DISCLAIMER: "Doctor Who" and all associated characters and likenesses are the exclusive property of the BBC. Used here without permission. This is a fictional story made for purely entertainment purposes. Any relation to events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

It is on the dim and chilly morning of fifteen October – at seven forty-two, to be exact, after a second slap of the snooze button on his alarm clock – that Lawrence Nightingale decides that it is time, at last (twenty-nine years to the day, in fact), for him to stop putting off the inevitable, and grow up. To grow up and be an adult, a man, a thoughtful, responsible, respectable and productive member of civilised society. To pack up his collection of role-playing game campaign modules and rule books and hand them off to fifteen-year-old Neville down the street; to purge the laptop of all of those saved forum conversations about the merits of one starship captain over another; to toss the worn-thin tee shirts and hoodie sweaters scrawled with in-jokes and cryptic messages across the backs and chests; and to face the reality that it is high time for him to be thinking about more important things than the fancies of his imagination.

Or, more specifically, one very important thing: a bold, brilliant, beautiful blonde miss – one Sally Sparrow by name – who deserves a man thoughtful, a man responsible, a man respectable and productive, with whom she could be proud and pleased to spend her days and nights.

Larry can be that man.

He can keep his mouth shut when some idiot in a film uses ridiculous tech that makes no sense. He can resist the all-day marathons of classic science fiction programs on the telly (certainly when he's already seen every episode at least three times). He can sit up straight and smile behind the counter at the shop, even when a customer has absolutely no idea of the difference between “remaster” and “remake.” He can shave every morning, and comb his hair so that it doesn't look like he just rolled out of bed; tuck a button-down shirt into his trousers, and wear proper shoes. He can even learn to drink his tea without sugar and milk.

He might not like to do any of those things...but for Sally, he can throw away and forget every stupid, piddling, childish remnant and reminder of his misspent and introverted youth, and become a real grown-up. For Sally, Larry can drop everything and come running at her call, or sit and listen quietly and patiently to a story with no ending, or stand and stare unblinking into the fanged maw of a terrifying flesh-turned-stone horror. Forever, if she needed him to. Because there's no one and nothing else in this space and time or any other that fills his heart to bursting with such joy and love, as Sally does.

So he shifts out of bed, tossing the sheets and blankets toward the pillows again on his way up, and then stops, rethinking the action. A moment later (recalling the even-toned and instructing voice of his mother, and the higher-pitched, more annoyed voice of his sister), he pulls the covers flat and folds the sheet down atop it, taking an extra second to tuck and straighten both beneath the pillows.

Larry smiles briefly to himself at his handiwork. Then, with a low sigh of resignation, he shuffles out in the direction of the bathroom, to stop being the boy for real, and to start becoming the adult he knows he can be.

He doesn't quite make it there, though, not all in one go.

For glancing into the kitchen, he pauses, his gaze settling on the little table near the wall. It's usually bare on these alone mornings when Sally doesn't stay, but this morning there's set upon its surface a teacup and saucer, a folded slip of paper with his name written on it, and a carefully-wrapped box about the size of his fist, with a purplish ribbon tied into a neat little bow beckoning to him from the top.

He smiles again without quite realising it as he steps over to the table and plucks the note from between box and saucer.

Happy birthday! the note says in Sally's light and flowing hand, and he can almost hear that wonderful, chuckling lilt in her voice when she speaks and smiles at the same time. I wanted to surprise you, but you were still asleep. Take your time and enjoy the morning; I'll see you at the shop later. Love, Sally.

Larry grins to himself at those words, and then he laughs softly and feels himself blush at her extra little message, written beneath her name:

You're quite cute when you snore.

Still chuckling, he lays the note aside and reaches for the box, unraveling and unwrapping it from its layers of colorful masks. He lifts the lid at last, and within the plain brown case sits an impressive Victorinox timepiece, obviously meant to replace his old cuff-style Fossil watch (the one he stupidly forgot in the hotel room on an overnight to Hull).

He peaks his brows at this very considerate – and very adult-looking – gift, pulling it from its form-fit display wedge and slipping it somewhat mechanically onto his wrist. Its fit is close and tight but not uncomfortably so, the leather band stiff and creaking only from lack of use. And he thinks to himself that this watch is a lot like him: unused to the rigors and formality of adulthood only because he hasn't really tried them on...but they should fit fine, if he gives himself the chance to grow into and used to them. Who knows? He might even come to like being a staid and accountable adult.

