Fic: The Last Supper (Doctor Who/Torchwood, PG-13)
Title: The Last Supper.
Author: Prochytes.
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood.
Rating: PG-13. Dark themes, references to character death, and violence.
Characters/Pairing: Bill Potts (DW), Gwen Cooper (TW).
Disclaimer: Not mine at all, any of it.
Summary: Missy was not the only one to consider the other way of stopping the Monks.
Word Count: 3804.
A/N: Spoilers for DW “The Lie of the Land” and TW to 4x11 “The Blood Line”.
As Bill hurried back from the off-licence to avoid the curfew, she found a new five pound note amongst her change.
Bill didn’t like it. She knew, intellectually, that mottling up at the colour of money was an old person thing. Bill - whose second-best pair of jeans was still forced out into bas relief by a stray doubloon lodged in the back pocket - should be better placed than most to keep some perspective.
But perspective was unavailing. Colour, in any event, was not the problem. Bill objected to the texture. The old money had crinkled, like things you trust - crows’ feet around smiling eyes, or oven-ready chips. The new fivers snapped, like those flimsy IDs from your teens, in which an unhealthy proportion of your self-regard had been invested.
The obverse of the new fiver still showed Her Madge in solitary state. No retinue, yet, of inked monachal shades. They weren’t in a hurry, and the Royal Mint wasn’t going anywhere. Bottles nudged brusquely at Bill’s knees through their thin plastic. She had been drinking more than was sensible, these last few weeks.
The novelty of the notes would fade, in time. Sooner or later, your fingers start to forget.
***
The woman at the front door, who interrupted the first of the evening’s stiff doubles, had an ID, and it wasn’t flimsy. The plastic pulled lightly at Bill’s skin as she handled it. June Walters - University Security Services. The woman’s face scowled back at Bill from the laminated surface, stunned and sullen, as is the way with passport photos.
“Bit late for a house-call,” said Bill.
“You’re telling me.” The visitor, unlike her photo, wore an easy smile. “Students living out are only sure to be at home just before curfew. This is the VC’s own directive; no expense spared. I’m coining it in overtime.”
“The VC? Seriously?” The Vice-Chancellor of St. Luke’s, in Bill’s limited experience of him, tended to see students as mobile motes in the middle distance, sometimes regrettably visible from the deck of his yacht. The world had been understudying dystopia long before the Monks thrust it blinking into the limelight. “Doesn’t sound like his style, to be honest.”
“His Nibs got his knickers in a twist about press coverage a few months back. Something about a cowboy landlord on Cardinal Road renting out a house that nearly collapsed on student tenants? Not exactly what you want to read over your toast and marmalade in the Times Higher. We’ve been tasked to check that all the living-out accommodation’s in good nick.”
“I didn’t think that I was registered as a student.”
“Someone’s registered you, love. Friends in high places?”
“The highest.” Another broadcast was scheduled for tonight. Bill wanted to be outside at least another three goes of Bell’s when she faced it. “How long is this likely to take?”
“Twenty minutes, tops. I need to be home before….”
“Yes. Before.” Bill withdrew from the threshold. “Do you fancy some tea? I’m trying out a quick-boil kettle.”
“Oooh, you temptress.” June Walters stepped across the threshold, hefting a big black duffle-bag. “Milk; one sugar.”
Bill busied herself at the kettle. Her visitor scrutinized the fuse box, and poked the grouting. She snaked past Bill to wring a listless tattoo from the drawers and cupboards of the kitchen. By the time Bill deposited a steaming cup in front of her, she had come to rest on a chair beside the table, duffle-bag at her side. She tasted the tea, and smiled approvingly.
“You make a good cuppa, love. Not afraid to brew it strong. None of that wafting the bag in the vague direction of the china.”
“Thanks.” Bill sat down on the other side of the table. “So…” she groped for topics of conversation, “... what does it involve, your job? I’ve always wondered.”
“Hmm.” The visitor massaged her forehead for a moment before answering. “Have you ever heard the old joke? ‘Everyone complains about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it’?”
“Yeah. It’s not a very good joke, to be honest.” Bill stopped, and reddened. New Personal Best on the brick-dropping there, Potts. Thirty seconds into the polite chit-chat, and you’ve told the nice lady from the Uni that she isn’t funny.
“You’re right. It’s not.” The visitor’s eyes stayed on Bill’s blush, unperturbed. “There was a programme on daytime telly, when I was a little girl. The bloke who did the weather used to prance about on an inflatable map of the UK in the Albert Dock. The Scousers would raise a cheer when he vaulted the Irish Sea, Finn MacCool in reasonably-priced knitwear.”
“Sounds… fun?” Bill felt very tired. The conversation was veering, like those knackered trolleys down the Tesco, mulish against Bill’s slight impulsive weight, and oh, the avoidable toil of heaving it back on course, of all the quotidian crap that Armageddon might at least have been expected to expunge. June’s companionable slouch had usurped an impressive swathe of floor space with her legs. Bill, who could have used the toilet right now, felt a little pinned. “Great, er, gimmick.”
