fic: matt/karen, The End Where I Begin
Title: The End Where I Begin
Author: thatgreengirl
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Matt/Karen, with brief mentions of Daisy and Patrick
Disclaimer: Not mine, no proft, etc etc.
Summary: Sometimes, the middle is the best place to start.
Matt was slouched in his chair, eyes fixed on the day's script, determined not to look up. Her voice seemed to radiate across the set - she giggled with the crew members, something about it being Christmas in July, and he turned his head around just in time to catch that flash of curled, shining auburn hair, strands tumbling away from her fae as she tilted her head back with laughter. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, forcing himself to focus on the words on the page and not, under any circumstance, to spend the next week of filming doing what he'd managed to do throughout series five - thinking about Karen bloody Gillan.
He was so immersed in not thinking about her that he failed to notice her sudden presence beside him; that is, until two battered cowboy boots appeared on his lap. He looked up and she grinned at him, stretching her legs out across his and wiggling her toes in front of his face.
"Morning."
He batted her feet away, rubbing the non-existant marks that she'd left on his jeans.
"Yeah, I really enjoyed the break, thanks for asking," he replied pointedly, still avoiding looking at her. "It was nice to get some time away from work and see people, you know? People I actually like, I mean."
If Karen heard the sarcasm in his voice, she brushed it off.
"Yeah, totally." She paused, raising an eyebrow. "I beat your score on Frogger."
He regarded her for a moment.
"Whatever, Kaz. Last time I saw you, you didn't even understand why the frog wanted to cross the road."
She laughed, pulling out her iPhone and tossing it across to him. His eyes widened as he saw the screen.
"Right," he replied flatly, hunching down in his chair. "Prepare to have your score completely obliterated by the master of--" He was cut short, jumping as the phone began to vibrate in his hand. "Someone's calling you."
She shook her head.
"Ignore it."
"It's Patrick." He held it out towards her.
"I said ignore it."
He stilled for a moment, rejecting the call and setting the phone down slowly.
"Kaz?"
She turned, looking at him.
"Don't worry. I just.. don't really feel like talking to him right now."
"Something wrong?"
"No." She pursed her lips, as though she was about to tell him something. "Well.. no. Nothing's wrong."
"Don't keep secrets from me, young lady."
She smiled at him then.
"Young lady?"
"Don't you like it?" He ran his fingers through his hair slowly. "It's a new phrase I'm trying out."
"Well, save your new phrases for the Doctor," she responded playfully, reaching across him. "And give me my phone back."
"Not until you tell me why you're avoiding your boyfriend."
She sighed then, leaning back into her chair and rubbing her eyes.
"It really isn't important. He's just being difficult, that's all."
"Difficult how?" He tried not to sound too interested, but she looked at him strangely all the same.
"I don't know," she said quietly. "Difficult in the way that men tend to be, when their girlfriend is spending every day with another man."
He blinked.
"He's jealous?"
"I guess. I don't really know. He's just being weird." She looked up at him then, giving him as best a smile as she could muster. "Anyway, let's talk about something else. How's Daisy?"
His heart sunk in the way it always did when Karen brought up Daisy. There was something about hearing his girlfriend's name pronounced with that Scottish lilt that seemed almost wrong, as though there was no way that Karen and Daisy could ever co-exist in his mind.
"Oh. Yeah, things are okay," he replied, as nonchalantly as possible.
"Only okay?" For a second, Matt was almost sure he heard the same level of interest in her voice as had been in his moments ago. But if there was anything there, she masked it quickly, and he was left searching for clues in an altogether blank expression.
"Well, you know. She had a party, I couldn't make it.. it's just one of those things, I suppose."
Karen raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, if I was your girlfriend, I'd be pissed at you too." She stilled as she realised what she'd said, a faint hint of blush passing across her porcelain cheeks. "I mean, if I were Daisy."
He smiled.
"Thanks for your support."
She laughed lightly, her fingertips resting on his arm. Her skin was barely touching his, and yet he could feel the heat from her body radiating against him so fiercely that he was almost sure he was burning underneath her touch.
"Well honestly, Matt - what could be so important that you missed your girlfriend's party?"
It was his turn to blush then, although he hid it well underneath his thick mop of hair, occupying himself by looking at his hands until the redness passed.
