Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There wasn’t a less interesting meal of the day than breakfast, usually. Everyone was too tired to make decent conversation, and the food wasn’t exactly stellar. Today, everyone seemed even more tired than usual- there had been a considerable amount of odd noises last night, and no one had slept through them all.

“I’m so tired…” Ram groaned into his cereal. “There was some building work last night or something.” The others nodded, cursing the leaking roofs of the school. The workmen only did anything at the least convenient times.

“I heard people talking in the corridor,” April said, stifling a yawn. “Sounded weird, though…strange accents. Not anything I’ve heard before…not that I’ve heard too many.” The only foreign accent she had any regular exposure to was Matteusz, and she was used to that by now.

“Why am I not in bed right now?” Ram asked, openly yawning with his mouth full of cereal. April winced and looked away, making a faintly disgusted sound. “I just wanna be asleep, honestly.”

“Because we meet at this time every day,” April said. “So we can talk to you before you smell for the rest of the day.”

“I do not smell!” Ram’s protesting caused a teacher to look up from where they too were sitting, tiredly eating cereal.

“You do.” April glanced over at Matteusz, who appeared to be mostly asleep and idly chewing a mouthful of toast. She nudged him. “Matteusz, back me up here.”

“You sweat when you exercise,” Matteusz said slowly. April started to seriously consider just pushing back the time they ate breakfast together so it was an hour later; she imagined Matteusz had been up since three in the morning styling his hair or something, and Ram was likely a perpetrator of a similar crime. Honestly, the stereotype of girls taking forever to get ready was just untrue. April couldn’t remember a day where it had ever taken longer than fifteen minutes at the very most, but the boys clearly spent way longer.

“That’s because I’m not lazy and sitting inside with a book like you all the time,” Ram said, and Matteusz stuck his tongue out at him.

“You two are so immature,” April said, shooting a glare at Ram before he could accuse her of being ‘too sensible’ again. “Hurry up and finish eating. I want to go find out who was talking last night…”

“I think a new teacher might have arrived,” Ram said. “There were like five that left at the end of the year.”

“I definitely want to meet them then,” April said. She liked to talk to teachers before lessons started for the year so she could get to know them a little.

It wasn’t too long before Ram finished eating, and then Matteusz soon after that, and then they were free to go searching for the mysterious new arrivals. April had insisted that there was more than one voice, which meant possibly two teachers. Or a teacher and a student, which would be even better.

However, when they went to look for the people, neither of them could find a single sign that there were more people in the school than there had been before. They went all the way up and down the student dorms, then the teacher areas (April produced a key and neither of the boys decided to object or ask her where she got it), and then they checked the area where all the big bags were put to see if there were any there. There wasn’t anything, anywhere. In the end they gave up, because clearly there was no one to be found. April was starting to wonder if she’d just dreamed those people talking in the corridor.

Just when they were about to give up, they were in the entrance hall and the door creaked open, and a woman walked in. Tall and blonde and imposing, obviously a new teacher. She looked at the three of them for a moment.

“What are you three doing in here?” She looked sharply at them. “I thought all you silly little children had gone home for the summer.” The look intensified into a proper glare, scarier than a mere teacher ought to be able to manage. “Out. Now.”

“We live here over the summer, ma’am,” April said quickly. “We were just going to the library, we’re sorry if we’re not meant to be here. They don’t tell us when we’re not meant to go to places.”

“Your parents hate you so much they can’t even stand to see you over the summer? What lovely people. Now, get out.”

April had never heard a teacher speak like that, but she wasn’t going to argue. Ram seemed equally keen to leave- only Matteusz looked like he wanted to argue, and April guessed that the parents comment had probably struck a nerve. She didn’t really understand why this woman wanted them to get out of the room, they had as much right to be there as she did, but she wasn’t just going to refuse, so she grabbed Matteusz by the arm and pulled him away in the direction of the library.

“She was rude,” Ram said as soon as the door had been closed. “I hope she’s not one of my teachers next year.”

“With my luck, she will definitely be one of mine,” Matteusz said glumly. “What did we do to offend her so much? I do not understand…”

“I don’t know,” April said with a sigh. “Normally teachers are at least willing to talk to students, and I’ve never had one insult me like that before.” She really hoped she didn’t have that woman as a teacher next year. She didn’t seem like a good teacher at all.