“It was shit,” June Walters said, genially. “We were easily pleased, at the arse-end of the Eighties. They did the jumper for kiddy-fiddling in the end. He’s probably pissing blood right now, in prison.” She sipped daintily at her tea. “That was later. I’m more interested in the map. What it would be like to blunder across the landscape and feel the whole world shiver at your thoughtless step. Imagine how horrible that would be.” She set down the cup, with no betraying chink against the saucer. “Of course, you don’t have to imagine, do you, Bill?”
Bill looked at the slouch that barred the doorway, the unopened bag. She swallowed. “You’re not from University Security. Tell me who you are, and get the fuck out of my home. First one’s optional; second isn’t.”
“My name is Gwen. You can think of me as the weather-girl. I’m the one you call to do something about it.” The erstwhile June Walters sighed. “Thank you for making me tea, Bill. You confirmed my dreadful suspicion that you’re nice. That will make it easier to kill you. But I’ll feel even worse after I have.”
Her face looked troubled, now, and pensive, and continued to do so even after Bill threw her cup at it.
The cup did not connect. Bill had not imagined that it would. As suddenly-Gwen swayed in her chair to avoid the missile, Bill dived for the opening thereby disclosed on her other flank. Bill’s finger-tips were almost on the doorframe when those long legs lashed out to enmesh her own. Bill stumbled, cannoning into the wall. Her adversary pushed the other cup to leave a fastidious margin between it and the lip of the table. She stood, wrinkled her nose at the slow sepia drench of the wall behind her, and blocked the doorway.
Bill balled her fists. The Doctor was big on the futility of violence. Bill, observing that this routine usually came just before he decked a Regency bell-end, had scheduled some introductory kickboxing classes as essential study skills just after her curriculum expanded to encompass things that ate you. She’d made only a little pugilistic headway, to be honest. Right now, though, a little headway was all she needed. Just force the bitch to take a backward step.
Gwen did not budge. A slip or a block awaited every one of the blows that Bill artlessly hurled at this freckled woman with tired eyes, whose body was air and iron to her aching arms. As Bill began to flag, Gwen sent two neat hard punches into her midriff; another into her face when she folded up. Bill slumped against the wainscot, and gasped for breath.
“First lesson of your last night, Bill.” Her victor, for some reason, was the one who sounded weary, defeated. “You can’t take me. It’s natural that you should try; I’m glad you did. You’ve got some speed and talent going there, but I was beating up blokes in pubs before you were ordering anything stiffer than a shandy. You can’t take me.”
“Listen.” Bill blearily blinked the world back into focus. The first frail streaks of tea had touched the lino. “Whatever they may have told you, it’s a lie. The Monks weren’t always here. They’re not our friends.”
“I know that, Bill.”
Bill frowned. “What?”
“The Monks brought their ministry to this fucked-up little world five months, thirteen days, and about ten hours ago. That’s when they parked their Osiran wannabe tech in Turmezistan.”
“How… how can you remember?” Even now, Bill could feel their cuckoo history preening itself, sharp-beaked, inside her head. “I can barely manage that. And I was there.”
“My brain reacts oddly to mnemotropics. I’m not immune, not by a long chalk, but memory tricks tend to lose their grip on me, or else they have to try too hard, and steal too much. There’s a drug called Retcon, for example. It should have scrubbed my recall clean, once, but it didn’t. I’m what I am now because Retcon couldn’t quite strip me of that first wet day in Cardiff when I saw a dead man rise. Well, bounce, anyway.” Gwen followed Bill’s gaze. “Work surfaces are hogging your attention, Bill.”
“Peril makes me house-proud.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you’re just thinking about your cutlery drawer. In case you’re wondering, none of your seven knives is really sharp enough for wetwork, except maybe that little one that’s worn its soul to a sliver on a thousand spuds.”
Bill’s head dropped. “That’s why you were going through my cupboards.”
“Yes. Slaughter doesn’t love a slattern.”
“I suppose that people like you are more into katanas.”
Gwen wrinkled her nose again. “I think that you watch a bit too much telly. A katana’s just a Gillette with pushy parents. And you try getting one on the luggage rack of a Virgin train. Really not worth the effort.”
“When you’re going to kill someone.”
“When you’re going to to kill someone.”
“I see.” Bill raised her head to look Gwen in the eye once more. “Was there really a June Walters in University Security, before you laminated your face over hers?”
“Yes. Nice lady - fond of her G&T. I didn’t fancy the chances of her picks on The X Factor.”
“What did you do to her?”
“I lifted her card.” Gwen hoisted the duffle-bag onto the table, began to undo its straps. “She’ll find it in her letter-box tomorrow. I’ve given you no reason to believe me on this, Bill, but going into someone’s home, drinking her tea, and murdering her isn’t usually Plan A.”
“I hope that’s true.” Clever, pale fingers at work upon the straps. “What happens now, then? What’s the programme? Sorry for the noob question. It’s my first death.”
“We eat the pizza.”
“Pizza?”
“Pizza. What did you think was in the duffle-bag?”
