Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

first meeting/first adventure: “Nice to meet you. Run for your life.”

Ed looked out the kitchen window, hands on the shutters, about to close them for the night, and froze.

A light shone in the middle of the courtyard, just past the chicken coop and, even as he watched, a large blue box appeared out of the light.

“Uh, babe?”

“Yeah?” Stede called back from the front room.

“Um...”

“Something wrong?” The soft slap of Stede’s footsteps echoed behind him—they never wore shoes or boots indoors when there weren’t guests around—and then he was sliding an arm about Ed’s waist. “You’re all tense!”

“Look,” Ed told him softly, not once shifting his gaze from the sudden apparition.

There were words across the top, “Police Box,” but that didn’t explain anything about what the object was, how it had appeared—or what might happen next, as a hand appeared around the edge of a door and out of the box stepped—

“Is that Prince Ricky?” Stede sounded both surprised and angry, and Ed would have laughed at the affront in Stede’s tone, if the situation had not, at that instant, become a hundred times more strange.

“Quick!” said a voice—from inside the inn. “Through here! We need to— Oh, blast, they’ve spotted him.”

Ed and Stede turned in time to see a woman, blonde-haired, quick in her movements, slide to a halt on booted feet, right by the kitchen door. She shook her head, then scurried back the way she’d come. But—

“Where did she come from?” Stede asked, voicing Ed’s thought. “And she’s trekking mud all over the floors!”

He stalked off on stocking feet.

Ed glanced outside. The box remained, but the Ricky figure was gone. He slammed the shutters to, locked them, and followed Stede, sidestepping the muddy trail.

***

“I can explain,” the woman said, pacing before the reception desk. “Maybe. It depends.”

“On what?” Stede demanded. “Who are you?”

“She’s the Doctor!” the woman’s companion supplied. For some reasons the swoop of his hair irritated Stede. “My name’s Graham O’Brien.”

“Graham and— Who?”

“Exactly,” said the woman—Doctor?—shortly. “And you must be the innkeepers.”

Ed had come up behind him, and Stede banded his arm about Ed’s waist for the second time in as many minutes, this time more for reassurance than affection. “We’re co-innkeepers.”

“That’s right. And according to my calculations, you’re about to have a guest. I was hoping I’d have time to warn you, but— Too late!” She grabbed Graham’s hand, sprinkled something on the front desk, and clattered off to the kitchen.

“Now see here,” Stede began, but the front door opened—and Ricky came in.

“No,” Ed said. “Absolutely not.”

Ricky rubbed the bridge of his artificial nose. “Now, my good man—”

“You heard him,” Stede said. “Out.” He reached behind the front desk and whipped out his knife from its hiding place. “Now.”

“Oh dear.” Ricky’s face fell. “I’ve come at the wrong time. Give me a moment.” And he turned around and went out. The door slammed.

A moment later, it opened again, and Anne Bonny walked in. “Hi, guys!”

Ed recoiled, stumbling. “What the hell is going on?”

Stede got both arms about him, keeping him upright. “Is Mary with you?”

“Hm? No.” Anne sauntered up to the desk. “I just need a room for the night and— What have you done?” She glared at some items on the desk, tiny cylinders of bright rainbow colours. “Jelly babies,” she whispered.

Before Stede could ask what they were—he hadn’t even found time to wonder why the Doctor had scattered them—Anne squared her shoulders and shifted her glare to them. “It doesn’t matter. I will not be thwarted. Now, I’d like a room—”

“Booked,” Ed said shortly. He drew apart from Stede, tossed back his hair, and crossed his arms. “Booked solid, for the rest of the week.”

“Yes,” Stede chimed in. “What he said.”

“I see. We have to do this the hard way, then. Very well.”

Anne turned on her heel and went out. The door slammed again.

“Quick!” the Doctor called, from their kitchen, if you please. “Don’t let the Master get back to his TARDIS!”

***

Despite the mystery of it all, Ed was about to do what she’d commanded—how, he didn’t know; run outside and tackle Anne to the ground?—but at that moment, a gull flew in through the open window of the front room.

“I’ve dealt with him—for the moment,” it said.

“Buttons?” Stede asked.

“Aye. Hello there, traveller,” he added, half-words, half-squawks, as the Doctor and Graham reappeared.

“Hullo,” the Doctor said cheerfully. “Fancy meeting you here. You can eat those now, if you like,” she added, and Buttons flew across and began pecking at the coloured blobs on the front desk. “What’ve you done with him?”

“Pecked him. He ran off to the woods, the glaikit wee bampot.”

“All right, brilliant.” The Doctor clapped her hands together. “But we can’t underestimate the Master. We need a plan.”

“Oh, good,” Stede said. “Plans are useful.”

Was Ed the only one not feeling shaken up and confused? It didn’t help that, when he tried to catch the gull’s eye, Buttons winked at him.

Had Ed hurt himself somehow, and dropped back into the gravy basket?

He decided to take a leaf out of Stede’s book. “Tea?”

It worked! Everyone followed him to the kitchen and, as they went, Stede slipped his hand into his.

***

The crew huddled together on the beach. Archie watched their faces as they eyed the strange box at the edge of the woods.

“What is it?” Roach asked.

“Shouldn’t touch it,” Frenchie declared, “if it belongs to the fairies.”

Archie strode up to the box and slapped her hand on its side. “Perfectly solid. Not fairyish at—”

The box gave a metallic thrum, and a light flashed on top. “Uh oh,” Archie said cheerfully. “I think it’s alive!”

“Babe—” Olu and Jim both looked at her, Olu taking a step back and Jim taking a step forward, as if Olu wanted them all to run away and Jim wanted to snatch her and drag her along as they went. That was sweet.

At that moment, the second dinghy hauled up on the beach, and the rest of the crew descended.

Auntie stalked over, closely followed by Izzy. “What have we got here?”

“It looks scary,” Swede suggested.