She wandered over to the window seats at the end of the library, where the book she’d been reading the day before sat still with the bookmark in it. It was nice to be here over the summer and just treat sections of the library like an extension of her own home. When she looked out of the window, though, she saw an unfamiliar figure in the distance.

The figure looked to be someone their own age, most likely male, standing and simply staring up at the sky like he expected it to fall down or something. April frowned, calling the other two over and pointing him out. “Either of you seen him before?”

“No, but Matteusz likes the look of his butt,” Ram said with a small smile, and Matteusz spluttered.

“I can barely see him from here!” He protested, but there was no denying that they were all staring at him. If the boy hadn’t been looking up at the sky so intently, April would have been worried that he would turn around and see them all staring.

“What is he looking at?” Ram pushed past the other two to get to the window, craning his neck up towards the sky like he expected to see a giant alien ship. “There’s nothing up there…just sky. Weirdo.”

“Ram, don’t judge, he might be an arts student,” April said, and Ram laughed. “I’m sure he’s lovely, even if he does seem a bit strange.” From his clothes, he wasn’t a scholarship student like her, definitely higher class. His clothes looked expensive.

“Hmm.” Ram climbed back down from the window seat, hanging back a little with his arms folded. “Maybe he’s just mad. Isn’t it kinda weird that he arrived on the same day as that teacher? D’you think they’re related?”

“Why don’t we go out and ask him?” Matteusz asked. “Or we shall be creepy stalkers.” April grinned at him and turned away from where Ram was still staring at the boy.

There was no sign of the rude new woman as they made their way out of the entrance hall and then around the building to the lawns out the back. They stretched all the way into the distance, down the hill into the forest that bordered the school grounds.

When they found him, the boy was no longer staring at the sky, and had instead turned his focus to a bright green leaf that had fallen from a tree. “Definitely an arts student,” April whispered as they approached.

“Good morning!” She called to him, and he jumped what could possibly be three feet into the air and turned around to face them. He looked scared, there was no other way to put it. His face went far beyond just being surprised. He was definitely afraid of them. “Um… Sorry to startle you…” April stepped a little closer, reaching a hand out to try and touch him on the arm, but he stepped back. Maybe Ram was right and he was just mad.

“I, um, ah…” He looked around desperately. “Good morning,” he said eventually, and then he smiled. Up close, it was obvious that Matteusz was probably right to stare. He was very attractive, and his teeth were very, very white.

“I’m April,” she said cheerily, deciding to just ignore all the weird stuff for now. “And that’s Ram, and Matteusz.” Speaking of Matteusz, he seemed to have started staring again. April wondered if his obvious affections would be returned or not.

“I am Charlie,” he said, obviously unsure of what to say. April hadn’t realised that Coal Hill took special needs students, but she would be surprised if Charlie was anything but. Generally all the people at schools like this were private school educated with money flowing through their bloodstream and eloquence to rival a politician’s. “My English is...not good.”

That seemed...odd. His accent was absolutely perfect, just as straightforward and articulate as anyone else here. “Oh?” April tried her best to sound interested, and not just confused. “Where are you from?”

“I am Greek,” he said. “It is...argh.” He shook his head and broke his eye contact with April. “I am sorry.” April had no idea what to say to him because she had no idea what he was trying to say. It reminded her of trying to talk to Matteusz when he first moved here.

“No no, it’s fine! You’re not the first foreign person here, don’t worry!” She glanced back, grabbing a faintly awkward-looking Matteusz by the arm and pulling him forward. “Matteusz transferred here from Poland.”

Matteusz smiled and lifted his hand in a wave. “Hello,” he said, and Charlie looked at him blankly for a moment before smiling back and waving too. “Is okay for English to be hard. It makes no sense for me.”

Charlie’s face lit up in a wider smile and he nodded, but he didn’t say anything else. April remembered how self conscious Matteusz had been about his language skills when he’d first moved to England, and it might even be worse for Charlie because of his accent. “Do you want to come back with us to the library?” She asked. Maybe Charlie would rather look at the books than the sky, though honestly she wasn’t sure he’d be able to read them.

