New Avengers Snippets!
Jul. 25th, 2006 12:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabidsamfan15. Trap
Oct 19 06
Disclaimer: The New Avengers are copyrighted, but not by me. I think Canal+ or Mark One Productions owns the rights at the moment. Which means, of course, that this is fanfic – me playing in someone else's sandbox. Even moreso, anything in dark blue is a scene taken straight from the screen, dialogue and all, that either didn't hit the novelizations, or that didn't hit them in a way that satisfied my sense of the character arcs that I'm exploring. Links to quotes and screencaps (where they appear) are courtesy of bromfield hall.
As a rule
*** means I'm still adding onto a piece or scene and
### means I'm satisfied with that bit for now.
---
http://www.bromfieldhall.co.uk/tnaquotes26.htm
Summary: For them as hasn't seen it lately: In the episode, Steed, Purdey and Gambit are hijacked to the estate of a wannabe Chinese Drug Lord who is determined to show his fellow kingpins just how ruthlessly he disposes of enemies. After a plane crash (in which Steed breaks his arm) and a lot of running around in the woods, Gambit is captured. And before Steed and Purdey quite come to the rescue, he nearly gets his head taken off. Literally…
Scenes
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She wasn't dead. That was the most important thing to remember, and not the peculiar feeling of spinning and falling and crashing with the plane coming to pieces around her. She felt for her safety belt and found it still fastened; remembered to open her eyes and see if she'd fall before she undid the clasp.
In spite of what her inner ears seemed to think, she was upright or mostly upright. The plane seat had kept hold of her, even as it had fallen into a bush. She unfastened the belt, stood up, and fainted.
The sun was up when she opened her eyes again, and there were birds singing. Purdey pushed herself off the ground and looked around. There were plane pieces everywhere. She stumbled toward the largest hunk of the fuselage, trying to think, trying to remember how she'd wound up in a wood alone. No. Not alone.
"Steed!" she called. "Gambit!"
"Ugh… Purdey!" the answering groan was so close by she knew she'd walked right past him. "Purdey!"
Adrenalin gave her back her arms and legs. She followed the sound and found Gambit lying under some of the wreckage. She shifted the curved piece of lexan that had hidden him in reflections and shadow, but he didn't try to rise. "My foot's trapped. My foot."
She couldn't free him from this end, but fortunately once she'd gone around to where his feet had to be it was an easy matter to find the offending piece of debris. By the time she got back to Gambit he had pulled himself clear. He used her as a ladder to get upright, but she didn't mind. He was alive, and not too badly hurt, and that gave her hope.
"Where's Steed?" Gambit was clearly thinking along the same lines.
"The rest of the plane's up there," Purdey offered, steadying him as best she could. He was taller than she was, and it was a relief when he put his weight on the leg that had been pinned and it held him, as she wasn't sure that she'd have been able to manage as a crutch.
"Steed!" Gambit called, and Purdey thought she heard an answering groan.
"Steed!" she shouted too, as she led the way. Gambit followed her, limping a little, but getting steadier with each step.
They found Steed sitting propped up against a tree. He glared at Gambit as the two of them crouched down on either side of him. "That was, without doubt, the worst landing I've ever seen," he growled.
"Well, we're all down in one piece, aren't we?" Gambit answered, with the air of a puppy who'd just had his nose bopped with a newspaper.
"Not quite," Steed said. He shifted position a little and winced. "My arm's broken."
"Are you sure?" Purdey asked, and got glared at for her trouble.
"It is MY arm." Steed was definitely disgruntled, and quite possibly in the worst mood she'd ever seen him. She was glad when Gambit told her to go and fetch a splint.##
</>
Steed was in a terrible mood. Not to mention more pain than he liked to consider. He snapped at Gambit before the younger man could make things worse. "Don't touch it!" Gambit rocked back, abashed, and Steed tried to think of something useful to ask instead of just growling. "Where are we?"
"Well, the plane was travelling due east, and the sun is up…" Gambit began and then shrugged sheepishly. "I don't know. We'll find out soon enough," he added, digging the hole deeper. "Someone must have seen the plane go down or heard the crash. Someone will come looking for us."
There was something wrong about that, but Steed didn't have the concentration to pursue it. It was quite enough trouble just to keep himself from swearing while the two younger agents set about pulling his arm straight and splinting it into a framework of sticks and bits of lace. He had to admit, if he was admitting anything, that the arm felt much better without the broken ends bone grinding at each other.
They kept up a steady stream of banter, which was a distraction from the pain, but also from thinking, and it wasn't until they'd rigged Gambit's otherwise useless shoulder holster for Steed to use as a splint, that he was able to start framing his thoughts.
"We were hijacked," he said, once the arm was safely in the sling and they stopped fussing with it.
"Taken for a ride," Purdey agreed.
"Like rats in a trap," Gambit thirded.
"A very well planned trap. They even took our guns away." Purdey had obviously had the problem on her mind. "Still we must look at the bright side."
"Eh?" Gambit, on the other hand, appeared to still be recovering from that dose of nerve gas.
"Well, the red alert was obviously a fake," Purdey explained. "It was all part of the plot…."
Steed hushed her. He'd heard something.
"What?" Purdey asked.
"Listen," Steed ordered. In the silence they could all hear the sounds of a motor, not far off.
Gambit relaxed. "There you are, told you. Search party. That way I think." He stepped around Purdey and started jogging towards the sound.
"Gambit… Gambit!...." Steed hissed. Too late. But Purdey was still here. "Stop him."
She nodded and took off, closing the gap with an ease that told him volumes about how slowly Gambit was going compared to his usual turn of speed. Steed trotted after her, trying to find a pace that didn't jar his arm too badly.
He caught up a few moments after Purdey blocktackled Gambit. Just in time to hear Gambit's indignant, "Purdey!"
"It was Steed's idea," Purdey offered in her own defense.
But Steed almost had the thoughts in his head in order now. He crouched behind the other two. "We were heading east. And the pilot released some nerve gas to knock us out."
"Steed…" Gambit wasn't caught up yet, but at least now he was paying attention.
"Why didn't he do it earlier?" Steed pressed. "Why then?
"Because we were nearing our destination?" Gambit asked, proving that his brains weren't completely addled in the crash.
Steed tried to see past the bushes in front of them. "I'd say we were there. You were right about one thing…" he conceded, as a row of greenclad soldierly types moved into view, followed by a man shouting in what sounded like Cantonese. "Definitely a search party."
"I have a funny feeling they're not going to offer us blankets and hot tea," Purdey said with dismay.
"Yeah…" Gambit sounded even more chagrined. "Shall we uh…" he gestured back, away from the search party, and Steed wasn't about to argue. In fact, he led the way as the three of them tried to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the crash site.
***
</>
Epilogue
"Mike! There's blood on your back!"
"Is there?" Gambit reached instinctively for the only real wound he'd taken from behind and grimaced when his fingers came away scarlet. "Damn. He went deeper than I thought."
"Who?" Purdey asked, tipping up on her toes and tugging at the back of Gambit's collar in order to get a better look at the damage. He had a cut an inch and a half long on the right-hand back corner of his neck, just below the collar line. It didn't look terribly deep, but blood was welling out of it steadily and the inside of his jacket was a mess.
"Soo Choy and that blasted sword of his," Gambit explained. "I tell you it's a good thing megalomaniacs like to talk or you and Steed would have found me coming up a bit short." He was trying to make a joke out of it, but Purdey remembered the way he'd been kneeling behind a chopping block when they'd first arrived and grimaced.
"We got here as soon as we could."
"I know that," Gambit said, turning to bestow a cocky grin upon her. "And it's turned out all right."
