"Cannonbaaaaa…"

BEN's voice trailed off from the ventilation shaft. A beam of light shone up from it, dimly illuminating the mouldy dwelling.

It was quiet. Delbert could hear her breaths clearly now, now that the noisy robot and sulky teen had gone off to get the Map. He looked down at the feline. Her eyes were closed, and she looked pained. His face twisted into a scowl. It seemed almost impossible for the composed captain to feel any pain.

It wasn't that he didn't think of her as a person. In fact, it was a fact that he thought about her more than he should have, as a business partner.

His breath stopped, and he suddenly found it difficult to swallow. It was just him and her. They were alone… at night…

She moaned softly, turning over slightly, onto his lap. He could feel her warm breath on his leg, soaking through the fabric of his pants. Her full lips were gently parted, her eyes lidded… her breasts heaved with the effort of breath…

Oh, shi-

Much to his dismay, something else besides his breath was being affected by the sight and feel of the sultry captain lying on his lap.

He tried to concentrate on something, on anything, to get the… to get the camping trip to disband… He tried thinking of his grandmother, of astrophysics, and of his trusty toothbrush, but nothing worked. They all morphed into Amelia.

She stirred. He froze. He prayed to all the gods that may (or may not, he hadn't decided) control the universe that she didn't shift her head just ever so slightly to the right, and notice his problem.

Apparently the gods hated him.

"Mm…?" Her eyes slid open sleepily, to look at what she had bumped into. Her eyelashes eyes blinked several times, as if trying to focus on what she saw. Then, her unfortunately sharp mind grasped a hold of what was happening.

"Doctor… are you…?" Her clever eyes looked up into his terrified ones.

"It's… it's not what it looks like," he offered weakly.

"Then, what is it?" she asked playfully. That damned slight smile danced around her lips, mocking him.

"I…"

But suddenly, he lost what little ability to process thought that remained in his mind, for a single gloved nail raked the bulge. He nearly lost it right then and there.

"What are you-!"

"You know, Doctor…" She sounded as cool and collected as she always did. It was if she was talking about the crew, rather than stroking his penis through the fabric of his pants. "A man of your intelligence should know when a woman is flirting with him."

"When…?"

She sighed impatiently. "You really are dense."

She struggled to sit, wincing in pain. He made movements to bring her back to a lying position, partially to spare her wounds, and partially because what she was doing felt damned good,

But, to his surprise, she began to tug at her gloves, wincing. She groaned impatiently. "Well?"

"Well…?"

"Are you going to help me get undressed or aren't you?"

There have been few moments that truly confounded the good doctor before he had met this minx, and there had been equally few moments with her that didn't confound him.

He almost jumped towards her, making her start a little in surprise. His fingers trembled as she attempted to undo the buttons of her jacket. His look of eagerness quickly turned to one of irritation, as he struggled with the simple task. She almost let out an impatient sigh, but somehow he managed to undo the jacket and her blouse.

He'd… examined her before, but out of courtesy, had tried his damndest not to examine more than prudent. But now, he drank all of her in. Her breasts were baffling, much like the rest of her. He stroked one gently, almost reverently, and she let out a sigh. This time, it wasn't impatient.

His mouth descended upon her nipple, which had hardened already in the cool night air. He was inexperienced, to say the least. He'd never had so much as a pen-pal. But, he was determined to not screw this up. He ran his tongue over it hesitantly. A soft sigh from Amelia prompted him onwards. He licked it and sucked on it, making her squirm underneath him. It gave him an enormous… sense of power. He grazed it with his teeth accidentally, and her hips bucked towards him. Liking this reaction, he grazed it a few more times, eliciting moans from the captain. Then, growing more daring, he bit it.

"Ow!"

His head shot up so fast from her breast that he got whiplash. Her rosy-cheeked face was glaring at him a little.

"What in God's name are you doing, Delbert?"

"I… don't know."

She sighed, and yanked his head back to her breast. "This time," he felt her voice rumble from her collarbone, "Don't bite."

Her groans grew louder and more needy as he continued. He felt her hand groping for his, and he gave her his hand. She pulled it towards her waist… where the top of her britches sat.

He was drunk with power. He attempted to remove her pants with just his hands, not looking at what he was doing, but her damnable (and yet incredibly fetishistic) boots prevented him.

Pulling his mouth from her nipple with a slight whimper of discontent from Amelia, he tried to pull off her boots. He tugged very hard. They were stuck on tight, so tight that he wondered how in the world she managed to walk in them.

She bent, with difficulty, over to reach her boots, swatting his hands away, not unkindly. She pulled them off herself, slowly. If he hadn't tried to take off the boots himself he would have thought that she was doing it to tempt him.

As soon as the boots were off, his hands immediately went to the waistband of her britches. But she stopped him. Her almond-shaped, coy eyes smirked at him.

"You are overdressed for the occasion, doctor."

Where Delbert had lagged in knowledge of undoing clothes quickly, Amelia seemed to be a pro. Her clawed fingers undid his shirt so quickly it nearly made his head spin.

"You're good at this."

"Well, one of has to be, Doctor."

"Sorry."

His mind focused back on the situation when she felt her thin fingers hook their way into the waistband of his underwear. Her eyes were focused downwards. She pulled downward, and her eyes widened as his penis sprang out of its confinements. Her face had an endearing (and also extremely flattering) look of awe on it. Her hands went to grip it, and he sucked in a breath quickly.

