Title: Falls the Shadow

Author: Nemo the Everbeing

Rating: PG-13

Summary: It was supposed to be nothing more than a seaside holiday for two old friends to relax and recharge, but something went wrong. Then a lot of things went wrong. Now, as Ace deals with the emotional fallout of a realization that could put an end their decade-long friendship, the Doctor discovers something potentially deadly about the world on which they've stopped. And then the darkness falls.

Spoilers (or throwaway references): Episodes "Remembrance of the Daleks," "The Brain of Morbius" (blink and you'll miss it) and the BBC book "Storm Harvest." There are, however, no references whatsoever to the New Adventures novel that pilfered—ahem, that bears the same title as my piece. In fact, I'd forgotten that book entirely until my beta reminded me. So, no. No correlation whatsoever between mine and the other one.

Author's Note: This story has been a labor of love. It's been in the works for months, and was written as a test to see if I could write all-out ship. And I think it turned out pretty well. However, it couldn't have been done without the aid of certain people, places and things. In no particular order, I'd like to thank Zircon, my badass beta; the Virgin Islands; Copic Markers; T. S. Elliott; the cast and crew of "Doctor Who," with particular thanks to Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred; Jon Pertwee, for reasons odd and mysterious; the internet; Stephen King; Arthur C. Clarke; and every fish on Earth.

Disclaimer: The BBC owns everything. Literally. I mean it. EVERYTHING. Except perhaps "The Hollow Men." T. S. Elliot owns that. Mostly. The BBC might have a bit.

oOo oOo Chapter 1: Little Creatures oOo oOo

It was one of those days when everything was going too well. When the stars aligned and Sagittarius was in the house of whatever-it's-supposed-to-be-with and all that. The point was, everything was . . . perfect. And that wasn't right. It was something Ace had learned during her years with the Doctor: nice, quiet moments just couldn't last. Alien invasions, deadly epidemics, hordes of things which she'd only seen in horror movies; all of it became a matter of course around him.

Sometimes she had to wonder if it didn't happen because of him. It was as if the universe, to balance out his good, had to throw all the bad everywhere at him. The question which had been plaguing her for years, that little worry which had followed her since he had manipulated Davros into destroying Skaro was this: if he was not purely good (and she had no delusions about that) then was the bad purely bad? Was she so caught up in his wake that she only saw the universe through his eyes? Was there anything of the her-before-him left, or was she nothing but a reflection of him? Were any of his companions throughout the years any more than that?

And should she really be thinking this sort of thing when he was—for once—coming through with a quiet holiday by the sea in fine style? The ocean was endless and a wonderfully alien purple, the moons were a beautiful shade of pale jade, and the flowers scenting the night air were sweet without being cloying. And best of all, there wasn't a monster in sight. Not even a large spider.

It was so different to their last seaside holiday. The horrors on Coralee were the sort of thing that would be featured in her more vivid nightmares for a long time to come, although they did have that one terrific evening before everything went to hell. She could still remember the surprising tang of that green wine and the Doctor's double take upon seeing her dress. She wondered if she could find that dress again. Surely she'd kept it.

Further out to sea, a boat sped through the surf and the purple of the water was displaced by a bioluminescent blue glow. She stepped into the shallows and swirled one foot about. Another trail of blue followed her toes, reminding her of the light-patterns made by sparklers on Bonfire Night.

"Enjoying the holiday?" a familiar voice asked. He hadn't been there a moment before, but his sudden appearance wasn't a surprise. He always popped up unexpected and unannounced, so she'd come to always expect him.

"Hmm," she said, digging her toes through the white sand and feeling the grains oozing up between them. A small, tubular fish poked its head out of the seabed, gazed at her with its bulging eyes for a few seconds, and then sucked on her little toe. She leaned down to detach the fish, and the water shimmered around her hand. "Why does the water glow here?"

"Little creatures," he said in that low, sleepy purr he used when all was right with the worlds. He strolled over to her, his plaid trousers rolled up to mid-calf and his feet bare. He still had his pullover on, but his suit jacket, tie, hat, and umbrella were gone. It all left him looking strangely normal for the beach. In fact he would have been perfectly normal if not for those odd red question marks adorning his pullover. And even those seemed only a slight undercurrent of peculiarity. For once, she and the Doctor complemented each other rather well. The green wrap-skirt and off-the-shoulder coral top she wore over a black two-piece swimsuit were just as appropriately out of place. A combination of bought on the planet and brought in her rucksack.