Steed appropriated a handkerchief from the pocket of one of their captives. "Here." He handed it to Purdey, who stuffed it into Gambit's collar as a stopgap. "We'll tend it properly when we've found our way home."
"The question is," Purdey said, "how long will that take?"
"Take a look at that map on the floor," Steed said. "I thought those fields looked familiar."
Purdey scooped up the paper and glared at it. "East Anglia? We flew for hours."
"Over the Atlantic and back again," Steed guessed.
Gambit nodded. "That would make sense. I don't suppose there's a phone here we could use." He took the map from Purdey and got a better look at it. "Wait a minute." He tapped the map. "This is where we found Williams."
"Williams?" Steed repeated, not quite following.
"Remember that drug drop at Windsor? Marty Bryne?" Gambit asked grimly. "That's why we got taken. They were his drugs." He glared at the unconscious Soo Choy. "That's two men dead on your account. I should have hit you even harder."
***
The local constable was cooperative and quickly took charge of their collection of prisoners, calling for a second car from the next village over to collect the mafiosos that they'd locked into various closets around the mansion for safekeeping. Purdey called the ministry for transport and backup from the constabulary office while Steed and Gambit made out the preliminary paperwork. Their chores were barely dealt with when the three of them found themselves cornered by the village doctor – who endeared himself to Purdey by zeroing in on Steed's splinted arm before anyone had even made an introduction.
Not that Steed seemed to need one. "Linden! Tom Linden!" Steed exclaimed, and the thin, bespectacled physician dragged his attention away from the makeshift splint to the face above it.
"John Steed! As I live and breathe!" His long face split into a grin. "Last I heard of you, you were a confirmed Londoner, and that was fifteen years gone. Who's dragged you out here to the fresh air? And how on earth did you break this arm?"
"I'm lucky it was just the arm," Steed said. "Our plane went down. This is Mike Gambit – he was piloting, but don't blame him, he was a last minute substitute and I was jostling his elbow at the time."
The doctor nodded to Gambit, but his eyes and hands were busy again with the splinted arm. "Any landing you walk away from is a good one, or so they used to tell us during the War." He pressed a thumb against Steed's wrist and seemed pleased when Steed only winced. "And the young lady who donated the wrappings?"
"Purdey," Steed said, nodding in her direction.
The doctor gave Purdey a longer look than he'd given Gambit. "Miss, Mrs?"
"Just Purdey," she said, putting the handset back down onto the phone. "McKay wants to get Murford under lock and key before he spreads any alarm by sending up a driver after us, so it will be a while," she informed Gambit and Steed, and then smiled at the doctor. "How's Steed's arm?"
"Definitely broken… I'll need an x-ray to determine whether or not it was set correctly before it was splinted."
"He's been using it since then," she said, remembering Steed's impetuous attack on one of the men of Soo Choy's "army".
"Well, it will do for the moment." Dr. Linden smiled briefly. "No breaks in the skin, the circulation seems all right… any numbness in the hand?"
Steed flexed his fingers. "None. Do you have an x-ray machine at your surgery?"
"No, I use the one in the clinic at Tanbury – it's only about twenty minutes up the road, fifteen in the ambulance. But I've a dispensary. I expect you'd be more comfortable with some codeine inside you."
"I'd settle for a couple of aspirin and a brandy," Steed said.
"I have that too," Linden said. "The surgery's at my home – it's just three doors down. Not a great effort even in stockingfeet." His eyebrows asked a question of Gambit, but Gambit only shook his head.
"It's a long story." He held up his wrists, still encircled by handcuffs. "You three go along and I'll be there as soon as Constable Harris finds a key that fits these."
"Might be easier to use a bobby pin," Steed said. "Or a hacksaw."
"It might," Gambit said. "But I'd like to at least try a key first."
"What about the prisoners?" Constable Harris asked. "A few of them are hurt as well."
"Any of them bleeding or unconscious?" Linden asked.
"One of them is unconscious."
"The most dangerous one," Steed said. "Be very careful while you examine him, Tom. Very, very careful."
"Dangerous?" Linden and Harris said, nearly in chorus.
"He tried to behead Gambit with a sword," Purdey said, flatly, not wanting either the doctor or the constable to underestimate the danger. "And nearly succeeded."
Gambit's hand went instinctively up to protect the injury on his neck. "He wasn't trying to kill me," he said, flushing under the sudden attention of the two villagers. "That swing was just meant to impress his friends. He meant to kill you first and make me watch."
For some reason, Purdey hadn't thought that Soo Choy had actually taken a swing at Gambit. At worst, she'd imagined something slightly more forceful than that little caress of the blade under her own chin. But Gambit had been kneeling behind one of the chopping blocks – and if Soo Choy had actually swung… She felt herself going paler, so she grinned and put on her best air of unconcern. "Ladies first? He didn't strike me as being that much of an old-fashioned gentleman."
"He didn't strike me as being a gentleman at all," Steed said, taking her elbow with his right hand. "Gambit, do you mind keeping an eye on things while Dr. Linden makes his examination? We'll just pop over to the surgery and wait for you there."
She appreciated the thought, but didn't really need Steed protecting her just at the moment. "I'm all right," she murmured sotto voce as Gambit and the others headed for the tiny cellblock.
"I'm not," Steed said. "But a brandy and aspirin will help considerably."
###
By the time they reached the doctor's house she was shaking, which made no sense. The crisis was over wasn't it? And they were all three safe now. She barely listened while Steed reacquainted himself with Mrs. Linden and begged a couple of brandies and some aspirin, concentrating instead on trying to look as if she were all right. She wasn't doing it very well -- she knew that by the way that Steed kept steering her by the elbow.
"I'm sorry," she said when Mrs. Linden had gone off to fetch the brandy and she and Steed were left alone in the comfortably cluttered sitting room. "I can't think why I'm falling apart like this."
"Oh, I don't know," Steed said. "It has been an interesting day. World War three, a plane crash, a chase through the woods, a madman with a sword… and not a bite of breakfast."
Giggling was a mistake – it turned far too easily into sobs. She managed to pull herself together before Steed's shoulder was much worse than damp, though, mostly because Mrs. Linden had come back with the brandy, and you couldn't drink and cry at the same time, could you?
"I'm sorry," she said again, when she could speak in a sensible voice. She wiped the tears off her cheek. "I hate it when I get like this."
"It happens," Steed said.
"You're not falling apart," she pointed out, accusingly.
"If I were celebrating," Steed said, looking at the brandy in his glass somberly, "I'd have asked for champagne." He downed half the alcohol in one go and pulled a face. "Waste of good brandy, but it'll do more good in than out."
She took the hint and finished off her own glass, unsure whether or not it made her feel better or worse to know that Steed wasn't feeling entirely himself either. The brandy did help though, chipping away at the core of cold in her gut. But she couldn't stop shaking. "I wish we didn't have to wait for our ride to get here. I'd really love a nice hot bath about now."
"No need to wait," Mrs. Linden said, startling Purdey, who'd forgotten that she and Steed weren't alone. "You can use our bath, dear."
"I'd really like the doctor to take a look at her first," Steed said, and at Purdey's enquiring glance added. "We were all knocked unconscious after the plane crashed – there's no sense in taking chances."
"That may have been the gas," Purdey said.
"Perhaps."
"We'd best start the preliminaries," Mrs. Linden said. "Come along and let me get your blood pressure and temperature, then."
###
***
Purdey came down the stairs while Dr. Linden was still finishing up with Gambit, wearing a voluminous nightgown and a robe of such virulent green that the light reflecting up into her face made her look even worse than she had before she'd gone up. Like a youngster with a case of flu, Steed thought. He held out his good hand and she came over, bringing a warm cloud of lavender in her wake.