“Well, if it’s scary,” Lucius said, edging towards the dinghy, “I’ll probably just head back to the ship...”

Pete ran up and made a show of inspecting the box. “Maybe it’s a crate of treasure!”

That caught everyone’s attention, and they swarmed all about, inspecting the object from every side, John standing on a boulder and peering over the top.

“What does ‘police’ mean?” Jackie asked. “It’s not Latin, is it? If this is a Stede thing...”

“Maybe it’s one of Ed’s caches,” Zheng said quietly.

“Doesn’t look like our usual stuff,” Fang said and Izzy agreed. “We were a lot more careful. Look at the size of this thing!”

The box vibrated again, light flashing.

Archie wriggled in between the various limbs and tucked herself up against the side of the box. “It’s kinda pretty.”

The box hummed. Its light shone blue.

Them, from inside, came a voice. “Doctor? Are you there?”

Chapter Text

The tea had been Ed’s idea but, once in the kitchen, Stede brewed it, and he plated up Ed’s banana bread with the swirl of cocoa through its centre, and the Doctor and Ed talked, and even Graham contributed, and Buttons interjected now and again, in between pecking at crumbs, and they were knee deep in math and space travel, and something the Doctor waved away as “wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey” stuff, and Stede felt completely unneeded and unnecessary to the whole enterprise.

Then they heard Archie shout, “It’s alive!”

And everyone rushed down to the beach.

“It’s not Earth,” said a head peering around the door jamb of a big blue box, identical to the one near their back garden. “What do you think, Brigadier?”

A second head poked out, straight hair flopping over a forehead, neatly trimmed moustache bristling. “I’m fairly sure that’s Cromer.”

“Hmm.” The first head, that of an elderly gentleman with a short beard and deep-set eyes, appeared skeptical.

Then they both turned and spotted the score of people watching them. They jumped, and the Doctor laughed. “Mr Wilfred Mott,” she said, indicating the elderly gentleman. “And Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart—”

“That’s not a Navy rank,” Izzy interrupted.

“No, I’m attached to the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce.”

That didn’t explain anything, as far as Stede was concerned, but the two men now stood fully in the doorway, and the crew began to gravitate towards them. No—towards the box.

“Can we peek inside?” Archie asked, tiptoeing to peer over the Brigadier’s shoulder.

“How does it work?” Frenchie asked.

“What does it do?” Olu wanted to know.

The Doctor looked around at them all, then skipped up to the doors and set her hand on the handle. “Hm.” She pulled a contraption out of her pocket, a sort of disk that unravelled on a string, snapped back up at the flip of her finger, then suddenly hung limp. “This never works right anymore,” she said sadly, tucked it back into her pocket, then swung the door wide. “Come in, I guess. What harm can it do?”

***

“It’s—”

“Don’t say it!” the Doctor pleaded.

“—bigger on the inside!” the crew chorused.

“You said it.” The Doctor’s voice was weary. Then she perked up. “There are so many of you! Do you know, I’ve never hosted a dinner party here—is that something you guys would like? An extended fam sort of thing.”

The crew cheered, but a voice rose above their excitement, that of the Brigadier. “Doctor, I really think— The Master is still at large— Can we just focus on—”

“A dinner party sounds just the ticket!” Izzy interrupted. Ed, standing near, heard him add in an aside for the Brigadier’s ears alone, “You’ll never get them to think of duty when there’s a party to be planned.”

The crew wandered off in all directions, calling out to each other. “Here’s the kitchen!” “Don’t need it; I found a food replicator!” “What’s a sauna?” “What’re these creatures in this tank? Sea monkeys? What are they?”

Ed, beginning to feel out of his element again, stuck by Stede, who’d discovered a library, of course. The Doctor came with them.

“Ah, my diary,” she said, and flipped through an open book on a side table. “Let’s see, this is 1718? I’ll flip back a couple thousand years...”

Ed turned to share an incredulous look with Stede, but he’d gravitated towards a display of framed portraits. Twelve men, a young girl beside the oldest man, and then a dizzying array of tiny portraits, face after face. The Doctor glanced up, maybe wondering why they’d gone silent, then startled. “You can see those?”

Now they did share a look, then both glanced quizzically at the Doctor.

“No one’s noticed them before,” she explained. “I mean, hardly anyone makes a beeline for the library on first entering the TARDIS. But even the companions who do wander in... Their eyes just never land on those images. I suppose...” She tilted her head, scrutinised them one after another. Her gaze lingered on their clasped hands. “Maybe you need to have suffered a certain type of loss, to see the evidence of someone else’s losses.”

Ed was about to ask if she was okay, when they heard John’s voice, raised in a shout. “Whoa! Help! That’s a big one!”

The three of them sprinted out of the library, careering off the doors, and down the corridor.

“Fault locator!” the Doctor cried, and veered at the last second through a door at the end and up to a large panel, dragging Ed in with her. “Here, quick, look around!”

“For what?” Ed asked, half-turned to call out to Stede, but already scanning the letters and numbers on display.

“The alarm code and location.” The Doctor stuck her face right up into a corner of the screen. “Should’ve updated this when I had the chance,” she muttered under her breath. “It still looks like that time Ian and I— Aha!” She jabbed a finger at a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. “Let’s go!”

“What? Where?”

“Fire. Main corridor.”

“John!” he cried at once, and followed the Doctor out.

But when they reached the main room, the flames had already been doused. John and Fang stood by a panel—the food replicator?—covered in an Ottoman carpet, looking shifty. Stede had his hands at his hips, looking stern. A dog sat at their feet.

Wait, what?

The Doctor skidded to a halt. “Oh, you’ve met K9. And what happened?”

K9 slid back and forth, as if even the dog carried guilty feelings. One by one, the rest of the crew and the Doctor’s companions returned to the room, some of them still eating from bowls and plates, or with drinks in their hands.

“We, er, tried to order a few treats,” Fang said. “For K9. We might’ve pressed the buttons too quickly...”

