Chapter Text
Kate was pacing in the kitchen and Osgood counted her steps. “Oh boy” she muttered when the blonde stopped and pinched the bridge of her nose. Osgood scanned her laptop, willing the broadband connection to speed up and give her the answer she needed before her boss hung up.
“Dammit” Kate ground out as she finished the call and gave serious thought to tossing her phone into the dishwater in her sink.
“Don’t” Osgood said softly “It took two days to properly dry out the last one” she reminded Kate of the fate of the phone when she’d been told the budget was being cut. In retrospect, she thought, it would be safer if these calls came when they were in the office and not near domestic sources of phone-killing water.
“Sorry” Kate ran her hand through her hair and dropped her phone in her pocket. “Where are we?” she sat down next to Osgood at the kitchen table.
Osgood watched the data slowly updating on her screen. “It’s going to take a while to set up the backdoor access to the RaCIS head office” she looked up and realised that Kate wanted more. “We don’t want to cause any more offense, I’m trying to get the information we need without them ever finding out”
“I know, I’m sorry” Kate rubbed her eyes. “I just hate losing anyone from our teams and the idiot Colonel in Rome has made an impossible situation even worse” she sat back, crossing her legs and folding her arms to stop herself from fidgeting. She hated this part of any new encounter, where they only had 10% of the picture and no real idea of what they were up against. Glancing around she remembered that she’d been washing dishes when her call came in and she stood with a sigh to finish the chore. Ten minutes later she’d put away the dried dishes and wiped down all of the worktops. Nibbling on a cheese straw that she’d made earlier that day she sat down beside the brunette. “Anything useful yet?” she offered her the plate and Osgood smiled and crunched through a flakey cheese straw as well.
“Ma’am” Osgood coughed and drank the last of her now cold coffee to get rid of the crumbs in her throat. “Sorry” she started again. “The remains were found on the west coast of Italy near a town called Ercolano” she looked up to see if Kate had any questions and took the wave of one hand as a signal to continue. “You’ll know it better by its former name, Herculaneum” she took her glasses off to clean.
“Vesuvius, pyroclastic flow and Pompeii near neighbour?” Kate dragged historical facts from her memory. “Disappeared completely under the deposits from the eruption in 79 AD”
“Perfect ma’am” Osgood smiled at Kate’s smug grin. “So the eruption left a layer of tufaceous material that effectively covered what had been there before and preserved it”
“So why is anyone surprised that there are skeletal remains under the deposits?” Kate asked.
Osgood scanned a couple more emails. “The remains are close enough to be mistaken for human on a cursory examination” Osgood stopped to take a sip of her coffee before she remembered it was empty. She continued explaining the situation to Kate as she walked behind her and set the coffee machine working again. “But they were found quite a distance away from the only other skeletons found in the old boathouses” she waited until she could top up both of their mugs before continuing. “Even that wouldn’t have alerted us if it hadn’t been for the mosaic floor that the UNIT team from Rome were already scanning and removing from the ruined temple about two miles away”
“So we have a tiled floor, an overzealous Italian Colonel and broken bones all from nearly two thousand years ago” Kate sipped her coffee. “So what happened that my lazy Sunday with my favourite nerd is being interrupted?” she asked.
“You’re the biologist” Osgood smiled and turned her laptop to show Kate the photographs she’d hacked from the forensic lab in Naples.
Kate put her reading glasses on and paged through the photographs and descriptions of the bones and surrounding artifacts that had been recovered from the scene and sent for investigation. “Time travelers or aliens?” Kate tried to narrow it down but Osgood just shrugged.
“Os please” Kate felt a headache spread from the back of her head down her neck. “I was planning on catching up on documentaries while my girlfriend ran her hands through my hair….” she took a deep breath and blew it out slowly “just tell me what I need to do now to make that happen sometime soon”
“I can’t keep calling you ma’am when you say things like that” Osgood smiled apologetically. “Two more minutes” she promised and waited for Kate to nod her agreement. “Normally we’d have the local UNIT teams persuade the police that the remains fell under our jurisdiction” Osgood held up her hand to forestall any interruptions. “However, the accident in the harbour that caused the death of the UNIT sergeant has muddied the waters a little”
“Understatement” Kate huffed and dropped her glasses on the table. “Accusing the Italian Navy of causing the accident in front of the town Mayor did more than muddy the waters and the Colonel confirmed that we won’t get permission to go near the site in an official capacity” Kate stared into the distance.
“Maybe Sam could figure out a way….” Osgood suggested.
“I need Sam to be in New Zealand next week” Kate shook her head and didn’t offer any further details. “Can you speak Italian?” she asked after several more minutes of silence.
“Me?” Osgood looked surprised. “No, not really, I did some German at school but that was a while ago” she blushed, trying to forget the enormous crush she’d had on her languages teacher in high school.
“In that case, we’ll need to be hapless British tourists” Kate put her hands on the table and pushed herself up from her seat. “We’ll get the details worked out tomorrow, let me phone the Colonel and he can get started on the background stories” she headed towards the garden, calling the Tower as she stepped onto the patio and watched the rain splash on the greenhouse.
“Wait” Osgood was now talking to herself but still looked around to see if she was missing something. “We’re going to Italy?”
******************************
Osgood rolled onto her back, breathing heavily. “Did it help?” she turned to look at Kate, a soppy grin on her face.
Kate’s forearm rested over her eyes as she tried to get her breath back. “Mmmm” she finally mumbled and heard Osgood chuckle at her unusual lack of eloquence. “Shut up” she managed to string two words together.
Osgood smiled and waited for her girlfriend to gather herself. They’d been together for nearly eight months now and she still struggled to reconcile the ‘new relationship giddiness’ with the feeling that she could barely remember a time before Kate entered her life romantically. She was enjoying the ‘honeymoon’ phase though, the freedom she felt to explore their likes and dislikes together in bed was new for her. “You’re wonderful” she sighed and stretched down to pull the quilt back up over them.
“You empty my brain” Kate finally felt able to stretch, unknotting the last few stiff muscles from her earlier forays into the garden and the more recent, more pleasurable tightness from the orgasm that had rendered her speechless. “The headaches gone but I’m not sure I can feel my legs” she rolled onto her side and pulled the grinning brunette into her arms.
“I love you” Osgood searched the brown eyes staring into her own, watching the crinkle of the edges as a smile settled on Kate’s face.
“I love you too” Kate leaned in for a slow kiss and hummed as they both wriggled to find a comfortable position lying in each other’s arms. “I feel like we’ve always been this comfortable together” Kate sighed. “Did you mind wipe me to forget a time before you seduced me?”
Os opened her mouth to deny that she’d ever used a mind wipe on her but decided not to lie outright. “I seduced you?!” she pretended outrage and hoped that Kate hadn’t noticed the slight hesitation.
Kate laughed, her post-orgasmic brain would only have noticed Osgood’s brief moment of concern if it had lasted for several minutes. “That’s how I recall the events, yes”
“You chatted me up!” Osgood enjoyed the teasing byplay as she leaned in for a brief kiss.
Kate lengthened the kiss, slowly rolling onto her back and letting Osgood settle against her shoulder. “You kissed me first,” she said hoarsely.
“You were being gorgeous and drop-dead sexy first” Osgood insisted and leaned in to kiss her again. Maybe the argument wasn’t that important but she was competitive and enjoyed the byplay as they settled into a brief nap before supper.