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“Do you know,” she says calmly, afterward, “I think we just made a huge mistake.”
They are lying back against the headboard of his hotel bed. She is leaning against his bare chest and allowing his impossibly long arms to encircle her as she tries to clear her head of the vague remnants of drunkenness still hovering at the edge of her senses.
“D’you think so?” he murmurs. His hands ghost over as much of her as he can reach from his position—not seductively (oh god, oh god), but wonderingly. His fingers chase the traces of perspiration that have almost dried on her skin, trailing down her collarbone and stopping (with blatant cheekiness) on her right breast. She shivers, and he chuckles low and soft.
“Stop that,” she chides without really meaning it. He bends forward to hide a kiss and a smile in the curve of her neck. He doesn’t move his hand. “I don’t know. It’s just—I’m leaving, you know. What if this is just—what if we’re—”
“No.” His voice is quiet, and though she can’t see his face, she can tell it’s probably gone all serious round the eyes, so it’s probably best not to look. “I don’t think this happened just because you’re not going to be my Pond anymore.”
The phrasing, like his touch, is desperate to be possessive without having definite permission.
She doesn’t know what to say. Somehow, he manages to catch her on the wrong foot like he always has done. She wants to cry, wants to row, wants to turn and pin him to the mattress and go another round (or two). As neither seems the right choice and a combination of the three is certainly out, she stays silent and listens to the traffic of 2 a.m. Almeria outside the window. His hands move gently to her shoulders, his thumbs circling lightly along the edges of her spine.
“Do you want to know why I think this happened?” he asks after several hour-long minutes.
“Why?” It comes out as a whisper.
“I think we’ve always been headed for this, you and me. I think we’ve both been ignoring this for ages, because we’ve had to for a million different reasons. But I think… I think when you ignore something like this for too long… this isn’t the sort of thing that goes away. Maybe not ever. It just gets bigger and louder and madder, and d’you know why? Because it needs to be noticed. Because…because maybe it’s important, right? Like, maybe the most important thing ever to happen, and you’ve had it trapped in a jar for years. And I think we’re in Spain, and we’re having loads of Spanish fun, and we forgot to ignore it, so it got loose. Finally. And it’s like Pandora’s box, and we’re never going to get it all back in there, tucked safely back away where we thought it belonged.”
She laughs, in spite of herself; wants to tease him, in spite of herself. “So is it a box or a jar? Can’t you pick one metaphor and stick with it?”
“I think it’s ‘I love you.’”
She turns so sharply that the room spins. (More likely, it’s spinning for an entirely different reason.) She feels the immediate and aching absence of his hands, which both worries and infuriates her in turns. His eyes are trained on hers and she’s desperate to find the gleam that means he’s having a go at her again, but it’s gone.
“Shut up.”
He says nothing.
“Matt!”
“Kaz?”
“You do not!”
“I do.” He’s smiling now, lips twitching upwards at the corners, and she wants to shake him. “I really, actually, properly do.” A laugh escapes him then, a joyous, boyish laugh, and he shakes his head. “God, it feels good to say it!”
She, however, is not smiling, which sobers him slightly when he finally notices. He takes her by the shoulders and she tries very hard to hate herself for drinking in the renewed feeling of having his hands on her.
“Kazza. This is sort of the truest thing I’ve said in a long time, so if there is maybe some way I can get you to believe me, could you tell me? Please?”
She looks at an arbitrary place on the wall behind him, feeling a familiar and unwelcome sting in the corners of her eyes. Cautiously, he reaches out and cups her cheek in one hand.
“Karen? Look at me, please. Do you… do you not feel the same way?”
“Idiot,” she mutters thickly. “Of course I do.”
It takes a moment to register, but then he’s laughing again, beaming at her despite the furrow in her brow. “Then what’s the problem?”
He leans in to kiss her, but she turns her head. She keeps her eyes averted to avoid seeing the hurt look on his face. “Matt, how is this going to work? I don’t even know where I’ll be in six months. You’ll be off to Cardiff for months, with a new companion, and…and…and I’ll be who knows where! Don’t you think that will be hard? Don’t you think that will hurt both of us, if I have to go away to America or something for work? Why would you want to sign on for that?”
“Hey, no. Look at me.”
She does. He looks upset for the first time, which she stubbornly thinks is only fair. His ears are getting red at the top, in that lovely way they do when he gets angry but is trying not to be.
“Karen, some things are worth it. Don’t you think so? And I think this is worth it. Hell, I know it is. You, Karen Gillan, are worth every second of it.”
She vehemently refuses to cry. “I do love you.”
“Don’t say no. Jesus, Karen, please don’t say no.” He’s pleading with her now, fear creeping into his voice. He grabs both of her hands in his and raises them to his lips, pressing kiss after kiss into her palms. She wants more than anything to be able to return this surge of affection; to let go of all the ways it could fail and enjoy it while it lasts.
“My gran used to say,” she says, fighting to sound steadier than she feels, “that a fool looks to tomorrow while a wise man uses tonight.”
He giggles, a little hysterically. “That’s. I don’t even know what that means. Am I the fool or the wise man?”
A small, unhappy laugh claws its way up from her throat. “Think we’re both a bit of both, actually. Probably I’m the fool, looking to tomorrow.”
“Well, I don’t feel very wise,” he says miserably.
They stare at each other, knees touching; nakedness forgotten for want of a resolution that might allow it to be remembered.
“Kiss me,” she says suddenly, and before the hope can take hold in either of them: “Like it’s the last time. I don’t know if I’m going to stay the fool or choose the wise man. But just—kiss me, please.”
He obliges.