“Library…yes, okay.” That bright smile was still on Charlie’s face, and he seemed perfectly happy to follow them back to the library. He soon fell into step with Matteusz- April had to wonder if perhaps he found Matteusz equally as attractive as Matteusz found him.

To her surprise, Ram didn’t seem too keen to talk to Charlie. Normally he liked to be popular with everyone and he hated it if people thought he was the stereotype of a popular boy on the football team. “What’s wrong?” She asked.

“I dunno, don’t you think he’s just a bit...weird?” Ram shrugged, kicking at a stray leaf on the floor. April just gave him a look- she didn’t understand what his problem with Charlie was, honestly.

“Yeah, but that’s not the point,” she said. They weren’t at a state school or anything where people were all normal and their parents had normal jobs and mostly normal lives. Everyone who came to this school had gold plated shoes, she reckoned (Matteusz denied it), and no one was ‘normal’. If Ram dismissed every strange person at Coal Hill, he’d be able to count his number of friends on one hand.

“Alright, so no one here’s normal. He’s just...weirder than usual.” Ram looked away, clearly struggling to justify his distaste. “He doesn’t sound like he’s from Greece. Definitely doesn’t look like it.”

April scoffed. “And where were you born, Ram?” She asked. “I think you said it was London.” Ram just laughed and nodded.

“Fine. I get it, and I’ll try.”

“Thank you,” April said, her tone making it clear that this wasn’t something that she felt Ram really deserved thanks for. Honestly, basic human decency really shouldn’t be all that hard.

Charlie seemed less in awe at the library than he had been at the sky, but April was surprised by how quickly he found something to read and got settled into a seat with barely a word to anyone. It seemed the jury was still out on whether he was an arts student or not.

Matteusz settled himself into a seat conveniently close to Charlie, and April sat a little way off with her book. Ram wasn’t much one for reading- he tended to pace back and forth and occasionally flip through novels before pronouncing them boring. Because of this, he decided to finally go out and do his run, and they all sat quietly together.

April knew nothing about Charlie, but she felt like the rest of the summer would be a lot more interesting now he was here.

Chapter Text

"Hey, Charlie, have you seen any of the building yet?" April asked, and Charlie immediately looked up from his book. He was engrossed already, it was so strange that humans were so interesting in theory and then far plainer in reality. After a moment of working out what she was saying, he shook his head.

All he'd seen so far was what he'd walked through with his new friends, and frankly, he'd been more focused on staring at Matteusz than he had been on the building. "What else is there to see?"

"The dorms, the classrooms, the dining hall...have you eaten this morning?" Half of April's words just went completely over his head within an instant, so he just nodded. "Right. Well, we can show you around and if we finish with the dining hall it'll probably be time for lunch. I might text Tanya, see if she can come in this afternoon..."

Charlie just nodded again. He didn't know what 'text' was or if it meant anything, unless she meant something to do with books, which he doubted. The human language was so confusing he just didn't know what to do with it. There was no way to learn it because of the variety of contexts.

"I think you are confusing him," Matteusz said, patting Charlie on the arm. He jumped at the contact, and then a blush prickled onto his face.

April just looked at him and smiled. He didn't understand humans, he didn't understand the human body and its responses, he didn't understand anything. It had been a mistake coming here. But he smiled back, because there was no point freaking out in front of these people he'd just met. They wouldn't have a clue what he was talking about if he told them the truth about himself.

He didn't think he could even voice it in English, which was pretty embarrassing. He could barely speak the language. Reading was fine, he could read it without a single problem, and he could sort of understand when people spoke, but when he had to reply the words just caught in his mind and he couldn't remember anything.

Matteusz nudged him again, and smiled comfortingly. "I know what is like to move from foreign country. You will get used to it here." Charlie nodded, trying to believe it.

He couldn't believe it, though. He wasn't from a foreign country. His language didn't have any similarities with that of humans'. The culture was different too, everything was different.

April stood up then, Ram following close behind her, and Matteusz beckoned for Charlie to walk with him. He was attractive for a human, Charlie observed thoughtfully. And he was nice.

"This is the library," April said, and then she laughed. "That's sort of obvious. Sorry." Charlie just smiled at her; it was so difficult to know what to say. She led the way out after that, and Charlie reluctantly left his book on the window seat. He'd have to come back to it later, if that was allowed.

