I've been working on this for a disproportionately long time, considering the simple nature of the beast. I need to post it and move on. However, this is unbeta-ed as I don't have a beta in this fandom, and additionally I've been up all night finishing the last section so I may have missed some typos. Please forgive them, and let me know if you see something obvious, I'll be re-proofing in the next few days.

This is unabashed indulgence, verging on saccharine i fear, but I really had to work some of my shippy feelings out about these two. To test myself to see if I could, and also because in the REAL version of Clock Wise Verse we're on the slowest of burns and I was getting desperate! ;)
Edit: Now see the sequel, Spend Our Days Like Matches

"So I will not you where you came from, I would not ask and neither would you... we could just kiss like real people do" - Like Real People Do, Hozier

The new year's party in the city was a loud affair. Ricky's big blue house was full of people and noise, not the screech and roar of a drink fueled chaos set to bad rock the way he understood college parties often were - if that wasn't just something imagined up for tv - but still plenty lively with people trying valiantly to talk to each other over the sound of everyone else trying to talk to each other. The biggest room downstairs, what had likely begun life as a formal parlour, was strung with white fairy lights and supplemented with only a couple old fashioned lamps, casting an intimate gloom through which the scents of many perfumes and the sounds of many voices floated.

Ricky had introduced him around as friends began arriving, before. He'd arrived in the afternoon, while it was still light out, and had met the other roommates. Towering Malcolm with the long hair and low voice, round, ruddy faced Dylan, and Skyler, the oldest of the group and the one besides Rickey who possessed a car. He'd met Ricky's girlfriend Tracie who also spent a lot of time at the house share, and Tracie's best friend who'd smiled at him shyly and said absolutely nothing the entire conversation. Ben, the one whose room Alec would be taking, was already mostly living at his girlfriend's place, but the pair of them were among the first to arrive to the party, so he'd gotten the chance to see the space that would be his.

He'd liked the feel of the house, though he felt very much the outsider in a set group of friends. He'd helped them set out food in the kitchen and move aside the extraneous furniture in the big communal front room. He'd seen Tracie mixing up the punch so he knew exactly how lethal it is, and caught her conspiratorial grin and rolled his eyes at her comment about corrupting country boys. And then the guests started arriving in twos and threes and before long he'd lost track of the names to go with the faces, or which people were connected to which roommate.

He had a nice time, really he did. He caught up with Ricky, in spite of the noise, found that it was easy to pick up the friendship pretty much where they'd left it. He got to meet Dylan and Malcolm's respective dates. Tracie and Nadia got out Tracie's guitar and gave an impromptu concert of surprisingly decent songs they'd written together.

He had slightly more of the terrible punch than was probably wise, growing warm and determined and sentimental. Which was probably why, his mind kept drifting towards an idea. A bad idea, certainly, but a compelling one. An idea that seemed more and more necessary as Dylan got the stereo going and people began to dance, couples began to couple up. Because he did have someone, sort of, not in the traditional sense but someone who was very important and just across town, who was all alone on new year's eve. Someone who, probably more than anyone in the world didn't want to be when and where she was all alone as time marched on.

He found Ricky in the kitchen with Tracie, their arms slung carelessly and proprietarily around one another's waists as they talked with someone else, and felt those twin feelings of embarrassment and longing he always felt when seeing a couple thus. Not for him, he thought, not likely, not with his awkward nature, but it looked nice on other people, cozy. He caught Ricky's attention and pulled him aside.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Listen, I don't mean to be rude but I just realized that there's someone I need to go see while I'm here in the city."

"Someone you need to see right now? At… 15 minutes to midnight? Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," he said, "Yeah, everything's fine. It's just almost the new year, and there's a friend of mine alone right now, and I don't think she should be."

A knowing grin spread over Ricky's face. "Ah, now I see. This is about a girl," he said, "And maybe this girl has something to do with the sudden need to move out this way?"

"Not exactly… we're not like that," he protested.

"No judgements from me here, it's cool either way, you don't have to explain. But maybe I should tell Tracie not to try and set you up with Nadia after all, right?"

"Nadia's nice, but- Yes, that would probably be best," he said, with a conspiratorial grin.

