A/N: Back to more-or-less normal length chapters again. Thanks for reading. Hope you're still enjoying it. Feel free to review.


Chapter 51: A Time To Kill

"Do we have it?" Rip's impatient tones snapped through the comms. "Will one of you please just give me a straightforward yes or no!"

"Yes, we got it!" Sara snapped back. "But we've got a tiny bit more than that too!"

"Not all that tiny!" Mick's voice rumbled quietly.

"What kind of person has a super-high-tech bunker filled with all manner of weird and incomprehensible devices?" Ray muttered almost automatically.

"Nerd junk," corrected Mick, "and I'm sure you can't wait to comprehense it, Haircut!"

Three voices muttered in unison. "Comprehend."

"We have the future tech we were after," sighed Rip, foreseeing a similar difficulty to removing a kid from a candy store. "Is there anything else there that should concern us?"

"Ooh, Captain, I, er, I really would have to take a closer look," stuttered Ray, and Rip could quite easily imagine the inventor rubbing his hands in glee at this. "I mean some of these might be from this era, just state of the art..."

"Gideon!" Rip called out, swinging round to lean back on the console and look up in blatant appeal.

"I have only detected one aberration, Captain," smiled Gideon's ever-pleasant tones, "however, it does not appear that simply removing the fabricator from this time period is enough to correct it. The ship from which it was originally taken must also be removed, or destroyed, along with its captain."

"You want us to kill somebody?" Ray's voice winced.

"Finally!" Mick growled.

"No!" Rip yelled peremptorily through the comms. "Do not do anything of the kind, Mister Rory! Don't you dare! It is merely the ship that must be removed or destroyed, along with the remains of its occupant or occupants should they already be deceased. Otherwise, we bring them with us. Alive!"

"Spoilsport," grumbled the arsonist.

"Look on the bright side, Mister Rory," sighed the captain. "If all goes to plan, you will undoubtedly get to burn something!"

"Do we have a plan?" Sara wondered aloud.

"Er, of a sort," shrugged Rip, turning back to the console. "Gideon, can you locate either the ship or its captain?"

"I have already located the ship some three kilometres to the north of the city, Captain Hunter," the AI informed him. "I'm afraid I cannot detect any life signs nearby or within the vessel. It appears to be of Time Master construction, but of a design prior to that of the Waverider."

"Probably only one passenger then," nodded Rip.

"Not if they switched sides," corrected Sara. "Ray: don't wander off! Mick: go after him. Make sure he doesn't trip any self-destruct sequences."

"Yes, that would not be good," mused Rip, studying the ceiling for inspiration. "Nor would the self-destruct sequence, actually. I hate it when people use those things. Rather overly-melodramatic, don't you think."

"You're babbling, Hunter," grinned Sara's voice in his ear. "What's your plan?"

"You have the jump ship," he replied, still staring upward. "Get the fabricator on board and meet us at the stranded ship. Gideon: send the co-ordinates through. We'll see what clues we can find there while all is quiet, then we'll deal with the problem of our missing captain and whether or not there were any other passengers on board."

"Er, Captain?" Ray's voice broke in.

"No, you cannot bring back a souvenir, Doctor Palmer," Rip sighed, his eyelids dropping of their own volition. "Nor you, Mister Rory..."

"Tell that to the guy strapped to the chair!" Mick interrupted.

Rip's eyes shot open. "What?"

XXXX

"Thou art a villain! And thy beer is cat's water!" John Heminges raged at the closed alehouse door.

"I see now why you do not often drink where you sleep, Master Shakespeare," Sly commented, catching the manager when he stumbled over a loose cobble. "'Tis wisdom. No man would be foolish enough to lay his head where later wake and miss't he may!"

"None but our Jack when he is in his cups!" Will sighed, throwing his friend's other arm over his shoulders and helping Sly lead him down the street. "A sharper man wi' numbers ne'er crossed my door, nor faster running tongue on theatre floor, but by heaven the drink doth thicken him!"

"Like mustard," slurred Heminges. "From Tewkesbury."

"As thick as Tewkesbury mustard?" Shakespeare laughed. "Thy tongue or thy wits, thou old fool? I'll remind you of that when you least expect it, friend John."

"'Tis odd, is't not, that one so... quick-witted... would slow his reason with cheap ale so oft?" Sly mused, steering Heminges round a puddle. "Has he always been thus?"

"Hah! No," Will shook his head. "Old Jack is only so when fortune's fickle hand deprives him of his wife and mistress both."

