She’d like to say that she’s forgotten about the girl, but she hasn’t. 

Cinna nods, turning his glass slowly in his fingers. "Yes," he says. "I'm the master of the ultimately meaningless gesture."

"It's OK -- we're friends. This can be normal. Here, hand me my pants." (Because that's a normal sentence for friends to say.)

And keep in mind one very important lesson, from an old-style drama of one of your homeworlds, a remarkably appealing one as such things go – there’s no place like home.

This fic contains: explicit sexual situations, rampant infidelity, emotional fuckery, unhealthy romantic relationships, and the potential abuse of all forms of basic punctuation. Don't say you weren't warned.

Even though they haven't been on the bus in months, Penny's always still slightly surprised every time she wakes up in an actual bed, a flat steady surface that doesn't shudder and lurch with every turn and pothole. She wakes up confused and with a decent head start into hangover territory, and somewhere there is a phone ringing. Her face is pressed against Sheldon's bare back, and she tries to wipe her hand across where she's drooled on him. It's best to avoid his lectures before she's even seen coffee, let alone ingested it.

It starts in Pasadena, after their flight from Kansas City and a layover from hell, when he backs her up against the wall at Stuart’s store before they’ve even finished unpacking all their gear, with all the guys oblivious just around the corner and Penny’s heart beating madly in her chest. Things go fairly quickly after that.

The TARDIS had outgrown its jam jar and had been transferred to a casserole dish. This was more hygienic than it sounded because Rose had never cooked a casserole in her life. The dish had been an overly optimistic gift from Jackie.

"You don't have to, like, make out with her. Just go get your game on. It's cool." God, Howard's pretty good at this advice shit. Maybe he should just bow out of the game gracefully and retire. He can wear long velvet dressing gowns and dispense advice to distraught young fictional lesbians. He will be a guru, a modern-day guru with glorious hair, and he will often be holding a glass half-full of dark red wine. His mansion will have many cameras. For security purposes, of course.

Kris didn't know what the hell to do. Adam was kissing him, sweet cold tang of the lemon ice in his mouth, Adam's lips hot by contrast, and he was doing something with his tongue, and Mrs. Lambert was standing over them saying, "Adam!" in exasperation, and three weeks later, they were married.

"And that's obviously not it or I wouldn't have bruises all over my knees." | For some reason, that makes him flush an even deeper red.

Sarah ends up helping with food prep. Not kitchen stuff exactly, more like: Sarah can apparently break a chicken's neck like nobody's business. (And somehow that doesn't draw attention? He maybe rolls his eyes the first time she does it.)

He sways in her direction. "You looking for a little fun ?" | "No," she says. "Just testing a theory."

Kris says, "Uh," and stares, wide-eyed, unmoving, until he realizes he's clutching several pairs of dirty boxer-briefs to his chest in the presence of an angel of the Lord.

"I find it a little demeaning to be threatened over magnets."

“Singer wanted; instrumental proficiency a plus; whistlers need not apply."

Rose smiles and looks at her desk, and Gwen follows her eyes, sees Rose’s hands spread wide on well-worn books, her fingers scratching at the backs of volumes older than the two of them put together. She’d never noticed before, but Rose is young, younger than she’d thought, younger than Gwen even.

“But I’ll let you stay, as long as you don’t make too much of a pest of yourself. And don’t you move a single thing out of place. This is still my house.”

And sometimes, she thinks, sometimes he does things because he can, because he hurts and he wants someone else to hurt, too.

Six years later, they met again at a train station.

Kris thinks fuck it, he can at least do this, and says, "I don't know what the courts will decide, but I hope eventually we'll come to a time when marriage isn't off limits to anyone. I don't think there's any room for hate or judgment in the world, only love. And that's on the record."

“Be a gentleman,” Charles said sternly, pointing in Kris’ face. “Don’t make me look bad, Allen. You can tell a lot about a man by his friends. I don’t want people thinking I hang out with fruit thieves.”

“I’m just a temp,” she said again, in a small voice, overwhelmed. [Spoilers for Doctor Who 4x13 Journey's End!]

The doorway they're crouched in is to a Borders, and even though the door's been broken into, weirdly, the merchandise looks largely intact.

They slouch over to Michael's office in their bathrobes, Jim in red, Pam in blue, both of them still half asleep.

I know what he's thinking. We don't want another Giles.

Being Buffy's brother means he's good at things being freaktastic.