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in
gilesanya_fic
Don't Cross the Streams, by Lori (Part One of Two)
In honour of the wonderful paratti's birthday! She requested something Doctor Who-ish, and, well.... Here's Part One of this crossover fic; Part Two will be along in a few days.
TITLE: Don't Cross The Streams (Part One)
AUTHOR: Lori
LENGTH: This part approximately 4100 words.
PAIRING: Giles/Anya
RATING: Mature Readers, this part for language
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Joss Whedon and Co; the BBC and Russell T Davies; a classic of contemporary cinematic comedy; also, David Bowie. Rather enormous liberties have been taken with an incident from modern English history, as well.
SUMMARY: This is an Investigations and Acquisitions story (set three years after "Postern of Fate"); all you need to know is that we're AU after "Showtime," and Giles and Anya live in London and run their own private occult-services firm. For fans of Doctor Who, spoilers through "Doomsday."
When worlds and time collide... who you gonna call?
Don’t Cross the Streams
Night rain, cold and hard, strikes at their study windows. Anya ordinarily would find the pleasant sound soothing (since she and her loved ones are safe and warm inside), except - "Darling, are you sure you’re all right?" Rupert says for the second time in three minutes.
She stretches very carefully so as not to disturb the newly medicated flesh wounds on her hands and knees, casts a maternal glance at little David on the Aubusson flipping through his picture-book, and then settles deeper into the sofa. "Yes, honey, except for the lingering pain and aches. Why?"
Rupert puts his hand on her forehead as if he’s checking for fever. "Well, I just put Diamond Dogs on the stereo and you didn’t even complain... er, I meant ‘comment,’ of course."
Inside, she’s smiling despite itching and pain. Outside, she plays as innocent as she can, because it’s important he doesn’t suspect. "Would you put on music I like if I complained?"
That attractive half-grin - it’s like he can’t decide how amused he is - quirks his mouth. "Probably not. But that’s never stopped you before."
"Ha ha, funny guy," she says in her usual manner, and closes her eyes.
David Bowie is singing, which used to annoy her, but not tonight. No, tonight it makes her happy, even though she’s got to be careful.
Rupert touches her cheek gently, then moves away - toward his desk, she thinks, he’s got his own things to do. She senses the change in light, feels a shift -
In her mind she hears a strange alien sound, a travelling sound that overtakes the Bowie, and a falsely cheerful male voice saying, "Don’t cross the streams...."
..........................................................
She was fifteen minutes late. She hated being late. Also, it was going to start raining any minute, and she’d left her umbrella at the office and had only a silk scarf as potential protection.
She dodged a fat Oxford Street pigeon, shouldered past a tourist, and then began to jog toward the Investigations and Acquisitions office. Not that Rupert would mind doubling up on childcare and professional duties a little longer, but she felt guilty - too long with Dawn and Zoe at lunch, and a side-trip to a new boutique selling vintage clothing. She hadn’t bought anything, but still, she’d slacked on her jobs.
Side-trip...an alley shortcut beckoned ahead. She ordinarily wouldn’t take it, what with the garbage and the smells worse than several massacres she’d attended, but if it was a matter of time saved, she didn’t have much choice.
Even as she took the turn, however, she slowed. Inside the alley a sound had overtaken the traffic and pedestrian noise and the construction racket from a block over, shaking time itself: a strange alien sound, a travelling sound....
She almost smacked right into the old-fashioned blue police box which materialized in front of her.
Allowing herself to thump the side of the police box - only one, and with the heel of her hand to minimize damage to herself or to this random teleportation device - she sidled around it on her way to Gilbert Place.
Or, rather, she would have sidled by except the door to the police box flew open, and an artfully tousled man appeared. "Hello, hello!" he said with apparent delight, and bounced outside on his scruffy tennis shoes, which Anya didn’t think really went with his brown pinstripes and overcoat. Cheerfully: "My instrumentation’s a little over-sensitive at the moment... Is this 1974?"
"Sorry, it’s 2006." She made another move toward sidling, but was caught by his surprisingly strong hand. "Um, mister, let go of me."
"Oh right, sorry," he said. There couldn’t have been less remorse in his voice, however, and in fact he didn’t let go. "It is London?"
"Hands off or I’ll hit you very hard, and in a place you won’t like," she said. When he finally let go, with a smile he no doubt thought was disarming, she added, "London, yes. November 8, 2006."
His grin took over his whole face. "Excellent! Pinpoint control! Except for the thirty-two years." He caressed his police box in a worryingly affectionate way before looking back at her. This time, although he was smiling, she had the distinct impression he was assessing her. Yes - "Do you know, there’s something rather different about you."
Stung, she couldn’t help saying, "Look who’s talking - an overdressed, kind of ferret-faced guy who materializes with a teleportation device that not only looks out of date but apparently can’t hit its target within three decades."
She was almost free when he said, "Well, not exactly - but ‘teleportation’? You know about that?"
"Yes. It’s travel in space without moving in space. I used to be able to do it." The only time she missed that old skill was when she, Rupert, and David were taking a commercial flight, which she considered akin to prison-camp and possibly a vengeance-wish on all humans. But she didn’t like to think about those vengeance-days, she didn’t know why she’d mentioned it now. "Okay, anyway, I need to get going-"
"No, hang on, hang on." He moved very fast. Ferret-fast, she thought again, although she did admit it was oddly attractive. Far too close: "Did you travel dimensionally or temporally?"
"Dimensionally. But I can’t do it any more, so bye-"
"No." This time he caught her before she could clear the police box/teleportation device. "I just... who are you?"
Business instincts battled with good sense, and sense lost. She whipped out one of her business cards and dropped it into his outstretched hand. "Anya Jenkins Giles of Giles and Jenkins, Investigations and Acquisitions. You need something acquired, I’m the person to call."
