Time

Chapter One: The Date

Nick stared at Claudia in shock, not able to believe what she had just asked him. It had been two weeks since the incident in the hotel, when they had kissed for a second time. Nick could still feel it if he concentrated hard enough.
"Nick, still in there?" Claudia joked and Nick felt himself smile.
"Yeah, I'm still here. I'd love to get coffee. When all of this is done?"
"Sounds great," she replied and walked off with what Nick was almost certain was a smirk. He was too happy to care.
Claudia had asked him out on a date and he was acting like a hormonal teenager about it but he didn't care. Claudia had asked him out! He couldn't believe it.

She had asked him out. She couldn't believe it. For the past few months they had been working together, she had been developing feelings for the professor. Claudia felt her knees get weak and hurriedly made her way over to her desk before she collapsed in the middle of the office.
In just a few hours she would be on her first date with Nick Cutter. Also her first date since she split with her jackass of a fiancé but he didn't need to know that.

Nick walked into the Home Office searching for the auburn hair that belonged to the woman he had a crush on. Their work day was over and he had been thinking about the coffee date all day, even daydreaming off and really confusing Stephen.
"Hey, you ready?" Nick asked, having finally spotted her. She was the only one still left in the room, something he doubted was only an occasional occurrence.
"Yes, just finishing up now. Have you got everything done?"
"Pretty much," he replied and they walked out of the building to the coffee shop only just down the road.
As they sat at their table, much closer together than anyone who were just colleagues (which was their story if anybody popped up) should be, their silence was a comfortable and welcome one.
Eventually someone had to say something. Nick decided that he would.
"How are you feeling?" he asked in reference to the crazy bird attack only half a month ago.
"Much better, can see everything much clearer and the bruises and scratches are pretty much all gone."
"No nightmares or anything?"
"Just a few," Claudia admitted. "Nothing I can't handle."
"I doubt there's very much you can't handle. Seems to me like you're the type of person who wasn't even scared on the first day of school."
"I was. We got to leave halfway through the day which was good."
"Why'd you get to leave?"
"Someone got shot down the road," she explained as if it was the most normal thing in the world. "No one was killed."
"Someone got shot," Nick echoed.
"It was a really good school, just in a slightly bad place."

At the end of the date, Nick walked her home with her arm looped through his like a proper gentleman. They were laughing about something that had happened at work and both realised that they'd really like to keep doing this.
"Good night, Claudia Brown," Nick told her, kissing her softly good bye at the door.
"Good night, Nick Cutter," she replied quietly, kissing him again on the cheek.