"This is the entrance hall, we don't really come here unless we're going through it I guess," April said. She wasn't really doing the beautiful architecture of the building justice, but Charlie hadn't expected humans to appreciate it.

He, however, tilted his head back to look up at the ceiling, admiring the smooth stone carvings. Matteusz craned his neck back too, frowning. "What are you looking at?"

"The, um..." He bit his lip. Stone. How did you pronounce that word. "Stone?" He looked up at it again, not wanting to see their faces. They were probably staring.

"Is a ceiling," Matteusz said. "There are many in this school. The one in the dining hall has food stuck on it." That sounded like a rather impressive feat to Charlie, to be able to fling food all the way up to the ceiling.

"It's the..." He shook his head. They clearly didn't understand that he was looking at the carvings in the stone or they would have said. Or they would have understood, at least.

"Architecture?" Matteusz smiled. "Is a difficult word to pronounce, that one. I suppose it is kind of interesting."

"Oh, you're looking at the architecture of the building?" April smiled at him immediately. She looked almost pitying. "Do you like art?"

Did he like art? Charlie supposed he did. He could draw fairly well, that much he knew. "I do, yes." At least that sentence was easy to say.

"Told you he was an arts student," Ram said with a grin towards April.

"Maybe he just appreciates the history and appearance of an old building," April said.

"It is a nice building." Charlie looked around himself, and then at April. "Do you know much about it?" That was probably the most English he'd spoken ever, honestly, so he was a bit disappointed when April just shook her head.

"I've never really thought about it. I think we get told occasionally, but I don't remember."

"Who tells you?" He really was interested, so if there was someone he could talk to who had he knowledge...that would be perfect.

"Just, you know, people...we get told in assemblies." April just shrugged. It was sort of annoying that she clearly didn't care, but before he could think of a response in English she took him to another room. "This is the main hall," she said. "We have assemblies here and sometimes there are events."

"Events?" Charlie raised an eyebrow. That sounded sort of...sinister. Events could mean anything, in his experience. Usually not good things.

"We all go in there," Matteusz said, "and then we might watch a film together, or we eat food."

"I see..." That didn't sound half as bad as anything that Charlie had been imagining. He'd had some very limited experience with films already, in what little research he'd been able to do.

"What kind of school did you go to before?" April asked.

And, finally, a question he had been prepared to answer. He knew the answer in English, even. "I didn't go to school," he said. "I had tutors at home."

"Oh! You were homeschooled?" She smiled suddenly, the sort of look that said 'that explains a lot'. Ram had that look as well now, and Charlie glanced between the two of them. Deciding that agreement was clearly the best answer, he nodded, and they immediately started to ask him questions.

"What's it like being homeschooled?" Ram asked. "I've basically done the opposite all my life."

That was something he hadn't prepared an answer for. Charlie blinked, trying to string the right words together in his head. "It's, um...different. I don't know how to describe it..."

"Don't be silly, Ram, he doesn't know what not being at home is like!" April stuck her elbow into Ram's side. It looked painful for him. "Why did your parents send you to a school?"

Okay, that was something he'd prepared for, though the reminder of his parents came with a strong sadness he still couldn't shake. "My guardian wanted me to socialise and be normal when we moved to England."

Ram said something to April then that he didn't catch, but Charlie didn't really mind. Conversation was absolutely exhausting. "That's nice of them," April said. Nice was not a word that could be used to describe Quill, but Charlie just smiled faintly and looked down at the floor again. He couldn't say things like that.

April noticed his silence and moved out of the room, leading him up the stairs. They were moving so quickly it was impossible to appreciate all the art or feel the smoothness on all the wood, but Charlie was sure he'd come back later.

"April is nice, but she asks a lot of questions," Matteusz murmured to him. "Ram just asks rude questions to new people. Don't worry too much about it." Charlie smiled at him in thanks, preferring not to agree that he didn't like Ram much right in front of him.

"The classrooms are up here," April said. "To the left is humanities and english, to the right is maths and the sciences." Charlie peered down the corridor she pointed to, studying the rows of doors. Each one had a number on it, and a name that presumably belonged to the teacher whose room it was. They didn't look terribly interesting, honestly.