The Doctor lifted up a fold of carpet and peered beneath. “Eh, it’s fine. I’ve been meaning to use the kitchen more often. What’ve we got here?” she added, as Roach came forward with a tray.

“I’ve made an assortment of tapas!”

The others gathered round, but Ed, still feeling unmoored, dawdled before a large rectangular darkness.

Graham fetched up beside him. “Here.” He twiddled a knob on the side. “Handy thing, this, for keeping an eye on what’s out there.”

Inside the darkness, an image appeared, of outside. The beach, the woods and, in the distance, the side wall of the inn. A figure crept along against the wall. “Is that the Doctor?”

“Not me,” she chirped from directly behind them, making Ed jump. “Blinovitch Limitation Effect— Can’t appear in your own timeline.”

Even as they watched, the face and figure outside changed, to a dark-haired woman, and this time the Doctor jumped.

The figure shifted again, to another young woman.

“Keep away from Clara,” the Doctor grumbled, even as Graham said, “It can’t be...”

“Why not?” the Doctor asked.

“Because I was convinced I’d made her up after all. That’s the woman, with the young girl, that I saw at Villa Diodati. The one who gave me a sandwich...”

“That poem...” The Doctor flicked a switch, and the image flickered and shifted, now showing a young man reading from a sheet of paper. Ed hadn’t even had a chance to ask how this fuckery worked. The image closed in on a youngster’s face—and a voice came through.

“The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,” it intoned, then went on,

“And nothing stirr’d within their silent depths;

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp’d

They slept on the abyss without a surge—

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,

The moon, their mistress, had expir’d before;

The winds were wither’d in the stagnant air,

And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need

Of aid from them—She was the Universe.”

“That must be it,” the Doctor whispered. She tapped the side of the image-viewer with her palm, as if to say thank you.

Outside, the shape shifted again, to Annie, back to Ricky, and then to a bulbous contraption with a protruding eyestalk. “Exterm— No! Take me your leader,” it said, speaking upward, towards the stars.

Then it shifted, assuming the mien of a tall man with a goatee.

“It’s the Master. And that is what he hopes to achieve.” The Doctor pointed at the burned hulk of her food replicator. “With all of us.”

Ed decided to do what he always did when he felt confused—collect information. “So, if you’re the Doctor, the Master is—”

“Another Time Lord.”

“Not human?” Frenchie interjected, walking up to them.

“Not as such. Two hearts,” she added, and winked at Frenchie, who stumbled over his own feet.

“Okay, okay, okay, okay!” Ed cried. “So who’ll stop him doing...whatever. You?”

“Oh, no. I can’t cross him in the same timeline again. Not until the future, maybe. I mean, I followed him here. But it’s got to be done differently.”

“Okay, well, we’ve got a crew that’s brilliant at raids. This could be like a raid. Board his ship and—”

“Let’s start with that. I want to know why he picked this year, this place.”

“Right. We’ll form a small reconnaissance party.” He glanced at Stede, who’d come up and taken his hand again. Among the swirling confusion, that one solid connection helped ground him.

“And we all live to fight another day,” Stede agreed. “Who’s in?”

The crew all suddenly became intensely interested in the pulsating walls of the TARDIS.

Archie bounded forward. “I’ll go!”

Chapter Text

There was always a gap between saying “let’s do it!” and the actual doing of it.

First, the Doctor and the Innkeeper-Captains herded everyone out of the TARDIS, and told them to “act normal”.

So John lit another fire, this one a bonfire on the beach, and everyone began to set up for a party.

The old guys, the Brigadier fellow, the Innkeepers, and Frenchie, went with the Doctor back up to the inn.

They invited Archie, too, because she was the one who’d volunteered for the mission, but she told ’em she didn’t need to play war games.

The Doctor got a funny look on her face at that—and called off the meeting. “Forget it, fam,” she said firmly. “Archie’s right. Look, all I really want is confirmation. Can you just go have a keek, see what you can find out?”

“Can do!”

Off she went, Jim at her heels, and they snuck about the way they had that long-ago day when they’d escaped from the Navy at the Republic of Pirates, and during many raids and adventures since. Weaving in and out, the two of them like snakes, intertwining with each other, never losing their awareness of the world around, ready to strike if necessary, and if not—there was always a moment for a private kiss.

They found themselves in the goatshed.

A high shelf, empty—once they’d shoved a couple of haybales off onto the floor below, to distract the two ornery goats—offered a sightline directly into the box of this Master person.

Maybe because the doors faced this goatshed, maybe because he wanted someone to try and attack, but the Master had the doors of his (her? Their?) box wide open. Lucky, that, because otherwise there’d’ve been no light in the dark night, save the stars.

Except the light that streamed out was, not to get overly descriptive, weird.

The Doctor had strange lights in her TARDIS, too, but the feeling they’d given had been one of warmth. Archie had kept touching the walls, and warmth and a golden glow had been everywhere. “She likes you,” the Doctor had whispered and Archie, without thinking, had whispered back, “I like her, too.”

The Doctor hadn’t asked for an explanation and Archie hadn’t dwelt on it long; she only knew that the ship had felt familiar, or the ship’s emotions had felt familiar. Reminded her in some ways of Jim, and herself; a sense of having escaped, extracted themselves from a darkness, and nowadays choosing to lie open to goodness, to seek joy.

She’d try to tell Jim about her thoughts later, when there was time to slow down; right now, the adventure still sent thrills up and down her spine.

“What’re we looking at?” she muttered, shivering slightly at the weirdness before them.

The inside of the Master’s ship was all white, its light not really showing anything, serving only to hurt the eyes. The walls and floors were metallic, as if fused together from a hundred blades of steel. The Master stood by the central console, frowning down at the knobs and switches, stroking his beard.

And from behind him came a voice. “The porthole cannot be opened. Not yet. I will assemble the Daleks.”

Archie repeated the word to herself. Daleks. Probably, it’d mean something to the Doctor.