He takes the watch off again and lays it carefully upon the table, then sets the electric kettle to work while he moves into the bathroom at last.

He doesn't change his morning toilet or shower routine (including the brief, cleansing wank beneath the hot, pattering water), but he does pause extra-long over the sink afterward, staring at himself in the mirror and fingering his still-stubbled jaw. Another minute of contemplation as he considers himself, and then, with a snort and a shake of his head, he reaches past the electric trimmer and picks up the keen-bladed razor that he's used perhaps three times in twice as many months.

And that's that.

An hour later, walking to the shop, Larry still can't help running the backs of his fingers over his jaw, as though to coax his whiskers to suddenly appear again. He also can't help tonguing the inside of his cheek, in the hopes of getting that overly-bitter taste of straight black tea out from his mouth; or shrugging his shoulders back and forth in the unfamiliar tight confines of the Oxford shirt under his jacket, in an effort to get comfortable.

Still, the strange smoothness of his cheek and the acrid taste in his mouth and the straitjacket wrap of his shirt are all mostly forgotten when he trips the chime on the door of the shop and Sally looks up at him, her pretty face alighting with a surprised and charmed expression that makes him smile.

“Morning,” he greets softly as he moves up toward the counter. He doesn't miss the somewhat amazed look in her eyes, and that makes him chuckle self-consciously and glance sidelong at her as he shrugs his jacket from his shoulders. “...What?”

She blinks and shakes her head and smiles all in the same moment. “Nothing!” she says, giggling airily. Then she tilts her head just a bit to one side, offering him another appraising look. “You look...different, today.”

“Older,” Larry says, as he folds the collar of his jacket over the hook behind the pass-through.

Sally's kittenish smile softens. “Different,” she repeats.

“So, better, then?” he guesses now, and she giggles again, stepping close to him and settling her hands upon his chest.

“Smart,” she says, as though to appease him. But before he can press her, she instead rises up and presses against him, with hips and chest and lips, kissing him gently and quickly in the quiet of the shop.

She steps back, smiling again. “Happy birthday,” she murmurs.

Larry feels a low heat start to turn his face flush. “Thank you,” he replies, equally as quiet. Then he lifts his wrist, showing off the Victorinox. “And, thanks much for the watch, too.”

“You're welcome,” she says, still hushed. Then she asks, almost shyly, “Do you like it? I mean, I know it's terribly practical, and it's not like your old one, but-”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, of course!” He glances down at the watch then, once again contemplating, before turning back to Sally with a gentle smile. “It's quite thoughtful,” he says, and nods once more. “Well appreciated.”

This answer seems to satisfy her, but a moment later she clasps her hands in front of her, squeezing the fingers of one in the palm of the other. It isn't like her to be fidgety, so he narrows his eyes at her and gives a puzzled chuckle. “What is it, now?”

She lets go a quick hum, and then says, “Perhaps we could have dinner out this evening? To celebrate? I was thinking Rhodes, if you like.”

“Rhodes,” Larry echoes in a mutter, blinking at her. “That sounds...” Adult, he thinks. But then he pushes a more obliging smile to his face. “Lovely,” he says at last.

Sally giggles, glancing away for just a second. Then she raises those pretty hazel eyes again, and a tiny, hopeful smile tugs at the corners of her mouth, only just making her dimples crease in her cheeks. “And then I could...stay...with you, tonight?” she asks, and while her odd timidity is darling, he's even more delighted by her offer of companionship, whether she's proposing something sexual or not.

Sally is a gorgeous woman, and sex with her is always fantastic, no matter if it's deliberate and sweet or active and breathless (and anything in between). But in recent months, Larry has found himself taking nearly as much pleasure in the simple things with her – like the warm weight of her head against his shoulder when she snuggles close to him in the glow of the television, and the tickling nudge of her foot when she sits curled up at the other end of the sofa with a book and a biscuit, and even the squeaking little sniffles and yawns and hums she makes as she wriggles deeper into the blankets when he crawls into bed beside her on chilly nights – as he does in their more intimate interactions.

Even now, it's just the feel of the gentle curving slope of her back beneath his fingertips that makes him smile again. “Absolutely,” he tells her, quietly but with chuffed joy.

The rest of the work day rushes by, the passing hours punctuated by the charming chuckle of her voice and the beautiful flutter of her lashes and the inviting bounce of her hair as she talks to customers and him about books and programs and occasionally even just nothing at all, with an ease and aplomb that makes him think it really wouldn't be so bad to grow up, for her.

