Dig Deep for Victory! (The High Explosives Mix)
Author: Palgrave Goldenrod
Fandom: Doctor Who (Classic)
Characters: The Brigadier, Ace, Doris, the Seventh Doctor
Disclaimers: It is not 1989, and I am not the BBC. You may draw your own conclusions from this.
Author's Notes: Written for a challenge on Tumblr ("There should be a fic where Seven has to go off and do Important Time Lord Things of some nature, and he leaves Ace with the Brig and Doris for a time. Hilarity, rebellion, and a whole lot of explosions ensue.") I should probably warn you; most of it's been written at 1.30AM after a grand total of four hours sleep in the previous 36-hour period. And yet, it still makes more sense than Fifth Doctor / TARDIS hatstand... :-)
Summary: The Brigadier doesn't think he'll survive having Ace as a houseguest. He's pretty certain his flowerbeds won't. (Post-episode for "Battlefield")
Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart was certain of one thing; had they had young women like young Dorothy McShane in the ranks of U.N.I.T in his day, the assembled alien hordes he'd spent his entire career battling would have fled in terror from her in an instant.
As he gazed at the smouldering remains of the flowerbeds, he was still trying to determine whether this was a good thing or a bad thing.
"Alistair," Doris said hesitantly, "were the Doctor's companions always this... exuberant?"
"Young lady, I'm not sure what, if anything, the Doctor may have told you about my life and career up until this point, but as I'm sure you'll understand it is has not been without incident."
Ace sighed the sigh of the eternally stroppy teenager about to be subject to a lecture.
"I flatter myself, however, that at my time of life and after my many years of service, I have earned a certain amount of peace and quiet. Indeed, a quiet retirement is all I ask for."
"All you ask for?" Ace said innocently. "If all you want's peace and quiet, how'd you end up in a castle shooting a blue demon from Dimension X with silver bullets, then?"
"That is beside the point," Alistair said quickly, partly because he could see from Doris' raised eyebrow that, for her, it seemed to be a very good point. "The point being, I think I've earned the right to go about my daily business in my own home without worrying about my garden exploding."
"It was just a small explosion!" Ace protested.
"The size of the explosion, again, is beside the point. The point is that there shouldn't be explosions happening at all."
"Where'd you even get the explosives, anyway?" Doris asked, trying to be gentle.
"I made them."
"You made them?"
"Yeah," Ace said eagerly, warming to the subject, "just with stuff from 'round the house. It's brilliant, what you can mix together from common household chemicals."
Not for the first time, Alistair could see why this girl appealed to the Doctor, and vice versa. He was also trying to determine whether that was a good or a bad thing as well.
"And did you not stop to think that making explosives in our house was a little bit dangerous?"
"I didn't mean to," Ace replied in a voice that suggested that all adults seemed to be inherently thick. "Was an accident. I was just testing something for some ideas I was gonna cook up on the TARDIS. It ... got a bit out of hand."
"On the - the Doctor lets you make explosives? Young lady, I find that hard to believe for more reasons than you could possibly be aware of."
Ace shuffled in the armchair. "Well, I never said I told him..."
Alistair sighed again.
"Couldn't I just -"
"No."
"But it would -"
"No."
"I just need a little bit of -"
"Miss McShane, if you think I'm letting you mix up another of your little concoctions, you have another thing coming. We shall do this the old-fashioned way."
Ace sulked. "You're worse than the Professor. At least he sees the value of my suggestions sometimes. You never let me have any fun."
"That, young lady, is because for you 'fun' seems to revolve around high explosives, and your suggestions thus far have involved blowing things up. Neither of which will help us. I've known squaddies who were less intent on destroying things than you. Now, get digging."