***
The lid flipped, with that ungainly, dramatic swing from one horizontal to another that always made Bill think of school protractors. The savour rose.
“I’m not hungry,” said Bill.
“Yes, you are. You’re always hungry. Bacon sarnies, pork pies, cod and double chips. So much for that bollocks about millennials and avocado toast. It’s a mystery to me where you put it all, frankly. I’ve seen more meat on a butcher’s pencil, as my old dad used to say.”
“You’ve been stalking me.”
“Of course. Murder is like any other social engagement, Bill. It goes more smoothly if you put the work in first.”
“I never saw you.”
“That’s the mark of a proper weather-girl. The shit ones, with the make-up and the cleavage, who end up doing panto in dispirited seaside towns? You look at them. The ones who know their trade? You look where they point.” Gwen pushed the box in Bill’s direction. “Tuck in.”
Bill did not move. “You say that you’re here to kill me. The bloke who sold you that poison-pill there gold-plated it.”
Gwen sighed and tore off a slice of pizza. Bill had to admire her technique: the grip firm at the crisp border of the disc, gentling as the tear travelled up-country to the moister inlands at the centre. Gwen took a bite, and swallowed.
“See?”
Bill frowned. Against all logic, her mouth was watering. “My assassin brings me my last supper? That’s just sick.”
“Everyone has a last supper.” Gwen was already at work on another piece. “Yoghurt that tastes like hand-gel, in a nursing home. A ham and cheese toastie from that Greggs across the road from the office where the drivers always forget they’re meant to be doing twenty. A slap-up meal in a swanky restaurant, with James and John arguing over who ordered the posh bread, and Judas swearing blind that he must have left his wallet in the cab. Everyone has a last supper, Bill. You just know it when you see it.”
Bill was still unmoving. “I get that. Ever since I started my… extra-mural studies, I’ve thought about how it would all end. But I never expected my death to look like you.”
“And how does your death look, then?”
“Tired. Sad. Afraid.” Bill cocked her head on one side. “You’re afraid, aren’t you?” Gwen flushed and bit her lip. “What’s scaring you? We’ve already seen that I can’t beat you. Is it the Monks?”
“Your supper’s getting cold, Bill. Eat. Please.”
Bill reached for a slice.
The pizza, it turned out, was pretty good.
***
“I must say, Bill,” Gwen resumed, once the pizza was down to a hemi-circle, “that, after an understandably impetuous start, you’re taking this more calmly than I expected.”
Bill shrugged. “I know how this film goes. If we fight again, you’ll win again. The only point in repeating a scene like that is to break up the talky character bits. If I’m going to survive tonight, I have to outsmart you, or make you see that what you’re doing is wrong. Establish empathy.”
“Like I said, Bill, you probably watched a bit too much telly.”
“Maybe.” Bill rested her chin on her hands. “You loved your dad. Enough to remember his bizarre old-school sayings, anyway.”
“I did.”
“I never knew mine. But I’ve got friends I care about, and they care about me. Yes - this is a naked attempt to make you see me as a person. I hope it’s working.”
“I already see you as a person, Bill,” said Gwen. “It’s not enough. The man who brought me in killed his own grandson. I’ve ended the lives of more people than you’ve ever known with a single bullet. One of those people was my old dad. I don’t like killing, Bill. But, with enough incentive, I can do it.“
Bill’s knuckles tightened. “Well, I hope that I was at least worth a fat fee.”
“You think I’m doing this for money? Jesus Christ. You don’t know, do you? You honestly don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“The Monks’ dominion is routed through your living brain. Your love pawned our world; your death redeems it. I’m not here to help the Monks, Bill. I’m here to finish them. ”
“You’re lying.”
“Yes. Because that’s exactly the sort of lie you’d bother to try on someone just before you killed her.”
“I would have known. The Doc… my friend would have told me.”
“Your friend? I’ve seen the news. Your… friend looks very seriously off his game. Unless he’s given up on us at last. I always suspected that he might, in the end, and I honestly don’t think that I could blame him. But, even if he hasn’t, Bill, is he always completely straight with you?”
“Always.”
“Then you’ll be able to say what’s in his vault.” Gwen inspected Bill’s expression, and nodded. “No? I thought not. The thing he keeps caged down there once deleted a quarter of the universe. Let’s hope it was the dodgy quarter - dragging down Zoopla values in the Horsehead Nebula. Still, I wouldn’t put too much faith in your candid friend and his arbitrary compassion.”
Bill’s fingers tightened once more. “I do. He has a plan. He always does. Maybe, if he was the one who span me your line about my love, then I’d believe him. Maybe I’d put my head on the chopping-block myself. But he didn’t. You did. What earthly reason do I have to trust you? I don’t know much, Gwen, but I do know chips: where were you, when they were down in Turmezistan?” Bill bared her teeth as Gwen bowed her head. “There you go. Last time I checked, no one died and made you boss.”
“No.” Gwen’s voice was quiet as she fiddled with the pizza box, pulling the cardboard rim down with those clever fingers and watching its languid rise back to the perpendicular. “They made him boss instead.” She looked up again. “Going well, isn’t it?”