"You acquire things," he said with that insane cheer. "Oh, that’s handy. Let’s see...the extraordinary, found and explained. Brilliant!"
"To be honest, I primarily find things," she said. "My husband explains them."
"Husband?"
"Yes. My husband Rupert is the Investigations part. And he’s waiting for me in Gilbert Place, along with our very young son, so-"
"Ah, well, I do my own explaining. And your husband and child can wait. I’ve got business for you, it shouldn’t take very long." He dropped her card into his suit pocket and latched onto her again, at which somehow she found herself being pulled toward the open door.
"Wait. You wait." She leaned back, trying to slow the momentum. She was thinking back- "You said ‘temporally’?"
"Mm. Time-travel. This-" he touched the blue police box with his free hand- "is mine."
"But it apparently only gets you within thirty-two years of where you’re going," she was compelled to point out. "I have my own life and family and work here, I can’t be running around the multiverse in a time-challenged police box!"
"The piercing quality of the voice...it’s uncanny, really it is. I know this is a parallel universe, but have you ever been an Australian air stewardess, Anya Jenkins Giles?"
She was closer to the threshold, no matter how she resisted. "What? No. Human, vengeance demon, human again. And sales and acquisition specialist."
"Vengeance demon-"
"Used to be. I chose differently. Can you get to the exposition?"
He said, "Right. I just never heard of... Well, after all, this isn’t my universe. Only two more cracks in the Void-walls left for me to close down. I’ve got to keep everything separate in order to keep all worlds safe. Has to be done." He smiled again, but this time she could see something hollow behind the cheer, a deep-space emptiness. "Anyway, anyway, someone from your world slipped through to my side of the Void, won a teleportation device and a bit of our old Celestial Intervention Agency tech in a high-stakes game, and it seems he’s exploited one of those cracks and gone back to his own place and time -1974- to use the tech. Or misuse it." The smile grew, taking over his face again, and it was colder than anything she’d seen before. "I don’t take kindly to humans trying to destroy their world in any universe."
Sighing, Anya yanked her arm free. "Great, a gambler on the run. What do you expect me to do?"
"I reckon an acquisitions specialist would be able to tell rightness from wrongness - the trigger-tech’s likely disguised as another object, you see. I don’t suppose that idiot Lord Lucan even knows what power he’s got. So I’d like your eyes in the search, Anya Jenkins Giles." Before she could protest, he said, "Just for a bit, just long enough to save the world."
"Oh, great. You had to phrase it like that." She rubbed her forehead, but it didn’t make either the blue police box or the ethical imperative go away. Damn it, saving the world was often so complicated, and of course it was always pro bono work, too. She didn’t have a choice, though. "Fine. Fine fine fine. Just let me call my husband, let him know I’ll be late. Later."
"You might not tell him exactly where we’re going. Saves difficult explanations," the man said.
"Hello, do I look stupid? That’s a rhetorical question, don’t answer."
While the cheerful ferret-man bounced idly, looking around the nasty alley, she got her mobile from her handbag and punched in the code for ‘Rupert, work’. He answered on the second ring, and at the sound of his warm voice she almost sniffled. However, onward: "Honey, honey, I’m so sorry I’m late, and I’m even sorrier I’m going to be a little later."
"I can have you back here before you left, you know," the man said brightly.
She covered the phone. "With this device? I’m not counting on it." Then, into the phone, over the ferret-man’s splutters about disrespect and TARDISes or whatever: "I forgot an appointment - I need to look at a thing, a rare object, it could be important."
"I can handle everything here, darling, and Andrew’s just come in... but I don’t remember your mentioning an appointment today."
"Um, sorry. Must have slipped my mind. Because I forgot." She covered the phone again, and hissed, "What’s your name? I’ve got to give Rupert something."
"What? Oh, of course." The man smiled again. "I’m the Doctor."
"Sure you are." She shrugged, then said into the phone, "I’ve got an appointment with a doctor."
"Anya, are you all right?"
"Yes, honey, pay attention. It’s just business, and I’ll be back here soon as I can."
"Here?"
Curses, curses, Rupert was too clever, he could almost always tell she was lying - "To the office, I mean. Bye, I love you and David so much, I’ll be thinking of you." Before he could speak again and distract her from her task, she blew a kiss into the phone and turned it off. "Okay, Doctor. Let’s get going on this stupid mission."
The only saving grace, she thought, was that she got inside the police box before it really started raining.
........................................
"More tea?" the Doctor said absently, his hands flying over the controls of his...TARDIS? Whatever.
"I’m good, thanks." Anya set her cup on the wire not-quite-a-table - just part of this green control room which felt almost alive, its walls shimmering with the contraction and expansion of time - and picked up her notebook and pencil again. "Do you think you’ll actually hit 1974 this time?"
So far they’d dropped into 2009, 1955, and for no reason whatsoever, 1542. She would have cried hot angry tears if she thought it’d have done any good, which it wouldn’t.
"I told you, it’s not the TARDIS’s fault. She’s still adjusting to the secondary Time Vortex power-supply I managed to rig up. Last Time Lord standing finally remembers his artron energy lessons after all..." His hands lifted away from the controls. When he wasn’t in motion, he looked depressed; even the little spikes in his hairdo sagged.
Trying to cheer them both up, she said, "Yes, well, technology makes little sense to me. Give me magic any day, Doctor."
He grinned, hopped once or twice on those dumb sneakers. "Because you understand the rules of magic, Anya?"
"Some magic, yes." She looked down at the page where she’d scrawled information about the missing tech: the size of a man’s palm, possibly; its original shape like the tool the Doctor had shown her, his ‘sonic screwdriver’, which looked obnoxiously phallic to her; ‘ energy emanations,’ whatever those were. She did have some potion-powder in her purse, though, Rupert sometimes used it for testing objects... At the thought of love and home, she sighed, then said briskly, "Tell me again what your plan is."