"'Od's blood, he has a mistress too? And still he letches after every wench he sees!"

"Had," corrected Will. "She left him upon Saint Stephen's day, while yet wert thou cloistered in my lodgings. His wife is crossed in her endeavours to console him. Therefore he seeks distraction from his heart's deep sorrow 'most everywhere."

"A clement wife that shares her husband thus!"

"Their marriage is a horse of a different colour," hummed Will. "Besides, what choice doth a wife have? But not a word to young Henry. In truth, I tell thee only 'pon necessity, else would'st I have kept mine own friend's secret to the grave. Sweet Hal is an innocent and is new in matrimony. 'A must find his own way, neither mine nor Jack's, and as like as not wilt be th' happier for't. To each his own, and to Jack's loving wife we must now render up this 'sotted strife. The journey thither is not a short one. Come, tell me, friend William: what papers wert thee this day perusing so punctiliously in the tiring house? They were none of mine."

William Sly glanced down at the street beneath them. The moonlight reflected off rain-glazed cobblestones. "They were mine own, or so my hand doth tell. The scattered memories that, by careful husbandry, I have collected through my travels. They are as yet unfamiliar to me, for the greater part, and belike many are little more than fevered dreams."

Shakespeare nodded, stumbling slightly under the increasing weight of his friend. "Who knows what dreams may come when man is wracked with fever. But he doth not record his dreams nor mem'ries before the fever comes. Hath this thief deprived thee of them before?"

"I believe it has," nodded Sly. "Once, mayhap, or more. By the telling of these tales I may find the balm to heal my ever shattered mind."

"I have heard tell of bold Crusaders who, return'd from the far south with such ague, though never have I yet heard tell of one with thy degree of bleak oblivion," frowned Will. "My friend, thou can'st not suffer in mine eyes. Come: tell me of these fev'rish fantasies."

"'Tis odd," mused William slyly, "but I feel I need not tell so much as explain them to you, sir."

Shakespeare grinned. "What gave me away? I was e'er an excellent thief!"

"Takes one to know one," smirked Sly with a slight tip of his head. "The harping on about stories to inspire you was a hint of a clue, especially as thy tongue becomes more formal when e'er it cleaveth to dissemble, and the generosity and freehanded nature of your sanctuary suggested you were surer of your reward than any man ought. Aside from this, you left the pages in the wrong order. They look random. They are not."

"I humbly beg thy forgiveness, my good sir," bowed Will, with some difficulty considering his besotted burthen.

"For stealing a look at my private memories?" Sly inquired, one eyebrow delicately arching. "Or for doing such so poorly you got caught?"

"Both?" Will shrugged, unrepentant. "I told you once: I am an uncommon curious man. I can leave no stone unturned in the search for a goodly tale. Fine paper in a hidden pouch hides more than a tale or two in my experience! I pray you: tell me of this damsel you dream of. This fighting woman who shares her name with Abram's wife. Tell me, if you can, how you met this brave Hippolyta and if, like Theseus, you wooed her and won her before e'er your illness stole her from your mind."

XXXX

Rip hung back as Mick and Ray transported the limp body of the unknown man from the jump ship to the Waverider and then on to the medical bay, his eyes narrowing as they followed the trio.

"Quit glaring: he was like that when they found him," Sara ordered, closing the door of the jump ship behind her and handing the fabricator to Rip. "Do you really think I'd have said it was urgent if it wasn't?"

"Well, no," admitted Rip, leaning back against the wall, the hesitation obvious nevertheless.

"But?"

"Mister Rory does seem to like knocking people out and he is rather adept at it..."

"He hit you once," replied Sara, grinning at the memory of the second thing that hadn't gone quite according to plan the day they recruited Rex. Apparently simulations don't punch quite as hard as the real thing.

"Who hasn't!" Rip's eyebrows flicked upwards.

"And there was that other time during a fight, but it was by accident," Sara added, shrugging and strolling off down the corridor.

"No, that was Ray," he corrected her, pushing himself off the wall to catch up.

"Oh yeah," Sara chuckled.

"Not funny!" Rip muttered, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he caught up, the fabricator under one arm.

"It kinda was," she informed him, lines of amusement forming at eyes and lips. "You should have seen both your faces!"

Rip bristled. "One does not expect to be punched in the face by a comrade, accident or no."

"One does not, but this is you we're talking about," pointed out Sara. "Weren't we supposed to be doing something about that?"