***
Two slices left.
“Will it hurt?”
“As little as I can manage. I can't promise painless. I’m not that level of technician. But it’ll be quick. Unless you’d rather go out fighting. I’ll even let you tool up first with your sharp little spud knife, if you want it.”
“Would that give me a chance?”
“We both know it wouldn’t.”
“Yeah. You’re good at what you do. I suppose that’s something.”
“I’m not good at what I do, Bill. You’re right about Turkmezistan. If I were good, the Monks would already be history - which is an irony all of its own, given their m. o.. I wouldn’t have to be here to murder you.”
“What do you think will happen after that? After you...”
“The spell will break. I and my robust associates will show the Monks the door. That shouldn’t be hard. They’re a dying race, according to the man who brought me in and told me about their tricks. Barely remember how their own tech works, or so he says. And then, when they’re gone... judgment. That, to answer your earlier question, is what I’m afraid of.”
“You plan to give yourself up, for killing me?”
“Oh yes. I’ll have murdered a good woman who only wanted to help her friend. There’s no justice if I get to walk away from that.”
“You’re afraid of the police?”
Gwen snorted. “Hardly. I was Heddlu once myself, in another life. It’ll hurt that they’ll be ashamed of me. But I’m not afraid of them. I’m afraid of him.”
“You don’t mean…. Seriously? You’re afraid of the Doctor? I’m not sure why I’m reassuring my own hitwoman, but I’ve seen him lose it. He’s great; he works miracles like they’re nothing; but he’s not scary.”
“You’ve seen him annoyed, Bill. You’ve seen him irked. He keeps the claws sheathed when the kids are at the circus. You haven’t seen the fury of the Time Lord.” Gwen’s hand shook as she reached across the table. One more slice. “I have a friend. Her name is Martha. She’s gorgeous. You know how everyone has that one mate so beautiful that you could swear the needle of the world jumps its groove when she walks in?”
Bill thought about the breathless curve of Felicity’s throat, arched to laugh in the back bar of The Crown as they drank away the memory of Cardinal Road. “Yeah. I know.”
“Martha’s like that. The eyes, the smile, the cheek-bones, the physique. She’s perfect. Martha hasn’t been able to look at that perfection in seven years. She was one of your predecessors, you see. Your friend trapped someone who hurt her behind the mirrors. All the mirrors.”
Bill shuddered. “Does Martha know that you’re here tonight?”
“No. She wouldn’t approve. And she could stop me.”
“Is she single?”
Gwen smiled. “You have a one-track mind, Bill.”
“Humour me. I’m almost out of track.”
***
Bill took custody of the final slice. The complete field of cardboard lay disclosed between her and Gwen. Megiddo, dark with grease. “One more question, if you’re willing.”
Gwen shrugged. “Go ahead.”
“Your Martha, she ran with the Doctor, like me? They saved the day together?”
“They saved many days together, so she tells me. A whole crowded calendar of salvation.”
“Was it always him?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The day-saving. Was it always him? From what you’ve said of Martha, she doesn’t sound like the sort of girl to sit back and watch him work. Would the world still be here if Martha wasn’t?”
Gwen’s eyes were watchful. “You’re not Martha.”
“I’ve parlayed with nanites and dated spaceships. You have no idea what I am.” Bill chewed the last fragment of pizza, swallowed, and sat back. “He’ll save the world. It’s what he does. But if he doesn’t, I will. I’ll save it for good pizza and bad whisky and awkward, drunken snogs down The Crown because you unexpectedly didn’t become a sideboard. For dads we killed and mums we never knew. And for a woman who’d walk into damnation with her eyes open, but bring her victim a last supper before she did it. You can stop me, Gwen. But we both know that he’s got an eye for talent, and that you shouldn’t.”
Bill tried not to watch Gwen’s fingers, splayed out on the table beside the empty box. You never see the punch that kills you. Silence lengthened.
“You’re wrong.” Gwen said, eventually. “I don’t know that you can beat the Monks. I’m eighty percent sure that you’ll fail, if I let you try.” She bit her lip. “But I can’t kill a good woman on eighty percent. Sorry for what I’ve put you through tonight, Bill Potts. You’ve won.”
Bill held her gaze. “Thank you. This isn’t really a win, though, is it? More of a reprieve. Iocane powder.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a memory drug. Retcon, you called it. One for which you’ve developed a massive tolerance. How much of that did I just eat?”
“Enough. It’s also rather soporific. That’ll give me the chance to tidy up here, before I leave. Wipe your surfaces - they’re strangers to Domestos. Splash some Bell’s around; make you think that you fell over after a binge, when you wake up tomorrow. Not exactly inspired, but it’ll do.” Gwen nodded. “You were right after all, Bill. He’s got an eye for talent. Maybe the Monks have bitten off more than they can chew with you. I’ll be interested to see whether that’s the case.”
Bill grasped the table. The room had begun to spin. “And if they haven’t?”
Gwen sighed, and began to pack the box into her bag. “Then that was the last time you’ll see me coming.”