So Ricky sent him off into the night with a clap on the shoulder and a bottle of cheap champagne to tuck into his bag - don't show up on her doorstep in the middle of the night empty handed, Ricky had said, and although he didn't think his friends understood the situation, he probably had the right idea. He spent the cab ride over in a happy abstraction, for once honest with himself and amused by his besotted state. It didn't even occur to him to be nervous about Kiera's reaction until he was standing in front of her door in the hotel.

She liked to set all the rules and here he was on his own initiative. Still, all he wanted was to say hello, let her know he was thinking of her, offer some company if she wanted. And if that was all, then that was all.

She answered the door right away so she must not have been sleeping, but she was rumpled and unmade up and bundled up in a big sweater. A cozy night in, maybe, or a long sleepless one. She peered at him skeptically, with her hand on the door, but she let him in.

"Hi, kiera," was all he said. Experience told him that sentimental overtures would simply be brushed aside.

"What happened to your party thing, your new roommates?"

"I was there. It was nice. I met everyone. And all of their everyones, which I'm sure I'll forget half of by tomorrow. But then I thought, you were over here and I was over there, and that just didn't seem right. Not tonight of all nights."

She smiled at that, a shy girlish smile and a shake of her head. "You are too much sometimes, you know that right? Come in then," she said, "Just how drunk are you anyway?"

"Not at all, I'll have you know. Well. Slightly tipsy, maybe. But we can work on that, see? I brought you truly mediocre bubbly."

"How sweet," she said dryly, but she went to get a pair of the stubby hotel water glasses from the sideboard with the coffee maker. "Seems about right to ring in this new, old year."

"Hey, it's new to both of us, that's enough for me."

"So you didn't like the party?"

"It was alright. I didn't really know any of them yet."

"If I remember right, those kind of parties don't have a lot to do with knowing each other."

"Oh really? And just how many of those kind of parties did you go to in your wild youth?"

"Not as many as you think. Not that the war coming slowed anyone down," she said, "I was part of the scene for a while, but I fell out with some of the ringleaders. Something about threatening to report the unauthorized use of hover-fighters one night of fun because I didn't think a good race was worth getting killed or court martialed over. Kinda put people off me. Surprisingly enough."

"You really did have a wild youth. Count me glad you spoke up and didn't get caught in a hover crash," he said, "I don't think Ricky's friends are as daring as that. Even so, there's a reason you usually find me behind a computer."

"You must have liked it a little, or you would have been here earlier than midnight."

"The roommates are interesting people, I think, from what I could tell. Ricky's girlfriend wanted to set me up with her friend, Nadia." He stretched the word with a sarcastic verbal leer.

"Yeah?" She focused studiously on opening the champagne with a soft pop, glancing surreptitiously over at him from behind a fall of mussed dark hair.

"I told them I was spoken for," he joked, sort of joked, pretended it was a joke so that she would laugh and roll her eyes, which she did, her defensive posture loosening and a faint blush gracing her cheeks. She always liked the joke of his adoration, he thought with a fond resignation, so long as it stayed in the realm of the ridiculous and absurd.

"Impudent child," she jibed, grinning.

He grinned back and clinked his glass to hers. "You know you love it," he said, "Cheers."

So they sat up on her bed and watched 'Meet John Doe' that some old movie channel was running. And before long, with banter over the film, the atmosphere was cozy, companionable.

"I never really watched such antique movies before. The way they act is so old fashioned, almost like caricatures."

"I don't think so. At least not this one. They're sort of like us, actually, don't you think?"

"Neither of us is a baseball player or a reporter, Alec."

"Always so literal. No, but really we are. This guy wasn't much of anything she swooped in with these new ideas, and then before long he wasn't just playing along anymore, and then he's even more John Doe than even she bargained for."

"That's a complicated way of saying but I think I know what you mean. They're both playing parts and then they're not."

"Right."

"But why would this guy even fall for her? I get the rest of it, but she just comes in and shakes up his life and doesn't even treat him very well. And then lets him get totally used. Why would he love her for that?" Her face was scrunched in confusion and skepticism.

"She gave him purpose in life. That's… a really big deal to someone who'd never really had it before."