Ace jutted her bottom lip out and moodily poked at the ground with the trowel. Truth be told, Alistair rather sympathised with her on this one; he wasn't overly fond of gardening either, but the flowerbeds had to be redug, the young lady needed to pay back her debts and earn her keep, and it was also quite clear that what young Miss McShane needed most of all was a bit of discipline. Solid, military discipline, hard work and exercise, channeling that... exuberance to a more productive goal than detonating things. Oh, the Doctor was no doubt doing his best with the girl, but he'd always been on the indulgent side, never really appreciated the virtues of the military life.
Alistair nodded with resolve. Yes, a bit of discipline and a firm-but-fair hand, and he'd soon have young Miss McShane on the right track.
Several hours later, Alistair and Ace stared at the rather small ditch which was not nearly as large as it should have been given how long they'd been working on it and how covered in dirt they'd gotten in the process. And Doris was due home rather alarmingly soon.
They turned to look at each other.
Alistair cleared his throat. "Common household goods, you say?"
Ace looked as innocent as a newborn. "Just a bit of bleach."
"And it's safe?"
"Perfectly."
Alistair sighed. Of course, another virtue of military life was being able to reconsider previous bad decisions and take on board worthwhile advise. Such as reconsidering trying to educate a rather easily distracted teenage girl in gardening when it was a skill you yourself lacked skill and enthusiasm for, and taking on board a certain chemical composition that Ace insisted would quickly provide a hole with a minimum of damage.
He made an executive decision, and sighed.
"Very well. You shall mix up a little bit of this nitro stuff, and we shall use it to form the potting holes."
The gleam in Ace's eyes didn't do much to convince Alastair that this wasn't a spectacularly bad idea in the making. "Brilliant!" she squealed happily, running back to the house.
"Only a little bit, mind!" Alistair called after her desperately, visions of all the ways this could go wrong dancing in his mind's eye.
He'd never been a boffin, but Alistair had to admit; from the looks of it, the girl knew her chemistry. He watched her carefully portion out ingredients with a methodical certainty that was, truth be told, rather surprising coming from the excitable girl he'd spend the last week trying to control.
"Careful with that," he urged. He wasn't sure how necessary it was to urge it, but he'd spent a career giving orders and wasn't about to stop now. Besides which, the girl had already blown large chunks out of his garden; he wasn't overly keen for her to blow the two of them up as well.
Ace scowled over her shoulder at him. "I know what I'm doing," she insisted.
"Young lady, the Doctor entrusted you to my care. I'm certainly not about to face him with the news that you've blown your own arm off."
Nor, he added silently, do I intend to be around when Doris gets back if you destroy any more of the house or gardens than you have already.
Ace gingerly lowered the stuff into the hole. She'd given him a name for it, but given what he suspected it was capable of, Alistair preferred simply to think of it as 'stuff'; giving it a proper name was giving it a power Alistair wasn't entirely convinced wouldn't make it more harmful.
"Right," Ace said authoritatively, "I've set it on a slow charge, so we've got a bit of time. When the soil starts turning red, that's when we know to scarper."
"Are you sure about that?" Alistair asked, looking down at the soil.
"'Course. Why?"
"Because it's turning red now."
"What?!" Ace looked down, alarmed. "Oh, bugger, I must have put too little baking soda in it."
"So what do we do?"
Ace managed to somehow look sheepish and alarmed at the same time.
"Um, scarper."
It had been quite a while since Alistair had had to run for cover, but as the flowerbeds imploded behind them, he was quite impressed to learn he still had the knack.
Alistair had to admit; the stuff had done the job. Better than expected (or rather, as Ace had loftily insisted, he'd expected; she had a slightly insufferable gloating tone at being proved right that made it even easier to realize what the Doctor saw in her). Perfect little holes, just right for the replacement hydrangea bushes, and they'd been done well in time for Doris getting home too, allowing them a bit of time to sit in the garden enjoying the sun with a scotch.
For him, at least. He had not accepted Ace's insistance that she was either old enough for alcohol or that the Doctor permitted her to drink it.
"Certainly not."
"But -"
"No."