"Something keeps distracting me," he mused, striding along with a purpose. "Can't think what!"

"I guess I'll just have to get a little stricter with your training then," smirked Sara.

"What? Like actually spending the whole time training?"

"In fairness," she grinned, "we do always start out with the intention of spending the whole time training."

"Yes, well, we all know which road good intentions pave," quipped Rip.

Sara let her face and voice become all innocence. "We could always schedule an extra session?"

"For the training or..." Rip's lip curled at the corner and he let the sentence trail off.

A siren blared and the corridor plunged into darkness.

"What the..." Sara began.

Gideon's voice, in tones familiar yet alien, chimed out through the ship. "Druce protocol initiated. Full system lock down in progress. Life support decreasing to minimal. Please stand by to be terminated."

"Ah," Rip's shoulders slumped in the darkness. "Bollocks."

XXXX

A cold drizzle filled the air, chilling Sly and Shakespeare to the bone on their road home from returning Heminges to his house, his bed, and his wife. The good woman had entreated the pair to stay and spend the night but, with their garments already wet through and, Shakespeare's lodgings being the closer of the two, the two men had assured her they would more comfortably pass the night thither where, devoid of female company, they could dry their clothes more easily by the fire and continue their conference without fear of waking the household. Chattering teeth and hurrying feet had stolen the breath from any tales that might have been told on the way. The witching hour had chimed before the door was bolted fast against the ill night and the two men wrapped in blankets while their clothes dried.

"Thou didst tell me plain, dear friend William, when yoked were we below our heavy burthen..." Will trailed off. Sly was watching him with one eyebrow raised and his head on one side. Shakespeare cleared his throat. "You told me earlier, William, of the woman who haunts your dreams: this Sara. Yet the tales you tell are all of battles in a war, it seems. One, perhaps that my Kate and her Petruchio would have rivalled, but that there appears neither winner nor loser in't."

"Must there be? Always?" Sly blinked, the warm fire and late hour slowing his mind and drawing a drowsiness over him.

"Perhaps it is merely mine own experience that has taught me thus."

"Perhaps you should do something about that."

"Perhaps," acknowledged Shakespeare, tipping his head at this. "Perhaps I am."

Sly smiled at the obvious hint. "If there was a war betwixt us, it was a merry one. I recall no feelings of enmity towards her, or from her towards myself, beyond those few encounters. We understood each other. We may not always have agreed, but we at least understood. Occasionally we understood loudly and at length, but we always parted as friends."

"And none of your company supposed you to be more than simply friends?"

"There is nothing simple about friends," quipped William.

"Not where women are involved, certainly," parried Will.

"Mick, maybe," Sly nodded in honest answer to the query. "He feels closest to me in my mind. The others I cannot now remember. They come and go, as if their presence was light and my health the inconstant moon, first waxing then waning as the fever draws nigh again. And yet the moon above is a more constant thing than mine, for it is in my mind that, though the times between my new moons may lengthen, so too will the shadows cast by them until all is eclipsed in darkness and I will have naught of my memories but the papers around my neck."

"What do you remember of them?" Shakespeare frowned. "And what of your previous days of health? Do you yet recall how you came to our shores?"

"But that came I from Jerusalem," mused Sly, frowning in thought and shaking his head. "The city, not the alehouse, for such sign is not an uncommon sight here. For my days there, I do have some pictures in mind to bolster the reports of my papers. For my far distant friends, I know not what is truth and what wild imagination. One name all at once brings the image of a girl, a woman and a wing'd angel; another likewise angel, man and boy. And yet for both of these my memory doth claim the youngest incarnation be the nearest in my broken history. I know not why two faces, young and old, merge to become one man with fire enrobed, nor how one man may shrink unto the size of a peascod and be a fool, yet wise. Nor how he then returneth to full height, or how my mem'ries queen, all robed in white, fights fiercer much than any man I've known. I fear I paint an ass-head of mine own, but fading fast are these odd folk and she like dew in thy midsummer comedy."

"Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Mote and Mustardseed were never so fantastical indeed," agreed Will. "Perhaps 'tis dreams we lack. Certes, 'tis sleep. The aged moon within the sky doth keep. Th'impish Puck doth weave his magic in my brain. Sleep now, William, ere morning comes again."