FINIS
Author: Prochytes.
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood.
Rating: PG-13. Dark themes, references to character death, and violence.
Characters/Pairing: Bill Potts (DW), Gwen Cooper (TW).
Disclaimer: Not mine at all, any of it.
Summary: Missy was not the only one to consider the other way of stopping the Monks.
Word Count: 3804.
A/N: Spoilers for DW “The Lie of the Land” and TW to 4x11 “The Blood Line”.
As Bill hurried back from the off-licence to avoid the curfew, she found a new five pound note amongst her change.
Bill didn’t like it. She knew, intellectually, that mottling up at the colour of money was an old person thing. Bill - whose second-best pair of jeans was still forced out into bas relief by a stray doubloon lodged in the back pocket - should be better placed than most to keep some perspective.
But perspective was unavailing. Colour, in any event, was not the problem. Bill objected to the texture. The old money had crinkled, like things you trust - crows’ feet around smiling eyes, or oven-ready chips. The new fivers snapped, like those flimsy IDs from your teens, in which an unhealthy proportion of your self-regard had been invested.
The obverse of the new fiver still showed Her Madge in solitary state. No retinue, yet, of inked monachal shades. They weren’t in a hurry, and the Royal Mint wasn’t going anywhere. Bottles nudged brusquely at Bill’s knees through their thin plastic. She had been drinking more than was sensible, these last few weeks.
The novelty of the notes would fade, in time. Sooner or later, your fingers start to forget.
***
The woman at the front door, who interrupted the first of the evening’s stiff doubles, had an ID, and it wasn’t flimsy. The plastic pulled lightly at Bill’s skin as she handled it. June Walters - University Security Services. The woman’s face scowled back at Bill from the laminated surface, stunned and sullen, as is the way with passport photos.
“Bit late for a house-call,” said Bill.
“You’re telling me.” The visitor, unlike her photo, wore an easy smile. “Students living out are only sure to be at home just before curfew. This is the VC’s own directive; no expense spared. I’m coining it in overtime.”
“The VC? Seriously?” The Vice-Chancellor of St. Luke’s, in Bill’s limited experience of him, tended to see students as mobile motes in the middle distance, sometimes regrettably visible from the deck of his yacht. The world had been understudying dystopia long before the Monks thrust it blinking into the limelight. “Doesn’t sound like his style, to be honest.”
“His Nibs got his knickers in a twist about press coverage a few months back. Something about a cowboy landlord on Cardinal Road renting out a house that nearly collapsed on student tenants? Not exactly what you want to read over your toast and marmalade in the Times Higher. We’ve been tasked to check that all the living-out accommodation’s in good nick.”
“I didn’t think that I was registered as a student.”
“Someone’s registered you, love. Friends in high places?”
“The highest.” Another broadcast was scheduled for tonight. Bill wanted to be outside at least another three goes of Bell’s when she faced it. “How long is this likely to take?”
“Twenty minutes, tops. I need to be home before….”
“Yes. Before.” Bill withdrew from the threshold. “Do you fancy some tea? I’m trying out a quick-boil kettle.”
“Oooh, you temptress.” June Walters stepped across the threshold, hefting a big black duffle-bag. “Milk; one sugar.”
Bill busied herself at the kettle. Her visitor scrutinized the fuse box, and poked the grouting. She snaked past Bill to wring a listless tattoo from the drawers and cupboards of the kitchen. By the time Bill deposited a steaming cup in front of her, she had come to rest on a chair beside the table, duffle-bag at her side. She tasted the tea, and smiled approvingly.
“You make a good cuppa, love. Not afraid to brew it strong. None of that wafting the bag in the vague direction of the china.”
“Thanks.” Bill sat down on the other side of the table. “So…” she groped for topics of conversation, “... what does it involve, your job? I’ve always wondered.”
“Hmm.” The visitor massaged her forehead for a moment before answering. “Have you ever heard the old joke? ‘Everyone complains about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it’?”
“Yeah. It’s not a very good joke, to be honest.” Bill stopped, and reddened. New Personal Best on the brick-dropping there, Potts. Thirty seconds into the polite chit-chat, and you’ve told the nice lady from the Uni that she isn’t funny.
“You’re right. It’s not.” The visitor’s eyes stayed on Bill’s blush, unperturbed. “There was a programme on daytime telly, when I was a little girl. The bloke who did the weather used to prance about on an inflatable map of the UK in the Albert Dock. The Scousers would raise a cheer when he vaulted the Irish Sea, Finn MacCool in reasonably-priced knitwear.”
“Sounds… fun?” Bill felt very tired. The conversation was veering, like those knackered trolleys down the Tesco, mulish against Bill’s slight impulsive weight, and oh, the avoidable toil of heaving it back on course, of all the quotidian crap that Armageddon might at least have been expected to expunge. June’s companionable slouch had usurped an impressive swathe of floor space with her legs. Bill, who could have used the toilet right now, felt a little pinned. “Great, er, gimmick.”