Jim looked up from where they whetted their knife on a strip of leather. “How do we know when we’ve heard enough?”

Archie shrugged. “He’s obviously plotting something. Porthole. Daleks. What are they? Let’s listen some more. Maybe we can see who the other person—or thing—is.”

“The Doctor is here already,” the Master snapped. “I don’t want to wait much longer.”

“The energy—”

“Just do it! Don’t give the Doctor time to interfere! If the Doctor and those ridiculous companions get taken out, when we destroy Earth, that’ll defeat the purpose of all our planning. I need the Doctor spared long enough to steal the regenerations—at the edge of existence, at the exact moment when the destruction releases the regeneration energy.”

“That is what we have planned. But I do not want any Daleks harmed.”

“What does that matter? You kill other beings all the time. That’s murder.”

“No, it’s extermination.”

“Word games,” the Master scoffed.

“Dalek exterminations will not be questioned!”

“All right! Let’s get on with it. What more do you need?”

“The porthole requires darkness to open. Radioactive darkness.”

“All right,” the Master said again. “Then let us begin.”

“Very well,” the voice said and, suddenly, its owner glided into view before the doors. Then the doors swung shut.

Lucky that, because at the sight of the voice’s owner, she and Jim let out a screech and a gasp, then scrabbled backwards along the shelf, further from the window—

—and fell, off the shelf and, lucky again, onto the piles of hay.

“What was that diablo?” Jim asked in a hissing whisper.

“Something that makes me miss having a snake at my command,” Archie whispered back.

They scrambled to their feet and rushed to tell the Doctor all that they’d seen and heard.

“The entire planet?” Stede asked, once they’d relayed the intel.

“Everyone?” Ed echoed.

“Planet Earth,” the Doctor said, and coming from her, it wasn’t a question. “The Daleks have no regard for other lives. I know. I was inside a Dalek once... I try to be a good person, and I’ve been told that’s the important thing.

“But!” She flitted about the front room of the inn, picking up knickknacks and putting them down, slightly askew. Stede grimaced when she turned a model ship to face the other way; Ed frowned when she rearranged a seashell collection. “Kindness does not mean weakness! Davros is not invincible!”

Archie latched onto Jim’s arm and squeezed. “He—It—looked pretty invincible to me.”

“Davros is dangerous,” the Doctor said, then grinned. “I’m scary.”

“Even so,” Stede began.

“I’ve also been told I’m a bit of an insane genius.”

“Sounds like you, babe,” Ed and Jim said at the same time. Ed spoke to Stede and Jim—to her.

Archie straightened her shoulders. “What’s the plan, then?”

“Right. The plan.” The Doctor looked around at them all. “Fear makes companions of us all. What can we do with that fear?”

“Turn your enemy’s worst fear against them,” Stede said promptly. “You’ll own them. Another insane genius once told us that.”

“Brilliant!” the Doctor cried.

“Who said that ?” Archie whispered.

“Ed,” Jim whispered back. “But he never told us how to go about tapping into an enemy’s fear.” Louder, they added, “How do we do it? What does the Master fear?”

“Irrelevancy,” the Doctor said. “Endings. For themself, anyway. They’ll destroy Earth, use up my regenerations, just to gain a touch more immortality.”

“What if,” Archie began, and nearly stopped when all eyes turned to her. Jim nudged her to go on. “What if, we let the porthole open...then turn that energy back on them all? The Master, Davros, and these Dalek things.  Blast them back out into the universe?”

“Yes!” the Doctor cried. “Fab! But what would deflect it all?” she went on, musing, tapping a recorder against her palm. “What would turn them away?”

Ed and Stede looked at each other and laughed. “We need to be a lighthouse!”

Chapter Text

No one knew what they meant, of course, but Stede felt better for having a secret code with Ed. It was such a rarity in his life, to be part of an inner circle—and Ed was the one who brought him in.

With Ed’s arm about his shoulders, he had the courage to offer up an idea of his own. “We could return to your...ship,” he said to the Doctor. “And if the Master’s ship is similar, maybe that will give us an idea of exactly how to thwart her.”

“Could do,” the Doctor agreed. “I’ve never...studied the TARDIS before. Not even while getting a haircut.”

No one knew what she meant, but they all trooped back down to the beach. The rest of the crew was alerted, and some of them agreed to keep watching from around the bonfire, acting as decoys, as it were, warned that the Master could appear to them in any form. “Trust no one,” Ed muttered, and Stede gripped his hand, and Izzy shot him a look, and Fang came up and hugged him.

They left K9 among them, Fang tempting him with various treats one by one, and entered the blue box a second time.

Stede’s instinct was to return to the library, but then, based on Archie’s description, the Master didn’t seem the sort to bother with meticulously kept logs or interesting secret passageways to other rooms, or anything fun.

The others swarmed about, half of them having gravitated to the kitchen again. Stede stood by the central console and looked around. Nothing inside this seemingly endless space could be called boring—the Doctor had a more extensive wardrobe than his own!—but there might be something dry, something mundane; purely functional, with no whimsy about it. Something along the lines of the working of the Master’s ship, which could be used as an energy deflector.

He pointed down the nearest corridor. “What’s that?”

“Fault locator,” Ed supplied. Trust Ed to already know the ins and outs of a brand-new ship he’d only just met.

“And, um...”

Ed brought him over to the wall. “It shows where there might be something that’s gone wrong. On this ship. With an alarm or a code or both. But look, what’s this?”

They peered together at a screen on one side, which shimmered and flickered and showed various images. An older man and a companion with curly hair; Stede remembered their faces from the library. Then he saw two others whose faces he’d seen; they went fleeting past in a ship that looked, not like a blue box, but some sort of inn, one with rounded lines and a large front window, and red-covered stools and benches inside. Then another image, another of the portraits from the library—and the Master? Shifting shapes, and the Doctor clinging to the Master’s arm—and off they went together. Behind them came another image, this one of a wee contraption that swept along a floor, murmuring as it went. “Polish, polish!”

