February 1987

"You must forgive me if I say stupid things. My brain has gone to pieces."
 - A Room With A View (1985)

“There are days I miss Allan,” Will said quietly, looking between the space where their couch would be when it turned up and the space where the bed shouldn't be, but had ended up.

“Today I miss his biceps,” Djaq put in, rolling up the sleeves of the stolen shirt. It was only then that Will realised she was wearing it. He blinked, then blushed and looked away, not even able to finish the thought that she might not think I'm staring at the shirt-

Djaq laughed and he heard a soft sigh. Turning, Will saw Djaq happily curling up on top of the duvet on the bed they'd just built in what would be their living room.

“So. Robin and Much left pizza,” Djaq put in with a grin.

Will, without changing expression, sat on the bed and allowed himself to lie back. Turning his head, he thought that Djaq's slightly bemused and frowning expression had never looked better than at a ninety-degree angle.

“Already in the oven,” Will said with a slow smile that turned into a yawn.

“They also left this,” Djaq pulled her hand out from under the pillow as Will's brain froze. Robin and Much were great – best friends they could have – gave them a house for cheap on account of the little one – but there were boundaries-

“Well, Robin gave us it,” Djaq continued, seemingly oblivious to Will's moment of mild panic. “I think he only wants it out of the house, though. Apparently Much is very attached.”

Will tilted his head at the video cassette and nodded. If it made Djaq happy. He expected to be sleeping half-way in anyway. He'd built more furniture in two days than in four months in Africa, or so his shoulder muscles kept telling him at any rate. Either that or the lack of the witty banter – monologue, something in his mind protested – from Allan was the cause of it. Allan. In bloody Tibet this week. To bloody find himself. Will didn't know why he couldn't just have found himself the same place he had – in the basement that would be his carpentry studio, looking for Two-Inch-Nail 6B variant (ii.) to be placed adjacent Joint 4 (see diagram C). He'd be lucky if Robin ever gave him a job again after watching him fail to build a flat pack work bench before brunch. And breakfast. And dinner. Apparently being a skilled carpenter didn't help when it came to MDF and stupidly over-complicated schematics.

But he'd dosed off already, and it was the smell of pizza that woke him. Djaq – wonderful, brilliant Djaq – had brought the pizza from the kitchen.

“Sliced?” Will asked sleepily.

“Much,” Djaq answered, tossing a blanket across their knees and the bedspread to save it from dripping mozzarella.

Running a hand through his hair – still shorter than he was used to for the wedding, but it made his dad and Djaq happy that he could see nowadays – he blinked and looked at the bed sheets properly for the first time since they'd built the bed. “Another thing Robin wanted out of the house?”

He could see Djaq's grin around the slice of pizza in her mouth. That was the thing about being married, Will couldn't help thinking. They got to look like idiots if they wanted because they were chained together for life whether they liked it or not. He didn't mind, since most of his memories of girl-related adventures before Djaq revolved around him looking like an idiot anyway. At least Djaq got used to seeing it and couldn't run away screaming. To that end, he put an arm around her waist and smiled at her laugh as he let gravity take them to leaning back against a rather huge pile of pillows.

Djaq swatted his arm lightly, rolling her eyes and grinning. “Video needs to be in the video player, Will.” She looked above his arm and lightly frowned again. “Television needs to be in this room.”

As she made to get up, Will forced his groaning muscles to life and sprang up from the bed. He shook his head and went into the next room, coming back with an armful of a television, a video player and trailing wires. He was happy it was a small TV or else she'd be up and trying to help.

He looked back to the bed as he sat them on the floor, propped on top of spare wood blocks. He'd caved after the work bench disaster and told Robin he'd build the furniture himself, and that flat pack arguments were one married couple thing he and Djaq could live without. Much had muttered something about a wardrobe and common sense. Robin rolling his eyes had told Will as much of the story as he needed to know. After dinner, Will had set about happily salvaging what wood he could from the flat packs (bought by caring relatives while the carpenter had been blissfully out of the country, more was the pity for them).

He blinked, meeting Djaq's very slightly annoyed gaze. “Baby,” Will had justified himself.

“One month,” Djaq shot back, stealing a bit of his pizza, “And I don't think I'll survive eight more if you keep going at this rate.”

“My pizza?” Will asked, raising one eyebrow in a mock-threat and thinking that it might involve tickling.

“Baby,” Djaq retorted in the same 'What, me?' tone he'd used not a minute before.

“You can help sort out the wires, if you want,” Will offered, then reconsidering it as an olive branch.

Djaq looked at the pile of fuses and the four-socket adaptor that formed a ring of wires around Will's knees (that poked out of his ripped jeans in a very aesthetically pleasing manner). She shook her head and helped herself to a drink of his lemonade. It was closer than hers.

Then, watching him glare at the video scart lead and the TV, then back again, then at the plugs and then wince when he straightened, she moved from the bed to side cross-legged beside him on the new wooden floor.

Ten minutes, four fuses and one argument – I know what a star-headed screwdriver looks like, Will – later, and they were curled up under a surplus of bedding to compensate for heating that would be installed in a few days.

“At least we have electricity,” Will smiled crookedly, pulling Djaq closer in the bed. For body heat, of course.

Djaq nodded under his chin as the titles rolled past on the television. She doubted Will would see much of the film, which was why she didn't mind putting on something she and Much would love and Robin and Will would sleep through.