"Nothing special."
"Oh, come on," she said, kicking him gently. "It must have been pretty special."
He shook his head.
"Seriously, Kaz, don't worry about it."
"Don't keep secrets from me, young man."
He watched her for a moment, lips curving into a smile.
"You so can't pull that off."
"Neither can you!" She yelped in reply, slapping his arm. He pushed her in response and she pushed back, harder.
By the time filming for the day started, Matt was lying on the floor beside his chair, covered in small bruises and panting through fits of laughter, all traces of their previous conversation having been completely forgotten.
Three days passed before the topic was brought up again. Karen was walking towards Matt's dressing room; they were finished for the day, and she'd managed to convince the prop department to lend her a cyberman head, having planned to lurk behind Matt's door and terrify him with it when he emerged. But, as she positioned herself in the shadows, she heard a loud, hostile noise coming from within the room.
"What do you mean, 'have I seen her'? I'm bloody working with her, aren't I? I imagine it'd be pretty hard to film an episode with her without having actually seen her, unless of course you're expecting me to walk around with my eyes shut."
Karen bit her lip, pressing her ear against the panel of the door.
"Look, Daisy, it's not her fault I missed the party. I'd just rather spend my evening having dinner with someone I can actually talk to, rather than all your ridiculous photographer friends who walk around acting like they've got a stick the size of a barge pole stuck up their arse!"
Karen snorted with laughter, covering her mouth the second that the sound had escaped, eyes widening for fear of being caught - then, moments later, her jaw dropped as she realised who Matt was talking about.
"I've got to go, there's a car waiting for me. You call me when you're ready to talk to me like an adult, okay? Bye." Loud footsteps followed almost instantly and Karen panicked, searching for a place to hide and suddenly feeling incredibly foolish carrying a huge, heavy cyberman head underneath her arm.
"Kaz?" The door had opened behind her and he stood, watching her as she spun in circles, flustered and confused.
"Oh, hey," she replied, as calmly as possible, trying to regain some composure in front of him. "What's up?"
He narrowed his eyes.
"Why are you talking like that?" It dawned on him then. "Oh. I suppose you heard my little chat with Daisy, then."
Karen nodded slowly.
"I suppose so, yeah."
He looked down, shuffled his feet awkwardly, until Karen spoke again.
"You didn't have to come."
He looked up at her.
"You don't even know who I was talking about."
"Been out for dinner with any of your other costars lately?" She asked, smiling. He rolled his eyes.
"I didn't want to go to her party anyway. You were just a convenient excuse." The lie hit the back of his throat, causing his voice to falter.
"When was it?"
He shrugged.
"I don't know, April sometime?"
She looked at him blankly.
"Don't lie. When was it?"
He sighed.
"The 25th of April. You'd just been to Inverness for two weeks, and I hadn't heard anything from you. Then, that evening, you just happened to text me and invite me out for dinner. I didn't even know you'd got back. So yes, Karen, I did have to come."
She swallowed.
"You could have told me you were busy."
He shook his head slowly, reaching out and twisting a tendril of that long, wavy hair in between his fingertips. She inclined her head towards his hand until her cheek was practically leaning against his fingers, her hot, shaky breath beating against the skin of his palm.
"You were more important." His voice was rough, scratchy - his mouth suddenly felt dry and he swallowed, embarrassed. Then his eyebrows raised as his eyes dropped slowly to the object in her arms.
"Is that a cyberman?"
She smiled softly, and he felt her lips curve against his skin.
"Shut up, Matt."
Her free hand moved across his face slowly, up the length of his jaw and buried itself in his hair. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer. His lips were dry against hers; she pushed his mouth open, eyelids fluttering against his cheeks in almost the same rhythm as her lips. She moved her other hand to his neck, causing a loud crack of plastic to interrupt their kiss as the cyberman head lay forgotten on the floor, a large scratch across the side. He cast his eyes down, laughed against her soft skin and then pulled her into the doorway with him.
"I thought you had a car waiting?" She asked, slightly breathless as his hands made their way up her body.
"Yeah," he murmured softly, placing kisses across her collarbone as he pushed down the sleeve of her top. "Well, like I said, you're more important."