“It shows many things,” the Doctor said quietly from behind them. “And not all have yet come to pass. Some never come to be, unless those that behold the visions turn aside from their path to prevent them. The fault locator is dangerous as a guide of deeds. That’s the problem with prophecies; they never tell you anything important.” She poked at a few buttons, twiddled a knob. “This afternoon was the first time in centuries that I’ve used it. I stopped looking at this screen long ago—because I was getting tempted by so much.”

Even as she spoke, a new image appeared; the inside of the TARDIS, bathed in a golden light. “One last trip,” a voice said. “Where would you choose? And what flavour ice cream?”

“What’s ice cream?” Ed asked.

“What if we tinkered with the Master’s screen?” Stede asked.

The Doctor harried them over to the replicator, which appeared good as new, humming and buzzing once more. “Ice cream takes a lot of shaking if you make it from scratch,” the Doctor said. She pressed a few buttons, then patted the replicator. “Glad you’re back.”

Three cups appeared on the dispenser tray, a scoop of something smooth in each one, with a spoon sticking out. The Doctor pointed to each one. “Vanilla, chocolate, mint chocolate chip. You could try some fruity sherbets next. But anyway, good idea! I think I can jam the fast-return switch from a distance with my sonic.” She pulled out some sort of tool that clicked and whirred, and brandished it. “We just need a way to distract the Master and...” She shuddered.

“A diversion!” Stede said. “I may have something there.”

“Good. I’ll go see what the fam are up to.” She strode away towards the kitchen.

Another idea of his accepted by the Doctor! He was beginning to feel much less unnecessary.

He picked up the vanilla as Ed nabbed the chocolate. “One, two—”

“Go!” They each dipped in and tasted—and groaned, simultaneously. Switched cups and went for it again, then dug into the mint together.

It didn’t take long for all three scoops to disappear.

“I need to learn how to make this,” Ed declared.

“We have lots of mint in the garden,” Stede said dubiously. “And we have cream. But vanilla and chocolate—or cocoa? Getting a good stock will use up at least half of one of your treasure stashes.”

“We don’t need to do it right away. But which one’s your favourite?”

He licked idly at his spoon as he thought about it. “I like them all equally. Let’s try the sherbet.”

Ed figured out which combination to press on the replicator, and three new cups appeared. “Pineapple, morello cherry, mango.”

Ed chose mango, and Stede was about to play it safe, with pineapple, but then he remembered—Master—Daleks—world’s end—and dug into the new-to-him cherry. “Mm. Bit intense, but I like the feeling.”

Ed had sidled closer, and now he leaned in, eyes wide. Stede glanced about them, but no one else was nearby. Only a faint humming indicated that the ship was alert. He raised the spoon and fed Ed a bite. Ed’s appreciative moan decided for him. “This one’s my favourite.”

“Me too, I think.” Ed kissed the corner of his mouth with lips that were cool from the sherbet.

That gave him another idea. “But what if we...mixed them all together?”

“Incredible, babe. We could—”

The crew, led by the Doctor, all tumbled out of the kitchen at once.

“Hold that thought,” Stede told him, and kissed Ed back.

They all regrouped in front of the doors. Stede thought about Ed slurping from his spoon, and he thought about “a lot of shaking” and he thought about the coolness of Ed’s mouth on his, and he vowed secretly that if they survived this unexpected near-death experience, he would keep Ed in ice cream forever.

Chapter Text

Archie hadn’t been there for Stede and the Revenge crew’s first fuckery, but she’d heard about it in bits and pieces over the years, and once, a few months ago during a visit to the new bar, gotten to hear Swede sing.

Jackie and Swede weren’t here tonight, but Frenchie had his lute. Buttons was around as a bird, but he’d already dealt with the Master once, and they said he ought not to be recognised, so he was going to keep an eye on the ship. Fang said he’d stay by the fire with K9, and so would Auntie, John and Izzy, guarding the Doctor’s attractive ship.

The Doctor’s companions were all coming up the hill with the rest of the crew to take part in the fuckery.

That made fourteen people that the Doctor’s had to wrangle, but she didn’t seem put out, and she didn’t seem bothered, either, by the way Stede eagerly described that first fuckery and detailed suggestions for tonight’s diversion, all in furtive whispers in the dark as they drew closer to the inn.

They slipped inside, still no lanterns or candles, just a lot of pushing and shuffling, and the Doctor said, “Hadi bakalım!”

Archie couldn’t see, in the dark, if everyone else looked as confused as she felt but, fortunately, the Doctor went on.

“You’ve all got great ideas for this— What do you call it?”

“A fuckery!” the crew chorused.

“Yeah. That. All I’ve got to say is, I think you should stage it on the roof. And, once you’ve got their attention, draw their gaze to the other side of the inn. Keep going until Zheng and her team have returned safely.”

“That’s us!” Archie whispered to Jim. Olu shushed her from her other side.

“Don’t go in fear!” the Doctor cried. “All of you, go with your lovely smiles.”

Right away, everyone got busy, whirling about the inn in a hive of activity, with lots of bumps and curses in the darkness.

Zheng pulled her, Jim, Olu, and Wilf into a corner, to wait their cue to sneak outside and into the Master’s ship.

The Doctor came up, then, and doled out tools, rattling off their names so fast, Archie couldn’t even remember them after. “Sonic screwdriver—” that was Zheng— “magnetic disruptor, a chart of the fault locator buttons, and Gallifreyan Army knife, duplicate” —those went to Wilf, Olu, and Jim.

Then she gave something called Psychic Paper to Archie.

“This seems more like a Frenchie thing,” Archie said dubiously, tilting the empty sheet of paper this way and that, as if she could see anything on it without light. “What does it do?” She held it up to her nose and sniffed it.

