James was up first in the morning, and Siena found him washed, dressed, and intent on preparing breakfast when she emerged from her room.

"Morning," she muttered, pulling her dressing gown tighter around her, too conscious of her still sleep infused eyes and her unbrushed hair. "That smells wonderful," she added, registering the scent of freshly brewed coffee filling the room, interspersed with hints of honey and vanilla rising from something in the pan he was stirring.

"Morning, it's just porridge," he said, turning towards her with a smile, letting his eyes linger long enough on her silk shrouded figure to make her cheeks turn pink. She was gorgeous, and he found her more alluring the less polished and more natural she looked. Waking up next to her would be... He quickly gathered his wayward thoughts and forced himself to focus on what he was doing; the last thing he wanted was to serve her burned porridge. "It will be ready in a few minutes," he called even as she vanished into the bathroom, hiding from his sight.

"That was the best porridge I've ever eaten," Siena said, wiping her mouth in a napkin once she had finished eating.

"Well, let me tell you that the Highland porridge really is the best, and you are lucky that Grandma Eilidh taught me the secret family recipe," he drawled, purposely exaggerating his irresistible accent.

"I thought you came from the Lowlands, Mr Boyd," Siena teased, pouring herself another cup of coffee which he had prepared, with cream and honey instead of milk and sugar. Even that was delicious.

"My father was from Glasgow, yes. But my mum's family is from the Highlands, she is a MacIntosh of Inverness. That's how I get to live by Lochness; the old cottage I restored belonged to my great grandparents."

"Wow," Siena said, closing her eyes while she rummaged through her memorised knowledge of Scottish clans. "That's a red-based tartan, with shades of blue and green..."

She found him staring at her when she opened her eyes again.

"That's some admirable knowledge," he said, making her drop her eyes before she would start blushing. "It makes for a nice kilt."

Her eyes snapped back to his as he said that, and the question spilt out of her mouth before she could stop herself, "Do you ever wear a kilt?"

James chuckled before he replied, and she wasn't sure whether his gaiety was caused by seeing her now blazing cheeks or whatever memory her question brought back to him. "I do. We try to keep the traditions alive, and so we create enough occasions throughout the year to dress up in our Scottish finery."

"Wow," she said again, her imagination ablaze as much as her cheeks. It was high time to change the subject. "So, did you finish your article last night?" she asked, reminding herself that there was a Claire waiting for him in Inverness.

"I did," he said, feeling disappointed by the change of subject. Siena really had an intriguing interest in Scotland and its history and tradition, which he would love to explore and exploit.

"Great. I'll do the dishes and get dressed, and then we should talk about our quest a little more before we go to the Headquarters?"

"Of course. All right, I'll get some cleaning done while you wash up, I have nothing else to do anyway."

"Thanks, James," she said, impressed by his will to share all the chores. She had never been in a relationship long enough to have a personal experience, but from what her friends had told her, men and chores didn't go together well.

James was still in the bathroom, after he had passed through the sitting room plumping up the pillows on the sofa and passing a feather duster over the television set, the coffee table and the bookcase, when Siena finished cleaning the kitchen. So she slipped into her room, made her bed and got dressed, opting for a long, flowery skirt, a sleeveless top and a light cardigan, seeing that it had stopped raining and the sun was up.

She found James sitting in his spot on the sofa when she returned into the sitting room, leafing through what looked like a notebook, a pen in his hand. Intrigued, she sat next to him instead of in the armchair she occupied on their first night here.

He noticed her the moment she walked into the room-- her scent assaulting his senses pleasantly like her looks that he glimpsed as he stole a glance without her noticing-- but pretended not to see her until she sat next to him, a little hesitatingly as if she wasn't sure about the propriety of the action but couldn't fight her curiosity, possibly attraction... It was interesting how they seemed to be affected by a gravity pull whenever they were close... He had never felt like this with any other woman before.

"What is it?" she asked, scattering his thoughts, her eyes resting on the notebook lying open on his lap. She was so close that he could feel her heat emanating through her clothes, landing on his bare forearms.

"Just my notebook. I started to write down all my thoughts about our situation the moment the Society contacted me."

