Doctor Who/Sapphire and Steel: The Glade
Title: The Glade
Summery: Sapphire and Steel are assigned to investigate a snow covered glade where something has gone wrong with time. The Doctor and Ace are drawn to the same place but for them it's spring and the flowers are in bloom.
A/N: There are a million people who helped bring this into being. becky_monster with the Brit checking, hearts_blood for the suggestions, eponymous_rose for the help with Seven's technobabble, and justspies whose mind is the other half of mine when it comes to Seven and Ace. This is the first time I've taken Sapphire and Steel out to play.
{Is this the place?} Steel frowned at the snow on the ground and wished he had said yes to the scarf Sapphire had teasingly tried to get him to wear. He hated the cold.
{Can’t you feel it?} It was a perfect winter scene, marred only by their footprints in the snow. And something else, something less tangible. Sapphire didn’t know what it was but she knew that they were in the right place.
“I feel cold.” His words came out as puffs of frozen breath, rising into the air and disappearing. “Well, what is it?”
“A faerie ring, perhaps.” They stood in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by trees in an almost perfect circle.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sapphire. There is no such thing.”
“Too bad. It’s such a pretty idea; little creatures of rainbow colours and silver wings dancing around in a circle to create a magical place.” Sapphire closed her eyes and spun in a circle, the snow crunching under her feet.
“Imaginary creature did not create a real disturbance in time.” She looked like a faerie, her face framed in blond curls and blue satin, her cheeks a healthy red blush. He kept the thought locked away where she couldn’t hear it. “Tell me what did.”
“I don’t know yet.” She walked over to the closest tree and took off her fur-lined mitten so she could touch the bark. It was an old tree; five hundred and something years it had stood here. It had seen everything that had happened here. For just an instant she saw what the tree had seen. There was a woman standing in the middle of the glade, her had outstretched.
{Steel, to your right. Did you see her?} But he wouldn’t; she was already gone.
{No.} Steel looked into the shadows at the edge of the circle. {But I see him.}
.....
“Are you sure this is the right place, Professor?” They’d walked a good half hour from where the TARDIS had landed, all to reach this little bit of earth where the trees gave way to grass.
“Of course I’m sure.” The Doctor used the tip of his brolly to point at a patch of sunlight where dandelions grew thick. “This is the fulcrum of the disturbance.”
“Looks more like a good place to have a picnic.” If she had known that they were going to spend the afternoon tromping through the forest she would have packed some sandwiches. “Something here was really strong enough to alert the sensors on the TARDIS?”
“Have you ever thrown a pebble in a lake?”
“Yeah.” Ace sighed. Answering a question with a question; typical.
“A single pebble causes a ripple effect, a series of concentric circles that grow in diameter from the centre.” He used his hands as he spoke, pulling them farther and farther apart.
“You’re saying that this place is like a pebble - that what ever is wrong here might be a little thing, but its sending out ripples of time distortions?”
“Exactly,” he said proudly.
“I still can’t see anything.” This deep into the forest not even a breeze blew to make the flowers sway. Everything seemed perfectly normal.
“Looks can be deceiving, Ace. Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean that something isn’t here.”
“But what if...” Ace stilled, and tilled her head to the right. “Did you hear that, Professor?”
“Hear what?
“I thought I heard a woman crying.”
.....
{Steel?}
“He’s not there anymore.” Steel walked to a spot not far from where Sapphire stood. He was not surprised to find that the snow was clean and untouched. “He appeared right here.”
“What did he look like?”
“What did the woman look like?” he asked, more out of habit than anything.
“It was just a flash, not enough to make out any features.” Sapphire shook her head. “I think your man is more important, at the moment.”
“Dark hair, pale skin. He wore a suit and a white shirt, but no overcoat.”
“Did you get a sense of what time he was from?”
“No,” he said brusquely. She was the one better at telling the relative times of things, especially as they pertained to humans. He was more comfortable with asking the questions, not answering them. Why couldn’t she have seen the man? It would have been easier that way. “What time are we in now?”
“End of the twentieth century. January 1998, the fourteenth...” Sapphire paused for a moment. “No, the fifteenth.”
“He’s from earlier than now. His shoes had buttons on them, not laces. He was wearing a frock coat, not the type of suit jacket they wear in this time.”
“Victorian era?”
“Maybe. Probably.” He closed his eyes and tried to remember what he had seen. The shoes, the cut of the suit, the length of hair - yes, he had seen a man from the turn of the last century.
“There’s something else, isn’t there?” When he didn’t answer she prodded him again. {Steel.}
There was one detail he had left out, but it wasn’t logical and it wasn’t a fact, and those were the things that should matter.
“His eyes were brown,” he finally said, giving her half of an answer. He didn’t tell her that they had been filled with anger.
.....
“Crying?” The Doctor stood perfectly still, and listened.
“Can’t you hear it? Crying’s not even the right word for it. It’s too simple a word. Her heart’s breaking. But something’s not quite right.” Ace bit her lip and strained to hear the sound. “It’s more like the echo of crying, and the harder I try to hear it the harder it is to hear.”
“Don’t try so hard, Ace. Just let your mind go, and let your subconscious lead you in the right direction.”
“It’s no use.” Ace rubbed her temple where a headache was beginning to throb. “It’s gone now.”
“An auditory manifestation, how fascinating. I wonder if she was trying to get our attention or if she is unaware of our presence?”
“I don’t think she knows anything except her grief.” Ace sat in the grass and absently picked a flower, sticking it in her hair. Wildflowers always smelled better that the ones you found in the city. “He’s gone away and he’s not coming back.”
“Who isn’t coming back?”
“What?” Ace looked up at him with furrowed brows. “What are you going on about?”
“You said that he’s gone away. Who did you mean?”
“Did I say that? I don’t remember.” She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, and hated the thought she had that maybe she hadn’t been the one doing the talking. “It’s logical, though, ent it? Someone probably died or left her, and that’s why she’s crying.”
“Yes, that could be it,” he said thoughtfully, but unconvincingly. “Did you get an idea of where she was?”
“Far away.” For some reason Ace suddenly remembered looking through the wrong end of a telescope when she was a child, and seeing everything as smaller than it was. “But at the same time close. I think she was right here, Professor.”
“In this space but not this time. Fascinating.”
.....
“No one’s been to this place for a long time.” Sapphire brushed the snow off of a fallen log and sat down.
“It’s probably miles to the closest town. No one has any reason to come out here.” Steel kept his back turned to the place where he had seen the man. “We shouldn’t even be here.”
“We have a job to do.”
“For what purpose? You said yourself that no one’s been here for years. What ever hold time has over this place began years ago. A little more time won’t matter.” He didn’t need Sapphire’s wide eyed stare to know that he was speaking nonsense. He couldn’t seem to help himself, though. The last time he’d felt this strong of an urge to leave a place it had been that damned café. He kicked his foot at a patch of snow and swore under his breath when his toe made contact with a rock.