“Careful,” the Doctor said. “Don’t disrupt the chemical balance—”

“Are you sure that Frenchie—”

“No, no. It has to be you.” The Doctor gave her a smile that had a tinge of sadness about it. “My TARDIS seems to like you. It’s so very rare for her to like anyone. I think the Master’s ship, too, might respond to you. Just slap that paper over the keyhole—as soon as we’ve gotten the diversion underway and the TARDIS is empty—and...”

“And what? What then?”

“Get in, jam the fault locator like Stede suggested, and get out.”

“Easy, peasy, pudding, and pie,” Jim said, quoting one of Ed’s sayings.

“Yeah!” the Doctor cried. “That! Easy peasy, wibbly-wobbly, melt that ice in my heart.”

Before Archie could ask about that, they were being herded through the kitchen, to the back door.

“You lot wait here,” the Doctor said. She turned to Zheng, both their eyes sparkling in the starlight through the window. “As soon as you see an opening, go for it.”

Olu and Jim were whispering together. Jim tested the settings on their otherworldly knife. Archie found herself standing by the window with Wilf. Stede and Ed’s inn was one of the few places around that had actual glass in the windows, so they could look out without their voices carrying.

“The stars are different,” Wilf said softly.

“To what?” she asked, matching his tone. “How?”

“To the stars in my time. I guess it’s true, all that stuff about pollution. I mean, I knew it was, but it’s like the burned hand that teaches best. I can see it here, in a way that really emphasizes the difference. Because I can see the stars.”

Archie knew that some of the crew, Auntie and Ed and Fang, could read the stars. Zheng and Izzy knew how to take their readings and apply them to navigation charts. Archie had been up late at night, and hobnobbed with enough different sailors, to know many constellations. But to hear Wilf speak... He seemed to have the same sad twist to his words that the Doctor carried. “You... You’re from the future?” she asked. (Never mind stars, time travel was going to take a lot of discussion after tonight, with Jim and Olu and Zheng—and the others—before it began to make sense, if it ever did.)

“Yeah. A few hundred years, I think. And I’m an astronomer, an amateur, if you understand me; I haven’t got access to a grand observatory or anything. But I wait for cloudless nights, and I drag my telescope out of town, to try to find a patch of dark sky. It’s not only the pollution, you see, it’s the electricity.” He must have sensed her frown somehow, or maybe she’d let out some sort of confused huff, because he chuckled. “Anyway. When you travel with the Doctor, you don’t get many quiet moments. I’m not a reflective man. But when I catch a lull and I can pause, I prefer to sit back, to settle, and to absorb what I can.”

“Like being in the belly of the snake,” she said, and it was his turn to make confused noises. “Sometimes, before you start crawling your way out, you have to figure out where you are, how long things’ll take—how much strength you’ve got inside you.”

“Something like. I didn’t know... There’ve been times before, in my everyday life, when I thought I was plucking up my courage. To give a speech or make a decision. Those times have nothing on all I’ve seen and done with the Doctor. But, you know? It was the people, the—not just humans but people from different galaxies—they’re the ones that have made this journey an adventure.”

As if on cue, they heard Stede cry from the front room, “Let the fuckery begin!”

Lights appeared, first one flicker, then many, and guessing by the way they blotted out the stars, they were coming from up on the roof.

Then the singing began. Swede wasn’t there, so instead of an angelic voice, they were treated to Frenchie’s lilting melodies. From around the corner of the inn, the Brigadier appeared, leading Graham and Roach, all of them carrying torches. Roach danced about with his, flames waving, trailing sparks, and the Brigadier raised his voice, loud enough to be heard inside the inn and—everyone hoped—the other TARDIS. He pretended to berate Roach, even as Graham pretended to be scared, and Roach gleefully leapt about, thrusting his torch towards the woods, as if he meant to set all the trees alight.

Just as Lucius and Pete came into view from around the other end of the inn, the TARDIS door opened.

The Master still looked sort of like Anne Bonny, or at least had her clothes on, though her face and hair were, Archie guessed, her own. Pinched and sour-looking, frowning first at the torches, then at the jumble of knives and pointy weapons in Pete’s hand.

“Knife-throwing by torchlight!” Lucius announced.

“What?” Jim crowded in behind her, peering out the window over her shoulder “What is that bastardito doing?”

“I don’t think it’s serious, babe,” Olu said.

Zheng laughed, quietly but freely. “I think they’re going to balls it up on purpose. Watch.”

She was right. Lucius, loudly and confidently, proceeded to boast about his technique, then fumble the first blade he tried to pick up.

Roach and the others, with their torches, drew closer to watch—and herded the Master along with them.

On the next few attempts, Pete and Lucius backed up, a few steps here, a few steps there, until they’d disappeared around the corner of the inn.

“Now?” Archie asked.

“There’s still that—thing,” Jim said. “It’s still inside the ship.”

Stede appeared in the yard, dressed sedately—for him—in a swirly red coat he’d had made to match the cursed suit from years ago. He marched up to the open TARDIS door and knocked. “Dalek inspection!”

No answer.

Stede whipped out a knife—Archie raised her brows at that and felt Jim startle against her. Looked like the innkeepers still kept up their weapons training—and rapped on the door with the hilt.

Archie flinched. “I’m going.”

“What?” Jim reached for her arm as she wriggled away, then let her go. “Are you sure?”

“Yep. Follow me as soon as you can, or if you see me signal.”

She slipped out the back door and over the grass. “Inspector!” she called to Stede. “Hands off that ship.”

“Who are you working for?” Stede said. Under his breath, he added, “Is this part of the act?”

“It is now,” she whispered. “Never mind that!” she said loudly. “Show me your credentials. From the corner of her eye, through the open door, she saw Davros glide out from behind the central console. “Aha! You have none!”

Stede looked up from where he’d been patting his pockets. “You don’t need credentials when you’re with—Blackbeard.”

Ed appeared, full on Blackbeard, head made of smoke and everything, pushing the Doctor on before him. She’d dressed up as something she’d said was called a Cyberman, but Blackbeard had turned the tables, holding the Cyberman at the point of its own gun.