XXXX

Darkness flooded the Waverider. Darkness and death. The hiss of it filled the ears of the team. In the kitchen, Jesse was the first to start coughing, the contagion filling her lungs and speeding through her system like wildfire. As she fell, Martin staggered, putting out a hand to the absent wall. Between them, Jax reached out, seeking both but finding neither as he too collapsed, coughing, to the ground. At a table, Amaya slumped forward, the darkness conquering her mind. By the medbay bed, Ray sank to his knees, hands fighting to keep their hold on the rail, on consciousness, on life. Opposite him, Rex supported a sagging Mick, demanding answers from the only person left to give them.

""What's happening Mister Rory? What's going on?" Rex demanded, the weight upon him becoming ever more a dead one.

"It's the virus," hacked Mick, struggling for air. "Druce's virus. It attacks all living cells but his own. This bastard we picked up must be him. A younger him. That's the trigger. His DNA. We have the antidote. It's in the blue box in the antivirals cupboard. One vial each. You gotta wait though. Wait 'til we're dead. But you only got six minutes after that to get to us. Brain damage. Oxygen."

"But why me?" Rex pushed, hearing the sound of Doctor Palmer finally collapsing to the floor. The weight of Mister Rory on his shoulder was almost more than he could take now.

"Yer an android, Harry," chortled Mick in his best, or worst, Hagrid impression. "You ain't alive."

The strongest of the Legends sank to a crumpled heap on the medbay floor. Rex Tyler felt about him for the door to the emergency cupboard by the bed. He grabbed a flashlight and almost tripped over the unconscious body of Mick Rory. The antivirals cupboard wasn't hard to locate, even without Gideon. He was a doctor. A medical doctor. He had taken the time to get to know his domain and supplies. The blue box sat front and centre at his eye level, as if they had known he would be the one left to use it. Of course they had known. Mick Rory had known. He had known everything he needed to pass on to Rex how to save them. So why hadn't they told him before? Told him what? That he wasn't real? That he was just a robot? Was he? He wasn't affected by the virus. Maybe he was just immune.

Rex shook his head and grabbed the box. Whatever he was would have to wait. Doctor Palmer and Mister Rory were here with him, but nobody else was. It had been well into the afternoon when the jump ship had reported its mission complete. Rex checked Doctor Palmer's pulse. It was non-existent. He injected a vial of the serum into his fellow scientist and darted round the bed to Mister Rory. He felt the pulse slow and stop, then injected the antivirus. If the rest of the crew weren't on the bridge, he thought, they would be in the kitchen. It had been a long day so far and none of them had eaten since breakfast. But the kitchen was a floor above the medbay, on the same level as the sleeping quarters, and time was of the essence. He reached for his belt. He may not need an injection of the same serum as the rest of the team, but the miraclo serum would make sure he got to them in time and in this light it might help him spot them too. And, if he really was an android, a robot, why worry about the side effects?

The bridge was empty. The kitchen wasn't. Rex dealt out four more doses of the antivirus to the scattered inhabitants and looked around in dismay. There were two vials left. Two faces he had not yet found. Captain Hunter and Miss Lance. He searched the rest of the kitchen and dining area. Nothing. He returned to the bridge and searched the Captain's office. Still nothing. In darkness, alone, without even Gideon to help, the man of the hour wracked his brain for answers.

XXXX

"William, I need you!" Shakespeare's voice called through the tiring house.

"Well, I've heard that before," drawled Sly, stepping out from the carpenter's workroom and brushing sawdust from his hands, "but never in a place like this."

"Peace, thou roguish, idle-headed miscreant!" Will grinned, grabbing his fellow's arm and leading him to another part of the tiring house. "Jack hath deserted us, or, truth be told, his sodden wits have now deserted him. What e'er ale he drank last night poisons still his mind. Thou art of sim'lar shape and form and thou knowest well his words..."

"What do you want?" Sly looked askance at his benefactor and friend. "I cannot play Jack's part in this: he plays a prince! Burbage would be better suited to the task!"

"'A plays the king and title role, as e'er," pointed out Shakespeare, hurrying Sly into the room where Heminges costume hung ready. "Thou art the only man as knows the lines and can deliv'r them with any sur'ty. Wouldst thou have me make Cuthbert my Prince Hal?"

"Take the role upon thyself, thou poet!" Sly complained. "Thou knowest well the fit and form o' it!"

Shakespeare handed him the costume, bundling it into his arms apace. "Thou knowest well I have mine own, thou churl!"

"I have not the skill, thou painted coxcombe!"

"Thou hast skill enough, thou mewling coward!"

"Be wary, Will: there's names I'll not abide."

"Then show thy face and meet me at stage-side!"