{Are you alright, St...}
He blocked her, not allowing her thoughts into his mind. It was harder than it should have been. Never before had he let someone speak to him so easily that way, to slip into his mind without thinking about granting them entry. It was a habit he needed to break. He was growing too used to the feel of her thoughts in his head, and when she left someday... “I’m fine.”
“You didn’t just see him, you connected with him.” Sapphire rose for her seat and came towards him. Steel took a step back.
“I didn’t even touch him.” Steel looked over his shoulder, but despite the prickling feeling on the back of his neck there was no one there.
“Not a physical connection. Emotional.” She touched him, and even with the buffer of jacket and glove he felt a spark of energy.
“He was human,” Steel scoffed. “Not even human, but the residual of someone who once existed. He couldn’t have the power to make the kind of connection you’re talking about.”
“No, he couldn’t, could he?” Sapphire looked over his shoulder to the forest beyond. “Not without help.
.....
“I don’t like this place, Professor. I think we should go.” Despite the sun and the jumper she wore, Ace shivered.
“Go? But we’ve only just arrived.” The Doctor rested a hand on Ace’s shoulder. “It’s just a place. Nothing here can hurt you.”
Ace wrapped her arms tightly around herself. “It’s getting cold. The sun’s still up but the air... did you feel the change?”
“Look at the flowers, Ace.” The Doctor pointed to the patch of flowers where Ace had been sitting only a few moments ago. The blossoms had closed up, turning into buds.
“There’s flowers that do that at night time, right? I’ve heard about it before.” She didn’t know much about flowers; she’d grown up in a flat without a garden, and on Iceworld nothing had grown. In science class she had only cared about the chemistry, and only vaguely recalled the lessons on botany.
“Not these varietals.” Bending down to get a better look, the Doctor shook his head. “Spring is moving backwards instead of forwards. Soon these flowers will shrink back into the ground in preparation for winter.”
“But that’s impossible. And don’t tell me that nothing’s impossible.” She could believe almost anything, but not this. Things didn’t spontaneously ungrow. “I told you there was something wrong here.”
“It’s a mystery that needs solving. Don’t you want to find out why the laws of nature have gone wibbly wobbly?”
“No, I don’t. I want...” She wanted to leave, to go back the the TARDIS. The TADIS was safe. It was home.
If she hid in the TARDIS he couldn’t leave her behind.
“What do you want?”
She tried to pick up first on foot and then the other. She tried to run, or walk, or simply move to one side. Nothing happened. “I can’t go anywhere. I’m stuck.”
“Are you caught on something?” The Doctor looked around for brambles or holes in the ground, but found nothing. “Or perhaps it’s a someone?”
“I don’t think she wants me to leave.”
.....
“I thought you said it was January.”
“It is.” Sapphire tilted her head to one side. “Or at least it was when we arrived.”
“Then why is the snow suddenly melting?” Steel wiped away an icy drop of water that fell from the tree to his cheek. An hour ago everything in the glade had been covered in fresh snow. Now there were bare patches of dirt and stubborn bits of new growth poking out of the ground.
Sapphire closed her eyes and tried to find a piece of time to anchor onto. “It’s March now, just a few weeks away from the vernal equinox.”
“Is that date significant?” Something told him that it was. There was a force at play here, and it was impatient. They were being pushed forward for a reason.
“I don’t know. It’s possible with the history of this region and the location of this place that it was used for pagan ceremonies. That would explain the importance of an equinox.”
“She liked to pretend things like that, laughing at the stories she made up about the past she imagined. She made wreaths of flowers for her hair and took off her shoes to dance barefoot.” He could almost see her, the innocent delight that had first attracted him, delighted him, made him want to be with her. “We could have been hap...”
Icy cold. Wet. Steel suddenly found himself with a face full of half melted snow. “I assume you had a reason for that, Sapphire?”
“It was either the snow or a slap. I thought the snow would have less of a long term effect.” Sapphire brushed her gloved hands together, casting off flakes of snow. “I’ve been trying to get your attention for a couple of minutes without success. Can you tell me about the girl now?”
“The girl?”
“The one he was in love with.” Sapphire cupped her hand to Steel’s cheek, warming the skin. “The person who is keeping him here.”
.....
“She’s been alone such a long time, Professor. She doesn’t want to be alone anymore.”
“Who, Ace? Who is she?”
“I don’t know. I keep getting these little bits, like when there’s a flash of lightning and everything is lit up, but only for a second. She’s talking to me, but it’s like Karra; emotions and fragments of thoughts, not spoken words.”
“Lightning, lightning. I wonder.” The Doctor hummed and poked at the ground with his umbrella. “High voltage...”
“Professor?” She could almost see him thinking, working things out, but as usual he wasn’t telling her. He never told her what he was thinking.
“Just an idea. Nothing conclusive yet.” He picked up a small stone, rubbing at the black mark.
“That was her garden. She sat there everyday, waiting for him to come.” Ace could almost feel the spring rain against her skin; she had been here no matter the weather.
“And did he?”
“He’s been gone for such a long time. He wrote, and promised that he would be back in the spring. But he doesn’t come.” Waiting. She was always waiting, and remembering. Sometimes it felt like she lived on the memories of their other meetings. That first time here in the glade, when they had spoken of dragons and treasure. No, not dragons. Faeries. They had spoken of faeries that first time.
“Didn’t. He didn’t come, Ace. We’re talking about people from the past, remember?” The Doctor frowned. Ace barely heard him speak.
“This is our place. Just Tristan’s and mine. We met here, fell in love here. When he comes back we are to be married, and I’ll carry a bouquet of wildflowers from this place.” Her voice grew softer, and the Doctor could almost see the colour of her eyes changing. “But why doesn’t he come? The flowers bloom and fade and die, the ground thaws and freezes, but still my love doesn’t come. Why has he left me?”
“Ace!” The Doctor said sharply. “Listen to me. Listen to the sound of my voice. You need to wake up now.”
“If this is not the place of my wedding it will be the place of my death. I won’t leave here without Tristan.”
“Let her go.” He stared into eyes that didn’t look back at him, and tried to find Ace behind the Other. “I’m warning you...”
A twig snapped, and the being that was controlling Ace smiled. “Tristan!”
.....
“I was wrong when I said we were miles from any town.” Steel turned a little to face the east. “There’s a town a kilometre in that direction.”
“Is that where they were from, the man and the woman?” Sapphire felt her way past the trees and found the town he spoke of. It was smaller than it had been a hundred years ago; only a few dozen people lived there now.
“The girl, yes. She grew up in the town, and had never lived anywhere else. But not the man. He was tired, and lost. When he came here for the first time he just wanted to rest.”
“But the girl was here,” Sapphire supplied.