She resolved to get to know Marian better. They'd been talking about the film while moving the lighter boxes into the main bedroom and Much had offered to lend it to her. Marian clearly had better taste in films than her husband, much as she loved him. For one, she knew who Omar Sharif was and why his turn in Funny Girl makes Barbara Streisand's recording career bearable.

'Remember the facts about this church of Santa Croce; how it was built by faith in the full fervour of medievalism.'

'Built by faith indeed! That simply means the workers weren't paid properly.'

Stretching slightly and feeling muscles ache for it Djaq wondered how many pieces of her soul it would have taken to just give in and use the pregnant excuse to get out of helping set up the house. The baby was going to use her for lots of things for nine months, not to mention the toys and clothes and feedings to come after that. Surely she was justified. But then she noted that Will was already asleep next to her and knew that even being stubborn, thanks to the Nottingham Over-Protective Agency (including Mother Hen Much and Daddy Bear Little John), she had been spared most of the heavier work.

Turning her attention back to the film, she attempted not to compare it to the book too much. She still baulked at the fainting. She couldn't help it. Even if the girl who did the fainting was absolutely charming.

When it came to a certain skinny dipping scene, Djaq got a rather wicked idea. She used the remote control to pause the video for a moment, stuck her toe out from under the blankets (suppressing a hiss at the cold) and then brought her leg back in. Starting the video just as Mr. Beebe thinks water fights are a splendid idea, old chap, she pressed her foot 'accidentally' against Will's knee where his jeans were ripped. She'd told him about the jeans, after all.

Keeping her eyes determinedly on the screen, she saw him blink awake slowly and then saw his eyes widen.

“You and Marian wanted to watch this?!” he asked quietly, eyes still wide and a blush climbing in his cheeks.

Djaq grinned.

After staying awake long enough for the farce to play out and to make sure that it wasn't a porn film, Will prodded her in the side, muttered something about her evil soul and went back to sleep with a smile.

He's the sort who can't know anyone intimately, least of all a woman. He doesn't know what a woman is. He wants you for a possession...

Will came around slowly and carefully. He lay awake, but kept his eyes closed. It was odd. He had been sure Djaq's arm had been around his waist when he'd fallen asleep. He opened one eye very slowly, wincing again at the very close look he got at the neon tie-dye lace bedsheets Robin had created with a Hawaiian shirt and a white lace bedspread.

...something to look at, like a painting or an ivory box. Something to own and to display.

He really did love Djaq, and he was sorely tempted to tell her. But first he had to tease her for being as stupidly romantic as he was. Some might even call it sappy. Some might be Allan a Dale or Robin Locksley on a ring-buying trip.

He doesn't want you to be real, and to think and to live. He doesn't love you.

Djaq was sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest, one of three quilts pulled over her knees. The others seemed to have slipped during the blond boy's monologue and she hadn't noticed.

But I love you.

Oh, she noticed the quilt situation. It failed to cooperate. Probably because her eyes weren't even near it, or the fiction/reality line. She clenched it in both hands and Will saw her hands slowly tighten around the material, the edge of her thumb moving slowly across its surface. At the blond's admission, she let out a squeak – a squeak, pulled her knees closer, scooted unconsciously nearer his torso and jammed the edge of the quilt between her teeth. That was one way to get it out of the way. But, Will thought against his own better judgement, sneaking a look at the screen, that had been rather sweet. Overwrought. But sweet. Clearly not as adorable as what Djaq had just done, but he doubted much in life would ever match that.

I want you to have your own thoughts and ideas and feelings-

That was fair, he thought. And the girl did seem to be listening, at least. Maybe it would be all right.

-even when I hold you in my arms.

And they called him a sap. They'd never met George Emerson. But neither had Will. So why did he know his name?

All set to turn his head back into the neon glow of sleep, he paused.

But she wasn't going to marry Cecil? He was a twat. She wouldn't. He'd watch for two minutes just to make sure.

Fifteen minutes later, Djaq was practically bouncing in his arms as the credits rolled and Will was laughing into her shoulder. She was also talking animatedly and had spent the last ten minutes making noises Will would be downright proud to get from her. If he'd been feeling mean, he could have reminded her that he had just watched it with her, but he was too busy laughing. He looked up, caught her chin in his hand as she grinned and kissed her. Djaq was still grinning rather maniacally when he pulled back. She put her hands firmly on each side of his face and kissed him soundly.

“I love you,” Will gasped between laughs and kisses, “But you're completely mental.”

Djaq, still grinning and probably beginning to scare normal people who were thankfully absent, nodded. “It's a good thing you can't escape now, then, isn't it?”

That should have scared him, if nothing else. But Will figured he'd gone and married the madwoman, and she was having their child, and he had just spent two days building them furniture in a still-empty looking house and if none of that kept him, the small mountain of pillows, duvets and assorted blankets on top of them would probably be enough. It helped that she was mental, yes, but his particular kind of mental.

THE END.

I currently have two other oneshots in this AU, tagged under 80sverse at my journal, if anyone feels like it (no pressure, I write them for fun).

Thanks for reading!

Dedicated to: misswed, velvetmidnight and </a></b></a>cometotheedge, who enabled and cheerled over at argentwings' Mini-Picpspam of Cuteness. And that, my friends, is who I'm blaming if you get toothache from the fluff. Or one of you. I'll find someone *grin*