"Better?" he asked, as she took his hand.
"Much," she said, and then had to hide a yawn in her shoulder, her other hand being occupied by a bundle of towels and what looked to be her clothing. "Sorry. It's not the company."
"It's been a long day," Steed said, resisting the urge to echo the yawn. "McKay didn't say when he thought our transport would get here, did he?"
"After eight, he thought. Although it could be later. Murford seems to have scrambled his entire list of contacts to one place or another, so a third of the department didn't show up this morning." She yawned again, and shook her head, blinking sleepily. "I still think he's the one Soo Choy got to, though. Why take our guns, otherwise?"
"And why make sure that we three were the only ones on that plane?" Steed added. "No, Murford's the sell-out – I'm certain of that."
"It does mean we'll be here for a while. Do you think Mrs. Linden would mind if I used her washing machine? I could run your and Gambit's things through as well."
"Helen's offered to see to the laundry already," Steed said. "Look, why don't you take-up the Linden's offer and grab a nap? I don't really need anyone but Tom with me while I take that run to the hospital for the x-ray and cast."
"Oh, that would be nice." Purdey yawned again, fit to crack her jaw. "Do you know, I'm so tired I'm not even hungry?"
Steed freed his hand and tugged at her bundle of clothing until she let him have it. "So go and sleep."
"What about…" she buried the fourth yawn behind her hands, "…Gambit?"
"What about me?" Gambit emerged from the surgery, wearing a dressing gown that was at least two sizes too small across the shoulders. He'd tied the belt around the waist, but was holding it closed with one hand as insurance as well. Before Steed had a chance to answer Gambit had to dodge as Mrs. Linden appeared from behind him with his clothes in her arms.
"I don't know if I can get the stains out of this jacket, but I'll try sponging the lining," she said and then bustled over to Steed and appropriated the bundle with Purdey's clothing as well. "Ah. That's two of you. Now all I need is your outfit, John."
"Not until we've been to the clinic, dear," Dr. Linden reminded her. She nodded and vanished into the kitchen.
Purdey was studying Gambit. "Are you going to be able to walk on that foot?"
Gambit glanced down to the magnificent rainbow of purple and green now visible on his bare right foot and climbing up his shin. "I have been. Anyway, it's only bruised on the top half."
"Mind over matter?" Steed asked. The bruise looked old enough to have been from the crash itself, but Gambit hadn't been favoring the leg – not much at least.
"Too scared to care." Gambit smiled tiredly. "And you'll notice I did get rid of those fashionable shoes as soon as I could manage it." He yawned, setting Purdey off again.
"That's it," Steed said, having succumbed to the inevitable himself. "Naps! Both of you!"
Tom Linden nodded agreement. "Best thing for you, really. We've plenty of bedspace with the children off at school." He nodded at the stairs. "Any of the doors on the left hand side."
"Sure you don't want company?" Gambit asked Steed.
"Quite sure," Steed said. "Tom won't care if I swear at him while he's mucking about with the arm."
"I'm more than used to it," Dr. Linden agreed cheerfully. "Ah, Helen…"
Mrs. Linden had appeared again, bearing a tray with two steaming mugs on it. "Here we go," she said, "I'll just bring these upstairs so they won't spill."
Gambit craned his neck to look into the nearest cup. "Hot milk?"
"Possets!" Mrs. Linden corrected him cheerfully. "A microwave oven has any number of uses. These will tide you over until you're rested enough to appreciate a proper meal."
"Possets?" Gambit repeated, looking so bewildered that Steed had to smile. He doubted that anyone had had the milk to spare for possets in the lean years of Gambit's childhood, and even if they had he'd have likely had it given to him as Horlicks instead. But by the aroma, these were proper possets, with a rum and brandy base under the milk.
Purdey's nose was twitching happily. "Have they got honey in?"
"They do," Helen Linden said smugly, leading the way up the stairs. Purdey trailed after her, and Gambit, with a shrug and a grin for Steed, followed along.
Steed laughed and turned to Tom Linden. "Possets?" he asked.
"They always work on me," Tom said, "not that either of those two will need much more than a chance to get horizontal. When was the last time any of you got a full night's sleep?" He came over to help Steed lever himself out of the armchair.
"Night before last," Steed answered promptly. "Although I couldn't swear that Gambit took advantage of the opportunity." He'd been amused by the way that the new Files clerk had set her sights on Gambit, but given more recent developments he thought he'd check her record against Murford's. He looked up the stairs thoughtfully. "They are all right, aren't they?"
"Nothing physically wrong with either of them that rest and arnica won't mend," Tom assured him. "I expect you'll all three ache for a few days, but that's nothing to worry about. Minor injuries – even that cut on Gambit's neck – and exhaustion, that's my diagnosis. And damn lucky. Not a concussion between you, and there ought to be with the pair of them looking like they'd gone through a wash with a load of rocks." He studied Steed with a doctorly eye. "Which reminds me. How is your head?"
Steed smiled. Tom hadn't changed a bit, not in thirty years. He'd been just as unlikely to get distracted from a medical problem then, too. "I've a bit of a headache," he admitted, "but I think it's from lack of food more than a blow. Though things are a bit tender on this side."
***
Purdey tapped gently on the door before she opened it, but Gambit was still asleep. He hadn't made his usual cocoon of the covers, and she paused for a moment to be certain that the distribution of the sheet which had tangled around his hips was sufficient to prevent embarrassment. It wasn't easy to tell when she only had a back view – Gambit being curled snail-like around a dislodged pillow – but she thought his virtue was probably protected. The band of light from the doorway showed up the mottling of bruises on his back and legs, and threw the bandage on the back of his neck into bright relief where it emerged from under his hairline. Purdey, who'd collected a fair number of bruises herself in the plane crash, wondered if his more extensive assortment had been supplemented by the net he'd got caught up in or the guards who had dragged him away.
She stayed well back as she called his name, louder each time until he suddenly thrashed awake, arms and legs flying to unseen threats before he ended up sitting, staring at her. She caught the glint of sweat on his face, and felt a pang of guilt for waking him.
"It's me, Purdey," she said in a low, steady voice. "Our transport back to London's arrived, so I brought up your clean clothes."
"Purdey," he repeated, and swallowed hard, blinking at her as if he were still half-asleep.
"Yes." Now that she'd been identified she felt safe to come and sit on the edge of the bed. Closer up she could see that the bruises on his chest and belly were even more numerous than the ones on his back, and suddenly her reason to be impatient with the covering sheet shifted from prurience to concern. He had been beaten. And in this half-awake state he was unable to hide the adrenalin-quick pattern of his breathing, or the small tremors in his hands. "Bad dreams?" she asked.
He nodded. "Something like that. Got to take the change out somehow." His hair was damp, and she could see droplets glimmering as they slid down the chain of the St. Christopher that rested in the hollow of his throat. The bruise across his collarbones stood dark in contrast, the one that had come from being held against the chopping block where he had nearly died.
"Me too," Purdey told him, touching the back of her hand to his cheek and forehead in turn. In her dreams they'd arrived too late to save him, and it was all she could do not to check his neck for the great, clumsy Frankenstein stitches she'd wept over in a futile attempt to make him fit to bury. "When Mrs. Linden came in to wake me up I nearly did her a damage."
"I expect so," he said, and then caught her diagnostic hand in his and gave it a squeeze. "I'm all right – just stiff from sleeping." He sounded tired to her, but not ill or in great pain.
"Well, you don't feel warm," she allowed. "But I think you'd do better for a bath." She grinned at him to take the sting out of her words. "I'll send Dr. Linden up, and he can make it an order. That will spike Robertson's guns."