"It's big," she said quietly. It might have been her shortest sentence to record.

He had no response, except to push her onto her back and hook his fingers over her waistband. He pulled them down, reveling how the slid down her curves. Then, he found what he was looking for. Between her legs was the holy land.

His finger boldly went towards it. She gasped (almost uncharacteristically femininely) as he felt her. She was slick. It was a curious feeling to the Doctor. If he'd had more of a mind about him at the time, he might have compared this experience to the hearsay. Right now, all he knew was that there was a squirming, gasping, beautiful woman underneath him, who was eyeing his penis hungrily.

His eyes went up to meet hers. They asked a silent question. She was breathing heavily. A single nod.

Suddenly, his damnable logic and conscience floated to the surface. "But, your wound…"

She let out the most impatient scoff and grabbed his hips, pulling them towards hers. "Damn the wound. If you don't have sex with me now, I'll see to it that you never have sex again."

"But…"

"Now, Delbert."

He took a deep breath, and tried to guide himself into her. He poked around in vain. He began to wonder if there even was one. Statistically, he should have found it by now. Her hand went down and grabbed his penis, guiding it towards her hole. He looked at her one last time in doubt, but her green eyes were set.

He pushed into her. Their sound of pleasure at the contact was in unison. She was tight, unbelievably tight. It was… it was indescribable. She was warm and wet and tight, and the pleading look in her eyes made him almost finish. He held it. He couldn't give up now.

The thrusting at first was awkward. Too slow and she demanded faster, too fast, and she winced of pain from her wound. It was only when a medium was found that the composure of the captain unraveled. She mewled and bucked against him. He winced in pain as her clawed fingers dug into his pale back. Whispered pleads and confessions filled the air between them. Her face as screwed up with pleasure.

"I'm close," she suddenly gasped, her eyes going wide. He was too; he was putting everything he had into holding it off. The thought was tempting… she had started to throb around him, and she clamped on tightly to him, both inside and out.

Suddenly, she spasmed uncontrollably. A strangled scream ripped from her throat. "Now!" she moaned, her nails drawing blood from his back. He thrust a few more times, then let it go, grunting as he filled her. Her insides were clamping him rapidly, milking him of his seed.

They stayed like that for a moment, clutching each other tightly, basking in the glow of their orgasms.

"Delbert…" A soft sigh came from somewhere on his shoulder.

"Yes?"

"You're crushing me."

He pulled away from her quickly, sliding out of her with an odd squelching sound. She let out a sigh of relief as the pressure was taken away from on top of her. He couldn't help up look at her center. He could see his seed mixed with her juices oozing out of her.

"A gentlemen shouldn't stare, Doctor."

"Sorry."

He got dressed quickly, suddenly acutely aware of the open light shaft from which BEN and Jim left. They could have come back in the middle of…! He didn't want to think about it.

He looked at Amelia, who was still lying on the floor naked. She looked absolutely angelic in the dim light. He could gaze at her form forever without ever wanting for more… but, there were more pressing issues at hand.

"Do you need help getting dressed?"

"No."

She struggled to sit up, and got dressed, albeit slowly. Delbert couldn't help as thought feeling she was angry at him. He had terrible intuition with people, especially women, but everything, from the way her eyes moved to the way she slid on her gloves made him ill at ease.

"Are you alright?"

A stupid question, really, but there was nothing he could say otherwise. She didn't answer.

"Did I hurt you? I was trying to be gentle… with your wound… I'm sorry, that was a really… a really stupid thing to do. I should know better, have some damned restraint… I wish I hadn't –"

"Don't wish you hadn't."

Amelia's track record of being the singularly most confusing thing on the planet held up nicely.

"What?"

"Don't say you wish this hadn't happened."

"But, your wound…"

"My wound is fine."

"Then, why…?"

Her sharp green eyes focused upon him, and he almost recoiled from the impact of them. "Do you love me, Doctor?"

This was not an expected question.

"Wha –"

"It's not a difficult question. Do you love me or don't you?"

"I… Yes." This wasn't really the way he'd wanted to confess his love, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

"Then why didn't you kiss me?"

Oh. That was it.

"Oh. That's it."

"What do you mean, 'that's it'?!"

He went over to her, put his hands on her face, and pulled it towards his. He kissed her deeply, pouring every ounce of passion he possessed for her into that singular kiss. When he broke away from her, her eyes went wide, and she gasped for breath.

"I promise you, Amelia, that I will protect you for the rest of my life… even if you don't need it… which you probably won't."

She smiled at him, the first genuinely sweet smile she'd allowed him. "I'll hold you to that."

"Are we interrupting something?"

The couple froze, and whipped their heads towards the voices. In the doorway of the house stood Silver, and his crew. He was grinning sardonically. "I'd always hoped you two kids would get together." Silver cocked his pistol at them. "Now, we can do this one of two ways… Peaceful-like, or, well… Not so 'happily-ever-after.'"

"You know that thing about protecting me?" Amelia said in a low voice.

Delbert paused for a moment, before letting out a defeated sigh.

Silver grinned. "Glad to see you see if my way. Now, where's ol' Jimbo?"