“Aha,” Davros said in his creaky, crackling voice. “Some control at last.” He advanced to the door. “Who are you?” he asked Stede. “Where did the cyberman come from?” Then, without waiting for answers, he called to Ed. “You there! Explain yourself! Are there more of these cybermen about?”

“Look into the eyes of Blackbeard,” Ed intoned.

Davros had reached the door. Behind him, Stede made a face of disgust. “Ugh.”

“Shh,” Archie told him. Though it made her feel slightly less freaked out, seeing that Stede was appalled—but not frightened.

The lights on the inn roof grew brighter—maybe Wee John had come up from the beach—and Davros flicked the squodge of his head up to glare at the glow.

Ed and the Doctor advanced.

That caught Davros’ attention. He came out.

Archie set her palm on the door of the TARDIS, listened to the vibration for a moment. With her other hand, she covered the keyhole with the psychic paper. The ship wobbled, then sat at ease. She looked towards the kitchen window, and nodded.

Davros had his back to her, facing the cyberman, who was now held at both gun and knife point, Stede standing beside Ed. The stars were all swallowed up by the blazing lights of the inn.

“Enough!” the Master shouted from a distance. “I want to know what you’re hiding! I’m going in.”

Davros turned aside and moved, somehow, over the grass. “We don’t have time for this foolishness!” he screeched, turned the corner of the inn, and was gone.

“Thank fuck,” Ed said, and wrenched off his blazing beard and all its lit tapers in one motion.

Zheng and the others came up, and Archie took away the psychic paper so that Wilf could use the magnetic disruptor on the doors.

“That’ll keep Davros out but not the Master,” the Doctor said, voice muffled by the cyberman mask. “Hurry!”

Archie went in with Zheng, followed by Jim and Olu.

Zheng expertly waved the sonic about, locking the doors behind them and checking for booby traps and hidden weapons. Behind her, the rest of them moved in a huddle towards the fault locator. Olu read off the chart the Doctor had drawn, and Archie pressed the buttons he indicated.

The ship hummed beneath her fingertips. “Sorry,” she murmured. “You’ll be all right, wherever you go. Wonder what destination the Doc set?” she added out loud.

“Who knows,” Jim said. “As long as it’s far from anyone that can be hurt.”

They stepped in as Archie stepped back, and jabbed the Gallifreyan Army knife into the fault locator, jamming a couple of coiled springs.

Zheng unlocked the doors.

Olu said, “Run!”

And they did.

The lights had intensified and the stars, blanked out. Behind the torches and fireworks, she could see the shadows of half the crew milling about on the roof.

They threw themselves into the shelter of the trees just as the Master and Davros burst out of the back door, closely followed by Ed, Stede, the Doctor, everyone—all of them laughing.

Archie and the others joined in.

“What is going on here?” the Master was wailing.

“You said this was the correct time!” Davros cried shrilly. “You said it was the right place! All of my Daleks will suffer because of you!”

“What about me?” the Master screeched. “I need the regeneration energy!”

“Sometimes,” Stede said conversationally, “When we get a bit angry, do you know what we like to do? We talk it through...”

“As a crew!” everyone shouted enthusiastically. They’d done it! Their fuckery had jumbled up all of Davros and the Master’s senses of time and place.

Together, they pushed the villains into the ship. Roach and Izzy seemed to have no qualms about touching Davros’ casing, at least, though no one else actually laid a hand on the creature.

“Exactly,” Stede continued. “And if you’re still a bit upset...”

“You’ll have a nice long time in which to discuss it,” the Doctor finished, and Zheng sonic’ed the doors shut.

Archie set her hand on the side of the TARDIS, gave it a pat. Something coiled in her belly, like a snake. Sensing not danger—but possibility. Then there was a sound like vworp and a mechanical whirring, and the box faded, and was gone.

“Well, that’s that, then,” Ed said.

“Where did you send them?” Archie asked the Doctor, as the crew milled about, beginning to clean up after the fuckery. She and the Doctor seemed to be rooted to the spot where the TARDIS had disappeared. “Or when?”

The Doctor had collected her gadgets and busily stuffed them into various pockets. “Oh, just to the beginning,” she said airily. “It happened to me once on Earth.” She set her hands to her lapels and gave a little tug. “Didn’t take very long, to figure out the problem, either. But it was a maddening few days.”

She ignored the Doctor’s posturing. “The beginning? Of what?”

“Of everything. The solar system—the galaxy—the Universe. Stuck in a split second of time, unable to leave the TARDIS, amidst the swirling stars.”

“Is that possible? Is that true?”

“Every story I’ve ever told is true.” Ed called for her, then, and the Doctor scampered off.

Archie paced the patch of grass flattened by the TARDIS. The inside had been so much bigger, of course. And the Doctor talked of a single moment in time as being a space—a place you could stay in as long as you liked. It all sounded so exciting.

“Hey,” the Doctor called down from the roof. “You don’t want to...come along or anything. Do you?”

Archie thought of adventure. Of discovery. Of meeting entities more dangerous than the Master, of creatures more frightening than Davros. Of what Wilf had said, about different stars.

Of Jim, and Olu, and Zheng, and whether they might want to travel. Of near-death experiences—and safety.

“Not yet!” she called up. “Come back and ask me again sometime.”

Chapter Text

The first thing Ed did, once they’d made certain that everyone was safe, was shed all the Blackbeard leathers and return to his everyday linen clothing.

He did his best to clean the beard, and brought it back to the Doctor’s TARDIS, along with some of the other costumes and props they’d used.

When they’d herded the Master and that Dalek thing to the front of the inn, all the crew had swarmed about, pretending to be seeking treasure. He’d come up with that part of the fuckery idea, and Stede had added to it, then Frenchie. Speak in different languages, move quickly, pretend to dig for treasure in random spots, generally sow confusion.

Turn their fears against them.

