then he squeezes her hips and lifts her over the hump of one leg, swinging her down to the space of the sofa beside him, while she gives a muffled, yelping laugh from around their mouths. The laugh becomes a breathy sigh then, as he shifts his weight to settle half beside and half atop her, hushing her giddiness with the careful slip of his fingers beneath the hem of her sweater.

His touch is tickling at first, and she shirks her belly away with a sniffing gasp. But then she relaxes again – against both his clinging lips and questing fingers – as he starts to make gentle, rubbing circles over her skin. And a minute later, she's even sighing again, as she feels his hand drift around the curve of her breast, kneading with the same soft, measured motion as before.

She pushes her leg between his, to grind her pelvis against the top of his thigh; he hums in accordance, answering with a firmer squeeze of her breast and a deeper dally of his tongue. Then, just like him, she slips her hand between them, tickling him briefly beneath the edge of his shirt. But instead of lifting her hand, she drops it, to massage the firming, excited muscle straining between his legs; an appreciative thrum rumbles up from his chest, that she can feel in her lips as distinctly as she can hear it in her ears.

He clenches his other hand into her buttock, holding her close even as he pulls his mouth from hers with a low and gasping groan of her name – "...oh, Sally...!" – that sounds as filled with longing as his kisses feel. So she licks at her lips, once, and takes the initiative to voice the familiar entreaty that he usually broaches at these junctures, in that throaty, muted whisper:

"Should we go to the bed?"

Pulling his hands back, he half-rises up from beside her; she's already pushing herself up from the cushions, too, when he stops her. "No," he murmurs.

She blinks, as a sudden and unexpected weight in her chest starts to stay her rapid pulse. "...No?" she says, echoing him, this time, and wilting a little at the word.

But he merely smiles, and gives a gentle shake of his head. "Not just yet," he tells her, and he lowers himself for one more kiss of her lips, which she accepts with a silent smile of her own.

At the same time, he moves both hands to her belly, where he briefly fumbles with her button and zip. She gives an amused little hum at his adorably awkward performance, and giggles when she feels his fingers curl around the waist of her trousers. But then she very quickly gasps, as he yanks both her trousers and her pants nearly to her knees.

"All right?" Larry asks, peering up at her as he eases down to the floor; his hands are still clutching the bunched cloth around her legs.

Sally nods, silently, her gaze never leaving his. Not when he drags her clothes from her legs and drops them to the side; not when he runs his fingers over her socks and calves and thighs; not when he squeezes her hips and tugs her closer to the edge of the sofa. Not even when he bends toward her, shifting his shoulders beneath her knees; or when he dips his head to start a path of slow, sweet, soft kisses up the inside of her thigh. It's only when he closes his eyes as he presses his mouth to her aching mound that she lets her gaze roll away to the ceiling, where the flashing lights from the television make strange and beautiful shadows in the crevices and cracks.

Staring above them, she lets the focus of her eyes shimmer and drift, as she feels her own breath as it passes over her lips, and her own sweat as it beads upon her neck and between her breasts and beneath her knees, and her own heart as it starts to beat so strong and so loud and so fast that it makes her breathe even harder and sweat even more. But more than any of these, she feels him: the digging pressure of his fingers to hold her steady as she squirms; the delightfully scratchy tickling of his stubble as she squeezes her thighs close to his head; the warm, wet kiss of his lips over her most sensitive skin as she starts to writhe; and the surprisingly bold, wonderfully deft, pleasingly delving lap of his tongue, as he hits the spot of her finest joy.

"...oh, love...!" she whimpers, and she strikes out her hands for something to hold on to.

One of them finds the corner of the cushion behind her head, and she digs her nails over the woven fabric, making a staccato scratching sound with each clenching seethe. The other finds his hair, and in her dim awareness she tries her best to be gentle...but then his curling tongue touches her in a way she's never, ever felt before – not by his fingers or by his cock, or by any other man's before him – and she grabs at those dusty-blond strands, holding his head as she bucks and rolls her hips against his face.

"Ah-!" she whines, swallowing back a fiercer cry in her throat, even while she arches up on her shoulders to force herself closer to his eagerly working mouth.

He gives a groan of what could be excitement or approval, and answers her prompting with a more frenetic thrusting of his tongue that makes her clenching toes go tingly-numb and her insides do a twisting flip as her hips do a corkscrew dance against him. She tosses her head back, her faint pattering of wheezing pleas turning from "no" to "oh" to "yes", until at last the beating cluster of her delight explodes along her quivering nerves like a brilliant and beautiful bomb, making her cry out his name and God's in the same breath.

There's a string of pounding heartbeats where she can sense nothing at all, save for the sound of Larry's low, muffled hum. Then, very slowly, she realises that he's been holding her tightly to him this whole time, as she feels the clutch of his hands suddenly ease around her hips, and she drifts back to the cushions. He follows her down, still stroking with his mouth, but much more gently, now; the slow and suckling kisses are soothing, like a lovesome massage.