“Do you think I need a tie?” Larry asks at the end of the day, glancing down at himself as Sally lays the last of the display books on the shelf below the main window.

She laughs softly to herself. “I can't remember the last time I saw you in a tie!” she says with a gentle shake of her head.

“I've worn them before,” he mutters, unable to keep the defensive tone from his voice. He straightens up, reminding her: “I wore a suit when we went to the bankers', for the shop.”

Sally rises, too, her head tilted to one side, as though remembering. “So you did,” she murmurs. Then she turns around to him, smiling teasingly. “I think that was the last time you shaved properly, too!” she says with a laugh. But then she stops, suddenly, her face falling. “This isn't about money, is it?” she asks, sounding alarmed. “Because if there's a problem, I have-”

“No!” Larry says, shaking his head emphatically. “No, of course not. I just...I felt like I needed...a change. That's all.”

“Oh,” she says, and now she crosses back to him, moving easily between the shelves of books on one side and disc display cases on the other. She reaches one hand up toward his collar, lightly smoothing her fingers upon it. Then she turns her hand around, drifting her knuckles over the high and smooth angle of his jaw.

She smiles again, softly this time. “Well, it's quite handsome,” she tells him, and now she takes a deep breath and shifts close, snaking both hands behind his neck. She pulls his face to hers, closing her eyes in the last half-second before she kisses him, quickly but oh-so tender and sweet.

When she drops back to her heels, she fixes him with a curious look. “What about me?” she asks with a little shimmy of her shoulders, the faint shiny threads in her crocheted sweater catching the light like tiny stars. “Do I need to change?”

The very idea strikes Larry as preposterous, and so he actually laughs down at her. “Don't you dare!” he says, squeezing her for one more brief second before they both move away to collect their things, to leave and lock up the shop as a happy pair.

Amid impeccably white décor and tiny tealight candles, and contented conversation over small but choice cuts of meat, dinner at the Tower is charming (if not exactly inexpensive, though Sally tells him not to worry; it's a special occasion, after all), as is the long and leisurely walk afterward. They pause along the way to peer into a few still-bright shopfronts, and even make a brief stop into a closing bakery for some delectable and decadent sweet cakes to enjoy along with coffee and tea for the evening (or, more likely, the morning, judging how closely Sally leans herself to his arm for the last leg of their walk).

They make it to the house with neither fumbling nor amorous incident, though, and as Larry drops the carry box of cakes on the kitchen table, he blinks quizzically at Sally, who doesn't pause beside him but instead shifts her bag higher onto her shoulder as she steps toward the bathroom.

“I just want to get into some different clothes,” she says with a tiny smile in his direction. “Is that all right?”

He nods. “Yeah. Did you want me to start the kettle?” he asks, already stepping over to the counter.

“Um,” she says, sounding oddly unsure. But then she recovers, nodding back at him. “Sure,” she answers, as she moves one hand over her hair, winding it over her fingers. “I shouldn't be long.”

He watches her for a moment, still seeing her slender outline even after she closes the door behind her. Then, with that pleasant image lingering in his short-term memory, he smiles to himself as he collects two mugs and biscuit plates from the cupboard, and goes about the simple chore of making tea.

And it's in the middle of that mundane but still somehow significant task that he thinks, this is what grown-ups do: find the charm and sweetness in the uncomplicated moments, the quiet ones between the explosive action sequences and moody sex scenes, and that they never show in films or series on the television. The boy in him would call such moments boring, worth less than a thought. But the attentive adult in him finds the quiet preparation for and anticipation of his lady a bewildering kind of wonderful.

He can be this man. He wants to be this man. So when the kettle chimes after it's done its duty, Larry laughs softly at himself, and at the ridiculousness of his resistance to leaving behind the tomfoolery of his youth.

That is, until he looks up and nearly drops both cups to the floor when he sees Sally standing, silent and waiting and cock-hipped, in the doorway.

Later, he would like to say that it's her different hairstyle – her loose blonde curls pulled back into a dangling ponytail that starts high on the back of her head, beneath a gilded crown of a bun – and the way that it shows off her face that he notices first. But in all honesty it's the scanty grey-and-gold metal bikini (the one that flaunts so much of how beautiful she is) that makes him stop and nearly forget to breathe.

