I am avoiding my damn French presentation, singing along to Nouvelle Vague (Making Plans for Nigel, if you're interested) and eating butterscotch Angel Delight. I'm sure life can get a lot better than this, but I was happy enough to start writing, and I'm hoping this might turn into a kind of fluffy angst series. Or angsty fluff. Or flangst. Ew. That sounds like a fungal infection.

But you don't particularly want to read a transcript of every thought I ever have, so here goes:

(Nigel is happy in his work, lalala....)

Seriously. Here goes:

*Disclaims violently*

OK:

Once, he'd woken with her head upon his shoulder, her light snores filling the air like marbles. He had kept his eyes shut and his breathing low and regular, and just relished the feel of her surprisingly soft weight against his body. Her heat permeated. Her lips were pink.

Once upon a time, in a warzone, he had faced her, told her words that made the smile in her eyes stutter and retreat. I'd wish you luck, but I want the bastard dead too. Curious, how a conviction he had felt to the core of his bones, his very belonging in this world, now seemed so fluid, inconsequential. Did it matter who died? Really?

The voice he knew so well, the one that whispered malice into his blood and pumped it to his heart, replied.

Oh, you know the answer. You don't care if anyone dies, anyone but her. As long as it's not her.

He would not sleep.

He wanted to stroke her hair when she wore it curly. It looked so sleepy and young, made her face seem peaceful. Maybe he'd rather stroke that instead, feel her skin, her lips, the delicate shells of her eyelids. He'd watched them flicker when she had bad dreams. It made something low in his stomach twist and clench.

Her softly waking eyes, confused in their sincerity...oh, it fluttered and released.

He'd caught her arm once, in warning, but he hadn't been angry enough to not notice how slight she was. He felt the muscles flexing underneath her hot skin, an arrogant facade, but further down, clinging deeper, he'd felt her bones.

It made him feel like he was looking straight at her soul.

He'd let her go, and let her depart, and wondered whether he'd ever see her again.

She loves to sing, a low, jagged thing that he once heard when she thought she was alone. It was in Hebrew, the guttural sounds making her even more dangerous than he knew. But it was a young voice, full of a disarming grace that went beyond her years in some ways, and did not touch them in others. And then he had taken in a breath, and she had started, and had the humanity to blush.

Sometimes he wondered whether it was blood that flowed in her veins. Sometimes, her eyes had implied it was poison. Sometimes, liquid bullets.

What scared him more than anything was the thought, the very possibility, that, instead of blood, there was nothing.

That she was empty.

That was what scared him more than anything.

He often sensed a little electric buzz, a thrill, when she brushed his skin. It was nothing more than a lazy, questioning tingle. Yes, Mr DiNozzo? Can I help you? What do you think I imply?

He didn't cry often, our Mr DiNozzo, but when he did it was with good reason, and pure intent. It was never to manipulate, or to inspire guilt. And so, when she saw him so close to tears so very many times after the departure of the good, good doctor it killed her to know the sincerity. The only words that clung to her tongue were things he wouldn't want to hear. There will be others. She wasn't the only one. She wasn't perfect. There will be others, Tony, do you understand what I'm saying to you? But of course he wouldn't, so she didn't. And they never.

OK, so this one was a bit stream of consciousness, not really linked at all...or following any sort of plan/pattern...or logic...but I hope it is enjoyable nonetheless. As I have SOOOO much other work to do, I'll probably be updating loads in the next couple of days...I'm contrary like that :) Enjoy!! And reviews are always much appreciated :)