"Plan? I don’t plan. I improvise." He grinned again, which was incredibly irritating. She now understood why Rupert exploded sometimes when she beamed after explaining herself. Anyway-
"Fine. I don’t improvise well. So we’re going to November 8, 1974 - is there significance in that date?"
"Mm. Didn’t I tell you?"
"Only in the vaguest terms. I like specifics."
"Right." He leaned back against a convenient pillar. "Do you know the history of the famous Richard Bingham, Seventh Earl of Lucan, and the night of November 8, 1974?"
"No."
He surveyed her. "Right, you’d likely have been too young to remember-"
"No, I was just busy. Go ahead with your story."
Although he looked like he wanted to question her further, he said mildly enough, "Mm. Lord Lucan was a gambler, ran with a dangerous crowd - including, I might add, some charming people who wanted to overthrow the English government, likely with violence. Not that I’m interested in civil squabbles, so boring...anyway, the official story is that on November 8 in 1974 he killed his children’s nanny when he was actually trying to kill his wife, and then disappeared."
Anya blinked away thoughts of blood and vengeance for a wronged woman and focussed on action. "So, we’re going back to save the nanny?"
Now the Doctor looked sad on the surface as well as underneath. "No. No, we can’t interfere in what happened the first time."
"We just let her die? What the hell kind of mission is that? What kind of justice?"
He pushed himself away from the pillar and began to circle his control room, spinning in place as he walked -- she wondered if he was trying to spin away his own failures as he moved. "Look, Anya, we don’t... we’re not going back to change the past. It happened, and it’s not to be altered that way. We can’t save the ones gone..." He stopped as if he’d tasted something awful.
She kind of felt like the same way, thinking of lives lost because of her. "I do get that. I’m sorry."
He pivoted toward her and spread his hands. "We’re going back to stop Lord Lucan from giving his ill-wishing friends a weapon they have no business with, they have no understanding of. We’re going back so this idiot doesn’t change time - or more like, end it." This time when he smiled, his effort in faking cheer showed. "As they say, ‘Don’t cross the streams.’"
That seemed vaguely familiar. "Is that a quote from a movie?"
"Yes! Ghostbusters. Brilliant film, vastly underrated." Grin, bounce, mourning underneath.
She suddenly wanted to wrap him up and feed him like she did David when he was fussy, when he’d lost his baa or his most precious whatever. The Doctor could probably do with a digestive biscuit or two as well, he was too skinny.
But before she could do anything foolish and care-taking, the TARDIS stopped. "Here we go," he said cheerfully. "Let’s see where we are!"
He glanced at the instrumentation - "looks all right" - then hopped over and opened the door. Through the opening Anya could see night shot with brightness, smell more garbage, hear a noise that sounded like rain, mixed with music that she knew... David Bowie, she thought. Rupert played his stuff all the time just to annoy her.
"Warehouse," the Doctor said. "Warehouses, quarries, spaceships... sometimes I feel as if I visit the same places over and over again."
As he disappeared out the door, Anya tucked notebook and pencil back into her handbag, grabbed it (because she thought it could come in useful), and scrambled to follow.
Yep, they were in the interior of a warehouse. Old and disused, as far as she could tell - or used by squatters, as was suggested by piles of bedding and clothes and trash along one wall, and a side-door open to what must be a not-very-clean toilet. Overhead one lonely light flickered, and the huge doors on the far wall were open to the cold and rain. Of course it was raining. "We must be in London, all right."
The Doctor had crouched to look at something on the floor. "Mmm. 1974 was a very wet autumn, as I recall...here, Anya, look at this."
"Have you found the trigger-tech already?" She trotted over to join him.
"No, no. But this looks like the teleportation device Lord Lucan stole from that stupid Celestial Intervention Agent."
"You said ‘won.’"
"I’m reliably informed he cheated." The Doctor poked at the remnants: looked like plastic, probably round in its first incarnation, with alien energy-traces wafting up into damp English air. "Right. This is dead now - Lucan wouldn’t have known how to use it properly, he’s burnt it up."
"Which means you’ll have to take him away in the TARDIS?" she said absently. The music was louder now - but from nearby. Almost the end of the song, she thought, and there was something about this space... "If you leave him here in this time, you’ll cross the streams?"
"Got it in one." He smiled up at her.
She smiled back, but still without full attention. The concrete floor - it was marked with something, which looked familiar. When she went over and bent down, she could see the ashes and salt, smell the lost fire. A step back, a look around, and she said, "Doctor, we’re in the middle of a circle. Somebody’s been casting spells here."
"Magic?"
"Yep. Would some random intersection of magic and technology lead Lucan to this particular location?"
"You mean, if it’s 1974... that’s why we’re here, wherever here is, rather than Belgravia. Unorthodox, but it could be. As I said-"
"It’s not your universe. I heard you the first time."
The rain outside had slowed: a dank mist now, rather than actual drops. The song, even as it ended, sounded louder, and then a barely distinguishable disk-jockey voice said something about London pirate radio, and November 8 and 1974.
"There we are! Right place, right time. We’ve got to find Lord Lucan." He bounded to his feet, then headed for the door.
Hitching her bag over her shoulder, she tripped after him. "Okay, Doctor, do you have any idea which way to go to find this cheating gambler-guy? Or is this just a get-out-of-the-TARDIS-and-walk-around-randomly-til-you-get-lucky policy?"
He glanced over his shoulder. "You’re quite sure your name is not now or ever has been Tegan Jovanka?"
"Positive, and your question is beginning to annoy me."
He stopped in the doorway without warning, and she ran into his back. "Oops," he said without heat, then pointed up and then to the right.