"Robertson's guns?" Curiosity about the non-sequitor brought a new measure of animation to his face, Purdey noted gratefully.
"He's our driver. If he has his way we'll be en route five minutes from now with no breakfast." She patted an unbruised corner of Gambit's arm. "So if he turns up before the doctor, play the wounded hero, will you? I'm hungry!"
"I think I can manage that," Gambit said, slumping back down against the mattress. But he was smiling now, and the ghosts were vanishing from his eyes. "But isn't it's Steed's turn? He's the bird with the broken wing."
"Steed," Purdey observed crisply, "has been up all night, toasting cheese and bread at the fire and reliving his school days over tankards of the local ale. He's in far too good a mood to do anyone any good." Gambit threw back his head and laughed at that, and Purdey gave in to impulse and kissed the hand still holding hers before she tucked it back against his chest. "Do me proud and I'll save you some porridge," she promised as she got up to go. She was reassured, but still determined to have Dr. Linden give Gambit one more go-over before the long drive to London. The effects of a beating were always more painful the next day. Her bruises were certainly harder to ignore this morning, and she'd done the sensible thing and taken the aspirin Mrs. Linden had offered. Without a medical nudge, Gambit was just as likely to just try to do his best to ignore the pain. Not that his best wasn't very good – she remembered how quickly he'd stopped limping after she'd pulled that debris off his trapped foot after the plane crash – but it always seemed to her to be a waste of energy better spent on other things.
###
Alternate versions
Purdey felt like a small child in Mrs. Linden's voluminous nightgown, but it was so wonderful to feel clean again that she didn't care. She tugged on the flowery bathrobe and tied the sash, making a bundle of her dirty clothes in the towel and hoping that Dr. Linden hadn't just cut the bra off of Steed's splint so it could be washed as well. One last glance around the bathroom and she was ready. She went back downstairs, smiling to herself at the thought of Mike Gambit cleaning up with Mrs. Linden's favorite lavender shampoo.
But Gambit, when she saw him, looked from the back as if he'd already showered. His hair was wet, anyway, and he had something dark blue wrapped around his bare shoulders that was probably a bathrobe, although it was hard to tell from the stairs, especially with Dr. Linden standing by Gambit's chair, putting the finishing touches on a bandage on his neck, and blocking much of the view. Steed was watching the proceedings with sleepy eyes from the armchair near the fire.
"Who's next?" Purdey asked brightly. "Steed?"
***
"Steed? What would we have done?" He raised an eyebrow at her, but she persisted. "If we'd been too late? If Gambit…" She couldn't even say it out loud.
He shook his head and smiled at her, "But we weren't too late. And it doesn't do to dwell on that kind of might have been. After all, with a little less luck, Soo Choy would have got hold of all three of us before we even knew what was happening."
***
This scene may have to find another home... when I wrote it I was thinking of framing the two time sequences in Trap on either side of the events of Obsession, but I may not stick to that in the long run. Still, for now, it lives here.
They were halfway back to London when Steed roused himself from drowsy contemplation of the carriageway and turned to ask the other two if they'd mind a detour to the stud farm so he could fetch some fresh attire. But the words died on his lips. Purdey and Gambit were both sound asleep, tangled together like lovers in a corner of the back seat. Steed raised an eyebrow as he noted where various hands had settled and then chuckled to himself. Too bad I haven't a camera. I'd be able to blackmail the both of them. For their own benefit, of course!
He wondered for a moment, how differently these past few weeks might have gone if Larry Doomer hadn't walked back into Purdey's life – and if Gambit hadn't been obliged to kill him. Not that Steed blamed Gambit for doing it! Doomer had intended murder, and he hadn't cared how many people stood between him and his target. Steed didn't believe for a moment that he would have chosen Purdey over his need for revenge. But the whole incident had sent Purdey back into her protective shell, and Gambit hadn't helped matters by taking out his frustrations on a string of willing blondes and redheads. They still worked out together, and worked well together, but they'd stopped dancing together, and had taken to missing opportunities to needle each other that neither could have resisted three months gone.
Perhaps all this fuss has been worth it. He wasn't naïve enough to think that Gambit and Purdey would go back to the same footing they'd been on before. Their relationship had been shifting even before Doomer had appeared, as Purdey had started to allow herself to love where she was loved and not just where she could easily back away.
###
Ficbits and Dialogue notes
How many Gambit? S
Maybe ten. G
Purdey? S
A dozen at most. All armed to the teeth. P
Agreed. // We should turn back. S
Turn back? But that's our way out! P
We know that. But so do they. G
Have you ever been at the wrong end of a charging rhino? S
Not this week, no. P
I had that misfortune once. A flank shot won't do. The only hope is to go straight for the brain. S
Those men must have been sent from somewhere. P
Back there. G
Gambit, you're the armory expert. What are our chances? S
I wouldn't stake my life on it. G
But you are. All our lives. S
Give me a couple of minutes and that silly little penknife of yours. G
***sigh* Gambit… You do look nice. P
Thanks. You used to throw the javelin. Bow. Arrows. Little device of my own. And I found this down the lane. For luck. G
We may need it. Two of them have gone to head us off. S
And the rest of them are spread out over there. It's a question of infiltration. G
Me tarzan. No that's not right. Me jane. No. Me Purdey. P
***
Damn. They're regrouping. G
Can't we edge round them. P
Not in this terrain. They'll hear us. S
No. Our only way is through there. Where they are. How low can you get? G
As in cricket as a wicket keeper? Or as a forced LBW? S
I meant your arm. G
Don't worry about me. S
Don't you ever worry about me? G
Sometimes yes. S
Then what's wrong with me worrying about you. There's nothing in the rule book about me worrying about you.
There's nothing about not worrying either. S
Look G
Look This is very touching but can we keep the semantics till later? They're forming up to march over here P
There's four of them. G
I can count. P
Yes. G
1234 Oh. P
No room for error. G
Guns… G
***
I should have grabbed a gun back there. G
If you'd stayed back there the only thing you would have grabbed would have been a bullet. S
Shouldn't we split up? P
Why? G
That's what they always do in the movies. Split up and head em off at the pass. P
There isn't a pass. But I could always make one if you're in the mood. G
Gambit the posse always heads 'em off at the pass. P
Purdey, they are the posse. S
Oh. Then shouldn't we count up our remaining ammunition? There's us three. P
A pair of shoes. G
And a horse shoe for luck. S
I think we used that up when we broke through the cordon. But at least they're behind us now. G
That's another thing they always say in the movies. Let's get the hell out of here. P
***
Now with that we could crash out of here. G
You won't make it. No matter how fast you sprint, they'll cut you down. S
Who said sprint? G
Are we just going to let them take mike? P
Where are the others. Purdey Steed No matter, I shall remain and find them. Take him away. T
What are we going to do? P
Hand you over to the enemy S.
Good morning. I've decided to give myself up. P
Just not his day, is it. S
Thinking Out Loud
I see Soo Choy as a desperate wannabe who isn't even half-Chinese…maybe a quarter!... but all the more insistent on being Oriental because of it.
In My Not So Humble Opinion
Sure, Trap isn't much to write home about, and it's definitely not the first episode you should show someone you want to like the show – but it's got great "trio" interaction and some glimpses into the backgrounds of their lives for gravy. The three of them trying to keep each other alive as they run around the woods is worth the price of the ticket, even if the music gets to you after a bit. And it's always fun for me to see Gambit being the one who has to get rescued! Okay, I admit it, I actually like the silly thing – although it benefits mightily from the fast forward button. Like Gnaws it begs for fanfic to smooth out the rough edges and shine up the bits of diamond under the surface.
my TNA fic links
Oct 19 06
Disclaimer: The New Avengers are copyrighted, but not by me. I think Canal+ or Mark One Productions owns the rights at the moment. Which means, of course, that this is fanfic – me playing in someone else's sandbox. Even moreso, anything in dark blue is a scene taken straight from the screen, dialogue and all, that either didn't hit the novelizations, or that didn't hit them in a way that satisfied my sense of the character arcs that I'm exploring. Links to quotes and screencaps (where they appear) are courtesy of bromfield hall.