Sally utters a faint little moan, watching with a lazy fluttering of her lashes as he nuzzles her for a final moment before raising his head.

"Are you all right?" he asks.

She nods, her eyes flickering closed again. She tries to disentangle her legs from around him, but they don't seem to work. Her arms and torso, neither; all she can do is give another little inarticulate groan and bob her head again.

He seems to understand, because a moment later, she feels his hands and arms around her, shifting her more properly onto the sofa with her head near one end and her feet at the other.

But then the warmth of him starts to slip away, and now she does manage to reach out with one hand, to grab him by the shirt. "Stay," she says.

She feels the cool breeze of his breath against her temple as he chuckles. "Are you sure? There's not much room," he says, but she holds fast.

"Just for a little while," she murmurs, and now she pushes forward with her hand, to touch the flat of his chest with her palm. "Please?"

Beneath her fingers, she feels the comforting, steady bump-bump of his pulse...and then it abruptly stops, for just a second, only to begin anew with his quiet exhalation. The cushions of the sofa shift then, as he carefully crawls up beside her, scooting one arm under the curve of her waist and laying the other over her top hip, smoothing the bottom of her sweater over her buttock with a light stroke of his hand.

He pulls himself close to her, and she clasps her hands near her chin and nestles her nose into the crook of his warm neck that smells faintly of sweat and citrus.

"I'll always be here," he whispers, and then he presses his lips into her hair. His arms close, briefly, around her, in a firm and assuring hug. Then he kisses her again, adding in an even softer whisper, "For as long as you'll have me."

Sally nods a third time, and sighs, and snuggles herself deeper into his chest. She shimmies her hips against his, too, and with another little sighing hum, she feels herself slip into a calm and easy sleep.

When she wakes, she's alone; it's dark in the front room, the only light a pale shaft emanating from the kitchen. She unravels her legs from the quilt tucked around her and gets to her feet, passing by the pile of her clothes folded on the low table and into the other room, where she pauses at the doorway.

Larry is at the sink, his head bent and his shoulders shifting as he finishes the chore of dishwashing. She pays particular attention to the long- and light-fingered care he gives the forks and spoons, which he drops into their own specific containers in the drying rack; she smiles wider as he accidentally drops the last fork into the spoon section, then pulls it out again to place it decisively with its mates.

Sense will always have attractions for you, Sally thinks to herself, recalling the quote with an inward chuckle as she watches him reach across the counter for a hand towel. Then she pads across the tile floor to him, wrapping her arms around his chest.

"What's this, now?" Larry asks with a sudden little laugh.

She squeezes him quickly, like clutching a cuddly toy, and lays her head against the space between his shoulders. "I'm sorry I fell asleep," she mutters.

He shudders beneath her cheek with another gentle laugh. "That's all right," he assures her. "That happens sometimes." He settles his warm and still slightly damp hand upon hers and strokes lightly at her fingers, pausing for a long minute. Then he asks, softly, "Did you like it?"

She laughs now, squeezing him again as she feels a hot blush race into her chest and face. With a wordless noise of affirmation, she moves her cheek up and down against his back, and murmurs, "Thank you."

He takes her hand in his and lifts her fingers to his mouth, kissing briefly at her knuckles. "You're welcome," he replies. "I liked it, too."

"I hesitate to ask where you learned how to do that...!"

Larry chuckles again. "It's fascinating, what you can learn from the Internet," he quips, and Sally laughs again, too. Then he turns around in her embrace, laying his hands upon her hips, and smiles with something like abashed pride. "See?" he says, as though challenging. "I'm not always a dull swot."

Her smile crumbles at his words, his quiet self-loathing making her nostrils twitch. "Stop," she tells him in a firm voice, and she locks her hands decisively behind his back, to hold him in place so he can't ignore her or fidget away. "If there's one thing I know, it's my own mind. So don't insult me by implying that I'm a fool for wasting my time on someone who isn't worth my full attention. I wouldn't be here, otherwise."

He blinks at her, silently, and then – fittingly cowed – he drops his shoulders with a clipped sigh. "I know," he mutters at last. "It's just-"

"It's just, nothing," Sally says, and as the focus of his eyes swings away, she gives him a tug with her arms, jostling his attention back to her. And in that moment she studies his face, with its defined lines and rough edges that she's looked at and touched and gradually come to memorise over the last almost-three years since he first stumbled (quite literally) into her sight, and she pauses. Because in those lines and those angles she can see the very clear and very honest affection he has for her, and it's that clarity and that honesty that mellows her annoyance at him, as she considers the whole of the man he is.

