Disclaimer: I obviously do not own any of these characters...everything here is borrowed with love. ;)
17.
The ride into the desert didn't take long. Shorter than Rip should have liked. They rode at a canter, kicking up dust in the wake of their three borrowed steeds. The girl, Amy, gripped the reigns tightly, though her lips were pressed together tighter still. Rip sat behind her, a hundred questions rattling around in his head. He kept them to himself for the time being; he knew there was no speaking to her in her present mood. Miranda had a similar stubborn streak, and Rip had learned early on in their relationship that he was no match for her when she set her mind to something. But if anyone could have beaten his late wife in a contest of will, it was Amy.
Fragments of memories flittered across his mind like the sparse desert brush they raced past. The Doctor lying across the hood of an old red convertible, a cowboy hat tipped low to cover his eyes; an old western village, not unlike this one, but with lights strung up around town; an astronaut rising from a lake…
Rip shook his head, wondering what it could all mean and clawed the redhead's hair from his face with one hand. Amy tensed as he returned it to its grip around her middle. He thought she might say something, but she merely shook the reigns and urged the horse faster.
They stopped in a clearing a few miles outside of town. Only the steeple of the church was visible, warped by the desert haze. The sun was almost directly overhead now, hot and unbearable as ever.
"That should do it," the Doctor panted in his saddle, turning the horse back toward town. Less than a mile away, two gray shapes stuck out amongst the brush and cacti.
"Looks like they followed us, just like you said they would," Rip said, squinting into the desert. He dismounted, then helped Amy off.
"So now what do we do?" Amy asked.
"Now we wait for the fun to arrive," Snart replied. He had an idea, but it was risky and he wasn't sure it was going to work. He wanted to hear the Doctor's plan before he volunteered himself up as a martyr again.
"And then what?" Rip asked, "Doctor, you said you had a plan."
"I did say that, didn't I?" The Doctor said.
The small group waited for him to say something more, but the Doctor was silent, staring out into the desert at the angels, holding them in place. They were close now, about a hundred paces away.
Then the Doctor turned and looked at Snart.
Snart stared back at him through squinted eyes. The Doctor couldn't know what he was thinking, could he?
"Damn," Snart said as it hit him. "I was the plan all along, wasn't I?"
"What plan?" Rip asked.
"Keep watching the angels," Snart snapped at him.
"Doctor?" Amy asked, sounding worried. "What's going on?" She glanced at Snart, who was holding the Doctor in an icy gaze.
The Doctor said nothing, just stared at Snart with eyes that were old and swimming in regret.
"It's still your decision," he said finally.
"Is it?" Snart replied, "Because it doesn't seem that way to me." He hated being someone else's puppet. He had half a mind to throw Rip to the angels and take his chances.
The Doctor stared down at his dusty shoes. Snart didn't need an answer from him to know what he was thinking. If he had known the Doctor's 'plan' involved him, he probably wouldn't have come. Or would he? He just didn't know anymore. The thief sighed and his anger drained away.
Snart looked down at his hand, fiddling with the ring on his pinky finger. It was time to face the inevitable.
"How long?" Snart asked.
"A minute, maybe more," The Doctor replied, "There's nothing I can do if it fails."
"If what fails? What are you talking about?" Amy asked, stepping forward.
"But it could work?" Snart asked, ignoring her. The Doctor's silence spoke volumes.
Snart nodded to himself, making up his mind. "Ok, Amy, Rip, get the hell out of here. Doc, you stay with me," Snart said.
"What are you planning?" Rip demanded, unable to look without turning his back on the angels. "What's going on? Snart!? Answer me!"
Snart ignored him and locked eyes with Amy.
"Get him out of here," the thief said.
"Doctor?" Amy said, glancing between Snart and her friend.
"Run along, Pond, I'll be fine." The Doctor looked away for a moment to flash her a wan smile. "Look after Mr. Pond," he said.
Amy glanced at Rip, then back to the Doctor and nodded. She grabbed her husband's hand.
"Come on," she said, tugging him away.
Rip jerked his hand free.
"No," he said, "Snart, this is madness. It's me they're after. You don't have to be the bloody hero every bloody time the world needs saving! You can let someone else have a go!"
"Amy!" Snart yelled, his eyes locked on the angels.
"Right, come on mister." She grabbed Rip more forcefully this time, "Now," she ordered.
Rip didn't have much of a choice. The redhead had him by the front of the shirt and was practically dragging him toward the horses. "They will take you!" he yelled back at Snart, "They will take you and zap you back in time! We won't be able to help you! You'll—" Rip stopped suddenly. "Wait a minute. How do I know all that?" he said aloud to himself.
"Come on!" Amy, said angrily, jerking him forward.
With a growl, Rip hoisted her into the saddle and then climbed up after her. This time he took the reins, spurring the horse into a full gallop back to the Waverider.