“The girl was here. She offered him water to quench his thirst and entertained him with stories of the faeries that lived in the glade. She made him laugh, and he hadn’t laughed in such a long time.”
“No wonder he connected with you,” Sapphire commented without sarcasm or malice. She traced a finger along the downturn of his mouth.
“Yes, well we can’t all be jolly and carefree like Silver, can we?” Steel said dryly.
“Silver has his charms,” Sapphire said with a smile. {But you have a charm of your own.}
Steel heard, but didn’t ask what she meant. “He took a room in the town for some months, telling himself it was because he had found some unexpected business connections. But everyday he walked to this glade. Some days he found it empty, but usually he found the girl sitting among the flowers, reading or sewing or simply starring up at clouds in the sky. It took me a week to learn that her name was Anna.”
“Steel.”
“Her birthday was in April, and when I gave her a book of poetry she kissed me on the cheek. A simple kiss, not unlike a schoolgirl would give her beau. She wasn’t much older than a schoolgirl- twenty-one when we met, and I felt so much older at the world weary age of thirty-four. But I felt younger when I was with her, and in the autumn just before I had to return to the city I proposed.”
{Steel!}
Steel heard the echo of a voice calling him, but all he saw was the girl standing in the middle of a sleeping garden. “I didn’t know you were lying when you said you’d love me forever.”
.....
“I never lied, Tristan. I do love you, as I have always loved you.” Ace covered her mouth in an effort to control her breathing. He was here, at last. “I’ve been waiting for you for so long.”
“Lies. I said that I would come in the spring, and I did. You weren’t here. The glade was empty expect for the book I had given you, lying forgotten on the ground.” Steel glared, his eyes filled with anger and disdain.
“Tristan, please,” Ace sobbed, tears running down her face.
Steel walked away to stand in the place where he had first seen the image of the man.
“Oh dear, this is a fine kettle of fish, isn’t it.” The Doctor looked away from Ace, and turned to look at the woman who was now standing right next to him. “I’m the Doctor, by the way, and that is my friend Ace.”
“Sapphire,” she said. “And the gentleman is my friend Steel. Or at least he was a little while ago; I’m not sure who he is now. Someone has possessed him.”
“Something,” the Doctor corrected, frowning. “I wish it was as simple as a possession by a single spirit.”
“Then you know what’s going on?” Sapphire touched the Doctor’s hand. Old. He was very old, but when she tried to find out how old, or how many years he had left she came up blank.
“I’m beginning to, I think. Your friend...”
“Steel,” Sapphire supplied. As she spoke she tried once again to reach Steel with her mind, but he either had her blocked or the thing that controlled him did.
“Sapphire and Steel,” the Doctor muttered. “Yes, I should have known. It’s a surprise, really, that it’s taken this long...”
“Did you have a question, Doctor?” she asked, slightly impatiently.
“Once we have this taken care of we really should sit and have a cuppa and talk. We have quite a bit in common, you know. But first we need to try and unentangle our friends from the thrall that they are under. We can’t do anything while they are under the control of the nanobes.”
“I’ve never heard of nanobes.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. I just now gave them the name. I don’t know what they are, really.” The Doctor dug through the pockets of his jacket and pulled out a small box with an assortment of wires sticking out of odd places and a blue glowing display window. He held it up and pressed a button, speaking as he did so. “An optical transient detector, with a few of my own modifications. And look at that.”
Sapphire peered at the readout when it was tuned in her direction, and shrugged. “Does that mean something? Electronics are more Steel’s speciality than mine.”
“It’s an anomalous luminance reading, suited to a place just recently hit by lightning, which this glade obviously has not been. That’s the nanobes.”
“Yes, you said that before. I still don’t understand.”
“Time enough for that later.” The Doctor waved his hand in Steel’s direction as he made his way towards Ace. “Wake up your friend, Sapphire, and bring him here.”
“That is going to be easier said than done.” He still wasn’t responding to her attempts of communication. She looked at the ground; at least there was still snow, if she needed it.
.....
“Sorry, old girl.” He apologised to his horse even as he continued to ride her hard. He were almost there, almost to the glade. It was March 22nd, the first day of spring, and he had promised Anna he would return today. Five months, and although he had read her letters over and over until he could almost hear her it wasn’t the same. A few more minutes and he would see his Anna - if she was there. The sky was growing dark. A storm was coming.
Tristan urged his horse to run faster.
.....
She should leave the glade and return home. The sky had turned a darker gray and there was a rumble of thunder in the distance. if she didn’t hurry she wouldn’t beat the storm to shelter. It was foolish, anyway, to be out here when the ground was still half covered in snow and the flowers weren’t yet in bloom. Tristan had said that he would return at the start of spring, but that didn’t have to mean today. He had never specified a date in his letters. Just because today was the equinox...
She missed him so much. A few more minutes of waiting wouldn’t make a difference. She would stay in the glade for a few minutes longer.
Anna waited.
.....
The first raindrop fell as he dismounted from his horse and ran into the glade. She was waiting for him, looking just as he had remembered. It was as if the intervening months had never existed, and he had only left her yesterday. “Anna.”
“Tristan!” Barely had she spoken his name than she was running towards him, a smile on her lips and tears glistening in her eyes.
She was only a few feet away when thunder rumbled and the glade was filled with a flash of light. Anna screamed.
The air burned.
.....
“No!” Ace came to with a scream in her throat. Her knees buckled, and she would have fallen if the Doctor had not caught her.
“It’s alright, Ace.” His arms wrapped around her, and he sighed with relief. She was, for the moment at least, completely his Ace. He would have to make sure she remained so.
“It’s not alright.” She pulled away from him, the look of dismay he had seen a moment ago giving way to outrage. “They’re burning. Tristan and Anna, they’re being burned by the light. A never ending torture and the worst is that they’re both alone. The light is so bright they don’t know how close they really are.”
“They’re being held at the zenith of their deaths, a single moment in time repeated for over a hundred years.”
Ace started at the new voice. For a moment she thought it was Tristan who had spoken, but this man’s hair was too fair, his voice too deep. “Who would do such a thing?”
“Your friend calls them nanobes.” The blond woman only briefly glanced away from her companion, her eyes more blue than Ace thought possible. There was something about them that reminded her of the Professor - a depth, perhaps, or a power. A single clue that the woman wasn’t human.
“I think they live on energy, and either through luck or accident have found a way to manipulate the event of Tristan and Anna dying into what amounts to a constant food source.” The Doctor shook his head slowly. “I’m rather afraid that our arrival has been viewed by them as a fresh supply of food.”
“Microscopic bilge bags,” Ace muttered. “I’m not gonna be anyone’s Sunday supper. How do we stop them?”
“We have to do something. We can’t let time use such a breach as a weakness.”
The woman spoke again, and Ace wondered if she was always the more verbal of the two strangers. “I don’t give sod all for time. We’re talking about people suffering, not some bloody crack in the wall where time can leak through like water.”