He crouched next to her, the ragged ends of his hair picking up the pale green moonlight as he waggled his fingers through the water. The fish darted between them but didn't engage. She noted with lazy interest that his fingers didn't ignite any of the bioluminescence hers had as they ran through the lavender shallows.

He noticed her watching and responded to the unasked question. "Different body temperature. The microbes respond to your warmth."

"Whereas you . . ."

"Same temperature as the water. Maybe a bit cooler. The ocean will catch up through the night. In the morning we'll be much of a kind, the ocean and I."

"I forget that about you, you know," she said. "That same-on-the-outside, different-on-the-inside thing. Even after all these years, I forget sometimes."

His quick, sly little grin flashed. "There are moments when I forget you're different to me, too."

She snorted. "That would make me a Time Lord, right? I'm not sure the universe is ready for that. Going about regenerating, living for millennia . . . oh, that's one warped sense of humor you've got there, Professor." Feeling she might have upset the quiet mood a little, she added, "Mind you, it would be nice to travel with you that bit longer."

He nodded, his head bowed and eyes trained on the fish. It was worse for him, she knew, when he was confronted with her mortality; how short her life was, how delicate her balancing act to keep it. Their lives rarely consisted of paddling about in the shallows of a purple sea, and more than once she'd been certain they'd both be killed. Not such a problem for him, of course, as he'd just wake up in a new body and start the whole dance again, but she only got one go-around. Given their usual adventures, the odds were bound to catch up with her eventually. A bomb would go off or an alien would be that much faster than she, and that would be that. No more Ace.

For this short time, though, there was no danger of death. No danger of anything worse than an over-curious fish sucking on her toes, so she shouldn't dwell on problems best left for later.

The Doctor stood up, accidentally sloshing water across her knee. She was tempted to splash him back, maybe give him a tackle which would land him waist-deep in lavender water, but settled for flicking little droplets at his trouser-legs. He gave her a curious look and she gave him a wide, open grin. He rolled his eyes and she laughed. He gave up and smiled right back, then reached down and pulled her to her feet.

"Come on, Ace," he said.

"Where to? I thought we were being boring and staying in."

He tapped her nose and his grin grew more mysterious. Not to mention smug. He offered her his arm but didn't say a word. After glaring failed to move him, Ace gave up and slipped a hand through the crook of his elbow. Let him have his little intrigues. He always enjoyed them, and she'd learned to tolerate a great deal of this sort of thing.

He drew her along the beach, the night waves lapping in two different directions across their feet. He told her about opposing lunar tides and the presence of a mineral she couldn't pronounce in the water. He told her about the strange stratosphere of the planet. He told her of the fish miles-long in the depths of the oceans which sang so hauntingly that composers from all over the galaxy came to the planet just to dive in submersibles and hear them. He told her of an as-yet undiscovered aquatic civilization which was building vast cities on the bottom of the sea where the light never touched and where the sand was black, and the beings in that civilization breathed the methane bubbles which rose from the bottom. He told her of the telepathic crystalline life-forms at the poles which were consulted as oracles by the populace and others, but which could only tell you what you wanted to hear and nothing more. His voice rose and fell, and for once she didn't interrupt. She just listened as he spun tales of the planet and its inhabitants, of the past and future histories of a place they were just passing through.

The tide came in as they walked, and they were knocked stumbling by the sudden onslaught of a particularly aggressive wave. They laughed like children as they staggered and clung to one another in an attempt to steady themselves. Ace looked down to see that they were now hip-deep in purple water. She whooped as the tide dragged her skirt off, leaving her in her swimsuit bottoms. She went tearing after the floating bit of cloth, catching it a few yards away, but by then she was up to her neck, and her ponytail floated on top of the water in reaching tendrils. She half-swam, half-waded back to the Doctor, holding her skirt aloft and calling out her victory.

They slogged out of the water, and she wrapped her skirt back around her waist. They took one look at each other and began to laugh again. "Maybe we should go back to the hotel and change into something slightly less soaking wet," she said.

"Perhaps we should," he said.

"And seeing as you've made plans, how about a hint on what I should change into. Or should I just take a stab, see if I get it right?"

"Oh, stab away," he said, "just make sure it's a bit of a formal stab, hmm?" He strolled on down the beach, dripping a little trail of water behind him as he went.

oOo oOo oOo oOo

The Doctor felt out of place without his usual accoutrements. He had never understood the need to wear something different day after day. In fact, he found the static reality of a single look comforting. A tiny concession to his Gallifreyan roots, he supposed, but he accepted it.

