Author's note: Obviously these wonderful characters are not mine. I thank you in advance for any critiques you might have, and to those of you who have been following my POI/Doctor Who story, have no fear, another chapter is coming soon, I just have to edit it.

Grace awoke as the other half of the bed grew cold. She felt next to her out of habit, but only confirmed Harold's absence.

She glanced towards the bedroom door and saw the pale light of a computer screen casting a ghostly glow from the kitchen.

Worry and compassion creased Grace's face. Harold rarely slept well, but recently he was barely sleeping a night through, and she frequently found him at his laptop or just staring out into the dead of night with pale eyes that saw some other scene she could not guess at. Sometimes he never came back to bed; often, the mornings after those nights, he would bring her tea and Eggs Benedict for breakfast as daylight crept into the city, and though he smiled as they enjoyed her favorite time of morning, he looked weary.

She pushed her red hair out of her face and padded quietly into the kitchen where she found Harold at his laptop, as she had expected.

Grace wrapped her arms around Harold's shoulders and kissed the top of his head. He started and looked up at her, his pale blue eyes behind his spectacles focusing into the present, tired and haggard.

"What's the matter?" She asked.

"Nightmare."

She glanced at the screen where a news report reported of a woman, Sarah Gardner, had been strangled by her husband, and gently pointed out the irony, "So you decided to come out here and read about violent deaths?"

He didn't reply, and though his eyes didn't leave the horror on the screen, his hand found hers.

"Do you want to talk about your nightmare?"

"No."

Grace accepted his short, distracted answer with her namesake. She knew it was not easy for Harold to open himself up, even to her with whom he had shared himself more deeply than he had ever done with another person. Though she wanted to find some way to get him to tell her, so she could understand and comfort and protect, she knew it would have to be in his own time; she wouldn't push, and in the meantime she would simply let him know he was loved and she was near.

She wrapped her arms tighter around him, and whispered, "I love you, you know."

"I know, and I, you." He squeezed her hand.

"Do you want some tea?"

"No, thank you. I'll come back to bed soon."

"Don't be long," she replied with a provocative lilt, hoping to get him to return sooner, but he showed no indication he had even heard her and sat hunched over his computer - every line of him rigid and tense - and a worried sigh escaped her lips as she turned toward the bedroom.

Back in the kitchen Harold flicked through internet pages and headlines; names, dead faces, reports of violent death and premeditated murder, all burned into his retinas.

Numbers haunted his conscience, nine digits shifting and changing and dripping always with blood.