“Ace.” When the Doctor spoke it was in the tone of voice that never failed to make her feel like she was five years old and had just broken her mum’s lamp. “Sapphire is here to help.”
“What ever we’re going to do, we should do it soon.” Steel could feel the sinking sensation from before, the thing that was taking over his mind. He brushed one hand through his hair, knowing that it was pointless but wishing he could so easily brush the nanobes away.
{I’m here, Steel. Hold on to me.} Sapphire slipped her hand into his. Steel didn’t look at the connection, but squeezed her fingers lightly.
“Any suggestions?” Sapphire asked.
“Tristan...” Ace’s voice started to fade, but the Doctor squeezed her shoulder tightly and she set her jaw firmly. “Tristan and Anna are being held for these nano things, because they feast on energy, yeah?”
“That seems to be the general idea,” Steel said shortly.
With the hand not holding on to Ace, the Doctor played with the handle of his brolly, letting it go and catching it repeatedly. “What we need to do is sever the connection, somehow.”
“And that will free them?” Ace asked hopefully. “Will they finally get to see each other?”
“They will die,” Sapphire stated simply.
“Professor.” Ace’s face fell, but when she turned to the Doctor he could only shake his head sadly.
“I’m sorry, Ace. They started dying a long time ago, they simply haven’t been allowed to finish.”
Ace clutched the strap of her rucksack as if it was a lifeline. “She just wants to see him one more time. Gordon Bennett, that shouldn’t be too much to ask.”
{Say something, Sapphire.} Steel frowned, not quite understanding why the woman’s pain was affecting him. The assignment came first, and though he never set out to hurt anyone deliberately there were always unavoidable consequences. So why was this time different? {Make her understand that it’s necessary.}
{I think she already knows. She’s very aware, for a human.} Sapphire looked to where the other two were standing. {Besides, I’m the only one here she doesn’t have a connection with.}
{I don’t have a con...} But he did. Tristan and Anna had called out for help, and he and Ace had been the ones to hear them. He suspected they had more in common than that, but he had other, more important, things to worry about. “Perhaps when they are released they will move on together.”
She smiled at him and he couldn’t help smiling back. She reminded him a little of Jet, the way her emotion showed so obviously in her eyes.
“She’d like that, Anna would. She’s ready to go, just can’t without seeing ‘im.” Ace could almost smell the flowers again, despite the fact that they weren’t yet in bloom. “So what’s the plan, Professor?”
“I haven’t quite figured out how to separate the nanobes from their energy,” the Doctor mused. “Once we know how to do that...”
“What if we don’t? What if, instead, we give them more energy than they can handle?”
“That might work.” Steel raised one eyebrow in surprise. Sapphire was right - for a human Ace really did have a keen understanding of time. “But it’s not exactly practical. If lightning wasn’t enough to hurt them the first time, we’d need a massive surge of energy.”
“You’d be surprised what my friend is capable of producing on the spur of the moment.” With a grin the Doctor looked at Ace’s bag. “How many cans do you have, Ace?”
“More ‘n enough, I think.” She reached unto the rucksack, pulled out two cans, and handed them to the Doctor. Once more into the bag, and she came out with three more. “Will this do?”
“And then some, I should think.” He exchanged the two cans for Ace’s bag, leaving her to line up the metal containers in the middle of the grove. “Sapphire, Steel, I hope you are both adept at running.”
“Why?” Sapphire asked.
“Where you’re standing is about to resemble ground zero after a nuclear explosion, that’s why,” Ace tossed out over her shoulder with a grin. “You’ve got sixty second to get clear of the area.”
“Sapphire, I suggest we run.” Steel grabbed his partner’s hand and they raced through the trees just behind Ace and the Doctor. When the ground rumbled and shook they were far enough away that only a little ash fell on them. Steel flicked it away, whereas Sapphire simply made it disappear. The Doctor and Ace didn’t even seem to notice the powdery residue that clung to their clothing. “Quite the explosion. Nitroglycerin base?”
Ace laughed, and leaned forward. Someone who recognised nitro when they saw it was someone worth talking to. “Yeah. My own recipe, extracted from gelignite. I call it nitro nine.”
“But how do you...”
“Shouldn’t we see if the explosion worked?” Sapphire suggested. {You’re not going to start carrying around explosives.}
{It would expedite some of our assignments.}
{So would going back in time and halting evolution, but you’re not doing that either.}
“Come along, Ace, let’s see if your idea succeeded.” The Doctor withdrew his optical transient detector from his pocket and headed for the glade. Or what had been a glade. Now there was a rather large hole in the ground, surrounded by singed trees. “Not the most graceful solution, but one that worked. The luminance reading is completely normal now.”
“So those nanobe things are gone?” Ace asked as looked at her handy work, making sure that no flames existed to risk the rest of the forest.
“Quite gone.” Sapphire’s eyes were open but she wasn’t looking at the glade. She was looking past it, or at it in some other way. Her eyes became even bluer for a minute. Then she blinked, and she looked almost human again. “The damage here has been fixed.”
“And Tristan and Anna?” Ace had to know.
“Presumably they’ve moved on.” Steel frowned a little. He couldn’t sense another presence in the glade, but wasn’t sure if the ghosts were gone or simply no longer able to reach out without the aid of the nanobes.
“I’m sure they have,” the Doctor said with certainty. He smiled and touched a finger to Ace’s nose. “And a spectacular sendoff you gave them too.”
“I believe you mentioned tea earlier, Doctor.” Sapphire bent down and plucked a snowdrop, already growing among the ash of the glade. “Is the offer still open?”
“Home in time for tea,” the Doctor muttered. “Perfect. It’s just the thing, really. Right this way.”
As the Doctor and Sapphire started off through the trees Ace looked back at the glade. She closed her eyes and remembered how it had looked when she and the Doctor had arrived; full of blooming flowers and birdsong. Much as it had looked over a century ago, for Tristan and Anna. “Why do you suppose they picked us?”
“Proximity, I should think.” Though he stood perfectly still, Steel gave the impression of impatiently pacing.
“The Professor and your mate were just as close as we were.” The sound of footsteps was fading as their friends moved farther along the past, but Ace wasn’t ready to leave yet. Not quite. “Do you think...”
“Yes?” Steel raised a single eyebrow.
“Never mind. It’s over and done with now, so what can it matter?” The fact that Anna’s sadness at being left behind was an echo of her own nightmares was probably a coincidence anyway. “We’d best go catch up with the others.”
“History doesn’t always repeat itself. Just because they were separated...” Steel shrugged and tried to pretend it didn’t matter.
Ace grinned. “Yeah.”
Just as they were about to turn away from the glade the air shimmered. There, standing a few feet away, were the translucent images of a man and a woman. They stood hand in hand, and both were smiling.
“We did it,” Ace breathed.
“So it would seem,” Steel said.