"I'm with you because that's what I want," she murmurs lowly, and now she smiles, as she shifts her feet to press her hips and chest against his. "Because I love feeling your arms around me," she says. "And hearing the sound of your laugh. And seeing that look in your eyes, when you smile." And here he does, as beautifully and wonderfully as she's told him, and it makes her chuckle. "There it is," she confirms, and she lifts one hand, to just-barely stroke her fingers over his lips. "I love your smile," she whispers now, feeling herself go oddly fluttery inside at this particular articulation.

Larry's brow furrows, ever so slightly. Then he presses one palm to her cheek, his smile fracturing just a bit. "I love yours, as well," he says. He bows his head to hers then, quite slowly but with unmistakeable, unspoken intent. And with his next breath he cups the round of her cheek and lifts her face to his, murmuring, "I adore everything about you, Sally Sparrow."

His kiss is but a moment, but Sally still experiences an electrifying tingle of excitement along her nerves, the same as before but also not.

There's something very simple about this kiss: the complexity of her taste on his lips is gone, replaced by a faint but permeating minty-ness, and there's no urgent press of his mouth as there was before. But then she thinks that maybe it's because of its naked simplicity that this kiss affects her so. There's nothing in it designed to impress or coerce or arouse; just his unwavering and marvelous affection for her...and – as she settles back on her heels, and she actually feels her lips wanting to hold fast to his even as they part – she realises: her unwavering and marvelous affection for him.

When he eases back from her, he nuzzles at her forehead and asks in a low voice:

"Would you still like to stay?"

She nuzzles back, against his chin, and smiles. "Of course I do."

"I can make up the sofa," he mutters, "if you like. Get some fresh linens-"

"You always make that offer," she interrupts, smirking at his once-again familiar propriety.

He shrugs one shoulder up. "Well, I don't want to presume, either," he says.

Sally giggles for a moment, and then turns quiet again. She peers up at him with another coy smile. "Would you rather I stay on the sofa tonight?" she asks.

Now it's Larry's turn to brighten with a warm flush, as he glances away, as though trying to hide that adorable sheepish smile that curls his lip over his teeth. "...No," he says, half-mumbling and half-chuckling, and that makes her giggle again, too.

"Then I'm going to go wash up," she tells him after a moment. And then she winds her fingers through his belt loops, and gives a not-so-subtle shimmy of her naked hips, and grins up at him. "And I suggest that you take these clothes off, get into bed, and make yourself quite comfortable, because it is going to be a very, very long night." She wrinkles her nose at him, suitably coquettish. "How does that sound, big man?"

His formerly embarrassed smile turns wide and winning, showing off his eyeteeth. "That sounds like a brilliant plan," he says, laughing briefly. Then he cranes his head down to her again, almost-kissing her, and asks, "What is it I've done right to deserve you?"

Sally lifts her chin, rubbing her nose against his. "You're Lawrence Nightingale," she says simply, rising up to press her lips to his, and – despite her splendid designs for the rest of their night – it's a long time before she lets him go from their kiss.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:
I just can't help myself from enjoying these two - and their relationship - so completely.

"Jigsaw" is about an ensemble of characters and focuses on each of them relatively equally, but this Sally/Larry scene of flirting and confrontation and relationship-y stuff kept popping into my head, and I knew I wouldn't be able to focus on them in this particular way during "Jigsaw." So, I just had to write it out of my system, in order to move on with the larger story.

I figured Sally would identify a lot with Marianne (from Sense and Sensibility), since she is moved by her emotions and prone to seeking excitement. Larry, on the other hand, always feels like a more reserved character, somehow. He cares very deeply for Sally, certainly, but - like dear Colonel Brandon sees himself in comparison to Willoughby - he's not nearly as dashing, thrilling, or glamorous as the wily Doctor.

I realise that the sex described may not be the way you see this playing out...but it's my story. ;)

As for references:
Evil Dead II is a comedy/horror movie from 1987, arguably the best of the franchise and its quirky genre. (And the Farewell to Arms gag is pretty hilarious.)
The starship captains to which Larry refers are Jean-Luc Picard and James T. Kirk, of Star Trek The Next Generation and the Classic series, respectively. Episode 46 of Classic Trek is "The Gamesters of Triskelion," where Kirk seduces a green-haired female alien guard in order to escape his prison...a common plot device in the older series.
Frankenstein, of course, is the book by Mary Shelley...and while the 1931 movie is great, the book is better.
The "sceptic-and-believer" duo of government agents refer to Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, of the television series The X-Files.
The Emily Bronte line - about Heathcliff and Catherine - is a reference to Wuthering Heights, another Gothic novel with which Sally is probably intimately familiar.
Finally, the line "Sense will always have attractions for you" is a re-working of Elinor's line "Sense will always have attractions for me," from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. It's a description that Elinor gives to younger sister Marianne, about Colonel Brandon.
...And I think that's it.

Thanks very much for reading! If you enjoyed it, let me know by dropping me a line at bonuspartsfic@gmail.com !