Nonetheless, there came a moment in every Time Lord's life when he actually had to dress to impress. So, letting his third personality take over for a while, he'd dug into his Gladstone bag (specially linked to the TARDIS wardrobe room a few centuries ago, along with a few other bits of luggage and a pocket or two in each of his jackets) and slipped into something impressive.

The chocolate brown of the suit was comfortingly familiar, even if the cut was surprisingly Victorian. The waistline seam reminded him of the coats to which he used to be partial, but instead of the knee-length frockcoat of yesterlife, he found long, cutaway skirting which hit slightly above the knee and pleated in the back under a small, swirling metal brooch with the central Prydonian hourglass motif. His trousers, too, were a solid brown and cut as Victorian trousers had been: narrower, only flaring a bit at the bottom to make room for his wing-tips and the spats which he had no intention of wearing. His shirt was pressed, although he refused to button the top button or draw his tie up any further than normal. His hair was still sticking up at random angles. He may be brushing himself up a bit, but that didn't mean he had to change everything.

He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror. He turned to check his appearance, but froze. For a moment he saw the image of another man standing behind him. A tall man in a bottle-green frockcoat. A man with longish, curling hair and a distance in his eyes.

Seven gives way to eight whatever the count.

He looked away and looked back. The image was gone. He shook his head at his own worry and speculation. Worry was pointless. Occasionally time tripped a bit and things would flow wrong. It was best not to dwell, as speculation was even worse than worry. It was best to believe that such changes were still distant possibilities. Especially for her sake. She wouldn't understand that it was still him. From her point of view, he had to concede, it wouldn't be. This personality would become one in the multitude. Aspects of him would be mixed with the others and something new. His mind would still exist, but it would be a whisper, something itching at the back of the eighth man's head. Behind a face that had changed. And she . . . she liked him as he was.

Of course, the question was, would this starched and pressed version of the Doctor meet with Ace's approval? The formality would normally drive him a bit mad, but his carefully laid plans called for it.

It felt like an odd sort of evening. The last time he'd sensed this mood had been on Coralee. That had been an odd sort of evening too: currents in the air, layers that weren't present between Ace and himself when they were barreling through life at their usual faster-than-light speed. Things were simplified when mortal danger was an issue. Mortal danger sometimes even seemed preferable to odd evenings.

But odd evenings seemed to be on the agenda, and it was not for him to say otherwise. The reality of their situation was that everything sank to stillness after a few short hours of inaction. As things settled, dimensions and realities tended to settle too, landing in deep drifts like new-fallen snow.

He remembered diving into a snowdrift headfirst when he was small. Come to think of it, he did it again during his second incarnation, but that was just typical. He smiled, pulling himself to his full, if not particularly impressive, height. "Not bad," he said to his mirror-self. "Not bad at all." Now all that remained was to ensure that Ace dressed appropriately as well.

As if she were reading his thoughts, Ace chose that moment to curse loudly through the wall separating their rooms. His smile grew. He was well aware that their unfortunate encounter with the tide had cost her the only nice outfit she'd brought. Of course, that was why he'd brought a second, smaller valise. He picked it up, strolled to the adjoining door, and then knocked.

"Oi," she shouted, "not decent in here."

He unlatched her lock by a quick fiddle with a hair-pin he found in his pocket (he wasn't sure why he had a hairpin in his pocket, unless it was for just such an eventuality), opened the door a crack, and dropped the valise through, shutting the door as soon as his task was done. He listened to her footsteps as she approached; the slight creak of the leather as she picked up the bag. Once he was satisfied that Ace was inspecting the valise, he moved away from the door, wondering what the TARDIS had in mind. Her selection for him had been far from the norm, and he couldn't imagine she'd give Ace any old frock.

He pulled a book from his bag and glanced at the cover. "Childhood's End," by Arthur C. Clarke. He shook his head and wondered what, precisely, the Old Girl meant by that. She always had something to say, his TARDIS.

"You rigged a bag to hook up with the wardrobe room and you didn't tell me?" Ace's voice rang through the door. The Doctor chuckled but didn't feel the need to answer. He settled down into the armchair kindly provided by the hotel and cracked open his book.

After maybe ten minutes of reading, a rap came at the door from the hall. "Ready to go?" Ace called.