The spirits lingered for a moment before fading away.
Summery: Sapphire and Steel are assigned to investigate a snow covered glade where something has gone wrong with time. The Doctor and Ace are drawn to the same place but for them it's spring and the flowers are in bloom.
A/N: There are a million people who helped bring this into being. becky_monster with the Brit checking, hearts_blood for the suggestions, eponymous_rose for the help with Seven's technobabble, and justspies whose mind is the other half of mine when it comes to Seven and Ace. This is the first time I've taken Sapphire and Steel out to play.
{Is this the place?} Steel frowned at the snow on the ground and wished he had said yes to the scarf Sapphire had teasingly tried to get him to wear. He hated the cold.
{Can’t you feel it?} It was a perfect winter scene, marred only by their footprints in the snow. And something else, something less tangible. Sapphire didn’t know what it was but she knew that they were in the right place.
“I feel cold.” His words came out as puffs of frozen breath, rising into the air and disappearing. “Well, what is it?”
“A faerie ring, perhaps.” They stood in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by trees in an almost perfect circle.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sapphire. There is no such thing.”
“Too bad. It’s such a pretty idea; little creatures of rainbow colours and silver wings dancing around in a circle to create a magical place.” Sapphire closed her eyes and spun in a circle, the snow crunching under her feet.
“Imaginary creature did not create a real disturbance in time.” She looked like a faerie, her face framed in blond curls and blue satin, her cheeks a healthy red blush. He kept the thought locked away where she couldn’t hear it. “Tell me what did.”
“I don’t know yet.” She walked over to the closest tree and took off her fur-lined mitten so she could touch the bark. It was an old tree; five hundred and something years it had stood here. It had seen everything that had happened here. For just an instant she saw what the tree had seen. There was a woman standing in the middle of the glade, her had outstretched.
{Steel, to your right. Did you see her?} But he wouldn’t; she was already gone.
{No.} Steel looked into the shadows at the edge of the circle. {But I see him.}
.....
“Are you sure this is the right place, Professor?” They’d walked a good half hour from where the TARDIS had landed, all to reach this little bit of earth where the trees gave way to grass.
“Of course I’m sure.” The Doctor used the tip of his brolly to point at a patch of sunlight where dandelions grew thick. “This is the fulcrum of the disturbance.”
“Looks more like a good place to have a picnic.” If she had known that they were going to spend the afternoon tromping through the forest she would have packed some sandwiches. “Something here was really strong enough to alert the sensors on the TARDIS?”
“Have you ever thrown a pebble in a lake?”
“Yeah.” Ace sighed. Answering a question with a question; typical.
“A single pebble causes a ripple effect, a series of concentric circles that grow in diameter from the centre.” He used his hands as he spoke, pulling them farther and farther apart.
“You’re saying that this place is like a pebble - that what ever is wrong here might be a little thing, but its sending out ripples of time distortions?”
“Exactly,” he said proudly.
“I still can’t see anything.” This deep into the forest not even a breeze blew to make the flowers sway. Everything seemed perfectly normal.
“Looks can be deceiving, Ace. Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean that something isn’t here.”
“But what if...” Ace stilled, and tilled her head to the right. “Did you hear that, Professor?”
“Hear what?
“I thought I heard a woman crying.”
.....
{Steel?}
“He’s not there anymore.” Steel walked to a spot not far from where Sapphire stood. He was not surprised to find that the snow was clean and untouched. “He appeared right here.”
“What did he look like?”
“What did the woman look like?” he asked, more out of habit than anything.
“It was just a flash, not enough to make out any features.” Sapphire shook her head. “I think your man is more important, at the moment.”
“Dark hair, pale skin. He wore a suit and a white shirt, but no overcoat.”
“Did you get a sense of what time he was from?”
“No,” he said brusquely. She was the one better at telling the relative times of things, especially as they pertained to humans. He was more comfortable with asking the questions, not answering them. Why couldn’t she have seen the man? It would have been easier that way. “What time are we in now?”
“End of the twentieth century. January 1998, the fourteenth...” Sapphire paused for a moment. “No, the fifteenth.”
“He’s from earlier than now. His shoes had buttons on them, not laces. He was wearing a frock coat, not the type of suit jacket they wear in this time.”
“Victorian era?”
“Maybe. Probably.” He closed his eyes and tried to remember what he had seen. The shoes, the cut of the suit, the length of hair - yes, he had seen a man from the turn of the last century.
“There’s something else, isn’t there?” When he didn’t answer she prodded him again. {Steel.}
There was one detail he had left out, but it wasn’t logical and it wasn’t a fact, and those were the things that should matter.
“His eyes were brown,” he finally said, giving her half of an answer. He didn’t tell her that they had been filled with anger.
.....
“Crying?” The Doctor stood perfectly still, and listened.
“Can’t you hear it? Crying’s not even the right word for it. It’s too simple a word. Her heart’s breaking. But something’s not quite right.” Ace bit her lip and strained to hear the sound. “It’s more like the echo of crying, and the harder I try to hear it the harder it is to hear.”
“Don’t try so hard, Ace. Just let your mind go, and let your subconscious lead you in the right direction.”
“It’s no use.” Ace rubbed her temple where a headache was beginning to throb. “It’s gone now.”
“An auditory manifestation, how fascinating. I wonder if she was trying to get our attention or if she is unaware of our presence?”
“I don’t think she knows anything except her grief.” Ace sat in the grass and absently picked a flower, sticking it in her hair. Wildflowers always smelled better that the ones you found in the city. “He’s gone away and he’s not coming back.”
“Who isn’t coming back?”
“What?” Ace looked up at him with furrowed brows. “What are you going on about?”
“You said that he’s gone away. Who did you mean?”
“Did I say that? I don’t remember.” She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, and hated the thought she had that maybe she hadn’t been the one doing the talking. “It’s logical, though, ent it? Someone probably died or left her, and that’s why she’s crying.”
“Yes, that could be it,” he said thoughtfully, but unconvincingly. “Did you get an idea of where she was?”
“Far away.” For some reason Ace suddenly remembered looking through the wrong end of a telescope when she was a child, and seeing everything as smaller than it was. “But at the same time close. I think she was right here, Professor.”
“In this space but not this time. Fascinating.”
.....
“No one’s been to this place for a long time.” Sapphire brushed the snow off of a fallen log and sat down.
“It’s probably miles to the closest town. No one has any reason to come out here.” Steel kept his back turned to the place where he had seen the man. “We shouldn’t even be here.”
“We have a job to do.”
“For what purpose? You said yourself that no one’s been here for years. What ever hold time has over this place began years ago. A little more time won’t matter.” He didn’t need Sapphire’s wide eyed stare to know that he was speaking nonsense. He couldn’t seem to help himself, though. The last time he’d felt this strong of an urge to leave a place it had been that damned café. He kicked his foot at a patch of snow and swore under his breath when his toe made contact with a rock.