He loved learning, of course, but he'd mostly done it independently, especially after...he blinked furiously. He shouldn't think about that here. He couldn't. It would give him away.

Learning in a room full of other people would no doubt be very different. Charlie knew he had a higher capacity for intelligence than almost all humans, but they'd all been in this education system for years. He wouldn't be able to keep up if he couldn't go at his own pace, he was sure. And he was dreading anything that involved speaking. He'd heard that humans learnt foreign languages for their education, but he didn't even speak English.

He hoped they didn't expect him to know Greek just because he'd pretended to live there, because if they did, his cover was well and truly blown. He spoke even less Greek than he did English. He knew that the Doctor had tried to work through a cover for him. Hopefully it was a thorough cover that would dissuade people from asking questions. Maybe they wouldn't even care all that much. He hoped that was the case.

Charlie only realised he'd been lost in thoughts when Matteusz nudged him again, looking concerned. "Charlie? I think you are daydreaming...we are going somewhere else now."

He was about to say that he'd rather go back to his room, but then Matteusz smiled at him and he decided that he wanted to stay. He liked Matteusz, and he wasn't sure if he'd want him around after this morning. "Where are we going?" He let Matteusz lead the way, still looking around and admiring the ceilings of this place. It was so pretty- he didn't understand how no one else saw that.

"The dorm rooms," Matteusz said. "We sleep separately during summer, but in September we will get a roommate each."

"Do we get to choose our roommates?" Charlie rather hoped that he could be with Matteusz. Ram didn't seem to like him, and he didn't know anyone else.

"No," Matteusz said, and then he sighed, "but they do not want me to be with anyone this year." Charlie frowned.

"Why not?" That seemed unfair. He'd read a few books about schools, and roommates always seemed to be friends. Depriving Matteusz of a friend just seemed cruel.

"I..." Matteusz looked over to April and Ram, who were walking in front of them. "Last year I had a relationship with a boy, so they cannot put me with a boy but they cannot put me with a girl."

"Oh." Honestly, Charlie still didn't understand. "Can they...I am sorry, please wait." He paused for a moment, but Matteusz didn't look annoyed. "Can they...with another boy? You can not...like all boys." Maybe he did. Human sexuality was weird, and he hadn't quite figured it out yet.

Matteusz's face lit up. "Exactly!" He said with a smile. "I only like some boys. Would not be a problem if they did not know."

"They should...let you anyway." Charlie smiled. "I will be your roommate." He had a feeling that being roommates with someone he found attractive wasn't really the idea, but still...Matteusz was nice.

"I will ask at the start of term," Matteusz said with a smile, and Charlie felt his heart flutter a little. Human biology was very strange and he wasn't entirely sure what he was feeling.

He didn't have time to contemplate it any more, though, because they'd arrived at the dorms. Another long corridor with a series of doors, although this time April promised that the rooms inside were actually quite nice.

"I...was here," he said. "Yesterday." The corridor looked similar, anyway, though this was the girl's corridor for rooms. It looked different in the daytime, and because of the time troubles he'd left when it was still dark that morning.

April's eyes lit up suddenly, as if she'd realised something. "Was it you speaking a different language to someone? Who were you talking to?"

"My guardian," he said, presuming that it was Quill he had been speaking to. He'd seen her this morning after getting up but she had also helped him move his stuff into his room.

"We were all wondering who it was," April explained. "You don't often hear strange noises in the middle of the night here." Charlie nodded. He hadn't thought he was being very loud, really; he'd been terrified and just so scared to speak even a single word to Quill. Last night had been hard.

"Dunno about you guys, but I'm starving." Ram wandered past April, back to the front if the group. "Are we going to go to the dining hall now?"

Charlie found that he couldn't contribute to the rest of the conversation. He was tired after getting up early, which he shouldn't have done because he was meant to adjust to this time, and he could barely focus.

He just stuck close to Matteusz, who seemed perfectly willing to defend his lack of speech. It was nice to have someone who even vaguely understood what he was going through. Of course, Matteusz didn't know everything, and it was impossible for him to understand everything he was going through, but he was starting to feel better about his situation. Maybe this wouldn't be so terrible after all.