She accepted this in silence and he didn't dare check to see how she'd taken it. Kiera wasn't one to go looking for subtext and veiled meanings in personal matters, only in professional ones - or rather, ones that fell under the mutual charade of their profession. Still, the message had been pointed and he doubted even she could fail to pick up on it.

"Anyway, I thought you liked those comic book movies," she said, blithely proving him wrong.

"I do, but I can like these too. Capra is a bit ridiculous but there's something about his movies. It's like looking into a version of the world where the good guys win, not because they're sneakier or stronger, but because their ideas and their goodness wins out."

"That's kind of a stretch."

"Yes, but it's nice. For a little while, it makes you think maybe it can happen."

"I don't know. If you came from where I did… It seems like a fantasy."

"That's sad, Kiera. I never took you for cynic. I can't imagine growing up in a world without the occasional ridiculous hope. I bet you've never seen 'It's A Wonderful Life' either."

"That's the one why with the bank, and the man wishes himself out of his own life with the help of a pudgy middle aged angel?"

"That's the one. What did you think?"

She made a face of distaste and confusion. "I don't think I was the right audience, let's put it that way. And I spent the whole last half of it expecting them to figure out that the Potter guy stole all that money and come and arrest him, but they didn't!"

"That's not really the point though."

"But I thought these were supposed to be sweet, hopeful fantasies where the bad guys don't win. Potter committing grand larceny and getting away with it is winning."

"Huh. You have a point. And there's another holiday classic ruined."

"Sorry."

"It's okay, Kiera," he assured her, charmed by her continual difficulty in detecting hyperbole, "I was kidding. Mostly."

So he poured them each another little glass of mostly warm wine and followed Kiera's lead in letting go of decorum, sitting back against the pillows and headboard in an easy sprawl. Peering down at the television as the credits rolled, his eyes were drawn to her long slim legs in dark leggings folded neatly, inches from his. Beautiful, he thought, miraculous, a beautiful woman and also kind and also wild, and also his friend. He felt himself drifting on pride and giddy love.

"What is it?" she said, "You have this odd look… have I missed a joke again?"

"No, not a joke," he said, and decided to press his luck, "You said earlier that I must have liked the party okay since I didn't get here sooner. Were you expecting me?"

"Of course I was, Alec. Like you said, you were over there and I was over here…" she said, "You're never one to stay away, if you've got the choice."

"So I'm predictable."

"I think I prefer... 'dependable,'" she said with a teasing smile.

"Hmm. Yes, that's a little better I guess," he said, taking it with good humor.

On the television a new movie had begun, and Nick and Nora Charles set out to have a Christmas party and then to investigate a disappearance on the screen, and he sat for a while watching Kiera watching Myrna Loy and William Powell with curiosity and amusement.

"They really don't have old movies in your time?"

She shrugged. "Probably rich people with free time have them. There was a Cascadia cinema club, some of Greg's friends went. I didn't have time for that kind of thing."

"But when you were a kid, surely."

"My dad didn't believe in getting the video feed hookups. And after he moved out of we couldn't afford it. And then I went to the academy. So. Not really."

"So what did you do for fun? Wild parties? Sober hoverpod joy riding?"

She looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "You have, in fact, met me, right?"

"Okay, okay. But hoverpods! It's like Star Trek! I don't know how you withstood the temptation. As soon as I invent them, you absolutely have to take me for a spin."

"Do you like tight spaces, immobilizing safety harnesses, suffocating recirculated air, hideous speed and a persistent sense of doom? Because that is the experience of hovertravel," she said, "Anyway, you didn't invent them. It was someone called Bishop. Notorious old eccentric, gave even you a run for your money."

"We'll see about that, won't we?" He said wickedly, to tease and also because he was not so easily convinced that the idea of hovertravel didn't hold great promise.

"Ugh. I really have to stop giving you ideas don't I?" she said with an adorable, winning sort of scowl.

"Hey, Kiera, speaking of ideas," he said quietly, and, borne on a giddy impulse, he leaned across and kissed her, very gently, on the mouth. He didn't think about it, hadn't even realized he'd decided to until his lips brushed hers. It was delicate, might have been chaste and friendly except for a sweet spark and a rush of heat.