Thameside Dock Space Available, read a tattered banner stretched on the warehouse opposite. And to the right, skirting shadow and puddles, walked a nicely suited man, older and white-headed, with an aristocratic assurance which reminded Anya unpleasantly of Jools Siviter.
"Lord Lucan?" she said, just to check.
"I reckon," the Doctor said. "He’s aged, of course, running around the multiverse. Happens to the best of us. Well, not to me exactly, but-"
Without saying anything else, he took off running after that Lucan peer-person.
Of course Anya had to follow.
As she ran, she thought longingly of what she could be doing at home, instead of sprinting in her work heels down a dark, mud-puddled strip of asphalt. She also noticed bits and pieces as she went by: the sagging, holey fences, the empty warehouses with signs hanging halfway down. The Docklands restoration was several years away, she remembered. This place would be ripe for mischief, if not actual evil.
Lord Lucan was in fact old, and so it only took a few yards to catch up to him. The Doctor got him by the back of the jacket, then pulled him into a deeper strip of shadow. Avoiding the potential witnesses as well as the light, she realised: across the way was a quite occupied warehouse, its doors half-open, spilling out light and voices and the pirate radio station noise.
"Hello there," the Doctor said. "Lord Lucan, I presume?" The man didn’t answer, possibly because an alien being was pulling his jacket so tightly he could barely speak. "We really can’t let you do this."
"I don’t believe...I know you," Lord Lucan gasped in an all too familiar way.
"Oh my God, you’re just like Jools -- except that not even Jools would kill his children’s nanny. Probably," Anya said. "Doctor, would you like me to frisk him for the trigger-tech?"
Even in the dark the Doctor’s smile shone, cold as the rain. "What an excellent idea, Anya."
Much as she didn’t enjoy the job, she did it thoroughly - clothing to crevices, no matter how the man squirmed. "Nothing there," she said, standing up and wiping her hands on Lord Lucan’s jacket.
The Doctor said, "Where is the trigger-tech, my lord? Actually, is that what one calls an earl? I don’t usually like to use titles that way..."
Lord Lucan didn’t say anything, so Anya volunteered, "Yes, that’s right - I had to learn for business purposes. So, if he doesn’t have it, I’d say there are two options. One, he’s already handed it off-"
"Oh, I don’t think he’s done that. Do you, my lord?"
Lord Lucan still didn’t say anything. However, best as Anya could tell, he was turning sort of purple.
Still with that chilling cheer, the Doctor yanked him higher on his toes. "Two, he’s left it hidden in the warehouse from which we’ve just come. What do you think, Anya?"
"I think..." What was going to be her agreement trailed off when she looked back down the alley-equivalent.
A male figure, tall and broad-shouldered and heavy-booted, was heading toward the warehouse with the TARDIS. There was something really familiar about his walk, the way he held a sparking lit cigarette in his left hand and a backpack slung over his right shoulder, even though she couldn’t quite see his face.
"I think we might be in trouble." She nudged the Doctor’s arm so he would look that way.
He glanced at the figure, then said easily, "Oh, just a little trouble. Nothing to worry about."
From the nearer warehouse, the one just across the way, came laughter and a rattle of metal - sounded like a body had hit the door. Yep, the door swung further open: one body, face-down on the ground. Dead, looked like.
In the cracks of the doors Anya could see a woman: tall, dressed in flowing black to match her hair, seeming to dance to the music on the radio. "My Spike," she sang, hands making unreadable patterns in the air. "Make me forget about the burning, the visions - can I have another to play with?"
"Dru! Christ, you’ve already had two tonight," said a voice Anya knew. "But anything for my princess." Then came a gleam of cheekbones under - well, shortish brown hair was an interesting choice for him, although of course she knew that was his natural colour. Thick leather jacket, awfully familiar; too-tight jeans, also familiar. His own kind of swagger, oh, shit-
"Doctor?" she whispered. "We have more trouble. Because that’s Spike and Drusilla."
"And they are?"
"Vampires. Evil evil. Except Spike really shouldn’t be staked or burnt or dusted in any way, since in 2003 he’s going to save the world after he reforms."
"That does make things more complicated." The Doctor grinned at her. "Fantastic."
Spike and Drusilla’s music got louder, and Spike spun Drusilla away from the door, laughing and calling her princess again. Boy, he sounded drunk - which Anya felt was probably a good thing, might make him less dangerous. Or, possibly, worse...
The male figure down the alleyway stopped, crushed the end of his cigarette under his boot, shook out another cigarette from a pack he unearthed from his jacket. When he flicked his lighter, the flame illuminated his handsome young face briefly - but long enough for Anya to see, to startle, to yearn.
"Doctor?" she said, in a voice far too high for her liking. "The first trouble just got worse. Because that guy going into the warehouse with the TARDIS? Is Rupert Giles, who’s going to be my husband in about twenty-nine years. And, um, he’s going to help save the world a lot too, so he needs to be protected at all costs, and kept away from Spike."
"Oh, that’s handy," the Doctor said, just as he had in her London that afternoon. "He’s an investigator, right? So, hip-hop, off you go to acquire the trigger-tech and keep your future husband from getting killed, figuring out who you are, or doing anything to my TARDIS-"
At which point Lord Lucan, likely tired of being held in a Time Lord’s grip, wrested himself free and took off running (at an appropriately elderly pace) in the other direction.
From behind the open doors Spike and Drusilla’s dance stopped for a beat, frozen like dead hearts, before they started spinning again.
"-And I’ll take care of things ‘round here!" the Doctor finished brightly, before sprinting after Lord Lucan.
Anya looked back down toward Rupert. No, he’d be calling himself Ripper now - and tough, brash Ripper was swaggering his way into the dark cavernous doorway of that warehouse, where there’d been spellcasting and probably drugs, and where now there was the machine that would take her home to him. Her him, not this attractive bad boy....oh crap.
