Thanks to Cal Gal for betaing.

Teaser

The rhythmic click, click, click of the sleek steel needles, stitch after stitch after stitch, made a soothing accompaniment to the ticking of the clock. Slip the end of the needle into the next loop, wrap the yarn, then withdraw the needle again carrying the new loop with it, and slip the old loop off the other needle. Again, and again, and again.

"I think I'm finally getting the hang of this," Lily murmured to herself as she held her work up and examined it. Oh yes, this second effort was turning out much better than the first one, which was now tucked away out of sight within the knitting bag alongside of the skein of yarn. She gave a moment's shudder before commencing the next stitch. Ugh, but the first one had been a trial! She'd lost count of how many stitches she'd dropped, how many times she'd lost her place, how many purls she'd made that should have been knits and vice versa, how many times she'd pulled the whole thing off the needles and unraveled it all with quick, sharp jerks of her wrists, turning it back into a tangled mass of yarn — and then started over. Really, she probably ought to start that pitiful first finished bootie over yet again! And likely she would, once she had this second one completed. She felt much more at ease now with the turning of the heel and the upcoming closing of the toe.

She held it up again. Yes, this one was a vast improvement on the first! And as she continued making one stitch after another, she wondered that she'd never taken up knitting before, imagining how many projects she could have completed in all that time of waiting her turn at rehearsals, or waiting at train stations, or riding on trains from one theater to the next.

And here she was now, waiting on a train. That is, she was on a train parked in a railroad yard, and she was waiting for her husband and his partner to come home. When they had left earlier, Artie had advised her not to wait up for them, that it might well be a long day.

She gave a sigh that was half chuckle. "But aren't they all long days?" she asked herself. She glanced at the clock, then at the windows along the sides of the varnish car, noting the long shadows and the low angle of the sun. At least she didn't have to get dinner! Once Jim and Artie were home, they would all slip over to the baggage car where a certain tall brown cabinet stood in the corner. One of the three would unlock the door, Artie would call out, "Rosalind, we're home!" and in the time it took them to cross the console room and find the current location of the dining room, Artie's TARDIS Rosalind would have a six-course meal awaiting them.

"One of the perks of marrying a Time Lord," Lily smiled to herself. "Oh!"

A little thump under her heart alerted her to another perk of married life: the soon-coming recipient of Lily's knitting project. She laid a hand over her burgeoning belly in happy anticipation, feeling another bump, then another, in a slow but steady rhythm.

Lily chuckled, remembering the first time the child within had done this. How puzzled she'd been! Why would the baby keep kicking at that same spot over and over in a regular tempo? What was going on? With a touch of alarm in her eyes that she'd not been able to conceal, she had gone to Artemus and asked him what could possibly be happening.

And Artie had laid his hand over hers, feeling the tiny thumps, one after another, his head tipped to one side as if listening. Then he laughed. "Oh, that's what it is!" he'd announced with delight. "Hiccups. Our daughter has the hiccups!"

Daughter! Oh yes, daughter. Right from the very beginning, almost from the day they had realized Lily was expecting, Artie had always proclaimed confidently that they were going to have a girl. Lily, being a bit more pragmatic, had insisted on them picking a name for a boy as well as the feminine one Artie already was using for the baby. And Lily was currently knitting these booties from yellow yarn. Just in case.

The light outside was fading. Laying aside the knitting, Lily slipped forward to the edge of her seat, then took hold of the arm of the sofa and used it to lever herself upright. She paused for a second, making sure of her balance, her hand again coming to rest atop her belly. Oh, surely it couldn't be much longer now! Or at least, she couldn't possibly get much bigger, could she?

Slowly, in a penguin-like waddle she would be embarrassed to have anyone see her use on stage, Lily worked her way around the parlor turning up the lights. She was just coming to the gas lamps in the corner closest to the door when she saw a shadow pass over the frosted glazing.

Oh good! With a relieved smile, she drew the door open. "Artemus! I'm so glad you're… home?"

For the figure in the door was not Artemus Gordon, nor was it James West either. A tall man stood there — princely, distinguished, handsome. He smiled and bowed to her. "Ah, good evening, Mrs Gordon. It is so pleasant to finally make your acquaintance, my dear."

His voice was deep and cultured, his accent nebulously foreign. Lily stared up at him. "I… You'll have to excuse me, sir, but I believe you have the advantage of me. You are…?"

His smile deepened. "An old… colleague, as it were, of your husband and of his dear friend Capt… that is, Mr West. We have, regrettably, seen each other so seldom over the years. And yet how fortuitous this meeting tonight, with Mr Gordon's lovely, blushing, expectant bride!"