Unbelievably, she sat still and let him, and when he pulled away there was a bright flush on her cheeks. Perhaps from the champagne, only it hadn't been there a moment before.

"What..." she said, sounding more hesitant than confused.

"I kind of thought the what was obvious," he said, "Don't worry, I don't mean anything by it. It's a new year's tradition, you know."

"Oh. Right. Still is, actually, I just wasn't expecting…" she said softly. There was a faint frown between her brows but her gaze met his without hesitation or rebuke, her pale cheeks still pink, "Maybe you should try it again, since, you know, I wasn't expecting it."

It took a moment for the words to register, but he needed no second bidding, and was far too eager to forestall and ask why. He kissed her then more firmly, with deliberateness, not now what might be a friendly holiday gesture but something with more heat and hope. He didn't want to seem the fumbling, over eager fool, but her lips were so soft and warm, and she kissed him back - cautiously, so tenderly - and leaned in. Her fingers came up and brushed his cheek, her cool skin and so light a touch that he shivered, and then came back with more confidence to cup his neck.

Time slipped distantly along in an extraordinary passage of soft touches and fleeting kisses, each caught between hesitance and longing, carefully quiet but gasping. He was eager but he was also afraid to push, to ask for too much. Kiera was a long limbed, sweet smelling marvel he hardly knew how to approach, but she was warm and human and yielding under his lips, his tentative fingers. She leaned into his touch, sought out his mouth, dug in her fingers with growing insistence where she gripped him, but when his hand settled against her side, she was tense under the supple knit wool, as though still prepared to spring away at any moment.

He pulled away enough to breath, and wondered from where sprung that wariness. Was she unsure of him, of his intentions? Or was she unsure of herself? Either and both held their own obvious and complex pitfalls.

The embrace of the new years punch had long since eased away, and the small amount of wine had left his mind in a state that was warm and pleasant and soft-edged but not muddled or dizzy. It had allowed him to surrender to the first impulse to kiss her without questioning it. But now, as they faced each other from inches away, the pounding of his heart, the spike of fear that they were endangering something far too precious to be risked, and the deep, clear longing that overrode it, swept away any lingering haze. He couldn't lean in again, reach for her again and still pretend he was not aware of the consequences.

Kiera's translucent, sea-colored eyes were soft and half-lidded but there was an answering quirk of concern between her brows. She breathed his name, her breath warm on his cheek, and he couldn't tell if it was meant as a question or a forestalling noise. Her fingers began to toy gently with the curls at the back of his neck, but her face seemed to tighten with apprehension or indecision.

"Tell me what you want from here, Kiera," he said softly, "I know that you prefer not to know that I…"

"It's not that I don't want to know," she said, a low murmur intimately near, "I know you better than I think I've known anyone, how could I not see it? It's just my responsibility to not…"

"Not corrupt the virginal youth?" he asked with wry disbelief, "Because if that's the case I've got some news for you."

She withdrew her hands and hid behind them instead, falling back against the pillows with a pained noise. He noticed again how lovely her hands were, long, narrow and incongruously delicate for one so able, and her long delicate wrists, also, dwarfed by the sleeves of her thick sweater.

"That's not what I meant," she said, muffled, "You know what I mean, Alec."

"I don't, actually. I don't know what you mean," he said and sat up at her side. He collected her white, lovely hands gently in his so that he could see her face. They got by well enough most of the time without it, but now, with this question set out between them he needed to be able to read open play of emotions there. His thumbs brushed slowly against the satin-smooth tender skin of her wrists. "If not to protect my virtue," the word was skewed with sarcasm, "then what?"

"You're innocence, maybe. No, I'm serious. You think you're a man of the world, but by the time i was your age, I'd been through a war, I'd…"

"Lost your father? Fallen in love?" he prompted gently, meaningfully, "Kiera, if your frontier war is your metric for maturity you won't find many in this place and this time who live up. And the other things? Please remember who you're talking to." His touch ran along her smooth palms, warm now, her hands pliant and receptive but still in his own. He gave them a little squeeze to emphasise his point, and her eyes met his suddenly, warm with mute realization and apology. "You say you know me. I know you, too. What's really scaring you so much?"