"Note to self: don’t cross the streams," she whispered.
Then she ran.
...........................
To be continued....
TITLE: Don't Cross The Streams (Part One)
AUTHOR: Lori
LENGTH: This part approximately 4100 words.
PAIRING: Giles/Anya
RATING: Mature Readers, this part for language
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Joss Whedon and Co; the BBC and Russell T Davies; a classic of contemporary cinematic comedy; also, David Bowie. Rather enormous liberties have been taken with an incident from modern English history, as well.
SUMMARY: This is an Investigations and Acquisitions story (set three years after "Postern of Fate"); all you need to know is that we're AU after "Showtime," and Giles and Anya live in London and run their own private occult-services firm. For fans of Doctor Who, spoilers through "Doomsday."
When worlds and time collide... who you gonna call?
Don’t Cross the Streams
Night rain, cold and hard, strikes at their study windows. Anya ordinarily would find the pleasant sound soothing (since she and her loved ones are safe and warm inside), except - "Darling, are you sure you’re all right?" Rupert says for the second time in three minutes.
She stretches very carefully so as not to disturb the newly medicated flesh wounds on her hands and knees, casts a maternal glance at little David on the Aubusson flipping through his picture-book, and then settles deeper into the sofa. "Yes, honey, except for the lingering pain and aches. Why?"
Rupert puts his hand on her forehead as if he’s checking for fever. "Well, I just put Diamond Dogs on the stereo and you didn’t even complain... er, I meant ‘comment,’ of course."
Inside, she’s smiling despite itching and pain. Outside, she plays as innocent as she can, because it’s important he doesn’t suspect. "Would you put on music I like if I complained?"
That attractive half-grin - it’s like he can’t decide how amused he is - quirks his mouth. "Probably not. But that’s never stopped you before."
"Ha ha, funny guy," she says in her usual manner, and closes her eyes.
David Bowie is singing, which used to annoy her, but not tonight. No, tonight it makes her happy, even though she’s got to be careful.
Rupert touches her cheek gently, then moves away - toward his desk, she thinks, he’s got his own things to do. She senses the change in light, feels a shift -
In her mind she hears a strange alien sound, a travelling sound that overtakes the Bowie, and a falsely cheerful male voice saying, "Don’t cross the streams...."
..........................................................
She was fifteen minutes late. She hated being late. Also, it was going to start raining any minute, and she’d left her umbrella at the office and had only a silk scarf as potential protection.
She dodged a fat Oxford Street pigeon, shouldered past a tourist, and then began to jog toward the Investigations and Acquisitions office. Not that Rupert would mind doubling up on childcare and professional duties a little longer, but she felt guilty - too long with Dawn and Zoe at lunch, and a side-trip to a new boutique selling vintage clothing. She hadn’t bought anything, but still, she’d slacked on her jobs.
Side-trip...an alley shortcut beckoned ahead. She ordinarily wouldn’t take it, what with the garbage and the smells worse than several massacres she’d attended, but if it was a matter of time saved, she didn’t have much choice.
Even as she took the turn, however, she slowed. Inside the alley a sound had overtaken the traffic and pedestrian noise and the construction racket from a block over, shaking time itself: a strange alien sound, a travelling sound....
She almost smacked right into the old-fashioned blue police box which materialized in front of her.
Allowing herself to thump the side of the police box - only one, and with the heel of her hand to minimize damage to herself or to this random teleportation device - she sidled around it on her way to Gilbert Place.
Or, rather, she would have sidled by except the door to the police box flew open, and an artfully tousled man appeared. "Hello, hello!" he said with apparent delight, and bounced outside on his scruffy tennis shoes, which Anya didn’t think really went with his brown pinstripes and overcoat. Cheerfully: "My instrumentation’s a little over-sensitive at the moment... Is this 1974?"
"Sorry, it’s 2006." She made another move toward sidling, but was caught by his surprisingly strong hand. "Um, mister, let go of me."
"Oh right, sorry," he said. There couldn’t have been less remorse in his voice, however, and in fact he didn’t let go. "It is London?"
"Hands off or I’ll hit you very hard, and in a place you won’t like," she said. When he finally let go, with a smile he no doubt thought was disarming, she added, "London, yes. November 8, 2006."
His grin took over his whole face. "Excellent! Pinpoint control! Except for the thirty-two years." He caressed his police box in a worryingly affectionate way before looking back at her. This time, although he was smiling, she had the distinct impression he was assessing her. Yes - "Do you know, there’s something rather different about you."
Stung, she couldn’t help saying, "Look who’s talking - an overdressed, kind of ferret-faced guy who materializes with a teleportation device that not only looks out of date but apparently can’t hit its target within three decades."
She was almost free when he said, "Well, not exactly - but ‘teleportation’? You know about that?"
"Yes. It’s travel in space without moving in space. I used to be able to do it." The only time she missed that old skill was when she, Rupert, and David were taking a commercial flight, which she considered akin to prison-camp and possibly a vengeance-wish on all humans. But she didn’t like to think about those vengeance-days, she didn’t know why she’d mentioned it now. "Okay, anyway, I need to get going-"
"No, hang on, hang on." He moved very fast. Ferret-fast, she thought again, although she did admit it was oddly attractive. Far too close: "Did you travel dimensionally or temporally?"
"Dimensionally. But I can’t do it any more, so bye-"
"No." This time he caught her before she could clear the police box/teleportation device. "I just... who are you?"
Business instincts battled with good sense, and sense lost. She whipped out one of her business cards and dropped it into his outstretched hand. "Anya Jenkins Giles of Giles and Jenkins, Investigations and Acquisitions. You need something acquired, I’m the person to call."
"You acquire things," he said with that insane cheer. "Oh, that’s handy. Let’s see...the extraordinary, found and explained. Brilliant!"
