Soft Places
By Vanilla Tiger

AN: Title and summary from Sandman 74. Vaguest of spoilers for Angel 5.15, although AU.
Feedback to fitchers_bird@yahoo.co.uk

Katrina still can't quite put her finger on it, on what had made everything change.

She'd always seen herself as resolutely practical. Science was her destiny, a place with clean lines and binary numbers where she could make sense of the world. Engineering had seemed like her best bet. She liked making things, doing things, changing theory into practice. Everything had to have a purpose.

As a child she had driven her mother mad with her compulsive habit of dismantling every pen in the house in order to see how she could put it back together. She didn't succeed every time, a fact that caused her eyes to prick with frustrated tears, but sometimes, just sometimes, she made one better.

Then one day her world had somehow been altered.

Instead of just doodling schematics during one of her lectures, for some reason she actually started paying attention. And that had started her thinking, and then she just couldn't stop. Possibilities glistened before her, all the things that she had barely dreamed of before she could make real. Maybe this way she could create something truly revolutionary.

Dutton wasn't really the best place for researching the theoretical side though, so she ended applying for a transfer to UCLA. Apparently they were coming up with some brilliant ideas there. The name of Professor Seidel kept coming up in various journals. Unfortunately transferring meant that she had to break up with her boyfriend, who was dorky but incredibly sweet. They hadn't been dating long though and so Warren took it pretty well, even admitting that he'd expected something like this to happen soon.

She really should find out what happened to him some time.

LA had been everything she'd hoped for. Exciting, vibrant, full of new people and new ideas. Katrina fell in love with the city instantly, even if part of her deep inside would always feel like a backward out-of-towner. Something in her just fit her, like it did studying physics.

Pretty soon after she arrived, Professor Seidel had mysteriously disappeared. Rumour was that he'd run off with a TA named Laurie Drummond. It wasn't a problem though, as Katrina soon worked out that the other TA, a cute Texan named Winifred Burkle, seemed to know just as much as any of the faculty.

Not that she seemed aware of that fact. Katrina never got the point of modesty. If you wanted people to take you seriously, they needed to know just what you could do and Katrina was going to be taken seriously. Still, it was kind of endearing to see such obvious intelligence carried with such diffidence.

Katrina wondered what it meant that she had a thing for brunette geniuses with poor social skills, and then decided that it didn't matter. It wasn't like she was going to do anything about it, not with someone who graded her papers.

The fact that this situation was not going to last forever did cross her mind, and then was firmly set aside. She had no time for distractions.

It didn't stop her from approaching her with her own theories on spontaneous symmetry breaking, nor suggesting they discuss the matter over coffee. She was just gaining new information for her own research, sharing ideas and coincidentally gaining a new friend. Fred seemed to feel the same way, and therefore there was nothing untoward with them doing the same the next week. Or the one after that. And even if they were meeting up on a daily basis in places that got less and less public for reasons that had less and less to do with physics, it didn't mean anything at all.

The look that Fred was giving Katrina now, however, as they curled up on the sofa with a tub of Ben and Jerry's, a bottle of red wine and Johnny Depp on the TV meant a hell of a lot.

Katrina had seen that look before, and knew that nothing would come of it unless she did something soon. She lifted herself up and looked straight into Fred's eyes. "So, you going to kiss me or what?" she said with a flirtatious half-smile.

Fred blushed and looked flustered. "I wouldn't… We shouldn't…" she stuttered half-heartedly.

So Katrina took matters into her own hands and kissed Fred instead, who very quickly forgot all thought of protesting. Her hands caressed soft curves as their bodies came together. They moved slowly at first, and then faster as their need shifted to bring them unutterable pleasure.

The next morning, when they woke up beside each other Fred grasped her hand pleadingly and asked, "Are you okay with this, with us? Is there an us now?"

In response Katrina just smiled beatifically and kissed her.

After a few moments, Fred pulled away. "We can't. Not while I'm meant to be teaching you."

"I won't be in your class for much longer," Katrina reassured her. "Besides, it's not like I'm fucking a professor or anything."

She would be eventually though. Fred would gain tenure and soon rise to be head of her department, while Katrina ran the Research and Development division of a major firm, which meant they could afford to get a large house in the suburbs of Los Angeles. They never wanted children, but lavished any remnants of maternal affection on their two cats Sleater and Kinney.

They lived happily in a world without demons or Old Ones or obsessive ex-boyfriends. When they died this time, it was after a long and fulfilled life where they had known lasting love and only temporary pain. And maybe even this time they would find their way through the soft places of time if not back together then at least to a place of rest .

For everything changes, but nothing is truly lost.

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