As a rule
*** means I'm still adding onto a piece or scene and
### means I'm satisfied with that bit for now.
---
http://www.bromfieldhall.co.uk/tnaquotes26.htm
Summary: For them as hasn't seen it lately: In the episode, Steed, Purdey and Gambit are hijacked to the estate of a wannabe Chinese Drug Lord who is determined to show his fellow kingpins just how ruthlessly he disposes of enemies. After a plane crash (in which Steed breaks his arm) and a lot of running around in the woods, Gambit is captured. And before Steed and Purdey quite come to the rescue, he nearly gets his head taken off. Literally…
Scenes
</>She wasn't dead. That was the most important thing to remember, and not the peculiar feeling of spinning and falling and crashing with the plane coming to pieces around her. She felt for her safety belt and found it still fastened; remembered to open her eyes and see if she'd fall before she undid the clasp.
In spite of what her inner ears seemed to think, she was upright or mostly upright. The plane seat had kept hold of her, even as it had fallen into a bush. She unfastened the belt, stood up, and fainted.
The sun was up when she opened her eyes again, and there were birds singing. Purdey pushed herself off the ground and looked around. There were plane pieces everywhere. She stumbled toward the largest hunk of the fuselage, trying to think, trying to remember how she'd wound up in a wood alone. No. Not alone.
"Steed!" she called. "Gambit!"
"Ugh… Purdey!" the answering groan was so close by she knew she'd walked right past him. "Purdey!"
Adrenalin gave her back her arms and legs. She followed the sound and found Gambit lying under some of the wreckage. She shifted the curved piece of lexan that had hidden him in reflections and shadow, but he didn't try to rise. "My foot's trapped. My foot."
She couldn't free him from this end, but fortunately once she'd gone around to where his feet had to be it was an easy matter to find the offending piece of debris. By the time she got back to Gambit he had pulled himself clear. He used her as a ladder to get upright, but she didn't mind. He was alive, and not too badly hurt, and that gave her hope.
"Where's Steed?" Gambit was clearly thinking along the same lines.
"The rest of the plane's up there," Purdey offered, steadying him as best she could. He was taller than she was, and it was a relief when he put his weight on the leg that had been pinned and it held him, as she wasn't sure that she'd have been able to manage as a crutch.
"Steed!" Gambit called, and Purdey thought she heard an answering groan.
"Steed!" she shouted too, as she led the way. Gambit followed her, limping a little, but getting steadier with each step.
They found Steed sitting propped up against a tree. He glared at Gambit as the two of them crouched down on either side of him. "That was, without doubt, the worst landing I've ever seen," he growled.
"Well, we're all down in one piece, aren't we?" Gambit answered, with the air of a puppy who'd just had his nose bopped with a newspaper.
"Not quite," Steed said. He shifted position a little and winced. "My arm's broken."
"Are you sure?" Purdey asked, and got glared at for her trouble.
"It is MY arm." Steed was definitely disgruntled, and quite possibly in the worst mood she'd ever seen him. She was glad when Gambit told her to go and fetch a splint.##
</>Steed was in a terrible mood. Not to mention more pain than he liked to consider. He snapped at Gambit before the younger man could make things worse. "Don't touch it!" Gambit rocked back, abashed, and Steed tried to think of something useful to ask instead of just growling. "Where are we?"
"Well, the plane was travelling due east, and the sun is up…" Gambit began and then shrugged sheepishly. "I don't know. We'll find out soon enough," he added, digging the hole deeper. "Someone must have seen the plane go down or heard the crash. Someone will come looking for us."
There was something wrong about that, but Steed didn't have the concentration to pursue it. It was quite enough trouble just to keep himself from swearing while the two younger agents set about pulling his arm straight and splinting it into a framework of sticks and bits of lace. He had to admit, if he was admitting anything, that the arm felt much better without the broken ends bone grinding at each other.
They kept up a steady stream of banter, which was a distraction from the pain, but also from thinking, and it wasn't until they'd rigged Gambit's otherwise useless shoulder holster for Steed to use as a splint, that he was able to start framing his thoughts.
"We were hijacked," he said, once the arm was safely in the sling and they stopped fussing with it.
"Taken for a ride," Purdey agreed.
"Like rats in a trap," Gambit thirded.
"A very well planned trap. They even took our guns away." Purdey had obviously had the problem on her mind. "Still we must look at the bright side."
"Eh?" Gambit, on the other hand, appeared to still be recovering from that dose of nerve gas.
"Well, the red alert was obviously a fake," Purdey explained. "It was all part of the plot…."
Steed hushed her. He'd heard something.
"What?" Purdey asked.
"Listen," Steed ordered. In the silence they could all hear the sounds of a motor, not far off.
Gambit relaxed. "There you are, told you. Search party. That way I think." He stepped around Purdey and started jogging towards the sound.
"Gambit… Gambit!...." Steed hissed. Too late. But Purdey was still here. "Stop him."
She nodded and took off, closing the gap with an ease that told him volumes about how slowly Gambit was going compared to his usual turn of speed. Steed trotted after her, trying to find a pace that didn't jar his arm too badly.
He caught up a few moments after Purdey blocktackled Gambit. Just in time to hear Gambit's indignant, "Purdey!"
"It was Steed's idea," Purdey offered in her own defense.
But Steed almost had the thoughts in his head in order now. He crouched behind the other two. "We were heading east. And the pilot released some nerve gas to knock us out."
"Steed…" Gambit wasn't caught up yet, but at least now he was paying attention.
"Why didn't he do it earlier?" Steed pressed. "Why then?
"Because we were nearing our destination?" Gambit asked, proving that his brains weren't completely addled in the crash.
Steed tried to see past the bushes in front of them. "I'd say we were there. You were right about one thing…" he conceded, as a row of greenclad soldierly types moved into view, followed by a man shouting in what sounded like Cantonese. "Definitely a search party."
"I have a funny feeling they're not going to offer us blankets and hot tea," Purdey said with dismay.
"Yeah…" Gambit sounded even more chagrined. "Shall we uh…" he gestured back, away from the search party, and Steed wasn't about to argue. In fact, he led the way as the three of them tried to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the crash site.
***
</>Epilogue
"Mike! There's blood on your back!"
"Is there?" Gambit reached instinctively for the only real wound he'd taken from behind and grimaced when his fingers came away scarlet. "Damn. He went deeper than I thought."
"Who?" Purdey asked, tipping up on her toes and tugging at the back of Gambit's collar in order to get a better look at the damage. He had a cut an inch and a half long on the right-hand back corner of his neck, just below the collar line. It didn't look terribly deep, but blood was welling out of it steadily and the inside of his jacket was a mess.
"Soo Choy and that blasted sword of his," Gambit explained. "I tell you it's a good thing megalomaniacs like to talk or you and Steed would have found me coming up a bit short." He was trying to make a joke out of it, but Purdey remembered the way he'd been kneeling behind a chopping block when they'd first arrived and grimaced.
"We got here as soon as we could."
"I know that," Gambit said, turning to bestow a cocky grin upon her. "And it's turned out all right."