"To be honest, I primarily find things," she said. "My husband explains them."
"Husband?"
"Yes. My husband Rupert is the Investigations part. And he’s waiting for me in Gilbert Place, along with our very young son, so-"
"Ah, well, I do my own explaining. And your husband and child can wait. I’ve got business for you, it shouldn’t take very long." He dropped her card into his suit pocket and latched onto her again, at which somehow she found herself being pulled toward the open door.
"Wait. You wait." She leaned back, trying to slow the momentum. She was thinking back- "You said ‘temporally’?"
"Mm. Time-travel. This-" he touched the blue police box with his free hand- "is mine."
"But it apparently only gets you within thirty-two years of where you’re going," she was compelled to point out. "I have my own life and family and work here, I can’t be running around the multiverse in a time-challenged police box!"
"The piercing quality of the voice...it’s uncanny, really it is. I know this is a parallel universe, but have you ever been an Australian air stewardess, Anya Jenkins Giles?"
She was closer to the threshold, no matter how she resisted. "What? No. Human, vengeance demon, human again. And sales and acquisition specialist."
"Vengeance demon-"
"Used to be. I chose differently. Can you get to the exposition?"
He said, "Right. I just never heard of... Well, after all, this isn’t my universe. Only two more cracks in the Void-walls left for me to close down. I’ve got to keep everything separate in order to keep all worlds safe. Has to be done." He smiled again, but this time she could see something hollow behind the cheer, a deep-space emptiness. "Anyway, anyway, someone from your world slipped through to my side of the Void, won a teleportation device and a bit of our old Celestial Intervention Agency tech in a high-stakes game, and it seems he’s exploited one of those cracks and gone back to his own place and time -1974- to use the tech. Or misuse it." The smile grew, taking over his face again, and it was colder than anything she’d seen before. "I don’t take kindly to humans trying to destroy their world in any universe."
Sighing, Anya yanked her arm free. "Great, a gambler on the run. What do you expect me to do?"
"I reckon an acquisitions specialist would be able to tell rightness from wrongness - the trigger-tech’s likely disguised as another object, you see. I don’t suppose that idiot Lord Lucan even knows what power he’s got. So I’d like your eyes in the search, Anya Jenkins Giles." Before she could protest, he said, "Just for a bit, just long enough to save the world."
"Oh, great. You had to phrase it like that." She rubbed her forehead, but it didn’t make either the blue police box or the ethical imperative go away. Damn it, saving the world was often so complicated, and of course it was always pro bono work, too. She didn’t have a choice, though. "Fine. Fine fine fine. Just let me call my husband, let him know I’ll be late. Later."
"You might not tell him exactly where we’re going. Saves difficult explanations," the man said.
"Hello, do I look stupid? That’s a rhetorical question, don’t answer."
While the cheerful ferret-man bounced idly, looking around the nasty alley, she got her mobile from her handbag and punched in the code for ‘Rupert, work’. He answered on the second ring, and at the sound of his warm voice she almost sniffled. However, onward: "Honey, honey, I’m so sorry I’m late, and I’m even sorrier I’m going to be a little later."
"I can have you back here before you left, you know," the man said brightly.
She covered the phone. "With this device? I’m not counting on it." Then, into the phone, over the ferret-man’s splutters about disrespect and TARDISes or whatever: "I forgot an appointment - I need to look at a thing, a rare object, it could be important."
"I can handle everything here, darling, and Andrew’s just come in... but I don’t remember your mentioning an appointment today."
"Um, sorry. Must have slipped my mind. Because I forgot." She covered the phone again, and hissed, "What’s your name? I’ve got to give Rupert something."
"What? Oh, of course." The man smiled again. "I’m the Doctor."
"Sure you are." She shrugged, then said into the phone, "I’ve got an appointment with a doctor."
"Anya, are you all right?"
"Yes, honey, pay attention. It’s just business, and I’ll be back here soon as I can."
"Here?"
Curses, curses, Rupert was too clever, he could almost always tell she was lying - "To the office, I mean. Bye, I love you and David so much, I’ll be thinking of you." Before he could speak again and distract her from her task, she blew a kiss into the phone and turned it off. "Okay, Doctor. Let’s get going on this stupid mission."
The only saving grace, she thought, was that she got inside the police box before it really started raining.
........................................
"More tea?" the Doctor said absently, his hands flying over the controls of his...TARDIS? Whatever.
"I’m good, thanks." Anya set her cup on the wire not-quite-a-table - just part of this green control room which felt almost alive, its walls shimmering with the contraction and expansion of time - and picked up her notebook and pencil again. "Do you think you’ll actually hit 1974 this time?"
So far they’d dropped into 2009, 1955, and for no reason whatsoever, 1542. She would have cried hot angry tears if she thought it’d have done any good, which it wouldn’t.
"I told you, it’s not the TARDIS’s fault. She’s still adjusting to the secondary Time Vortex power-supply I managed to rig up. Last Time Lord standing finally remembers his artron energy lessons after all..." His hands lifted away from the controls. When he wasn’t in motion, he looked depressed; even the little spikes in his hairdo sagged.
Trying to cheer them both up, she said, "Yes, well, technology makes little sense to me. Give me magic any day, Doctor."
He grinned, hopped once or twice on those dumb sneakers. "Because you understand the rules of magic, Anya?"
"Some magic, yes." She looked down at the page where she’d scrawled information about the missing tech: the size of a man’s palm, possibly; its original shape like the tool the Doctor had shown her, his ‘sonic screwdriver’, which looked obnoxiously phallic to her; ‘ energy emanations,’ whatever those were. She did have some potion-powder in her purse, though, Rupert sometimes used it for testing objects... At the thought of love and home, she sighed, then said briskly, "Tell me again what your plan is."
