"This is just tonight--" Sarah Jane's words were little more than a loud breath against her hair. "--can't happen again."

The hand groping beneath Maria's bra, fingers flexing into her breast seemed a strange accompaniment to her words.

Sarah Jane's hand retreated to join its mate in fumbling with the hook at her back—she bit Maria's lip a fraction too hard as her concentration slipped.

"Get it out of your system and move on."

Fingertips ghosted reverently across her bare breasts, before Sarah Jane pulled her own top up over her head and leaned against her.

It was perfect. Sarah Jane was warm and soft and everywhere she touched burned, but—

"No."

The look of something akin to pain that passed over Sarah Jane's face mirrored what Maria was feeling as she forced the word past her lips. She would agree to almost anything Sarah Jane asked of her—but not to that.

Sarah Jane was backing away from her, beginning to apologize.

"That's not what I want."

Maria's fingers tugged loose the knot at the waistband of Sarah Jane's pants before Sarah Jane could still them in her own.

"I can't do this if you're going to--"

"Are you going to make us stop if I don't agree?"

"Yes."

When Maria's fingers slid through undeniable evidence to the contrary, Sarah Jane willingly conceded the argument.

Black lace to match the bra lost somewhere along the way.

Somewhere amongst the scattered flotsam of Sarah Jane's brain was both the thought that she very well might not survive this—unless she reminded herself to breathe again—and that she wished she hadn't worn knickers with embarrassing little pink stripes today.

She hadn't exactly had this in mind when she'd gotten dressed this morning. But it was obvious that Maria had. Those were the sort of knickers that women only wore when they were, well, on the pull.

An even deeper recess of Sarah Jane's mind wondered just how often Maria had worn these in the past underneath her clothes when they were together, only to lose her nerve.

And with that thought, the knickers in question joined the pile of discarded clothes in the floor.

There were still things in the universe that could surprise Sarah Jane Smith. Like the fact that Maria Jackson talked during sex. A sort of babbling commentary flowed out of Maria. It was at once both immensely disconcerting and utterly erotic.

Some of it was indecipherable against clavicle and hip, some of it enunciated in graphic clarity— things she had thought about alone in her bedroom across the street as she touched herself, how Sarah Jane tasted better than she had imagined.

There were the inevitable declarations and flights of melodrama—I'll die if you don't touch me and I love you—empty of meaning outside moments of crisis.

Once there was a brief apology when teeth met too sharply against the underside of her breast.

There were four-letter words that would have earned the girl a disapproving glare in any other context—one in particular, panted out against Sarah Jane's ear like a mantra, made her desperate.

Occasionally there were questions to accompany curious fingers—like that?—and questions that were answers within themselves—do you want me to make you come?

But sometimes Sarah Jane spoke too, said things that she didn't mean—this can't happen again—and Maria stopped talking.

It would have been silly not to call Maria when she needed help investigating—okay, breaking into—the New World University. Maria's apartment was only 15 minutes away from their London campus and Maria didn't have classes on Thursday evenings. There was no reason for her not to invite her along.

It would have been ungrateful of her to leave without taking Maria to dinner. What was sharing a few mediocre beers and picking at the pasta that she-just-had-to-try, when Maria had just helped save the world, or at least this part of England, from an alien techno-virus?

It would have been inappropriate, not to mention uncomfortable, to make love to Maria in her car. Figaro's were not made with that sort of activity in mind. Sarah Jane's elbow bore a smart bruise as testament to that fact.

Following Maria up five flights of stairs to her apartment was the only sensible course of action.

"I just need to—the beer, sorry." Maria disappeared into the loo, the only other room in the cramped studio.

Maria's apartment was living room-bedroom-kitchen-study, all in one seemingly claustrophobic space.

But as Sarah Jane dropped her coat onto the back of a chair and absently undid the buttons down the front of her blouse, she noticed little touches of Maria everywhere that softened the effect of the cramped room—that brought it to life.

A photo of the whole gang at the skate park stood in a glittery frame next to the television. On the cluttered desk in the corner, there was another photo, this one of a younger, happier Alan and Chrissie Jackson, a dark haired toddler between them.

She sat down on the narrow bed to unzip her boots and kick them away, smiling at the sight of the Munch print that Clyde had given Maria as a joke because it had reminded him of a Reticulian.

Her jeans joined the boots in the floor.

On the small side table there was a photo of the two of them taken last year at Luke's birthday party, smiling like mad over a cake with only four candles on it—and beside it, the puzzle box she had given Maria years ago. She picked the box up, the weight of it familiar, running her finger along the intricate pattern carved onto its cold surface.

She looked up to see Maria staring at her from across the room, arms crossed to cover her bare breasts.

"I'm glad you're here."

"So am I."

Coherent thought and the ability to breathe seemed to flee from her as Maria crossed the room.

Perhaps she had undervalued the merits of sex in one's living room.