He sprang up, left the book on the table (no need to get a bookmark with an eidetic memory) and hurried to the door. He flipped the latch and slid open the heavy wood paneling, peering out expectantly.

And standing there was a Time Lady.

He knew that cut, that fabric. It fit like a glove, as did most clothing provided by the TARDIS. The upper silhouette hugged every one of Ace's curves and possessed a low cowl-back, while the skirt flowed out from her waist and hung in loose folds to her ankles. The fabric itself was satin woven with nanocircuitry. The swirls of yellow, blue, purple, green and red which made up the temporal vortex played over it, colors blooming into the blackness of space with swirling tendrils. The image was so real that he could see every flicker of every star, and pick out the constellation Kasterborous.

Even her hair was something he remembered from his brief—and usually unwanted—stopovers on his home planet. She'd piled it up on her head, although bits had got away from her to fall about her face. She was the most shocking mixture of the elegance of his home and the sheer vitality of Ace.

The Doctor was aware that he must look confused, upset even. "Goodness," he said, trying for some semblance of clarity. "This is what she picked out for you?"

"Why?" she asked, disappointed. "What's wrong with it?"

He heard the unspoken question, and it hung in the air between them. 'What's wrong with me?'

"Oh!" he said, backpedaling as he recognized his affront. "Oh, no, you look very nice. It's just . . . I didn't expect the Old Girl to dress you in Gallifreyan semi-formal."

She looked down at the outfit, a grin no self-respecting Time Lady would have worn lighting up her face. "This is Gallifreyan?"

"Probably current fashion, too, knowing the TARDIS's databanks."

"Wicked," Ace said, twirling for him. The vortex spun with her, a perfect replica of the original. She had her head down and she watched the play of the colors. Then she looked up and said, "You mentioned something about forgetting I wasn't a Time Lord?"

Yes, he had. And undoubtedly the TARDIS had picked a theme for the night based on that. On a silly wish that his companions could live as long as he, that their lives wouldn't always be so butterfly short. Time always seemed to be an enemy when it came to his friendships. It would be nice if, for this companion only, that might change. Trying to cover the leaden weight which settled itself around his hearts, he snorted and said, "You'd find it quite dull."

"Like hell I would! I always wanted to playact that I was some posh lady." She sidled closer, catching his eye with one of those pleading puppy looks she'd copied from him. "Come on, Professor," she said. "Just for the evening."

And in a split-second, he made a decision. He gave in to the little voice in his head (it sounded suspiciously like his second personality with its exuberance and hope) that said, 'Yes! Say yes!' "All right, then. For tonight, we're two Time Lords out for a spot of entertainment." His hand, buried in one of his pockets, was filled with one, then two unidentifiable somethings. He pulled them out, smiling, and passed one to her. She looked down to see a full-collar necklace made of a web of crimson-orange jewels. Set in its center was a gold pendant bearing the symbol of the Prydonian Academy. She glanced up at him. He said, "It seems we're in an ostentatious mood today. Here we go: turn around and I'll fix it on for you."

Ace turned and held the necklace over her shoulder. He retrieved it and slipped it about her throat. The catch was a long sliding bar which fit into a hinge and then twisted closed. He had to brush little wisps of hair away from the nape of her neck after he'd secured it, sweeping them out from under the gems. She turned back to him. "I give up," she said. "Gallifreyan zodiac sign?"

He had to look away. The dress and the symbol were filling him with a sort of bitter nostalgia. She didn't deserve him moping because the TARDIS was taking a joke too far, so he occupied himself with trying to affix a gold and silver tie-pin with the same symbol onto his tie. Alas, fixing a tie-pin upside down required more of his coordination than he could currently command. The harder he tried, the more it tilted askew. Ace rolled her eyes and took over, fumbling a bit with the unfamiliar implement before she got the idea (stabbing is a universal sort of thing) and fixed it in the right way.

She stepped back and there was a slightly uncomfortable pause. He felt awkward and strange. The clothing and the evening and the tangles of them in the air were making him unsure of his footing. He decided to indulge himself a little, to really believe that she was a Time Lady: they'd both been raised in that repressive and stifling Gallifreyan society. Ace understood exactly where all his idiosyncrasies came from, why he could never stay in one place, because she felt the same. She was functionally immortal, just like him. And if he could pretend that much, perhaps he could go one step further. He had never been exiled. They were two Time Lords sneaking out in a borrowed TARDIS to see how the rest of the galaxy lived.