"Plan? I don’t plan. I improvise." He grinned again, which was incredibly irritating. She now understood why Rupert exploded sometimes when she beamed after explaining herself. Anyway-
"Fine. I don’t improvise well. So we’re going to November 8, 1974 - is there significance in that date?"
"Mm. Didn’t I tell you?"
"Only in the vaguest terms. I like specifics."
"Right." He leaned back against a convenient pillar. "Do you know the history of the famous Richard Bingham, Seventh Earl of Lucan, and the night of November 8, 1974?"
"No."
He surveyed her. "Right, you’d likely have been too young to remember-"
"No, I was just busy. Go ahead with your story."
Although he looked like he wanted to question her further, he said mildly enough, "Mm. Lord Lucan was a gambler, ran with a dangerous crowd - including, I might add, some charming people who wanted to overthrow the English government, likely with violence. Not that I’m interested in civil squabbles, so boring...anyway, the official story is that on November 8 in 1974 he killed his children’s nanny when he was actually trying to kill his wife, and then disappeared."
Anya blinked away thoughts of blood and vengeance for a wronged woman and focussed on action. "So, we’re going back to save the nanny?"
Now the Doctor looked sad on the surface as well as underneath. "No. No, we can’t interfere in what happened the first time."
"We just let her die? What the hell kind of mission is that? What kind of justice?"
He pushed himself away from the pillar and began to circle his control room, spinning in place as he walked -- she wondered if he was trying to spin away his own failures as he moved. "Look, Anya, we don’t... we’re not going back to change the past. It happened, and it’s not to be altered that way. We can’t save the ones gone..." He stopped as if he’d tasted something awful.
She kind of felt like the same way, thinking of lives lost because of her. "I do get that. I’m sorry."
He pivoted toward her and spread his hands. "We’re going back to stop Lord Lucan from giving his ill-wishing friends a weapon they have no business with, they have no understanding of. We’re going back so this idiot doesn’t change time - or more like, end it." This time when he smiled, his effort in faking cheer showed. "As they say, ‘Don’t cross the streams.’"
That seemed vaguely familiar. "Is that a quote from a movie?"
"Yes! Ghostbusters. Brilliant film, vastly underrated." Grin, bounce, mourning underneath.
She suddenly wanted to wrap him up and feed him like she did David when he was fussy, when he’d lost his baa or his most precious whatever. The Doctor could probably do with a digestive biscuit or two as well, he was too skinny.
But before she could do anything foolish and care-taking, the TARDIS stopped. "Here we go," he said cheerfully. "Let’s see where we are!"
He glanced at the instrumentation - "looks all right" - then hopped over and opened the door. Through the opening Anya could see night shot with brightness, smell more garbage, hear a noise that sounded like rain, mixed with music that she knew... David Bowie, she thought. Rupert played his stuff all the time just to annoy her.
"Warehouse," the Doctor said. "Warehouses, quarries, spaceships... sometimes I feel as if I visit the same places over and over again."
As he disappeared out the door, Anya tucked notebook and pencil back into her handbag, grabbed it (because she thought it could come in useful), and scrambled to follow.
Yep, they were in the interior of a warehouse. Old and disused, as far as she could tell - or used by squatters, as was suggested by piles of bedding and clothes and trash along one wall, and a side-door open to what must be a not-very-clean toilet. Overhead one lonely light flickered, and the huge doors on the far wall were open to the cold and rain. Of course it was raining. "We must be in London, all right."
The Doctor had crouched to look at something on the floor. "Mmm. 1974 was a very wet autumn, as I recall...here, Anya, look at this."
"Have you found the trigger-tech already?" She trotted over to join him.
"No, no. But this looks like the teleportation device Lord Lucan stole from that stupid Celestial Intervention Agent."
"You said ‘won.’"
"I’m reliably informed he cheated." The Doctor poked at the remnants: looked like plastic, probably round in its first incarnation, with alien energy-traces wafting up into damp English air. "Right. This is dead now - Lucan wouldn’t have known how to use it properly, he’s burnt it up."
"Which means you’ll have to take him away in the TARDIS?" she said absently. The music was louder now - but from nearby. Almost the end of the song, she thought, and there was something about this space... "If you leave him here in this time, you’ll cross the streams?"
"Got it in one." He smiled up at her.
She smiled back, but still without full attention. The concrete floor - it was marked with something, which looked familiar. When she went over and bent down, she could see the ashes and salt, smell the lost fire. A step back, a look around, and she said, "Doctor, we’re in the middle of a circle. Somebody’s been casting spells here."
"Magic?"
"Yep. Would some random intersection of magic and technology lead Lucan to this particular location?"
"You mean, if it’s 1974... that’s why we’re here, wherever here is, rather than Belgravia. Unorthodox, but it could be. As I said-"
"It’s not your universe. I heard you the first time."
The rain outside had slowed: a dank mist now, rather than actual drops. The song, even as it ended, sounded louder, and then a barely distinguishable disk-jockey voice said something about London pirate radio, and November 8 and 1974.
"There we are! Right place, right time. We’ve got to find Lord Lucan." He bounded to his feet, then headed for the door.
Hitching her bag over her shoulder, she tripped after him. "Okay, Doctor, do you have any idea which way to go to find this cheating gambler-guy? Or is this just a get-out-of-the-TARDIS-and-walk-around-randomly-til-you-get-lucky policy?"
He glanced over his shoulder. "You’re quite sure your name is not now or ever has been Tegan Jovanka?"
"Positive, and your question is beginning to annoy me."
He stopped in the doorway without warning, and she ran into his back. "Oops," he said without heat, then pointed up and then to the right.
Thameside Dock Space Available, read a tattered banner stretched on the warehouse opposite. And to the right, skirting shadow and puddles, walked a nicely suited man, older and white-headed, with an aristocratic assurance which reminded Anya unpleasantly of Jools Siviter.