"I could lose you," she said. Her voice was little more than a whisper, her expression pained, but she returned his grip at last. "I could hurt you. I could misuse you and push you too far without realizing it until it was too late."

"So don't," he said simply. At her disbelieving and uncertain look he went on. "You think because you're older, or because of where you come from and what you know, you automatically have more power over me, right?" he said, as though essaying a theory he didn't support.

"That's kinda how it works, Alec," she said, voice taut with impatience and regret.

He thought for a second of mentioning Greg, the older man who had been her age or more when she was his and speculated on just how she had formed that opinion. If she hadn't raised the specter of her husband as an obstacle, lost in all likelihood to the brutal churn of causality though he was, then he didn't think it kind to do so himself. Or wise.

"The way I see it," he said, "we both have ways, different ways, where we have power over each other. Ways we depend on each other. I think we come out pretty much even."

"I don't know," she said, skeptical, "Maybe."

He released her hands so that he could lean beside her, above her. He wanted, in case it was the last chance, to soak in the sight of her there, disarrayed and full of responsive feeling and so beautiful he could hardly believe it, her fine, angular face unguarded but watchful, tipped up towards him in query, her white throat a slender arch, all of her burnished and shaded by the feeble, gold light of the bedside lamp. Her eyes were such a pale blue they were almost colorless and they seemed to glow even in the low light. Her dark-silk hair tumbled across the pillow and caught up in the collar of her sweater, fell in a soft arc across her brow. Her lips were still red and moist and swollen from his kisses, and drew his gaze.

He wished he could rewind to that moment, when it was easy and sweet. But he also knew that he didn't want whatever happened between them to happen on a dare, on a wild impulse or a contest to see how far they could get without coming to their senses.

Myrna Loy and Bill Powell continued on with their murder investigation quietly in the background with a faint black and white flicker, forgotten. The old hotel building ticked and groaned as the heating came on and the other inhabitants seemed to be motionless and sleeping, making no intruding noise.

"And like I said, it doesn't have to mean anything. I'm not asking for a commitment, or even for… I can't change how I feel, Kiera, but i'm not trying to pressure you. I'm not trying to strike a bargain, or. I'm not asking for, I'm offering," he said, picking his way slowly through unfamiliar ground. At her continued, pensive silence he begun to feel he'd made a mistake, that he'd overstepped and made a terrible blunder. With a sinking feeling he tried to pull back, pull himself together, find a way to undo what he'd done. "Or maybe I should go… I should go and we forget about this, just a few kisses borrowed against the new year, and we never mention it again."

He stared blindly off into the distance of the suddenly-claustrophobic room for a few long, heartsick seconds and then made to slide away, get to his feet. He should leave as quickly as possible so as to begin the forgetting, he thought, only he regretted the sour note. He'd wanted to make her happy tonight of all nights, and instead he'd made it worse.

"Wait," she said with urgency, and leaning after him, she reached out to catch his arm in a near bruising grip. She relaxed her grip when he stopped trying to flee the scene precipitously but didn't let go. "Wait," she repeated more calmly, "What… um. What are we actually talking about, here. Tonight."

"Maybe nothing," he said with a shrug, with resignation but not anger, "it's a new year, and everything is uncertain, and I couldn't stop thinking of you here. Still here... In spite of all of our best efforts. I just wanted to show you that you aren't alone. I just wanted to make you feel good. In whatever way you want to take that, that's what I'm offering."

"Oh," she said, and did let go of him then, her voice choked with feeling. She shook her head, wordless. She was looking at him with a new, tender, sorrowing expression be didn't know, tears in her pale eyes, slipping down her pink cheeks. "Oh that's… Alec, I…"

"Hey, come on, don't cry. Oh, Kiera… Is it really that surprising?"

He put out a hand, awkward and self-conscious, to cup her shoulder in comfort but that seemed not nearly enough. Kiera wasn't intimidating in that moment, not an unearthly idol, just an upset and very human woman who was very much alone. He reached out and gathered her close, was almost but not quite surprised that she went to him, resting her head on his shoulder and fisting her hand around a handful of his sweatshirt. It took a moment or two of reshuffling to arrange knees and shinbones together in a comfortable way, but then she was relaxed and pliant in his arms as he murmured soothing things, though she seemed not so much tearful as unsettled and touch starved.