It's a near-perfect replica of the science fantasy slave girl costume that – for years! – he imagined the girls of his masturbatory daydreams wearing. From Jenny Parkinson, who sat in front of him for two years at school and who had such pretty ribbon curls; to Shula Bonjani, who worked the towel desk at the leisure center, and in front of whom he would mumble and shift from one wet foot to the other in the hopes that she might notice him; to Lex Jacobs, who surprised him with his first kiss in the little alleyway between the record and comic book shops he used to frequent on Cheapside.

But even his wildest pubescent imaginations could never come close to capturing just how stunning Sally is right now.

She's shapely and bold, the shiny metal wireframes of the bikini top curling provocatively around the curves of her breasts. But she's smooth and demure, too, the red drape of the mantle hanging from her hips swaying between her thighs with every bashful shift of her feet. And she's winsome and delicate and strong – and so bloody gorgeous! – that he can't decide if he's dreaming...or if he just happens to be the luckiest man in the universe, to have this woman (who is at once full of such fresh and playful girlishness but also so wonderfully and blessedly abloom) come to him this way, his fantasies made real.

“Is that how I looked?” Sally asks, interrupting Larry's mental stumbling.

He blinks at her, his jaw falling open as he mutters, “Wha-?”

She smiles, both impish and shy. “When I saw you standing here,” she tells him with a quiet chuckle, “for the first time. Did I look that surprised, as well?”

Larry coughs and glances down to his feet, soberly reminded of that embarrassing first meeting (when he stumbled sleepy and bleary-eyed and naked in front of her, on that too-early April morning of almost three years past); just the thought of it still makes him flush red, which is likely why Sally enjoys bringing it up every so often.

But he forgets about even that mortifying moment when she steps toward him, padding lightly in her grey-green ankle booties, all soft flesh and beauty.

“I know you've always said that you like the snow-planet outfit best,” she mutters, her head bowed to watch her feet as she approaches him. “But this was the only costume they had.” She looks up and chuckles again. “It's the most popular, I suppose. For obvious reasons,” she adds, giving a tiny shrug of her shoulders that makes her breasts shift together briefly into delightful peachy cleavage.

“Mh,” Larry hums, biting down on his bottom lip to make certain that his tongue stays in his mouth as he continues to stare. The light hairs on her torso – invisible except when her skin perks in gooseflesh, like now – have never looked so soft before, nor so evident; he can almost trace with his enchanted gaze the path of them over the subtle rise of her belly, around her navel, to the metal band fastened low over her hips....

“Larry.”

Sally's pointed tone makes him give a jolted blink, as he returns his focus to her face.

“Sorry!” he mutters, strangling back his fascination with a quick swallow. He hunches his shoulders, wishing of a sudden that he could strangle back the more physical evidence of his captivation, as well.

Sally just laughs, though. It doesn't sound mocking; rather, she smiles up at him as she moves closer, reaching out to take the cups from his hands and lay them upon the table at his side. Then she steps between his arms, past the safe boundaries of his space, and presses her hips to his.

“Sorry,” Larry says again; there's no way that she can't feel the anxious strain of his arousal, now.

But once again, she doesn't tease him for his reaction. Instead, she simply smiles, and lays her hands flat against the center of his chest. Tracing the row of buttons to his collar, she snakes her hands around his neck, beneath his shirt.

She rises on her toes at the same time as she pulls his head closer to hers, bending her mouth toward his ear. “I will do whatever you like,” she whispers. “All you have to do is tell me.”

He snickers with giddy embarrassment. “...What?”

She chuckles, too, the high and sweet blow of her breath tickling in his ear. “I'm your slave girl for the evening,” she explains, her voice still hitching a little from her giggles.

“Oh, are you?” he says, laughing fully now, and that makes her laugh, as well, even as he winds his arms around her and holds her to him. He starts to sway with her, from one foot to the other, as he tells her, “Well, the bedroom needs hoovering. And I've laundry to do-”

Still laughing, Sally steps back and drops one hand from around his neck, to slap him in the chest. “Not like that!” she scolds. But then she turns quiet, and starts to pull gently at his shirt, plucking one button loose and then another.

“Isn't this every boy's fantasy?” she asks, her gaze darting from the broadening V of his collar to his face and back again. “A girl in a skimpy slave costume, who'll do anything he asks?”

Her tone is playful and seductive, but the words still make him pause.

That is every red-blooded boy's fantasy, perhaps. And he was certainly one of those boys who dreamed about a pretty girl who would flirt and flaunt her shape for him, get down on her knees to tease and pleasure him, and then slink back up in a sexy swagger to ride astride him until he had his groaning fill.