“It was shit,” June Walters said, genially. “We were easily pleased, at the arse-end of the Eighties. They did the jumper for kiddy-fiddling in the end. He’s probably pissing blood right now, in prison.” She sipped daintily at her tea. “That was later. I’m more interested in the map. What it would be like to blunder across the landscape and feel the whole world shiver at your thoughtless step. Imagine how horrible that would be.” She set down the cup, with no betraying chink against the saucer. “Of course, you don’t have to imagine, do you, Bill?”
Bill looked at the slouch that barred the doorway, the unopened bag. She swallowed. “You’re not from University Security. Tell me who you are, and get the fuck out of my home. First one’s optional; second isn’t.”
“My name is Gwen. You can think of me as the weather-girl. I’m the one you call to do something about it.” The erstwhile June Walters sighed. “Thank you for making me tea, Bill. You confirmed my dreadful suspicion that you’re nice. That will make it easier to kill you. But I’ll feel even worse after I have.”
Her face looked troubled, now, and pensive, and continued to do so even after Bill threw her cup at it.
The cup did not connect. Bill had not imagined that it would. As suddenly-Gwen swayed in her chair to avoid the missile, Bill dived for the opening thereby disclosed on her other flank. Bill’s finger-tips were almost on the doorframe when those long legs lashed out to enmesh her own. Bill stumbled, cannoning into the wall. Her adversary pushed the other cup to leave a fastidious margin between it and the lip of the table. She stood, wrinkled her nose at the slow sepia drench of the wall behind her, and blocked the doorway.
Bill balled her fists. The Doctor was big on the futility of violence. Bill, observing that this routine usually came just before he decked a Regency bell-end, had scheduled some introductory kickboxing classes as essential study skills just after her curriculum expanded to encompass things that ate you. She’d made only a little pugilistic headway, to be honest. Right now, though, a little headway was all she needed. Just force the bitch to take a backward step.
Gwen did not budge. A slip or a block awaited every one of the blows that Bill artlessly hurled at this freckled woman with tired eyes, whose body was air and iron to her aching arms. As Bill began to flag, Gwen sent two neat hard punches into her midriff; another into her face when she folded up. Bill slumped against the wainscot, and gasped for breath.
“First lesson of your last night, Bill.” Her victor, for some reason, was the one who sounded weary, defeated. “You can’t take me. It’s natural that you should try; I’m glad you did. You’ve got some speed and talent going there, but I was beating up blokes in pubs before you were ordering anything stiffer than a shandy. You can’t take me.”
“Listen.” Bill blearily blinked the world back into focus. The first frail streaks of tea had touched the lino. “Whatever they may have told you, it’s a lie. The Monks weren’t always here. They’re not our friends.”
“I know that, Bill.”
Bill frowned. “What?”
“The Monks brought their ministry to this fucked-up little world five months, thirteen days, and about ten hours ago. That’s when they parked their Osiran wannabe tech in Turmezistan.”
“How… how can you remember?” Even now, Bill could feel their cuckoo history preening itself, sharp-beaked, inside her head. “I can barely manage that. And I was there.”
“My brain reacts oddly to mnemotropics. I’m not immune, not by a long chalk, but memory tricks tend to lose their grip on me, or else they have to try too hard, and steal too much. There’s a drug called Retcon, for example. It should have scrubbed my recall clean, once, but it didn’t. I’m what I am now because Retcon couldn’t quite strip me of that first wet day in Cardiff when I saw a dead man rise. Well, bounce, anyway.” Gwen followed Bill’s gaze. “Work surfaces are hogging your attention, Bill.”
“Peril makes me house-proud.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you’re just thinking about your cutlery drawer. In case you’re wondering, none of your seven knives is really sharp enough for wetwork, except maybe that little one that’s worn its soul to a sliver on a thousand spuds.”
Bill’s head dropped. “That’s why you were going through my cupboards.”
“Yes. Slaughter doesn’t love a slattern.”
“I suppose that people like you are more into katanas.”
Gwen wrinkled her nose again. “I think that you watch a bit too much telly. A katana’s just a Gillette with pushy parents. And you try getting one on the luggage rack of a Virgin train. Really not worth the effort.”
“When you’re going to kill someone.”
“When you’re going to to kill someone.”
“I see.” Bill raised her head to look Gwen in the eye once more. “Was there really a June Walters in University Security, before you laminated your face over hers?”
“Yes. Nice lady - fond of her G&T. I didn’t fancy the chances of her picks on The X Factor.”
“What did you do to her?”
“I lifted her card.” Gwen hoisted the duffle-bag onto the table, began to undo its straps. “She’ll find it in her letter-box tomorrow. I’ve given you no reason to believe me on this, Bill, but going into someone’s home, drinking her tea, and murdering her isn’t usually Plan A.”
“I hope that’s true.” Clever, pale fingers at work upon the straps. “What happens now, then? What’s the programme? Sorry for the noob question. It’s my first death.”
“We eat the pizza.”
“Pizza?”
“Pizza. What did you think was in the duffle-bag?”