"What's this about, hmm? You okay?" he asked in a low tone, stroking her back in smooth, gentling motions, soft, fuzzy wool of her sweater tickling his palm.

"I'm okay. I'm not upset. You didn't upset me. I'm… overwhelmed, I guess. it's just. I do feel so lost here, a lot. A lot of the time. You're so sweet to me, Alec, and it's so hard not to start asking for far, far more than I should…" she sighed, and snuffed lightly and wiped at her eyes before returning her hand to his side. "And it's not rational, but all day it's felt like a deadline has passed. I tried to ignore it, I know it's dumb and arbitrary, and means nothing. But I keep thinking that my being here is suddenly more permanent."

"And that's why you're overwhelmed?"

"It's not- I don't know how to say it. It's like when you're a kid, and something bad happens or you get hurt, but it's not until someone else notices that you…." she trailed off and shrugged slightly.

"I know what you mean though. It makes it all real."

"But better, too. I got good at enduring somewhere along the way but it gets… lonely. The noticing is rare. It's… nice," she said, her voice soft and small with returning calm.

She was warm and lax beside him, her head heavy on his shoulder. His own heart beat fast with some perilous feeling, something between uncertainty and gripping tenderness. How many times had he been the sympathetic ear on the other end of the comline, and wished that he could be there for her, could hold her or truly reassure her, that she would allow it. He had imagined her imbued with an almost inhuman resilience and resistance to human contact, but he realized now that she must have also wished for someone to reach out, for someone to lean on. They both lived lives of isolation and had learned to adapt, but it was such an intoxicating feeling to hold and be held, to share space with another, beloved human.

"You're going to be okay, Kiera. You're not alone. Whether we get you back to your time or not, I'll be here for however long you want me," he said, firm and decisive, "And no more of this more of this 'more than I should' business. We're not 'should' people, and we're not in a 'should' situation."

"No," she said, "you're right. We're really not."

She untangled herself gently from his grip, enough so that she could look at him clearly. Her back was to the light, her face was shadowed and still with thoughtful concentration, as though she were studying him, trying understand his every feature, every breath.

"Are you using your scanners on me?" he asked, his voice teasing and light, but he wondered. He wondered if she needed that to trust him or believe him, and if so he wouldn't begrudge it.

"No. No. I'm trying to work you out, is all."

"I'm not that mysterious, you know."

"I think you are. You're not at all what I would have expected from what I knew of…"

"The evil old man?"

"Him, yes. And different, too I think, from when we met. You're going to have the world at your feet before long, but you're still here, watching strange old movies with me. I don't understand how you have so much patience for, well, the complete mess that I am under the tech and the flashy moves."

"Hmm. Here's the thing, I think you're thinking of it wrong. I don't see it as having patience," he said, "You see, about a year ago, this strange, vibrant, remarkable woman fell into my life - that would be you, in case you were wondering - and she does this amazing thing, she trusts me to help her. She's my very best friend, you see. It all kind of goes with the territory."

"Oh," she said softly, surprised, touched maybe, "Well. When you put it like that."

She laughed faintly, her face transforming from careful watchfulness to sweet, lively wonder, a new easy amusement come into her eyes. "You really are convincing when you want to be. I can see now how you'll go far just by being earnest at people," she said, taking his hand, "With a face like yours…" she shook her head slightly, teasing her fingers against his.

"What about my face?"

"It's a good one, that's all," she said, and there was that smile he adored, the big, girlish, shy one, all the more lovely close up.

"Kiera, tell me," he said, urgent, suddenly hopeful in a way he'd never been that his affections might be returned, at least in some way, "Ask me to stay, ask me to go, let me kiss you again. Something. Let me know what you want."

"What if," she said, "What if you stayed. Just like this, as friends, not just friends, but as, as-"

"As company," he said, "As somebody to hold onto in the dark."

"Not just somebody but- would that be alright?"