"It's the symbol of the Prydonian Academy on Gallifrey," he told her, his tone lightening with his thoughts. "My alma mater, and now, apparently, yours."

"What's that make me, then?"

"A temporal engineer, probably, although I hear that their temporal philosophy department is coming along nicely." He smiled. "I have it. You're a TARDIS engineer. You've been learning about TARDIS repair and the basics of its function long enough to fool people."

He offered her his arm and she took it. They strode off down the hallway. "So," Ace said in a caricature of the plummy tones of a 1950s BBC announcer, "how does one go about being a Time Lord?"

"Time Lady for you," he said. "As for how to behave, just remember that we are, by and large, insufferably pretentious and self-satisfied." He smiled at the less pleasant memories of a stultifying life on Gallifrey.

"Pack of boring snobs, then?" Her voice was back to normal. He was glad about that. Ace had many talents, but an ear for accents was not one of them.

"Precisely. Oh, and if anyone asks, just add a few hundred years to your age." He stopped, turned, and looked her over in all mock-seriousness. She composed herself and stood under the scrutiny, both of them very much enjoying their little game. "Not your first body, certainly," he said. "Second or third, I should think. Hmm . . . second."

"So I'm a two-hundred-and-twenty-eight-year-old TARDIS engineer on my second body."

His grin was honest, and for once he hid nothing behind it but a bit of sorrow that such a thing wasn't really true. "Sounds plausible to me."

"And what, pray tell," she asked in her archest tones, "is a Time Lady like me doing with an old reprobate like you?"

Oh, but she sounded like Romana! He took her by the hands, swung them both about in a circle and said, "Why, you're off to see the galaxies! Perfect occupation for a young Time Lady newly graduated."

He spun her back to his side and then led her off, back on their original course. Ace held herself as elegantly as possible. As they moved through the more-or-less deserted hall, her whole bearing seemed to change. This was the woman she might have been in a different life, born on a planet of static perfection and ivory beauty. It was as though the spirit of his people passed into her. Her footsteps grew more confident. She could own this planet in seconds if she wanted to, and she knew it. This woman was a mistress of time, revered by some as a goddess. She bore a cultural heritage so ancient most would call it mythology. That fire he so associated with Ace was banked under a cloak of wisdom and infinite possibilities, but it wasn't extinguished. It was there just enough to mark Ace's Time Lady persona as different from the genuine article. And frankly, hers was better. It was what he'd always wished a Time Lady could be.

Perhaps she was indulging a few stray imaginings of her own, and he wasn't the only one who would enjoy an evening of denying reality. For one night, they would both be other people and see the universe in a different light.

They took the lift down to the lobby and strolled out onto gas-lit streets. The gas on this planet created pale blue flames reminiscent of the bioluminescence in the ocean, so the whole of the city bathed in contrasting blue and green glows of artificial and natural lighting, casting double-shadows everywhere. Ace's dress and the pendant at her throat gave off the subtlest suggestion of a light of their own, but she didn't react. She looked as though she wore that sort of outfit every day.

They passed couples just as elegantly dressed, but none of the ladies seemed superior, and most looked jealous. A few were awe-struck, and the Doctor wondered if it was because they knew what she was supposed to be, or if the sheer alien beauty of her dress told them without the foreknowledge.

"You haven't told me where we're going," she said.

"I haven't."

"Fine," she said, glancing at him with a bit of the usual fire in her eyes. "Keep your secrets. Won't take me long to suss it out."

"Oh, I doubt you'll guess this," he said, all Time Lord smugness.

Ace wasn't as educated as many of his companions had been, but she was possibly the smartest. She picked up on things so quickly. For example, the mannerisms of a Time Lord: the arching of an eyebrow, the quirking of her lips in a subtle smirk . . . he recognized it all. He wasn't certain she knew she was doing it, but it was absolutely perfect. Oh, Rassilon, but she would have made a brilliant Time Lady. "Let's see," she said, "we're far more posh than we've any right to be, so it's somewhere nice. Possibly somewhere we couldn't even get into without looking like this."

"Mmm," he said, noncommittal, interested to see how far she could take her extrapolation and how accurate she might be.

"The TARDIS gave me flats instead of heels, which might point to more than me standing about like a coat-tree."

"Perish the thought."

"So, I'm thinking we're going dancing."

Very close. "Yes," he said.

She smiled her triumph.

"And a bit more besides."

"Oh, Professor!"