Chapter Text

Charlie had considerable difficulty with forcing down food at lunch, something that didn't go unnoticed by Matteusz and April. He was completely unsure about the proper manners for eating food, too, which only made it harder. He had to look around a little too pointedly to find out what everyone else was doing. And the human food was almost unbearably different to what he was used to. They had strange utensils which didn't really fit in his hands properly, and every moment he spent fumbling was also spent worrying that the others were going to call him out on it.

He managed to get through the meal, thankfully, hoping that the odd food would actually stay in his stomach. Charlie really didn't know if it would. "I texted Tanya earlier," April said once they were all finished, "and she said she'll be here at about three." Charlie glanced up at the clock. He didn't think he'd be able to escape before then.

"Um...who's Tanya?" He still felt awkward asking questions, wondering if everything was something that he was already supposed to know that would give away his lack of humanity.

"A friend," Matteusz said. "She lives near here and comes almost every day. She wants to meet you." That meant there was no way for him to leave before she got here.

"Okay..." He could manage one more human for the day. Just one more. It wouldn't be so bad, would it? Tanya was probably a nice human. All these people except Ram were nice all the time, and Matteusz was extra nice. He could deal with nice humans.

Nice humans were better than angry Quill, and he'd been dealing with one of those for far too long. It was refreshing to be around people his own age who treated him as an equal, even if they didn't exactly understand him and who he was. Charlie didn't think that had ever happened to him in his life, but he quite liked it. People treating him as an equal was very strange, rather than being treated as an inferior by his parents and Quill or as a far superior by every Rhodian ever.

"What are we, um, doing now?" Despite how nice it was to be treated as an equal by people, Charlie wouldn't mind a bit of time to himself, honestly. "I have, um..." The words just got caught up in all his thoughts. He wanted to say that he still had things to unpack so he needed to go back to his room, but he couldn't say it.

"You have what?" Matteusz frowned. "Suitcase to unpack?" Yes. That was the word. Charlie nodded gratefully.

"She'll be here in half an hour," April said, "but I can ask Matteusz to get you when she arrives if you like." He nodded. He could have half an hour completely away from this frankly humiliating predicament.

"Thank you." Actually, now that he thought about it, he had no idea how to find his way back to his room from here. "I, um, I don't…my room." He felt like an idiot saying it, but stringing a human sentence together was so difficult.

"I do not know where exactly, but I can help find it," Matteusz said, standing up with his plate to take it over to a small hatch in the wall.

"Thank you," Charlie said again, standing up and mimicking Matteusz's actions. He ought to be able to find his room if he knew the rough location. The TARDIS had killed any of his sense of direction, honestly. Attempting to find anything was based mostly on a wish and then telling her how beautiful she was. He hadn't needed to think about finding his way around.

He followed Matteusz through the corridors, sticking close by his side. This place was massive. He had no idea how he'd ever find his way around by himself. It was almost as big as...as the palace back in the Rhodian capital. But he'd grown up there and he still didn't know every corridor. Attempting to know this place would be hopeless.

Matteusz stopped after only a few minutes, pointing down at a row of doors. "Is your room down there?"

Charlie looked down the corridor. It looked completely different in the dark; much friendlier without the presence of Quill. He couldn't tell. Why hadn't he remembered the number of his room? "Maybe." His room had been down by the end of a corridor- Charlie felt like he'd know it when he saw it.

"All doors are open, so we can try until we find your room," Matteusz said. "Mine is here," he said, and he indicated a door that Charlie had noticed last night because it had been painted recently.

If he looked very closely, he could see that it looked like there had been something written on the door under the top coat of white paint. "The writing?"

"I do not want to say," Matteusz said, his face suddenly angry. Charlie moved a few paces away just in case. He'd overstepped there. He didn't know Matteusz well enough to ask that question.

"Sorry," he said, and he anger cleared from Matteusz's face and he shook his head.

"Is okay. Not your fault." Matteusz looked over to the door again and sighed. "Some bad people did this," he said.

Charlie nodded and decided to continue down the corridor, opening each door as he went. They were all very empty. He had a key for his, but for some reason none of the keys identified which room it opened. Eventually he found his room- two doors down from the end of the corridor. "This is it," he called to Matteusz. "Thank you."