He knew what she was asking, if it would be awkward, if it would be too little for him and yet too much all at once. Maybe it was. Maybe it would be all of that, but he wanted it just the same.

"Yes, Kiera," he said, "It would be alright."

He withdrew his fingers from hers and reached up instead to touch the fine curve of her jaw, and then leaned over, found her leaning in also, for another soft kiss. It was neither chaste nor unchaste, a fluttering breath, a brief communion of two people little used to passion who did still long to speak to each other this way, and then apart again. A long held gaze passed between them, equal parts bewilderment and longing.

"Later," said Alec, softly, like a promise, "there will be time to figure it all out."

"A whole new year," she said, in agreement.

There was an awkward negotiation, then, of layers and covers. She let him peel away her sweater, both of them perhaps surprised to find that his hands were not at all fumbling, and then his own outer layers. Though they were both still clothed, and though it was no great romantic interlude, it seemed to him still fantastically intimate. Here was Kiera, in her sleeping clothes, en deshabille but unembarrassed, radiating warmth and close enough to touch. The hotel room was cold, and the sheets chilly beneath the coverlet and blanket, prompting much quick shuffling and shivering and accidental brushing of icy toes. He reached for her hand again once they were well settled, bedclothes pulled up high as they would go.

"We've got to get you a better place to stay, one of these days," he said, thinking aloud, "one where the heater does more than make sound effects."

She made a noise of vague agreement, or near enough. She turned on her side to face him. "Have you ever spent the night with someone, Alec?" she asked quietly.

"Literally or colloquially? No, well, I guess I haven't. Not except in the kid, slumber party sense. When I was with Miranda, we were in high school. We could sneak around, but we couldn't spend the night."

"That's right, people are much more conservative about what teenagers get up to here."

Oh, he thought, of course, if the recruiting age was 16 in her time, they probably also expected a whole range of adult behaviors from their teens. It was an unsettling thought. He'd been such a child still at 16, maybe he'd even been very much a child still with Miranda, and that long period of stasis afterwards, too. He wasn't sure. But knowing Kiera as he did, hearing how she'd been on the outside looking in with the popular set, he was sure she'd been just as awkward and reserved then, if not moreso. He wondered again, as he'd done many times, just how she'd come by an affluent, powerful husband when she'd been just a girl, younger than him, and utterly artless.

"Can I ask… Was there anyone you were serious about before Greg?"

"No, no one," she said, "There wouldn't have even been him, if not for coincidences and tragedies, and then Sam. I used to I think I wasn't made for loving people the way you see in movies, but it's funny. The longer I've been away from him, the more I realize he was keeping me at arm's length all the time. Everyone's like that back home, but Greg. Not that he was mean. And he was good with Sam, patient."

"I'm sure he was."

"But I haven't missed him like I should, not for a long time."

"We just did this, remember?" he said softly, "There are no shoulds here."

"Yes. I'm learning that, I think."

She shuffled slightly closer, her bent knee touched his thigh. He held perfectly still until he was sure she wouldn't startle away again, that she wasn't there by accident. He took a slow breath and tried to relax against the firm mattress, the soft pillow that smelled faintly of Kiera's shampoo. The heating might not work very well and the security might be lackluster but it much more comfortable than the lumpy day bed at the loft - his frigid refuge this last tumultuous month of holiday visitors and packing and familial pressures. The shock of comfort alone might have been enough to keep him awake even without the novel wonder of Kiera beside him.

On the forgotten television, Nick and Nora had gathered all their suspects round, dressed in glittering finery, and sat them down to dinner together. He'd seen this one quite a few times as a kid, the tv on in the background as he labored over homework in the living room, it was one his mother had liked when she still had time for movies. It was almost over and they'd missed most of the plot, so he reached for the remote and turned it off, and then the bedside lamp as well.

"Hey, Kiera," he said into the dark, "Are you completely sure that I wasn't the one to invent hover pods?"

"You know for a fact that you'll invent computer chips run by people's brains, and, evidently, time travel. Isn't that enough?"

"Maybe. I guess you'll have to wait and see."

"Hmm. Overachiever," she said, her voice growing drowsy and unfocused.