***
The lid flipped, with that ungainly, dramatic swing from one horizontal to another that always made Bill think of school protractors. The savour rose.
“I’m not hungry,” said Bill.
“Yes, you are. You’re always hungry. Bacon sarnies, pork pies, cod and double chips. So much for that bollocks about millennials and avocado toast. It’s a mystery to me where you put it all, frankly. I’ve seen more meat on a butcher’s pencil, as my old dad used to say.”
“You’ve been stalking me.”
“Of course. Murder is like any other social engagement, Bill. It goes more smoothly if you put the work in first.”
“I never saw you.”
“That’s the mark of a proper weather-girl. The shit ones, with the make-up and the cleavage, who end up doing panto in dispirited seaside towns? You look at them. The ones who know their trade? You look where they point.” Gwen pushed the box in Bill’s direction. “Tuck in.”
Bill did not move. “You say that you’re here to kill me. The bloke who sold you that poison-pill there gold-plated it.”
Gwen sighed and tore off a slice of pizza. Bill had to admire her technique: the grip firm at the crisp border of the disc, gentling as the tear travelled up-country to the moister inlands at the centre. Gwen took a bite, and swallowed.
“See?”
Bill frowned. Against all logic, her mouth was watering. “My assassin brings me my last supper? That’s just sick.”
“Everyone has a last supper.” Gwen was already at work on another piece. “Yoghurt that tastes like hand-gel, in a nursing home. A ham and cheese toastie from that Greggs across the road from the office where the drivers always forget they’re meant to be doing twenty. A slap-up meal in a swanky restaurant, with James and John arguing over who ordered the posh bread, and Judas swearing blind that he must have left his wallet in the cab. Everyone has a last supper, Bill. You just know it when you see it.”
Bill was still unmoving. “I get that. Ever since I started my… extra-mural studies, I’ve thought about how it would all end. But I never expected my death to look like you.”
“And how does your death look, then?”
“Tired. Sad. Afraid.” Bill cocked her head on one side. “You’re afraid, aren’t you?” Gwen flushed and bit her lip. “What’s scaring you? We’ve already seen that I can’t beat you. Is it the Monks?”
“Your supper’s getting cold, Bill. Eat. Please.”
Bill reached for a slice.
The pizza, it turned out, was pretty good.
***
“I must say, Bill,” Gwen resumed, once the pizza was down to a hemi-circle, “that, after an understandably impetuous start, you’re taking this more calmly than I expected.”
Bill shrugged. “I know how this film goes. If we fight again, you’ll win again. The only point in repeating a scene like that is to break up the talky character bits. If I’m going to survive tonight, I have to outsmart you, or make you see that what you’re doing is wrong. Establish empathy.”
“Like I said, Bill, you probably watched a bit too much telly.”
“Maybe.” Bill rested her chin on her hands. “You loved your dad. Enough to remember his bizarre old-school sayings, anyway.”
“I did.”
“I never knew mine. But I’ve got friends I care about, and they care about me. Yes - this is a naked attempt to make you see me as a person. I hope it’s working.”
“I already see you as a person, Bill,” said Gwen. “It’s not enough. The man who brought me in killed his own grandson. I’ve ended the lives of more people than you’ve ever known with a single bullet. One of those people was my old dad. I don’t like killing, Bill. But, with enough incentive, I can do it.“
Bill’s knuckles tightened. “Well, I hope that I was at least worth a fat fee.”
“You think I’m doing this for money? Jesus Christ. You don’t know, do you? You honestly don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“The Monks’ dominion is routed through your living brain. Your love pawned our world; your death redeems it. I’m not here to help the Monks, Bill. I’m here to finish them. ”
“You’re lying.”
“Yes. Because that’s exactly the sort of lie you’d bother to try on someone just before you killed her.”
“I would have known. The Doc… my friend would have told me.”
“Your friend? I’ve seen the news. Your… friend looks very seriously off his game. Unless he’s given up on us at last. I always suspected that he might, in the end, and I honestly don’t think that I could blame him. But, even if he hasn’t, Bill, is he always completely straight with you?”
“Always.”
“Then you’ll be able to say what’s in his vault.” Gwen inspected Bill’s expression, and nodded. “No? I thought not. The thing he keeps caged down there once deleted a quarter of the universe. Let’s hope it was the dodgy quarter - dragging down Zoopla values in the Horsehead Nebula. Still, I wouldn’t put too much faith in your candid friend and his arbitrary compassion.”
Bill’s fingers tightened once more. “I do. He has a plan. He always does. Maybe, if he was the one who span me your line about my love, then I’d believe him. Maybe I’d put my head on the chopping-block myself. But he didn’t. You did. What earthly reason do I have to trust you? I don’t know much, Gwen, but I do know chips: where were you, when they were down in Turmezistan?” Bill bared her teeth as Gwen bowed her head. “There you go. Last time I checked, no one died and made you boss.”
“No.” Gwen’s voice was quiet as she fiddled with the pizza box, pulling the cardboard rim down with those clever fingers and watching its languid rise back to the perpendicular. “They made him boss instead.” She looked up again. “Going well, isn’t it?”