{Are you alright, St...}
He blocked her, not allowing her thoughts into his mind. It was harder than it should have been. Never before had he let someone speak to him so easily that way, to slip into his mind without thinking about granting them entry. It was a habit he needed to break. He was growing too used to the feel of her thoughts in his head, and when she left someday... “I’m fine.”
“You didn’t just see him, you connected with him.” Sapphire rose for her seat and came towards him. Steel took a step back.
“I didn’t even touch him.” Steel looked over his shoulder, but despite the prickling feeling on the back of his neck there was no one there.
“Not a physical connection. Emotional.” She touched him, and even with the buffer of jacket and glove he felt a spark of energy.
“He was human,” Steel scoffed. “Not even human, but the residual of someone who once existed. He couldn’t have the power to make the kind of connection you’re talking about.”
“No, he couldn’t, could he?” Sapphire looked over his shoulder to the forest beyond. “Not without help.
.....
“I don’t like this place, Professor. I think we should go.” Despite the sun and the jumper she wore, Ace shivered.
“Go? But we’ve only just arrived.” The Doctor rested a hand on Ace’s shoulder. “It’s just a place. Nothing here can hurt you.”
Ace wrapped her arms tightly around herself. “It’s getting cold. The sun’s still up but the air... did you feel the change?”
“Look at the flowers, Ace.” The Doctor pointed to the patch of flowers where Ace had been sitting only a few moments ago. The blossoms had closed up, turning into buds.
“There’s flowers that do that at night time, right? I’ve heard about it before.” She didn’t know much about flowers; she’d grown up in a flat without a garden, and on Iceworld nothing had grown. In science class she had only cared about the chemistry, and only vaguely recalled the lessons on botany.
“Not these varietals.” Bending down to get a better look, the Doctor shook his head. “Spring is moving backwards instead of forwards. Soon these flowers will shrink back into the ground in preparation for winter.”
“But that’s impossible. And don’t tell me that nothing’s impossible.” She could believe almost anything, but not this. Things didn’t spontaneously ungrow. “I told you there was something wrong here.”
“It’s a mystery that needs solving. Don’t you want to find out why the laws of nature have gone wibbly wobbly?”
“No, I don’t. I want...” She wanted to leave, to go back the the TARDIS. The TADIS was safe. It was home.
If she hid in the TARDIS he couldn’t leave her behind.
“What do you want?”
She tried to pick up first on foot and then the other. She tried to run, or walk, or simply move to one side. Nothing happened. “I can’t go anywhere. I’m stuck.”
“Are you caught on something?” The Doctor looked around for brambles or holes in the ground, but found nothing. “Or perhaps it’s a someone?”
“I don’t think she wants me to leave.”
.....
“I thought you said it was January.”
“It is.” Sapphire tilted her head to one side. “Or at least it was when we arrived.”
“Then why is the snow suddenly melting?” Steel wiped away an icy drop of water that fell from the tree to his cheek. An hour ago everything in the glade had been covered in fresh snow. Now there were bare patches of dirt and stubborn bits of new growth poking out of the ground.
Sapphire closed her eyes and tried to find a piece of time to anchor onto. “It’s March now, just a few weeks away from the vernal equinox.”
“Is that date significant?” Something told him that it was. There was a force at play here, and it was impatient. They were being pushed forward for a reason.
“I don’t know. It’s possible with the history of this region and the location of this place that it was used for pagan ceremonies. That would explain the importance of an equinox.”
“She liked to pretend things like that, laughing at the stories she made up about the past she imagined. She made wreaths of flowers for her hair and took off her shoes to dance barefoot.” He could almost see her, the innocent delight that had first attracted him, delighted him, made him want to be with her. “We could have been hap...”
Icy cold. Wet. Steel suddenly found himself with a face full of half melted snow. “I assume you had a reason for that, Sapphire?”
“It was either the snow or a slap. I thought the snow would have less of a long term effect.” Sapphire brushed her gloved hands together, casting off flakes of snow. “I’ve been trying to get your attention for a couple of minutes without success. Can you tell me about the girl now?”
“The girl?”
“The one he was in love with.” Sapphire cupped her hand to Steel’s cheek, warming the skin. “The person who is keeping him here.”
.....
“She’s been alone such a long time, Professor. She doesn’t want to be alone anymore.”
“Who, Ace? Who is she?”
“I don’t know. I keep getting these little bits, like when there’s a flash of lightning and everything is lit up, but only for a second. She’s talking to me, but it’s like Karra; emotions and fragments of thoughts, not spoken words.”
“Lightning, lightning. I wonder.” The Doctor hummed and poked at the ground with his umbrella. “High voltage...”
“Professor?” She could almost see him thinking, working things out, but as usual he wasn’t telling her. He never told her what he was thinking.
“Just an idea. Nothing conclusive yet.” He picked up a small stone, rubbing at the black mark.
“That was her garden. She sat there everyday, waiting for him to come.” Ace could almost feel the spring rain against her skin; she had been here no matter the weather.
“And did he?”
“He’s been gone for such a long time. He wrote, and promised that he would be back in the spring. But he doesn’t come.” Waiting. She was always waiting, and remembering. Sometimes it felt like she lived on the memories of their other meetings. That first time here in the glade, when they had spoken of dragons and treasure. No, not dragons. Faeries. They had spoken of faeries that first time.
“Didn’t. He didn’t come, Ace. We’re talking about people from the past, remember?” The Doctor frowned. Ace barely heard him speak.
“This is our place. Just Tristan’s and mine. We met here, fell in love here. When he comes back we are to be married, and I’ll carry a bouquet of wildflowers from this place.” Her voice grew softer, and the Doctor could almost see the colour of her eyes changing. “But why doesn’t he come? The flowers bloom and fade and die, the ground thaws and freezes, but still my love doesn’t come. Why has he left me?”
“Ace!” The Doctor said sharply. “Listen to me. Listen to the sound of my voice. You need to wake up now.”
“If this is not the place of my wedding it will be the place of my death. I won’t leave here without Tristan.”
“Let her go.” He stared into eyes that didn’t look back at him, and tried to find Ace behind the Other. “I’m warning you...”
A twig snapped, and the being that was controlling Ace smiled. “Tristan!”
.....
“I was wrong when I said we were miles from any town.” Steel turned a little to face the east. “There’s a town a kilometre in that direction.”
“Is that where they were from, the man and the woman?” Sapphire felt her way past the trees and found the town he spoke of. It was smaller than it had been a hundred years ago; only a few dozen people lived there now.
“The girl, yes. She grew up in the town, and had never lived anywhere else. But not the man. He was tired, and lost. When he came here for the first time he just wanted to rest.”
“But the girl was here,” Sapphire supplied.
“The girl was here. She offered him water to quench his thirst and entertained him with stories of the faeries that lived in the glade. She made him laugh, and he hadn’t laughed in such a long time.”