"No worries," Matteusz said before disappearing into his room. Charlie smiled, sighing softly. Finally alone. He liked Matteusz a lot, but this was all so exhausting.

He had a little bit of unpacking to do, which was sorted quickly. That left him with a good twenty minutes to relax, thank goodness. His eyes immediately jumped over to the Cabinet, but he left it where it was. He shouldn't look inside it in case he became tempted to wipe out every last Shadowkin. The Doctor would never forgive him if he did that.

He lay down on his bed instead, picking up a human novel that the Doctor had bought him. Human literature was fairly interesting. He loved reading, he always had, but now it seemed to be his only solace. He'd studied from human texts for weeks on the TARDIS while the Doctor worked out where exactly would be the best time and place to put them (though he forgot to do that frequently, leading to the delay), but Charlie had neglected to practise speaking the language. He was paying for that now.

The TARDIS seemed to make it so that he could understand every language whilst he'd been in the Doctor's company, but its effect had thoroughly worn off now they'd been dumped on Earth. His language skills had never been quite as good as expected, but at home he'd always made up for it by having superior knowledge through his studying. Now, he was behind in everything and he had very little power.

That was, quite frankly, a thought far too depressing to bear thinking about, so he buried himself in his novel instead. That was much cheerier, for the most part.

He got so lost in the book that he nearly went into cardiac arrest when someone gently tapped on his door. As it was, he squeaked (hopefully Matteusz hadn't heard that) and fell out of bed. That was utterly uncharacteristic and frankly embarrassing, so he stood up immediately and dusted himself off, hoping he wasn't blushing too much as he opened the door.

"Charlie? Is everything okay?" Matteusz looked concerned. "I heard a thud when I knocked."

"Sorry, I..." Charlie looked around to see if there was anything on the floor, and then he nodded towards his suitcase. "It fell."

"Ah. Is okay." Matteusz beckoned for him to follow. "April says Tanya has just arrived, so you can meet her now."

Charlie nodded, feeling much more relaxed than he had been. He wouldn't have been able to meet and sustain conversation with another human had he stayed with the group after lunch. They wandered together back down to the front of the school, Charlie casting the odd glance in Matteusz's direction. He wasn't sure why, but he rather liked looking at Matteusz.

Until he'd seen Matteusz, he'd thought that most humans were just...unattractive. They weren't his species and they looked strange, but Matteusz didn't look strange. He looked human, yes, but pleasantly so. It felt a little more familiar, for some reason. Familiar, but Charlie didn't know why. He'd never met anyone like Matteusz before. But there was something about him, something he couldn't ignore.

He didn't have any more time to dwell on it, though, as he caught sight of April and Ram chatting enthusiastically with another girl who he presumed must be Tanya. He took a deep breath and prepared his introduction. He had no idea how to talk to this girl, so he drew a blank immediately. Then again, he had no idea how to talk to the others either.

Thankfully, Matteusz saved him. He called out a hello and the other three rushed over, and Charlie found himself in the middle of a conversation without having to do too much of the talking.

"Hi!" Tanya smiled at him, and he smiled hesitantly back. She seemed nice, and not as reserved as Ram was about talking to him.

"Hello," he said. "I'm Charlie. You are Tanya?" She nodded, although she gave him a slightly odd look as well.

"Nice to meet you," she said, and then she went straight into talking with April and Ram about something Charlie didn't understand at all.

He glanced over at Matteusz, who seemed a little bit left out of the conversation as well. "What are they…?" He indicated his mouth because he couldn't remember the right words.

"A TV show they like," Matteusz said. "Is not very interesting if you ask me." Charlie laughed. They made it sound interesting.

"What do you like?" He probably wouldn't understand the answer, but he was sure Matteusz wouldn't mind explaining. He was nice like that.

"I like books," Matteusz said. "TV takes long time and I would rather read." Charlie hadn't watched anything on TV, but the Doctor had informed him it was very popular with humans.

"I like books as well." Charlie found himself smiling brightly. Something in common. That was nice. He'd thought that when he came here, he'd be so alien to everyone else in every possible way that he wouldn't find any friends. But Matteusz was his friend, and he had April and sort of Ram and now Tanya. This was so much better than he could ever have imagined.