Steed appropriated a handkerchief from the pocket of one of their captives. "Here." He handed it to Purdey, who stuffed it into Gambit's collar as a stopgap. "We'll tend it properly when we've found our way home."
"The question is," Purdey said, "how long will that take?"
"Take a look at that map on the floor," Steed said. "I thought those fields looked familiar."
Purdey scooped up the paper and glared at it. "East Anglia? We flew for hours."
"Over the Atlantic and back again," Steed guessed.
Gambit nodded. "That would make sense. I don't suppose there's a phone here we could use." He took the map from Purdey and got a better look at it. "Wait a minute." He tapped the map. "This is where we found Williams."
"Williams?" Steed repeated, not quite following.
"Remember that drug drop at Windsor? Marty Bryne?" Gambit asked grimly. "That's why we got taken. They were his drugs." He glared at the unconscious Soo Choy. "That's two men dead on your account. I should have hit you even harder."
***
The local constable was cooperative and quickly took charge of their collection of prisoners, calling for a second car from the next village over to collect the mafiosos that they'd locked into various closets around the mansion for safekeeping. Purdey called the ministry for transport and backup from the constabulary office while Steed and Gambit made out the preliminary paperwork. Their chores were barely dealt with when the three of them found themselves cornered by the village doctor – who endeared himself to Purdey by zeroing in on Steed's splinted arm before anyone had even made an introduction.
Not that Steed seemed to need one. "Linden! Tom Linden!" Steed exclaimed, and the thin, bespectacled physician dragged his attention away from the makeshift splint to the face above it.
"John Steed! As I live and breathe!" His long face split into a grin. "Last I heard of you, you were a confirmed Londoner, and that was fifteen years gone. Who's dragged you out here to the fresh air? And how on earth did you break this arm?"
"I'm lucky it was just the arm," Steed said. "Our plane went down. This is Mike Gambit – he was piloting, but don't blame him, he was a last minute substitute and I was jostling his elbow at the time."
The doctor nodded to Gambit, but his eyes and hands were busy again with the splinted arm. "Any landing you walk away from is a good one, or so they used to tell us during the War." He pressed a thumb against Steed's wrist and seemed pleased when Steed only winced. "And the young lady who donated the wrappings?"
"Purdey," Steed said, nodding in her direction.
The doctor gave Purdey a longer look than he'd given Gambit. "Miss, Mrs?"
"Just Purdey," she said, putting the handset back down onto the phone. "McKay wants to get Murford under lock and key before he spreads any alarm by sending up a driver after us, so it will be a while," she informed Gambit and Steed, and then smiled at the doctor. "How's Steed's arm?"
"Definitely broken… I'll need an x-ray to determine whether or not it was set correctly before it was splinted."
"He's been using it since then," she said, remembering Steed's impetuous attack on one of the men of Soo Choy's "army".
"Well, it will do for the moment." Dr. Linden smiled briefly. "No breaks in the skin, the circulation seems all right… any numbness in the hand?"
Steed flexed his fingers. "None. Do you have an x-ray machine at your surgery?"
"No, I use the one in the clinic at Tanbury – it's only about twenty minutes up the road, fifteen in the ambulance. But I've a dispensary. I expect you'd be more comfortable with some codeine inside you."
"I'd settle for a couple of aspirin and a brandy," Steed said.
"I have that too," Linden said. "The surgery's at my home – it's just three doors down. Not a great effort even in stockingfeet." His eyebrows asked a question of Gambit, but Gambit only shook his head.
"It's a long story." He held up his wrists, still encircled by handcuffs. "You three go along and I'll be there as soon as Constable Harris finds a key that fits these."
"Might be easier to use a bobby pin," Steed said. "Or a hacksaw."
"It might," Gambit said. "But I'd like to at least try a key first."
"What about the prisoners?" Constable Harris asked. "A few of them are hurt as well."
"Any of them bleeding or unconscious?" Linden asked.
"One of them is unconscious."
"The most dangerous one," Steed said. "Be very careful while you examine him, Tom. Very, very careful."
"Dangerous?" Linden and Harris said, nearly in chorus.
"He tried to behead Gambit with a sword," Purdey said, flatly, not wanting either the doctor or the constable to underestimate the danger. "And nearly succeeded."
Gambit's hand went instinctively up to protect the injury on his neck. "He wasn't trying to kill me," he said, flushing under the sudden attention of the two villagers. "That swing was just meant to impress his friends. He meant to kill you first and make me watch."
For some reason, Purdey hadn't thought that Soo Choy had actually taken a swing at Gambit. At worst, she'd imagined something slightly more forceful than that little caress of the blade under her own chin. But Gambit had been kneeling behind one of the chopping blocks – and if Soo Choy had actually swung… She felt herself going paler, so she grinned and put on her best air of unconcern. "Ladies first? He didn't strike me as being that much of an old-fashioned gentleman."
"He didn't strike me as being a gentleman at all," Steed said, taking her elbow with his right hand. "Gambit, do you mind keeping an eye on things while Dr. Linden makes his examination? We'll just pop over to the surgery and wait for you there."
She appreciated the thought, but didn't really need Steed protecting her just at the moment. "I'm all right," she murmured sotto voce as Gambit and the others headed for the tiny cellblock.
"I'm not," Steed said. "But a brandy and aspirin will help considerably."
###
By the time they reached the doctor's house she was shaking, which made no sense. The crisis was over wasn't it? And they were all three safe now. She barely listened while Steed reacquainted himself with Mrs. Linden and begged a couple of brandies and some aspirin, concentrating instead on trying to look as if she were all right. She wasn't doing it very well -- she knew that by the way that Steed kept steering her by the elbow.
"I'm sorry," she said when Mrs. Linden had gone off to fetch the brandy and she and Steed were left alone in the comfortably cluttered sitting room. "I can't think why I'm falling apart like this."
"Oh, I don't know," Steed said. "It has been an interesting day. World War three, a plane crash, a chase through the woods, a madman with a sword… and not a bite of breakfast."
Giggling was a mistake – it turned far too easily into sobs. She managed to pull herself together before Steed's shoulder was much worse than damp, though, mostly because Mrs. Linden had come back with the brandy, and you couldn't drink and cry at the same time, could you?
"I'm sorry," she said again, when she could speak in a sensible voice. She wiped the tears off her cheek. "I hate it when I get like this."
"It happens," Steed said.
"You're not falling apart," she pointed out, accusingly.
"If I were celebrating," Steed said, looking at the brandy in his glass somberly, "I'd have asked for champagne." He downed half the alcohol in one go and pulled a face. "Waste of good brandy, but it'll do more good in than out."
She took the hint and finished off her own glass, unsure whether or not it made her feel better or worse to know that Steed wasn't feeling entirely himself either. The brandy did help though, chipping away at the core of cold in her gut. But she couldn't stop shaking. "I wish we didn't have to wait for our ride to get here. I'd really love a nice hot bath about now."
"No need to wait," Mrs. Linden said, startling Purdey, who'd forgotten that she and Steed weren't alone. "You can use our bath, dear."
"I'd really like the doctor to take a look at her first," Steed said, and at Purdey's enquiring glance added. "We were all knocked unconscious after the plane crashed – there's no sense in taking chances."
"That may have been the gas," Purdey said.
"Perhaps."
"We'd best start the preliminaries," Mrs. Linden said. "Come along and let me get your blood pressure and temperature, then."
###
***
Purdey came down the stairs while Dr. Linden was still finishing up with Gambit, wearing a voluminous nightgown and a robe of such virulent green that the light reflecting up into her face made her look even worse than she had before she'd gone up. Like a youngster with a case of flu, Steed thought. He held out his good hand and she came over, bringing a warm cloud of lavender in her wake.