Make them irrelevant, ignore them, Ed had thought at first. Then, when they’d changed the plan to send them, not out into nowhere but into the beginning of time, he’d come up with the idea of making them believe, after all their plans had been laid, that they’d actually arrived in the wrong year, at the wrong date.

The Master had recognised him—had recognised Blackbeard, cowering in the same way those Dutch merchants had during Stede’s fuckery. This time, Ed hadn’t had the threat of a Kraken to strike fear in him, and he hadn’t been caught up in a web of Blackbeard-style plans to burn Stede’s face off and steal his identity.

This time, he’d used Blackbeard, and it had been only one part of a crew effort, and he’d played the role, chosen to play it, in order to help save the crew, the inn, the planet.

“You said your calculations were exact!” Davros accused in a shrill voice.

“Blackbeard died, I tell you!” the Master shot back. “They hung him!”

“You’re a Time Lord! You’re supposed to know about time! You know nothing! You are nothing!”

“How dare you! You rule a vile horde of—”

“You will not criticise the Daleks!”

Still arguing, they’d been shoved along by the crew back towards their ship, as soon as Zheng had signalled the all clear.

And now that box had disappeared, and Ed and the crew were gathered before the other ship, the Doctor’s ship. Some stood at the doors, some milled about inside, taking one last chance to ask the replicator for their favourite foods and drinks.

Ed stood before the console with Stede, who was wrapped in a long scarf the Doctor had loaned him, and who seemed fascinated by the array of buttons, watching the Doctor showing Archie how to lay coordinates.

Ed found it intriguing, too, and had half a sense that learning the intricacies of this vessel would keep his mind busy for a long time. They might travel, he and Stede, with the Doctor, and come across other villains, and other worlds that needed saving. And if the crew were with them, they could all make plans and carry them out together, and do it all the Stede way, with chaotic joy, unnecessary tangents, and slightly true facts.

There’d be a place for Ed to be Blackbeard and room for him to be just Ed, too. Not out of his element, no matter when and where they ended up, because he’d be the one to choose whether he wanted to play a role—and he’d be with Stede. Always holding hands.

Frenchie and Lucius had joined them, and the Doctor was telling them about a time when she’d lived as a monk, and then Frenchie asked about a key she’d apparently given him as part of his fuckery costume.

“It’s a master key for a hotel,” she told him, and winked. “Might come in handy sometime.”

“I wish we had more time now,” Stede said.

“We always do,” the Doctor said. “Goodbyes only hurt if what came before was special,” she added.

That made Ed reach for Stede, and Stede was already there to meet him; they intertwined their fingers and gripped tight.

Lucius looked at their clasped hands, then glanced sidelong at Stede, and asked, “What advice would you give us, Doctor? If we face an enemy like this again—and you’re not here?”

“I don’t give advice,” the Doctor said. “But I will say this. Always search for truth; my truth is in the stars.”

“I love you, TARDIS,” Archie said suddenly, and threw her arms along the console, giving it a firm squeeze.

“I should say that to Yaz,” the Doctor said under her breath. Then she took the scarf from about Stede’s neck and wrapped it around Archie’s. “We’ll meet again.”

They trooped out, the last of the crew to leave, and the others, Graham and Wilf, K9 and the Brigadier, were inside the TARDIS already. They all waved at each other, and were still waving, even as the doors closed and the lights from inside no longer streamed out and, in the glow of the failing bonfire and under the twinkling stars, they watched and listened as the TARDIS rumbled and whirred, and winked out of existence.

Archie stepped into the spot where the ship had rested, and Jim and Olu and Zheng stood with her. The others put out the bonfire, and he and Stede led them all back to the inn, where Auntie and Buttons held a cleansing ceremony, with Frenchie and Roach, to protect the place even better than before, Auntie said.

They all headed to bed after that, though dawn wasn’t far off.

He held Stede in the dark, under cover of a few extra blankets. Stede toyed idly with a curl of Ed’s hair.

“Where would you go?” he asked quietly, just as Stede said, “When would you travel to?”

“We said the same thing,” Stede added, with a giggle.

“Almost,” he said, and laughed with him. “I’d go to the future, I think.”

“Oh, me too! Visit the same place once every thousand years or so, see what changes.”

“Yeah. I mean— Where did the Master get her pirate information from?”

“Oh! Do you really think... Are there books about us?”

“Could be. Could be, mate.”

“Based on the broadsheets, I’d imagine they got everything wrong. But someone somewhere must’ve gotten enough of our story correct, for the Master to be able to find us.”

“Yeah. Wonder what they said...Bartholomew.”

“I’d like to know too, Jeff, my love.”

“I don’t know anyone called Blackbeard.”

“The Gentleman Pirate? Who’s he?”

Laughing turned into kissing, turned into quiet moans, then became Stede pliant in his arms. Warmth, and soft murmurs, and they were Ed and Stede now, no other names or roles or titles, and the only time they had was now, two hearts beating together as they rode a swell of passion, crested the wave, and held each other close on the other side.

“We’d come back to this time, wouldn’t we?” Stede murmured sleepily some time after, as the first rays of sunrise fingered their way in past the slats of the shutters.

“I’d go to any time when you and I are together,” he said in a low voice, and he kissed Stede’s smile, and Stede kissed him back.

***

The Doctor stood by the scanner she’d ignored for so long, and her two hearts beat as one as she watched a dizzying array of images whiz past.

“Sir, please do not noogie me during combat prep,” came a voice, and she laughed, and flicked off the screen.

She’d been right, when she’d told Stede and Ed that there wasn’t any point in looking back, if you did it with regret. Thinking of the past was only fun if you were recounting adventures, and loved the friends, and family, you’d shared them with.

Best to go forward, because there was always hope for better. Many new wonders beyond, to feel and experience. So many to help, and to learn from. John Smith rides again, she thought, and hugged the console, the way Archie had.

I should tell Yaz.

She stood up, and pulled the lever. The TARDIS whirred, a happy sound.