For a moment, as she vented her exasperation, she was a dizzying mix of the girl from Perivale he had known, the courageous woman he'd come to know, and a Time Lady he'd barely met. "I told you that you wouldn't guess," he said.

She looked for a second as though she would punch him in the arm, but she reined herself in and settled for glaring. 'Very good, Ace,' he thought.

Midway down the large central road—devoid of vehicles but filled with beings soaking up the nightlife under the two green moons—a man caught sight of them. He had blue hair, marking him as native to this particular planet, but his was a darker blue than most. It matched his navy blue suit. This man stopped, his eyes going round as he stared at Ace. Well, the Doctor thought, it was probably best she realize that being a Time Lady meant receiving one or two odd stares.

"Professor," she said, sotto voce, "we've got an audience."

"We've had one since we stepped out of the lobby," he said. People were milling about, trying to look as though they weren't gawking. Their efforts weren't working that well. When Time Lords wished to be inconspicuous, they were considered surprisingly drab. But on those rare occasions when they wanted attention, no one would forget the sight.

"That bloke over there," she said, gesturing with her chin. "Now, either he's taken an unhealthy interest in my chest—something that would cause me to break my Time Lady cool and go and thump him one—or he's recognized the symbol on my necklace."

There was usually one in every crowd who did, for whatever reason, know the symbol. It was often associated with Time Lords in general, as well as the academy specifically, and those who studied Gallifrey for any short time would have seen it. Still, to recognize it at such a distance, and to have such a pointed reaction . . . "Interesting," he said.

She tightened her grip on his arm. "Oh, no. Not getting involved. We were going somewhere, remember? Mysteries, schemes and master plans can wait until after our holiday."

He blinked and looked at her. In Ace's face he saw a determination that barely masked the weariness. It was something else he forgot about humans: they couldn't always keep up with him. Sometimes they got tired and needed a break from adventures. There'd been a time when he'd simply let them go when they reached that stage, that adventure-saturation. Not now. Particularly with Ace, he was determined to make it last. If that meant more relaxing holidays than he'd experienced in all his lives combined—if it meant life in general at a slower pace—then so be it. Maybe he was getting old, but a slower pace was turning out to be agreeable. He was just distracted back into breakneck speeds rather easily.

Not this evening, though. This evening was about her; about not being themselves. There would be no rushing off to save civilization. The galaxy could take care of itself for a few hours while they had a bit of fun and Ace recharged.

"Of course," he said. "No mysteries tonight. The Doctor is otherwise engaged." They walked on, ignoring the man as he continued to stare. "Besides," he added once they were out of hearing-range, "it's far more likely his fascination had nothing to do with your necklace."

She couldn't help herself and punched him in the arm. She did recover quickly, sliding back close as they continued their walk with only the briefest of hiccups.

As they neared their destination, a sense of anticipation built up. How, he wondered, would she react to this? This wasn't their usual social situation, especially for the rough-around-the-edges Ace. Still, it was good to expand one's horizons.

The building was magnificent, tall and ornamental with arches of white marble and gingerbreading wrought in gold. The entire edifice was built to impress and the Doctor felt Ace's fingers tighten on his arm. "Are we going there?" she asked in a whisper.

"Yes."

Her eyes lit up with understanding. "We're going to a ball, aren't we, Professor?" she asked.

"Excellent," he said.

She faltered, doubt on her face. "Um," she said, "this isn't my sort of place. You know me: barely fit for human consumption, let alone the great and rich of the universe. I'm just—"

"You," he said, stopping and looking her in the eye, "are a Time Lady and a graduate of the most prestigious academy on Gallifrey. Not a one of them can ever aspire to that."

"They'll see through that lot in a second."

"Not if you believe it." He touched her bare shoulder gently. "Come now, Ace, you were so certain a moment ago. You had me believing, and I've met the genuine article. None of them will have a clue what a Time Lady is supposed to be." He gave her an encouraging smile.

She had a ghost of a smile on her own face. Then she drew herself up, squared her shoulders, and lifted her head in a perfectly imperious manner. "Right then," she said, "into battle we go."

Well, possibly not what he had been hoping for, but a start, and enough of a foundation that she could build upon as the night wound on. He wouldn't be surprised if she had a complete back story by the end of the night, not to mention a great many suitors. He guided her up the steps toward the entrance, and wondered whether that extraordinary dress incorporated—in true Ace style—the multitude of weapons she'd be using to beat back unwanted attention.

There was really only one way to find out.