“No wonder he connected with you,” Sapphire commented without sarcasm or malice. She traced a finger along the downturn of his mouth.
“Yes, well we can’t all be jolly and carefree like Silver, can we?” Steel said dryly.
“Silver has his charms,” Sapphire said with a smile. {But you have a charm of your own.}
Steel heard, but didn’t ask what she meant. “He took a room in the town for some months, telling himself it was because he had found some unexpected business connections. But everyday he walked to this glade. Some days he found it empty, but usually he found the girl sitting among the flowers, reading or sewing or simply starring up at clouds in the sky. It took me a week to learn that her name was Anna.”
“Steel.”
“Her birthday was in April, and when I gave her a book of poetry she kissed me on the cheek. A simple kiss, not unlike a schoolgirl would give her beau. She wasn’t much older than a schoolgirl- twenty-one when we met, and I felt so much older at the world weary age of thirty-four. But I felt younger when I was with her, and in the autumn just before I had to return to the city I proposed.”
{Steel!}
Steel heard the echo of a voice calling him, but all he saw was the girl standing in the middle of a sleeping garden. “I didn’t know you were lying when you said you’d love me forever.”
.....
“I never lied, Tristan. I do love you, as I have always loved you.” Ace covered her mouth in an effort to control her breathing. He was here, at last. “I’ve been waiting for you for so long.”
“Lies. I said that I would come in the spring, and I did. You weren’t here. The glade was empty expect for the book I had given you, lying forgotten on the ground.” Steel glared, his eyes filled with anger and disdain.
“Tristan, please,” Ace sobbed, tears running down her face.
Steel walked away to stand in the place where he had first seen the image of the man.
“Oh dear, this is a fine kettle of fish, isn’t it.” The Doctor looked away from Ace, and turned to look at the woman who was now standing right next to him. “I’m the Doctor, by the way, and that is my friend Ace.”
“Sapphire,” she said. “And the gentleman is my friend Steel. Or at least he was a little while ago; I’m not sure who he is now. Someone has possessed him.”
“Something,” the Doctor corrected, frowning. “I wish it was as simple as a possession by a single spirit.”
“Then you know what’s going on?” Sapphire touched the Doctor’s hand. Old. He was very old, but when she tried to find out how old, or how many years he had left she came up blank.
“I’m beginning to, I think. Your friend...”
“Steel,” Sapphire supplied. As she spoke she tried once again to reach Steel with her mind, but he either had her blocked or the thing that controlled him did.
“Sapphire and Steel,” the Doctor muttered. “Yes, I should have known. It’s a surprise, really, that it’s taken this long...”
“Did you have a question, Doctor?” she asked, slightly impatiently.
“Once we have this taken care of we really should sit and have a cuppa and talk. We have quite a bit in common, you know. But first we need to try and unentangle our friends from the thrall that they are under. We can’t do anything while they are under the control of the nanobes.”
“I’ve never heard of nanobes.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. I just now gave them the name. I don’t know what they are, really.” The Doctor dug through the pockets of his jacket and pulled out a small box with an assortment of wires sticking out of odd places and a blue glowing display window. He held it up and pressed a button, speaking as he did so. “An optical transient detector, with a few of my own modifications. And look at that.”
Sapphire peered at the readout when it was tuned in her direction, and shrugged. “Does that mean something? Electronics are more Steel’s speciality than mine.”
“It’s an anomalous luminance reading, suited to a place just recently hit by lightning, which this glade obviously has not been. That’s the nanobes.”
“Yes, you said that before. I still don’t understand.”
“Time enough for that later.” The Doctor waved his hand in Steel’s direction as he made his way towards Ace. “Wake up your friend, Sapphire, and bring him here.”
“That is going to be easier said than done.” He still wasn’t responding to her attempts of communication. She looked at the ground; at least there was still snow, if she needed it.
.....
“Sorry, old girl.” He apologised to his horse even as he continued to ride her hard. He were almost there, almost to the glade. It was March 22nd, the first day of spring, and he had promised Anna he would return today. Five months, and although he had read her letters over and over until he could almost hear her it wasn’t the same. A few more minutes and he would see his Anna - if she was there. The sky was growing dark. A storm was coming.
Tristan urged his horse to run faster.
.....
She should leave the glade and return home. The sky had turned a darker gray and there was a rumble of thunder in the distance. if she didn’t hurry she wouldn’t beat the storm to shelter. It was foolish, anyway, to be out here when the ground was still half covered in snow and the flowers weren’t yet in bloom. Tristan had said that he would return at the start of spring, but that didn’t have to mean today. He had never specified a date in his letters. Just because today was the equinox...
She missed him so much. A few more minutes of waiting wouldn’t make a difference. She would stay in the glade for a few minutes longer.
Anna waited.
.....
The first raindrop fell as he dismounted from his horse and ran into the glade. She was waiting for him, looking just as he had remembered. It was as if the intervening months had never existed, and he had only left her yesterday. “Anna.”
“Tristan!” Barely had she spoken his name than she was running towards him, a smile on her lips and tears glistening in her eyes.
She was only a few feet away when thunder rumbled and the glade was filled with a flash of light. Anna screamed.
The air burned.
.....
“No!” Ace came to with a scream in her throat. Her knees buckled, and she would have fallen if the Doctor had not caught her.
“It’s alright, Ace.” His arms wrapped around her, and he sighed with relief. She was, for the moment at least, completely his Ace. He would have to make sure she remained so.
“It’s not alright.” She pulled away from him, the look of dismay he had seen a moment ago giving way to outrage. “They’re burning. Tristan and Anna, they’re being burned by the light. A never ending torture and the worst is that they’re both alone. The light is so bright they don’t know how close they really are.”
“They’re being held at the zenith of their deaths, a single moment in time repeated for over a hundred years.”
Ace started at the new voice. For a moment she thought it was Tristan who had spoken, but this man’s hair was too fair, his voice too deep. “Who would do such a thing?”
“Your friend calls them nanobes.” The blond woman only briefly glanced away from her companion, her eyes more blue than Ace thought possible. There was something about them that reminded her of the Professor - a depth, perhaps, or a power. A single clue that the woman wasn’t human.
“I think they live on energy, and either through luck or accident have found a way to manipulate the event of Tristan and Anna dying into what amounts to a constant food source.” The Doctor shook his head slowly. “I’m rather afraid that our arrival has been viewed by them as a fresh supply of food.”
“Microscopic bilge bags,” Ace muttered. “I’m not gonna be anyone’s Sunday supper. How do we stop them?”
“We have to do something. We can’t let time use such a breach as a weakness.”
The woman spoke again, and Ace wondered if she was always the more verbal of the two strangers. “I don’t give sod all for time. We’re talking about people suffering, not some bloody crack in the wall where time can leak through like water.”