Lily drew back from the door and from the stranger standing in it. Whoever he was, he was giving her the willies, especially with his indelicate reference to her pregnant status. "I'll have to ask you to leave," she said firmly. "You may give me your card, if you wish, for my husband to get in touch with you, Mr…"

His smile never left his face. "Colonel," he corrected. "Col Noel Bartley Vautrain." He bowed again. "At your service, Mrs Gordon."

A chill ran down Lily's spine. Colonel Vautrain! She had heard Jim and Artie speak of this man, of his madness, of his hatred of Jim for having saved his life but not his legs during the Battle of Vicksburg, and of still later his reappearance, somehow with legs again and with another name, at which time they had discovered him to be an old enemy of Artie's, a Time Lord who laid the blame for the death of his wife and child at the feet of a very young Artemus Gordon, back when his name had been Peregrine.

And here the man stood before her, smiling down at her regally, genially. Calling upon all her acting skills, Lily stilled the trembling of her hands and said, "I'm sorry, Col Vautrain, but this is not a good time. If you could come back later, I'm sure Mr Gordon would be happy to receive you, but…" She made to close the door.

"No," he said. Curiously, in no way did the man move to block the door, yet somehow it stuck firmly, stubbornly refusing to be closed. "You see, Mrs Gordon," he continued, still with that suave manner and with that unremitting smile upon his handsome face, "no matter how much you may find the timing to be inconvenient, to me it is perfect. You are here, and Messieurs West and Gordon are not. And you must call me by the name all my oldest, ah, friends know me by: Prof Harlequin." That infernal smile persisted as he stepped forward, coming inside, drawing closer and still closer to her.

Lily gave up on trying to shut the frozen door and swiftly retreated, putting the desk between herself and the looming menace. Knowing she could never outrun him — no, nor even a tortoise! — in her present condition, she nevertheless spun and waddled away as fast as her ungainly form could go.

And then a hand closed on her arm, and she was whirled back to face him again. "Why, Mrs Gordon! One would get the unfortunate impression that you're afraid of me! Why would that be, hmm? Could it be that your husband has told you of what happened back home on Gallifrey, how he killed my wife and our precious unborn child…"

"No," she interjected, "no, he didn't kill them. It was an accident, a lab accident. She was his teacher and he was a child; she protected him when the experiment blew up. It wasn't his fault! It…"

"…how he murdered them!" the man went on, relentlessly overriding her voice with his own, his fathomless dark eyes twin flames of searing fire. "And when he somehow induced the authorities to absolve him of his obvious guilt, I took matters into my own hands. I sought to pay him back — wound for wound, stripe for stripe — to administer the justice our courts denied me…"

"By trying to kill his mother! Yes, Artemus told me! You hounded him from his home and drove him and his parents into hiding, you madman, you maniac!"

"I am not mad!" His face convulsed and he shook her, snapping her back and forth until her teeth rattled in her head. "The madness is on the part of a justice system that protected the vile murderer and clapped the bereaved into the insane asylum! They…!" With a sudden supreme effort he mastered himself and smiled down at her once more. In cordial, genteel tones he reiterated, "I am not mad. And now…" He gestured at the door, which obediently closed itself though no hand had touched it. "…now, my dear Mrs Gordon, we shall have a seat…" He steered her toward the sofa on which her knitting lay forsaken. "…and we shall wait for your husband and for his great good friend." And as her legs of their own accord went out from under her, dropping her onto the sofa, he settled himself beside her and drew from an inside pocket the strangest looking gun Lily had ever seen.

"What, what is that?" she asked, no longer able to mask her foreboding.

"This?" Gently with his thumb he stroked the smooth metallic surface of the strange gun. "This is a staser, Mrs Gordon, a particular weapon of my homeland. A Time Lord shot by such a weapon not only dies, but perishes utterly, unable to regenerate." He smiled brightly at his captive. "Oh, and it kills humans as well. She shall be so hungry tonight, this little staser of mine, insatiable in fact! For she shall kill you, and your child, and your husband, and that dear friend of your husband's as well. And in such manner shall I at last be avenged for the murder of my own dear wife and child." A deep chuckle welled up from the depths of his being.

He glanced back toward the door and added, "Do get comfortable, Mrs Gordon. Work on your knitting! For you see, we may have a long wait ahead of us." He turned back to meet her haunted eyes. "And I should so hate for you to become bored," he said.