He turned carefully, to face her, a mirroring curve, knee to knee. She watched him move, careful, calm. Slowly, he draped an arm across her waist, gently, not clutching, just resting, just to be near.

"Okay?"

"Yeah. Nice."

"Get some rest, Kiera"

The morning dawned late, only a week removed from the solstice, but bright and glaring with pearl white sun hectic in Kiera's uncurtained window. In the night, as they slept, it had snowed, a wet, dense Vancouver snow that blazed blue-white on sidewalks and car tops, and little-disturbed by a city still drowsing after it's late night.

He'd feared awkwardness in the sober light of day, the feeling of trespass that one sometimes feels when sleeping in a strange bed, in unaccustomed company, but there was none. They were too used to each other, he supposed, talking at all times of day, in all states of crisis or boredom. Meeting Kiera's eyes across the pillow made him feel flushed and alive but not bashful. And Kiera too only smiled and dreamily reached out to brush her fingers briefly against his cheek, her hand warm with sleep.

"I think I had this dream once, when you were talking to me before I was awake. But here you are. Thank you, Alec. For staying. For bringing me champagne on a bad night."

"If I had been thinking I would have brought you cinnamon rolls as well. If we want to eat we're going to have to brave the wilds."

"Cinnamon rolls? You had your mother's rolls at that party and you didn't bring me any?"

"It was a spur of the moment gesture, it escaped my mind. But I'm sure there's still some back at the house share. I hid some away so that they wouldn't all get demolished before I could use them to bribe my new roommates."

"Ooh, devious. I like it. Do they expect you back?"

"Not right away, I'm sure. I doubt anyone will be stirring before the afternoon."

Kiera was quiet in the mornings, a little groggy. She liked to take her time over her daily routine, walking slowly through the steps that made her feel ready to face the world. Alec knew this from countless days while they'd chatted quietly over her CMR, but he felt privileged to bear witness in person, that she was not self conscious around him.

He flipped around channels trying to find a weather report while she dressed in the other room, and then sent a text to Ricky to let him know what had become of him. In vague, non-intrusive terms, anyway, that he'd crashed at his friend's, that he'd back around later in the day. Then he searched around on his phone to see what might be open on new years day.

He'd offered to take her to breakfast somewhere when she'd confirmed his suspicion that the only foodstuffs she had in her room at the moment were protein bars. She claimed they tasted better than something common in her time, nutribar somethings, but he didn't personally think they qualified as edible. This self enforced deprivation was something he'd long been coaxing her to give up, at least some of the time. When she used to come to the summer market with him, it was easy to tempt her with bags of oranges, or nectarines, or cherries, something seasonal and sweet. He didn't think her aversion was instinctual, or even any longer a rebellion against the place where she was stranded, but more a habit. He had hopes of coaxing her, similarly, to coffees, and lunches, and maybe even dinners sometimes, once he lived in town full time. And if, provided Kiera was interested, that bore some similarity to dating, well, they could play that by ear.

Kiera re-emerged, looking fresh and bright, the tight melancholy that often surrounded her dissipated over night. She'd slept well, he knew, deep and quiet and still as he dozed happily beside her. 2013 was treating him astoundingly well.

"Come on," she said, "I'm out off coffee, too, and I'm just as hooked as you are, now."

They bundled as well as they could for the sudden winter chill. Alec found a spare muffler for Kiera to wear in his pack, still stuffed full of odds and ends he needed to survive the unheated conditions of the Loft. Before long they were out the door, in companionable quiet.

He didn't worry that they were leaving behind the intimacy of her hotel room, that by not talking about all that had been disclosed in the middle of the night they consigned it to a mere aberration. He knew that wasn't so. He knew the glances he exchanged with Kiera, her quiet, secret smile, spoke to an intimacy carried with them. What was between them was magnetic. Not a commitment, not a torrid passion, but something electric and vital just the same. It was for now enough, more than enough, to be near, to know concretely that they were neither one along in what they felt, to be allowed to touch and smile and lean in and blush.

It was snowing again when they stepped out onto the slushy sidewalk, a thin drifting of tiny flakes, and the city air was brisk and tart with cold. They walked side by side into the morning, hands stuffed deep in pockets, arms brushing with every step.