But – and he can't quite believe that it's taken him this long to realise it – he's outgrown those simplistic boyhood fantasies. He wants her, to be certain, but not just to play, not just to satisfy a wet-dream fiction. He doesn't want the slave girl, anymore, no matter how luscious or tantalising. He wants the woman, smart and keen, complex, clever, and inquisitive, lovely and sweet and full of delights he's never even imagined.

Larry wants Sally, and no other.

He even tries to tell her as much, in a low murmur breathed into the crown of her hair:

“You don't have to do anything.”

“No?” she asks, sounding almost disappointed. “I thought you'd like me as one of your galactic princesses.”

“I like you,” he hums, moving his hands over the smooth bare skin of her back, a light massage of his fingers over her curves. “But you're not much of a damsel.” And the memory of her standing amid a circle of winged stone statues comes to mind – a memory he's had a thousand times before – and he is once again struck by a feeling of pride and overwhelming affection for her.

“You're more like the brilliant detective heroine type,” he says, all seriousness. But then he snickers, recalling the delightful way her hips move back and forth when she stacks the books at the shop, and adds, “Or a sexy librarian.”

Sally laughs, her body hitching against his. “I suppose I can live with that,” she says at last.

He chuckles along with her, just as his fingers stutter over the band of her bikini top. “Not that this costume does not look brilliant on you!” he says, backpedaling quickly. Then he pushes himself back from her, to look her in the eyes. “But a gorgeous slave girl rather needs a swashbuckler, I think, to come swinging to her rescue,” he tells her in a low voice, and he gives a sheepish shrug of one shoulder. “And that's not me.”

Sally purses her lips in a brief pout, as though considering. “No,” she agrees softly. But then she pulls a deep inhalation, her chest ballooning as she presses up to him again. “You're more like a...knight of the round,” she says now, and a wide smile blooms upon her face, making her dimples show.

Larry squints. “You mean, like Lancelot and them?”

She bobs her head for a moment, then wrinkles up her nose. “Not like Lancelot, though,” she says. “He's so pretentious. You're more like...Yvain.” And without warning, the wonderfully loving look she gives him makes him grin again, and go a bit woozy.

Sally chuckles of a sudden. “You don't know who that is, do you?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “Not a clue,” he responds truthfully, and that causes her to laugh again. “But the way you say it is nice,” he tells her, and it is, and that's just one of the reasons why he bows his head to hers once more, to offer her a light but clutching kiss.

Against his lips she gives a quick shudder, rather like excitement but more likely just a chill, and it makes him break from her with a hum and a twitching smile.

“Milady needs a cloak,” he murmurs, rubbing one hand gently over the prickling gooseflesh of the small of her back.

“She needs to not walk around half-naked in October,” Sally replies with a smirk. Then she gives another little involuntary shiver and nestles in to his chest again.

Larry welcomes the proximity this time, even if she can feel the renewed firming of his interest. “Best get you something warm, then,” he says, and winds his arms more closely around her.

She moves her cheek against his shirt, muttering with no small suggestion: “You're warm.” And then she cranes her head up, to fix him with a smoky look. “And warmer if you share.”

Before he can reply with a complementary quip (though, honestly, he can never think of anything except for her, when she looks at him like that), she squeezes him around his chest and pulls herself up, and kisses him with gentle passion.

With a subtle bend of his knees, he moves to even height with her, then shifts the wrap of his arms around her hips. He lifts her from the floor and she giggles against his lips, changing the angle of her grip, too, around his shoulders. That's the way they make their way – carefully but with certainty – to the front room and its sofa (which isn't much closer than his bed, but he prefers not to presume), where they half-lower themselves and half-stumble to the cushions. Then he pulls the draping knit blanket from the top of the sofa, and she pulls it around them both, cocooning them together in their winding embrace and tender kisses.

Later, when they're relaxed again but still cuddled together beneath the blanket, Sally pauses her light stroking of his cheek to tell him:

“You're already getting scratchy again.”

Larry opens his eyes and looks down at her with a smile. He pulls a long and deep breath, and she rises with his chest, smiling back at him. “Do you prefer it like this?” he asks. “Or should I grow it out again?”

She shrugs one shoulder close to her chin, her breasts shifting comfortably against him. “I like both,” she says simply, watching her fingers as she resumes her lazy caresses. Then she chuckles, scratching briefly at his chin. “Though, you're a bit baby-faced when you're clean-shaven.”