"Lord Lucan?" she said, just to check.
"I reckon," the Doctor said. "He’s aged, of course, running around the multiverse. Happens to the best of us. Well, not to me exactly, but-"
Without saying anything else, he took off running after that Lucan peer-person.
Of course Anya had to follow.
As she ran, she thought longingly of what she could be doing at home, instead of sprinting in her work heels down a dark, mud-puddled strip of asphalt. She also noticed bits and pieces as she went by: the sagging, holey fences, the empty warehouses with signs hanging halfway down. The Docklands restoration was several years away, she remembered. This place would be ripe for mischief, if not actual evil.
Lord Lucan was in fact old, and so it only took a few yards to catch up to him. The Doctor got him by the back of the jacket, then pulled him into a deeper strip of shadow. Avoiding the potential witnesses as well as the light, she realised: across the way was a quite occupied warehouse, its doors half-open, spilling out light and voices and the pirate radio station noise.
"Hello there," the Doctor said. "Lord Lucan, I presume?" The man didn’t answer, possibly because an alien being was pulling his jacket so tightly he could barely speak. "We really can’t let you do this."
"I don’t believe...I know you," Lord Lucan gasped in an all too familiar way.
"Oh my God, you’re just like Jools -- except that not even Jools would kill his children’s nanny. Probably," Anya said. "Doctor, would you like me to frisk him for the trigger-tech?"
Even in the dark the Doctor’s smile shone, cold as the rain. "What an excellent idea, Anya."
Much as she didn’t enjoy the job, she did it thoroughly - clothing to crevices, no matter how the man squirmed. "Nothing there," she said, standing up and wiping her hands on Lord Lucan’s jacket.
The Doctor said, "Where is the trigger-tech, my lord? Actually, is that what one calls an earl? I don’t usually like to use titles that way..."
Lord Lucan didn’t say anything, so Anya volunteered, "Yes, that’s right - I had to learn for business purposes. So, if he doesn’t have it, I’d say there are two options. One, he’s already handed it off-"
"Oh, I don’t think he’s done that. Do you, my lord?"
Lord Lucan still didn’t say anything. However, best as Anya could tell, he was turning sort of purple.
Still with that chilling cheer, the Doctor yanked him higher on his toes. "Two, he’s left it hidden in the warehouse from which we’ve just come. What do you think, Anya?"
"I think..." What was going to be her agreement trailed off when she looked back down the alley-equivalent.
A male figure, tall and broad-shouldered and heavy-booted, was heading toward the warehouse with the TARDIS. There was something really familiar about his walk, the way he held a sparking lit cigarette in his left hand and a backpack slung over his right shoulder, even though she couldn’t quite see his face.
"I think we might be in trouble." She nudged the Doctor’s arm so he would look that way.
He glanced at the figure, then said easily, "Oh, just a little trouble. Nothing to worry about."
From the nearer warehouse, the one just across the way, came laughter and a rattle of metal - sounded like a body had hit the door. Yep, the door swung further open: one body, face-down on the ground. Dead, looked like.
In the cracks of the doors Anya could see a woman: tall, dressed in flowing black to match her hair, seeming to dance to the music on the radio. "My Spike," she sang, hands making unreadable patterns in the air. "Make me forget about the burning, the visions - can I have another to play with?"
"Dru! Christ, you’ve already had two tonight," said a voice Anya knew. "But anything for my princess." Then came a gleam of cheekbones under - well, shortish brown hair was an interesting choice for him, although of course she knew that was his natural colour. Thick leather jacket, awfully familiar; too-tight jeans, also familiar. His own kind of swagger, oh, shit-
"Doctor?" she whispered. "We have more trouble. Because that’s Spike and Drusilla."
"And they are?"
"Vampires. Evil evil. Except Spike really shouldn’t be staked or burnt or dusted in any way, since in 2003 he’s going to save the world after he reforms."
"That does make things more complicated." The Doctor grinned at her. "Fantastic."
Spike and Drusilla’s music got louder, and Spike spun Drusilla away from the door, laughing and calling her princess again. Boy, he sounded drunk - which Anya felt was probably a good thing, might make him less dangerous. Or, possibly, worse...
The male figure down the alleyway stopped, crushed the end of his cigarette under his boot, shook out another cigarette from a pack he unearthed from his jacket. When he flicked his lighter, the flame illuminated his handsome young face briefly - but long enough for Anya to see, to startle, to yearn.
"Doctor?" she said, in a voice far too high for her liking. "The first trouble just got worse. Because that guy going into the warehouse with the TARDIS? Is Rupert Giles, who’s going to be my husband in about twenty-nine years. And, um, he’s going to help save the world a lot too, so he needs to be protected at all costs, and kept away from Spike."
"Oh, that’s handy," the Doctor said, just as he had in her London that afternoon. "He’s an investigator, right? So, hip-hop, off you go to acquire the trigger-tech and keep your future husband from getting killed, figuring out who you are, or doing anything to my TARDIS-"
At which point Lord Lucan, likely tired of being held in a Time Lord’s grip, wrested himself free and took off running (at an appropriately elderly pace) in the other direction.
From behind the open doors Spike and Drusilla’s dance stopped for a beat, frozen like dead hearts, before they started spinning again.
"-And I’ll take care of things ‘round here!" the Doctor finished brightly, before sprinting after Lord Lucan.
Anya looked back down toward Rupert. No, he’d be calling himself Ripper now - and tough, brash Ripper was swaggering his way into the dark cavernous doorway of that warehouse, where there’d been spellcasting and probably drugs, and where now there was the machine that would take her home to him. Her him, not this attractive bad boy....oh crap.
"Note to self: don’t cross the streams," she whispered.
Then she ran.
...........................
To be continued....