"Better?" he asked, as she took his hand.
"Much," she said, and then had to hide a yawn in her shoulder, her other hand being occupied by a bundle of towels and what looked to be her clothing. "Sorry. It's not the company."
"It's been a long day," Steed said, resisting the urge to echo the yawn. "McKay didn't say when he thought our transport would get here, did he?"
"After eight, he thought. Although it could be later. Murford seems to have scrambled his entire list of contacts to one place or another, so a third of the department didn't show up this morning." She yawned again, and shook her head, blinking sleepily. "I still think he's the one Soo Choy got to, though. Why take our guns, otherwise?"
"And why make sure that we three were the only ones on that plane?" Steed added. "No, Murford's the sell-out – I'm certain of that."
"It does mean we'll be here for a while. Do you think Mrs. Linden would mind if I used her washing machine? I could run your and Gambit's things through as well."
"Helen's offered to see to the laundry already," Steed said. "Look, why don't you take-up the Linden's offer and grab a nap? I don't really need anyone but Tom with me while I take that run to the hospital for the x-ray and cast."
"Oh, that would be nice." Purdey yawned again, fit to crack her jaw. "Do you know, I'm so tired I'm not even hungry?"
Steed freed his hand and tugged at her bundle of clothing until she let him have it. "So go and sleep."
"What about…" she buried the fourth yawn behind her hands, "…Gambit?"
"What about me?" Gambit emerged from the surgery, wearing a dressing gown that was at least two sizes too small across the shoulders. He'd tied the belt around the waist, but was holding it closed with one hand as insurance as well. Before Steed had a chance to answer Gambit had to dodge as Mrs. Linden appeared from behind him with his clothes in her arms.
"I don't know if I can get the stains out of this jacket, but I'll try sponging the lining," she said and then bustled over to Steed and appropriated the bundle with Purdey's clothing as well. "Ah. That's two of you. Now all I need is your outfit, John."
"Not until we've been to the clinic, dear," Dr. Linden reminded her. She nodded and vanished into the kitchen.
Purdey was studying Gambit. "Are you going to be able to walk on that foot?"
Gambit glanced down to the magnificent rainbow of purple and green now visible on his bare right foot and climbing up his shin. "I have been. Anyway, it's only bruised on the top half."
"Mind over matter?" Steed asked. The bruise looked old enough to have been from the crash itself, but Gambit hadn't been favoring the leg – not much at least.
"Too scared to care." Gambit smiled tiredly. "And you'll notice I did get rid of those fashionable shoes as soon as I could manage it." He yawned, setting Purdey off again.
"That's it," Steed said, having succumbed to the inevitable himself. "Naps! Both of you!"
Tom Linden nodded agreement. "Best thing for you, really. We've plenty of bedspace with the children off at school." He nodded at the stairs. "Any of the doors on the left hand side."
"Sure you don't want company?" Gambit asked Steed.
"Quite sure," Steed said. "Tom won't care if I swear at him while he's mucking about with the arm."
"I'm more than used to it," Dr. Linden agreed cheerfully. "Ah, Helen…"
Mrs. Linden had appeared again, bearing a tray with two steaming mugs on it. "Here we go," she said, "I'll just bring these upstairs so they won't spill."
Gambit craned his neck to look into the nearest cup. "Hot milk?"
"Possets!" Mrs. Linden corrected him cheerfully. "A microwave oven has any number of uses. These will tide you over until you're rested enough to appreciate a proper meal."
"Possets?" Gambit repeated, looking so bewildered that Steed had to smile. He doubted that anyone had had the milk to spare for possets in the lean years of Gambit's childhood, and even if they had he'd have likely had it given to him as Horlicks instead. But by the aroma, these were proper possets, with a rum and brandy base under the milk.
Purdey's nose was twitching happily. "Have they got honey in?"
"They do," Helen Linden said smugly, leading the way up the stairs. Purdey trailed after her, and Gambit, with a shrug and a grin for Steed, followed along.
Steed laughed and turned to Tom Linden. "Possets?" he asked.
"They always work on me," Tom said, "not that either of those two will need much more than a chance to get horizontal. When was the last time any of you got a full night's sleep?" He came over to help Steed lever himself out of the armchair.
"Night before last," Steed answered promptly. "Although I couldn't swear that Gambit took advantage of the opportunity." He'd been amused by the way that the new Files clerk had set her sights on Gambit, but given more recent developments he thought he'd check her record against Murford's. He looked up the stairs thoughtfully. "They are all right, aren't they?"
"Nothing physically wrong with either of them that rest and arnica won't mend," Tom assured him. "I expect you'll all three ache for a few days, but that's nothing to worry about. Minor injuries – even that cut on Gambit's neck – and exhaustion, that's my diagnosis. And damn lucky. Not a concussion between you, and there ought to be with the pair of them looking like they'd gone through a wash with a load of rocks." He studied Steed with a doctorly eye. "Which reminds me. How is your head?"
Steed smiled. Tom hadn't changed a bit, not in thirty years. He'd been just as unlikely to get distracted from a medical problem then, too. "I've a bit of a headache," he admitted, "but I think it's from lack of food more than a blow. Though things are a bit tender on this side."
***
Purdey tapped gently on the door before she opened it, but Gambit was still asleep. He hadn't made his usual cocoon of the covers, and she paused for a moment to be certain that the distribution of the sheet which had tangled around his hips was sufficient to prevent embarrassment. It wasn't easy to tell when she only had a back view – Gambit being curled snail-like around a dislodged pillow – but she thought his virtue was probably protected. The band of light from the doorway showed up the mottling of bruises on his back and legs, and threw the bandage on the back of his neck into bright relief where it emerged from under his hairline. Purdey, who'd collected a fair number of bruises herself in the plane crash, wondered if his more extensive assortment had been supplemented by the net he'd got caught up in or the guards who had dragged him away.
She stayed well back as she called his name, louder each time until he suddenly thrashed awake, arms and legs flying to unseen threats before he ended up sitting, staring at her. She caught the glint of sweat on his face, and felt a pang of guilt for waking him.
"It's me, Purdey," she said in a low, steady voice. "Our transport back to London's arrived, so I brought up your clean clothes."
"Purdey," he repeated, and swallowed hard, blinking at her as if he were still half-asleep.
"Yes." Now that she'd been identified she felt safe to come and sit on the edge of the bed. Closer up she could see that the bruises on his chest and belly were even more numerous than the ones on his back, and suddenly her reason to be impatient with the covering sheet shifted from prurience to concern. He had been beaten. And in this half-awake state he was unable to hide the adrenalin-quick pattern of his breathing, or the small tremors in his hands. "Bad dreams?" she asked.
He nodded. "Something like that. Got to take the change out somehow." His hair was damp, and she could see droplets glimmering as they slid down the chain of the St. Christopher that rested in the hollow of his throat. The bruise across his collarbones stood dark in contrast, the one that had come from being held against the chopping block where he had nearly died.
"Me too," Purdey told him, touching the back of her hand to his cheek and forehead in turn. In her dreams they'd arrived too late to save him, and it was all she could do not to check his neck for the great, clumsy Frankenstein stitches she'd wept over in a futile attempt to make him fit to bury. "When Mrs. Linden came in to wake me up I nearly did her a damage."
"I expect so," he said, and then caught her diagnostic hand in his and gave it a squeeze. "I'm all right – just stiff from sleeping." He sounded tired to her, but not ill or in great pain.
"Well, you don't feel warm," she allowed. "But I think you'd do better for a bath." She grinned at him to take the sting out of her words. "I'll send Dr. Linden up, and he can make it an order. That will spike Robertson's guns."