He rolls his eyes and gives a short laugh. “I'm twenty-nine,” he reminds her. “That's a bit too old to be 'baby-faced.'”

“No,” Sally croons. “It's cute!”

Larry laughs again, but he stops when she taps him lightly upon his cheek.

“Is that what this was about?” she asks in a quiet voice. “This...different look? Getting older?” Now she laughs, softly. “You're still a young man!”

“No,” he mutters with a shake of his head, “it's not that.” He draws a sighing breath and leans his head back against the arm of the sofa, his gaze drifting away to nothing in particular.

“I've spent all my life...fighting against growing up,” he says. “Games, films, forums, all of those distractions: everything that I used to think was so important. Kath used to call it useless. And she was right. It's all just...rubbish.”

He turns back to her then, smiling once more. “You are what's important,” he says. “I mean, this whole place could burn down – everything in it – and, so long as I had you, everything would be all right.”

She doesn't move as she listens to him, just lays against him, snuggling silently. But at his finishing words, she crawls up his chest so that her face is close to his, and smiles, quite softly. “There is nothing in my life more important than you,” she whispers, and then she cups her hand around his no-longer-so-smooth cheek and pulls his mouth to hers, kissing him long and deeply and with supreme affection.

When she eases back from him a minute later, it's with a wider smile and a hushed, cooing hum. “You are much more mature than you think you are,” she tells him now, as she starts to stroke at his face again, from the highest peak of his cheek to where his jaw curves beneath his ear. “But I think it's all right to stay a boy in some ways, as well.”

Larry blinks at her in quiet surprise. “You do?”

Sally nods. “I rather enjoy seeing what excites you.”

“Even when it's something ridiculous?” he asks with a snicker.

She nods again. “Especially so,” she replies, and they laugh together briefly. But then she gives him another dreamy look like before, rolling her hips against his as she murmurs, “And besides, you are more than enough man in other ways.”

He starts to laugh again, when she shoots him a smirk and pushes herself beneath the loosened wrap of their blanket; a second later, he feels her hook her fingers around the waist of his pants.

He stiffens up, curling his own fingers around the edge of the sofa cushion in something like a nervous panic. “Wait, no, Sally-!”

“Relax, big man,” her muffled voice chides him. “This slave girl knows what she's doing.” And then, before he can offer another embarrassed protest, he feels the unmistakeable tender caress of both her hand and her mouth around him, and he thinks that, while it's all right for him to remain a bit immature and wide-eyed about certain things, it is – oh, most definitely! – a very good thing to be an adult, sometimes.

Larry never forgets the conversation of that night (nor the events surrounding it, full as they are with such romping passion and pervasive love). But it is still not until another dim and chilly day in late March – the twenty-ninth, to be exact, on Sally's twenty-sixth birthday – that he can fully return the favour of her understanding and affection: with the gift of an impressive photographic lens attachment for her camera (for the discerning grown-up in her)...and a clanking suit of polished costume armour that he finds quite difficult to manoeuvre in, but is more than worth it for the sight of her bright and beaming smile and the sound of her laughter as she tumbles into his steel-clad arms.

“I took a guess that you would prefer this over an Errol Flynn type,” he says with a grin, as she hangs gleefully from his neck.

“I do, indeed!” she tells him, bouncing up briefly for a kiss. She doesn't drop to her heels right after, though, instead lingering close to his lips to whisper, “My shining knight.” Then she kisses him again, and he holds her close, creaking a bit in his armour but pleased to delight her so.

When the novelty of this wears off, she helps him out of it again, carefully and layer by layer, until they take to bed, knight and lady fair, for joys and pleasures equally playful and mature.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:
I know I dwell a lot on these two, but I can't help it. When characters (or, in this case, a specific pair of them) capture your imagination, you just have to write to fulfill your desires, and to hell with what any naysayers might think.

Very far afield of the Doctor's adventures, I realise. But this is just another (extended) example of how some lives go on, even after the camera stops showing us the details.

Hopefully, the references don't go too much over anyone's head. Sally's costume is the Princess Leia slave garb from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi; if you're not familiar with it, a Google search will garner you plenty of images. (I drew Sally in this outfit, too, a while ago...which, I suppose, was truly the original inspiration for this story.) Larry's costume is just a suit of armour, of course...though it, too, has a story, that maybe I'll decide to share one day. ;)

Thanks for indulging me by reading!