“Ace.” When the Doctor spoke it was in the tone of voice that never failed to make her feel like she was five years old and had just broken her mum’s lamp. “Sapphire is here to help.”
“What ever we’re going to do, we should do it soon.” Steel could feel the sinking sensation from before, the thing that was taking over his mind. He brushed one hand through his hair, knowing that it was pointless but wishing he could so easily brush the nanobes away.
{I’m here, Steel. Hold on to me.} Sapphire slipped her hand into his. Steel didn’t look at the connection, but squeezed her fingers lightly.
“Any suggestions?” Sapphire asked.
“Tristan...” Ace’s voice started to fade, but the Doctor squeezed her shoulder tightly and she set her jaw firmly. “Tristan and Anna are being held for these nano things, because they feast on energy, yeah?”
“That seems to be the general idea,” Steel said shortly.
With the hand not holding on to Ace, the Doctor played with the handle of his brolly, letting it go and catching it repeatedly. “What we need to do is sever the connection, somehow.”
“And that will free them?” Ace asked hopefully. “Will they finally get to see each other?”
“They will die,” Sapphire stated simply.
“Professor.” Ace’s face fell, but when she turned to the Doctor he could only shake his head sadly.
“I’m sorry, Ace. They started dying a long time ago, they simply haven’t been allowed to finish.”
Ace clutched the strap of her rucksack as if it was a lifeline. “She just wants to see him one more time. Gordon Bennett, that shouldn’t be too much to ask.”
{Say something, Sapphire.} Steel frowned, not quite understanding why the woman’s pain was affecting him. The assignment came first, and though he never set out to hurt anyone deliberately there were always unavoidable consequences. So why was this time different? {Make her understand that it’s necessary.}
{I think she already knows. She’s very aware, for a human.} Sapphire looked to where the other two were standing. {Besides, I’m the only one here she doesn’t have a connection with.}
{I don’t have a con...} But he did. Tristan and Anna had called out for help, and he and Ace had been the ones to hear them. He suspected they had more in common than that, but he had other, more important, things to worry about. “Perhaps when they are released they will move on together.”
She smiled at him and he couldn’t help smiling back. She reminded him a little of Jet, the way her emotion showed so obviously in her eyes.
“She’d like that, Anna would. She’s ready to go, just can’t without seeing ‘im.” Ace could almost smell the flowers again, despite the fact that they weren’t yet in bloom. “So what’s the plan, Professor?”
“I haven’t quite figured out how to separate the nanobes from their energy,” the Doctor mused. “Once we know how to do that...”
“What if we don’t? What if, instead, we give them more energy than they can handle?”
“That might work.” Steel raised one eyebrow in surprise. Sapphire was right - for a human Ace really did have a keen understanding of time. “But it’s not exactly practical. If lightning wasn’t enough to hurt them the first time, we’d need a massive surge of energy.”
“You’d be surprised what my friend is capable of producing on the spur of the moment.” With a grin the Doctor looked at Ace’s bag. “How many cans do you have, Ace?”
“More ‘n enough, I think.” She reached unto the rucksack, pulled out two cans, and handed them to the Doctor. Once more into the bag, and she came out with three more. “Will this do?”
“And then some, I should think.” He exchanged the two cans for Ace’s bag, leaving her to line up the metal containers in the middle of the grove. “Sapphire, Steel, I hope you are both adept at running.”
“Why?” Sapphire asked.
“Where you’re standing is about to resemble ground zero after a nuclear explosion, that’s why,” Ace tossed out over her shoulder with a grin. “You’ve got sixty second to get clear of the area.”
“Sapphire, I suggest we run.” Steel grabbed his partner’s hand and they raced through the trees just behind Ace and the Doctor. When the ground rumbled and shook they were far enough away that only a little ash fell on them. Steel flicked it away, whereas Sapphire simply made it disappear. The Doctor and Ace didn’t even seem to notice the powdery residue that clung to their clothing. “Quite the explosion. Nitroglycerin base?”
Ace laughed, and leaned forward. Someone who recognised nitro when they saw it was someone worth talking to. “Yeah. My own recipe, extracted from gelignite. I call it nitro nine.”
“But how do you...”
“Shouldn’t we see if the explosion worked?” Sapphire suggested. {You’re not going to start carrying around explosives.}
{It would expedite some of our assignments.}
{So would going back in time and halting evolution, but you’re not doing that either.}
“Come along, Ace, let’s see if your idea succeeded.” The Doctor withdrew his optical transient detector from his pocket and headed for the glade. Or what had been a glade. Now there was a rather large hole in the ground, surrounded by singed trees. “Not the most graceful solution, but one that worked. The luminance reading is completely normal now.”
“So those nanobe things are gone?” Ace asked as looked at her handy work, making sure that no flames existed to risk the rest of the forest.
“Quite gone.” Sapphire’s eyes were open but she wasn’t looking at the glade. She was looking past it, or at it in some other way. Her eyes became even bluer for a minute. Then she blinked, and she looked almost human again. “The damage here has been fixed.”
“And Tristan and Anna?” Ace had to know.
“Presumably they’ve moved on.” Steel frowned a little. He couldn’t sense another presence in the glade, but wasn’t sure if the ghosts were gone or simply no longer able to reach out without the aid of the nanobes.
“I’m sure they have,” the Doctor said with certainty. He smiled and touched a finger to Ace’s nose. “And a spectacular sendoff you gave them too.”
“I believe you mentioned tea earlier, Doctor.” Sapphire bent down and plucked a snowdrop, already growing among the ash of the glade. “Is the offer still open?”
“Home in time for tea,” the Doctor muttered. “Perfect. It’s just the thing, really. Right this way.”
As the Doctor and Sapphire started off through the trees Ace looked back at the glade. She closed her eyes and remembered how it had looked when she and the Doctor had arrived; full of blooming flowers and birdsong. Much as it had looked over a century ago, for Tristan and Anna. “Why do you suppose they picked us?”
“Proximity, I should think.” Though he stood perfectly still, Steel gave the impression of impatiently pacing.
“The Professor and your mate were just as close as we were.” The sound of footsteps was fading as their friends moved farther along the past, but Ace wasn’t ready to leave yet. Not quite. “Do you think...”
“Yes?” Steel raised a single eyebrow.
“Never mind. It’s over and done with now, so what can it matter?” The fact that Anna’s sadness at being left behind was an echo of her own nightmares was probably a coincidence anyway. “We’d best go catch up with the others.”
“History doesn’t always repeat itself. Just because they were separated...” Steel shrugged and tried to pretend it didn’t matter.
Ace grinned. “Yeah.”
Just as they were about to turn away from the glade the air shimmered. There, standing a few feet away, were the translucent images of a man and a woman. They stood hand in hand, and both were smiling.
“We did it,” Ace breathed.
“So it would seem,” Steel said.
The spirits lingered for a moment before fading away.