Siena looked up at him, eyebrows arched in silent admiration-- it hadn't even crossed her mind to do something like this, she had been too busy trying to turn the Society's offer down when she first heard from them. But now... now she couldn't wait to walk into their first book, happy that her partner looked so very efficient, responsible, clever... Goodness, the last thing she wanted was to add another name to her long list of unsuccessful beginnings of relationships, and yet she was doing just that... She would not act on this attraction, she promised herself. She needed them to stay colleagues and friends, fullstop.

"I've been thinking about the possibility of visiting the same world more than once. If I understood well what you talked about with Albert yesterday, every single thing we do within a book, even the tiniest gesture like a smile, a chance touch, a few words exchanged with a character, may change their life, arc, whatever you want to call it, and thus alter the outcome of the story. So, I suppose, in the stories where we need to fast forward in the plot from one scene into another, it will be better not to get noticed the first time as we won't know what we'll find at the end if we are spotted," Siena mused, explaining to him her thoughts and speculations without entirely understanding them herself.

"That's true, I didn't think about it that way, but it makes sense," James said, appreciating her reasoning. "Unless we want to change the ending early and risk not knowing what we're going into, we better keep hidden from all on page characters."

Siena pressed the tips of her fingers to her temples, feeling overwhelmed by information, possibilities, and theories.

"On page characters..." she muttered, her eyes the colour of liquid caramel in the sunlight streaming into the room through the open garden door seeping into his blue irises, taking his breath away.

"Well yes," he said, cleared his voice and dropped his eyes into his notebook before adding, "We can't be sure that the characters we read about on the pages, are all that there are. If the books really are some sort of parallel worlds, there might well be more people we don't know about. Just like all those things the writers don't always spell out for us, like someone getting dressed before going out, or tying their shoelaces, stopping for petrol or feeding their horse, lighting a candle or a lamp each time they read or move around a dark house without electricity. These actions are often left to the reader's experience and imagination; we simply assume that they happen, that the things get done in the way we imagine them. So there's no reason not to expect that there must be a baker who we never see if our characters eat bread from a bakery, a maid or a cleaner we don't get to meet if their house is always clean and tidy and they never do the chores themselves, or chimney sweeps in all Victorian novels using fireplaces."

"That's a great point," Siena said, giving up on being surprised with the way his mind worked again. He was awesome, fullstop. An awe-inspiring friend.

"It's a little scary though," she spoke after a long while filled with thoughtful silence and the whisper of James' pen registering what she had said in his notebook, "to think how much impact our interactions with the characters may have. Like, some characters may never be born if we appear too early and sway someone off course by something we say to them."

"I can well picture someone being intrigued by you and leaving his girlfriend for a possibility to be with you, for instance." He smiled. "Should the girlfriend be pregnant and the man decide not to return even once we vanish again, their child might never know its father."

"That's such an awful possibility, James. I'd never ever want to be responsible for something like that," Siena said, feeling genuinely appalled. Even though she didn't feel attractive enough in real life to cause any harm of the sort, she didn't eschew someone finding her awkwardness, as she didn't think she would ever be able to act as if she belonged in any book world, intriguing.

"I didn't mean to offend you, it was really meant as a compliment, Siena," James said, placing his fingers under her chin and tilting her face up, impatient for another glance from those warm, caramel irises.

"I thank you then," she said, smiling. She took his hand in hers only to remove it from her face, releasing it again in an instant, causing a surge of disappointment course through his veins. He sighed, wishing she had held his hand in hers.

"Whatever happens, it will only happen in our version of that universe," he promised. "There will be other versions where things will happen differently."

"I get it. Your universes are like a yarn of wool. They can be unravelled into many long, parallel fibres of sheep's fleece..."

He chuckled. "Something like that. We have one world to start with, but the moment we enter it, it will most likely branch off, again and again, should we retry."

She nodded, satisfied with her momentary understanding of things, ready to change the subject.

"What do you write about?" she asked, then giggled at seeing his puzzled expression caused by the sudden shift in their conversation. "I mean your article, I was curious about what you write for your magazine," she explained even as the doorbell rang, making them both glance towards the door.