Snart and the Doctor waited until they were well enough away before they dared speak openly. When they were alone at last, Snart took a deep breath.
"If I survive this, I owe you a case of Jammy Dodgers…whatever those are," he said.
"Something to look forward to, then," the Doctor said. He hesitated. "You don't have to do this. We can find another way."
"You and I both know this is our best chance," Snart said. He fiddled with the small band of silver around his finger. "Besides, I do this and we're even. My debt is paid."
"You don't owe me anything."
"No, I owe the other you, but who's keeping score?" Snart replied.
He hesitated for one final moment and then slipped off the ring.
"No turning back," he said, dropping it to the ground.
Back aboard the Waverider, Sara had strapped into the pilot's seat and was maneuvering the ship to hover a few hundred yards from where the Doctor and Snart stood facing off against the angels.
"Gideon, get me eyes on!" she barked to the AI.
"Yes, Ms. Lance."
The view screen popped up with a live video feed of their friends, just in time to see Snart drop something small and glittering to the ground.
"What's he doing?" Sara wondered aloud.
"My word!" Stein blurted, "He's inversing the flow of quantum energy!"
"The what?" Jax said.
"English, professor!" Mick growled.
"H-he's—oh never mind, just watch!" Stein said.
Back in the desert, Snart faded into a mirage in the desert sun.
Almost immediately he felt the gravity of the cosmos clawing at him, threatening to pull him apart. He concentrated, fighting the lure to slip into the ether and stepped forward, planting his feet in the dust.
Behind him, the Doctor reached down to pick up the ring.
The angels saw their chance and lurched forward.
They didn't get far.
That's the interesting thing about quantum life forms. They don't have physical eyes. So they didn't notice Snart in his new form. They never even saw it coming.
Snart did. In his half-form, he could sense things differently. Things that weren't entirely there. When the angels started to move, he saw them running.
They looked completely different from when they were statues. White, twisted shadows that moved in the place between the here and now. They moved amid time and space… just as he had done at one time.
He almost felt sorry for them. No wonder they had such an appetite. If he were stuck in this form for an eternity, he might wither away into a shade as well.
But enough was enough.
This time when Snart sent a pulse of energy at them, they didn't just absorb it. They felt it. It passed through them like tar, sticking to their energy field and freezing them in their tracks.
Then a curious thing happened.
The passengers aboard the Waverider could barely believe their eyes, and probably wouldn't have had Gideon not recorded it for them to review later.
The Doctor watched, riveted by the impossible thing he was witnessing. It made the top ten, to be sure.
Out in the desert, Rip spun the horse around just in time to catch the show. Amy gasped, grabbing his hand out of habit in her surprise. Rip barely even noticed, what he was seeing was too incredible.
Snart felt it happen before he saw it. Like his eyes caught up with what he was sensing.
It started as a crackle in the air and spread across the angels' skin like blight on a leaf. Slowly, then more rapidly it crept from their outsides to their core, turning them to dust.
Two shapes like wisps of clouds peeled off from the where the stone statues once stood and rose into the air above the angels.
"You have released us from our eternal prison ," they crooned in unison, "We can rest in peace now, thanks to you."
"Where will you go?" asked the Doctor.
"We forgot who we were, and now we remember. We will pass into the Void," one replied, "And join our brothers and sisters in the world beyond."
"You took something from a friend of ours," Snart said, "How do we get it back?"
"Memory is a tricky thing to recover," the other said, "We cannot undo what we have done, but we wish to help."
"We will leave you with this parting gift," the first angel said, "We hope it is enough to repay our debt. Goodbye, and thank you!"
The two shapes flew up into the sky and disappeared.
The Doctor watched them go, sadness etched across his face.
"You know, I always thought they were evil, soulless monsters," he said aloud, "But in the end they were almost…human."
Snart's ethereal form flickered in front of him.
"Time's up, Doc," Snart gasped, holding out his hand.
"Right, of course." The Doctor slipped the thick silver band around Snart's pinky finger, anchoring him back to this dimension.
"Well, that was fun but I think I'll keep my heels in this reality from now on," Snart said, twisting his ring back into its customary groove.
"Good call," said the Doctor, looking up again. "Parting gift," he said, "What do you think they meant?"
From above, a light rain began to fall.
Author's Notes:
17.1: I wanted the angels' true nature to be a surprise… I thought it would be interesting if they turned out to not be entirely evil. I thought…if Snart had been trapped in the amorphic existence he was in after the Oculus exploded, then his eventual fate would be something akin to what the angels are, so I worked from there. I also figured that the only way to defeat the angels was on their own plane of existence...so Snart's metapowers came in rather handy here. ;)
17.2: Remember the bet Snart made with the Doctor in part one? Well, he lost. XD