***
Two slices left.
“Will it hurt?”
“As little as I can manage. I can't promise painless. I’m not that level of technician. But it’ll be quick. Unless you’d rather go out fighting. I’ll even let you tool up first with your sharp little spud knife, if you want it.”
“Would that give me a chance?”
“We both know it wouldn’t.”
“Yeah. You’re good at what you do. I suppose that’s something.”
“I’m not good at what I do, Bill. You’re right about Turkmezistan. If I were good, the Monks would already be history - which is an irony all of its own, given their m. o.. I wouldn’t have to be here to murder you.”
“What do you think will happen after that? After you...”
“The spell will break. I and my robust associates will show the Monks the door. That shouldn’t be hard. They’re a dying race, according to the man who brought me in and told me about their tricks. Barely remember how their own tech works, or so he says. And then, when they’re gone... judgment. That, to answer your earlier question, is what I’m afraid of.”
“You plan to give yourself up, for killing me?”
“Oh yes. I’ll have murdered a good woman who only wanted to help her friend. There’s no justice if I get to walk away from that.”
“You’re afraid of the police?”
Gwen snorted. “Hardly. I was Heddlu once myself, in another life. It’ll hurt that they’ll be ashamed of me. But I’m not afraid of them. I’m afraid of him.”
“You don’t mean…. Seriously? You’re afraid of the Doctor? I’m not sure why I’m reassuring my own hitwoman, but I’ve seen him lose it. He’s great; he works miracles like they’re nothing; but he’s not scary.”
“You’ve seen him annoyed, Bill. You’ve seen him irked. He keeps the claws sheathed when the kids are at the circus. You haven’t seen the fury of the Time Lord.” Gwen’s hand shook as she reached across the table. One more slice. “I have a friend. Her name is Martha. She’s gorgeous. You know how everyone has that one mate so beautiful that you could swear the needle of the world jumps its groove when she walks in?”
Bill thought about the breathless curve of Felicity’s throat, arched to laugh in the back bar of The Crown as they drank away the memory of Cardinal Road. “Yeah. I know.”
“Martha’s like that. The eyes, the smile, the cheek-bones, the physique. She’s perfect. Martha hasn’t been able to look at that perfection in seven years. She was one of your predecessors, you see. Your friend trapped someone who hurt her behind the mirrors. All the mirrors.”
Bill shuddered. “Does Martha know that you’re here tonight?”
“No. She wouldn’t approve. And she could stop me.”
“Is she single?”
Gwen smiled. “You have a one-track mind, Bill.”
“Humour me. I’m almost out of track.”
***
Bill took custody of the final slice. The complete field of cardboard lay disclosed between her and Gwen. Megiddo, dark with grease. “One more question, if you’re willing.”
Gwen shrugged. “Go ahead.”
“Your Martha, she ran with the Doctor, like me? They saved the day together?”
“They saved many days together, so she tells me. A whole crowded calendar of salvation.”
“Was it always him?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The day-saving. Was it always him? From what you’ve said of Martha, she doesn’t sound like the sort of girl to sit back and watch him work. Would the world still be here if Martha wasn’t?”
Gwen’s eyes were watchful. “You’re not Martha.”
“I’ve parlayed with nanites and dated spaceships. You have no idea what I am.” Bill chewed the last fragment of pizza, swallowed, and sat back. “He’ll save the world. It’s what he does. But if he doesn’t, I will. I’ll save it for good pizza and bad whisky and awkward, drunken snogs down The Crown because you unexpectedly didn’t become a sideboard. For dads we killed and mums we never knew. And for a woman who’d walk into damnation with her eyes open, but bring her victim a last supper before she did it. You can stop me, Gwen. But we both know that he’s got an eye for talent, and that you shouldn’t.”
Bill tried not to watch Gwen’s fingers, splayed out on the table beside the empty box. You never see the punch that kills you. Silence lengthened.
“You’re wrong.” Gwen said, eventually. “I don’t know that you can beat the Monks. I’m eighty percent sure that you’ll fail, if I let you try.” She bit her lip. “But I can’t kill a good woman on eighty percent. Sorry for what I’ve put you through tonight, Bill Potts. You’ve won.”
Bill held her gaze. “Thank you. This isn’t really a win, though, is it? More of a reprieve. Iocane powder.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a memory drug. Retcon, you called it. One for which you’ve developed a massive tolerance. How much of that did I just eat?”
“Enough. It’s also rather soporific. That’ll give me the chance to tidy up here, before I leave. Wipe your surfaces - they’re strangers to Domestos. Splash some Bell’s around; make you think that you fell over after a binge, when you wake up tomorrow. Not exactly inspired, but it’ll do.” Gwen nodded. “You were right after all, Bill. He’s got an eye for talent. Maybe the Monks have bitten off more than they can chew with you. I’ll be interested to see whether that’s the case.”
Bill grasped the table. The room had begun to spin. “And if they haven’t?”
Gwen sighed, and began to pack the box into her bag. “Then that was the last time you’ll see me coming.”
FINIS