"Robertson's guns?" Curiosity about the non-sequitor brought a new measure of animation to his face, Purdey noted gratefully.
"He's our driver. If he has his way we'll be en route five minutes from now with no breakfast." She patted an unbruised corner of Gambit's arm. "So if he turns up before the doctor, play the wounded hero, will you? I'm hungry!"
"I think I can manage that," Gambit said, slumping back down against the mattress. But he was smiling now, and the ghosts were vanishing from his eyes. "But isn't it's Steed's turn? He's the bird with the broken wing."
"Steed," Purdey observed crisply, "has been up all night, toasting cheese and bread at the fire and reliving his school days over tankards of the local ale. He's in far too good a mood to do anyone any good." Gambit threw back his head and laughed at that, and Purdey gave in to impulse and kissed the hand still holding hers before she tucked it back against his chest. "Do me proud and I'll save you some porridge," she promised as she got up to go. She was reassured, but still determined to have Dr. Linden give Gambit one more go-over before the long drive to London. The effects of a beating were always more painful the next day. Her bruises were certainly harder to ignore this morning, and she'd done the sensible thing and taken the aspirin Mrs. Linden had offered. Without a medical nudge, Gambit was just as likely to just try to do his best to ignore the pain. Not that his best wasn't very good – she remembered how quickly he'd stopped limping after she'd pulled that debris off his trapped foot after the plane crash – but it always seemed to her to be a waste of energy better spent on other things.
###
Alternate versions
Purdey felt like a small child in Mrs. Linden's voluminous nightgown, but it was so wonderful to feel clean again that she didn't care. She tugged on the flowery bathrobe and tied the sash, making a bundle of her dirty clothes in the towel and hoping that Dr. Linden hadn't just cut the bra off of Steed's splint so it could be washed as well. One last glance around the bathroom and she was ready. She went back downstairs, smiling to herself at the thought of Mike Gambit cleaning up with Mrs. Linden's favorite lavender shampoo.
But Gambit, when she saw him, looked from the back as if he'd already showered. His hair was wet, anyway, and he had something dark blue wrapped around his bare shoulders that was probably a bathrobe, although it was hard to tell from the stairs, especially with Dr. Linden standing by Gambit's chair, putting the finishing touches on a bandage on his neck, and blocking much of the view. Steed was watching the proceedings with sleepy eyes from the armchair near the fire.
"Who's next?" Purdey asked brightly. "Steed?"
***
"Steed? What would we have done?" He raised an eyebrow at her, but she persisted. "If we'd been too late? If Gambit…" She couldn't even say it out loud.
He shook his head and smiled at her, "But we weren't too late. And it doesn't do to dwell on that kind of might have been. After all, with a little less luck, Soo Choy would have got hold of all three of us before we even knew what was happening."
***
This scene may have to find another home... when I wrote it I was thinking of framing the two time sequences in Trap on either side of the events of Obsession, but I may not stick to that in the long run. Still, for now, it lives here.
They were halfway back to London when Steed roused himself from drowsy contemplation of the carriageway and turned to ask the other two if they'd mind a detour to the stud farm so he could fetch some fresh attire. But the words died on his lips. Purdey and Gambit were both sound asleep, tangled together like lovers in a corner of the back seat. Steed raised an eyebrow as he noted where various hands had settled and then chuckled to himself. Too bad I haven't a camera. I'd be able to blackmail the both of them. For their own benefit, of course!
He wondered for a moment, how differently these past few weeks might have gone if Larry Doomer hadn't walked back into Purdey's life – and if Gambit hadn't been obliged to kill him. Not that Steed blamed Gambit for doing it! Doomer had intended murder, and he hadn't cared how many people stood between him and his target. Steed didn't believe for a moment that he would have chosen Purdey over his need for revenge. But the whole incident had sent Purdey back into her protective shell, and Gambit hadn't helped matters by taking out his frustrations on a string of willing blondes and redheads. They still worked out together, and worked well together, but they'd stopped dancing together, and had taken to missing opportunities to needle each other that neither could have resisted three months gone.
Perhaps all this fuss has been worth it. He wasn't naïve enough to think that Gambit and Purdey would go back to the same footing they'd been on before. Their relationship had been shifting even before Doomer had appeared, as Purdey had started to allow herself to love where she was loved and not just where she could easily back away.
###
Ficbits and Dialogue notes
How many Gambit? S
Maybe ten. G
Purdey? S
A dozen at most. All armed to the teeth. P
Agreed. // We should turn back. S
Turn back? But that's our way out! P
We know that. But so do they. G
Have you ever been at the wrong end of a charging rhino? S
Not this week, no. P
I had that misfortune once. A flank shot won't do. The only hope is to go straight for the brain. S
Those men must have been sent from somewhere. P
Back there. G
Gambit, you're the armory expert. What are our chances? S
I wouldn't stake my life on it. G
But you are. All our lives. S
Give me a couple of minutes and that silly little penknife of yours. G
***sigh* Gambit… You do look nice. P
Thanks. You used to throw the javelin. Bow. Arrows. Little device of my own. And I found this down the lane. For luck. G
We may need it. Two of them have gone to head us off. S
And the rest of them are spread out over there. It's a question of infiltration. G
Me tarzan. No that's not right. Me jane. No. Me Purdey. P
***
Damn. They're regrouping. G
Can't we edge round them. P
Not in this terrain. They'll hear us. S
No. Our only way is through there. Where they are. How low can you get? G
As in cricket as a wicket keeper? Or as a forced LBW? S
I meant your arm. G
Don't worry about me. S
Don't you ever worry about me? G
Sometimes yes. S
Then what's wrong with me worrying about you. There's nothing in the rule book about me worrying about you.
There's nothing about not worrying either. S
Look G
Look This is very touching but can we keep the semantics till later? They're forming up to march over here P
There's four of them. G
I can count. P
Yes. G
1234 Oh. P
No room for error. G
Guns… G
***
I should have grabbed a gun back there. G
If you'd stayed back there the only thing you would have grabbed would have been a bullet. S
Shouldn't we split up? P
Why? G
That's what they always do in the movies. Split up and head em off at the pass. P
There isn't a pass. But I could always make one if you're in the mood. G
Gambit the posse always heads 'em off at the pass. P
Purdey, they are the posse. S
Oh. Then shouldn't we count up our remaining ammunition? There's us three. P
A pair of shoes. G
And a horse shoe for luck. S
I think we used that up when we broke through the cordon. But at least they're behind us now. G
That's another thing they always say in the movies. Let's get the hell out of here. P
***
Now with that we could crash out of here. G
You won't make it. No matter how fast you sprint, they'll cut you down. S
Who said sprint? G
Are we just going to let them take mike? P
Where are the others. Purdey Steed No matter, I shall remain and find them. Take him away. T
What are we going to do? P
Hand you over to the enemy S.
Good morning. I've decided to give myself up. P
Just not his day, is it. S
Thinking Out Loud
I see Soo Choy as a desperate wannabe who isn't even half-Chinese…maybe a quarter!... but all the more insistent on being Oriental because of it.
In My Not So Humble Opinion
Sure, Trap isn't much to write home about, and it's definitely not the first episode you should show someone you want to like the show – but it's got great "trio" interaction and some glimpses into the backgrounds of their lives for gravy. The three of them trying to keep each other alive as they run around the woods is worth the price of the ticket, even if the music gets to you after a bit. And it's always fun for me to see Gambit being the one who has to get rescued! Okay, I admit it, I actually like the silly thing – although it benefits mightily from the fast forward button. Like Gnaws it begs for fanfic to smooth out the rough edges and shine up the bits of diamond under the surface.
my TNA fic links