"You're no fun." A wicked little gleam appeared in the corner of her eye. "'Course," she said innocently, "can't help but think what your wife would say if she knew that you'd used my Nitro-16 in your gardening."
As blackmail attempts went, it was promising. Unfortunately, Alistair was made of stronger stuff. She also seemed to have forgotten that he was also not without incriminating knowledge of his own.
"Quite so," he allowed. "Although that in turn makes me wonder what the Doctor would say if he was to become aware of your involvement in why it became necessary to replace the hydrangeas in the first place."
Ace gritted her jaw. Mutually assured destruction.
They compromised, and made lemonade instead.
The TARDIS noisily faded into the garden at more or less the same time that Doris came home. Alistair couldn't help but smile fondly at the sound, and the memories it provided.
As Ace rushed to meet the Doctor, Alistair walked over to his wife. She was admiring the hydrangea bushes as he walked up to greet her.
"You got these planted quickly," she observed. There was a hint of suspicion in her voice, and her eyebrow was quirked in the way it always did whenever she was convinced there was more to a situation than met the eye. Particularly since she knew full well that Alistair never hurried the gardening.
"Team effort, Doris," Alistair insisted hurriedly. "Young Miss McShane has something of a green finger, it transpires."
It was sort of the truth. No need to elaborate.
Doris did not look convinced, but her mood warmed considerably when she noticed the Doctor walking towards them, Ace chattering eagerly at his side as he listened with the air of an indulgent uncle. Even in his brown coat and pullover, he didn't seem to notice the heat; his hat was jammed on his head at a jaunty angle and his umbrella swung over his shoulder, closed despite the sun. He was making a show of admiring the flowers, something which would never hesitate to get Doris on side.
Alistair would never understand it. For an eccentric alien, he had quite a knack for getting the ladies on side. More than Alistair ever had, anyway.
"You've sorted out that business you mentioned then, Doctor?" Alistair asked.
The Doctor smiled slightly mysteriously and hmmmed. He liked his mysteries in this body, it seemed, which suited Alistair just fine, frankly; he had no doubt that if he pressed the subject, the Doctor would just spin his head with meaningless technobabble that explained nothing.
"All sorted," he replied casually. "Done and dusted, and earlier than expected to, with plenty of time to smell the roses. Or, as it seems the hydrangeas. Lovely flowers, hydrangeas. Used to grow them in the TARDIS." The Doctor's face crumpled into a slightly puzzled frown. "Possibly still do. It's been a while since I checked. They might have gotten a bit... wild."
"We put those in earlier," Ace enthused, eager to please. She had a hint of pride in her voice, that Alistair was rather pleased to note. He'd known that good, hard work and military discipline would rub off on her.
Of a sort, at least. Ahem.
"Indeed?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow at his companion, then turned to the bush again. He seemed to be paying particular attention to the dirt, and was prodding it slightly curiously with the tip of his umbrella. His eyebrow quirked even higher, as if he'd noticed something, and he met Doris' eyes for a moment before turning back to Ace again, a glint that could either have been mischevious or dangerous in his eyes.
"And I trust," he asked her in a tone that only sounded casual, "that you've been using your time here wisely and have not given the Lethbridge-Stewarts any reason to regret their hospitality?"
"Of course not!" Ace said in a tone that was slightly too high-pitched to be entirely innocent. She met Alistair's eyes for a moment.
Mutually assured destruction.
"Quite right," Alistair insisted, before Doris could get a word in. He thought he sounded perfectly sincere, but the look on her face suggested otherwise. "Charming girl. Happy to have her here."
Neither Doris nor the Doctor looked entirely convinced, but it really was too lovely a day to challenge the point. And as they walked into the garden to finish off the lemonade, Alistair caught Ace's eye, and he fancied that amongst the gratitude in her expression there was a hint of respect that might not have been there before.
The feeling was quite mutual, Alistair decided.