Same Time Next Year
Disclaimer: I don't own The New Avengers, nor the characters of Mike Gambit, Purdey, and John Steed. Sadly. They're the property of The Avengers (Film and TV) Enterprises. This story is for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement intended
Timeline: Ninth in a series. Takes place in November, 1977, a few months after the conclusion of the series in the Canadian episodes. It is strongly recommended, but not essential, that you go back and read the previous stories in the arc: Lost Boys, Anew, Aftermath, Dance With Me, The Anniversary, Merry Christmas, Mr. Gambit, Brazil, Life on Mars, and 'Til Death.
For more information about the series, please see my profile.
"Before you venture outside," Steed cautioned, when Purdey unbuckled her safety belt the second he pulled the car to a stop, intent on exiting the vehicle as quickly as possible, "I think you ought to cover yourself with this." He reached into the back seat and rummaged around, came up with a tartan blanket. "I don't know how permissive your neighbours are, but in my experience people usually become rather alarmed when one of their number turns up covered in blood."
"Oh." Purdey looked down at her bloody clothes and remembered how her fellow agents had reacted to her back at the warehouse. She could only imagine how a group of civilians would respond to her appearance. She swirled the blanket around her shoulders like a cape, nodded gratefully at her colleague. "Thank you, Steed. How do I look?"
Steed nodded encouragingly. "Very fetching. Shall we?"
Even with her makeshift covering, Purdey felt conspicuous as she stepped out of Steed's car, as though every eye on her street was upon her. She clattered down her 21 steps as quickly as her legs would allow, found her keys and unlocked the door with unseemly haste. She disappeared inside the second it was open, with Steed close on her heels, and slammed it behind her, pressing her back to it as though holding back a league of attackers.
"I'll ring for an update on Gambit's condition," Steed volunteered, when Purdey had caught her breath and doffed the blanket. "You clean up."
"I could wait," Purdey suggested, positively thrumming with anticipation at the prospect of news about Gambit. She desperately wanted to know how he was faring, and how serious his injuries were.
"No, I'll manage quite nicely on my own." Steed took her by the shoulders and steered her in the direction of the bedroom. "The sooner you clean yourself up, the sooner you can check on Gambit personally."
"Yes, yes, all right," Purdey exclaimed crossly, shaking off Steed's hands. "I'm quite capable of going on my own." She stalked over to the beaded curtain and thrust it aside with feeling, then immediately regretted her harsh words. "Sorry, Steed," she apologised over her shoulder. "I'm just worried, that's all."
Steed smiled in understanding. "Not at all. Now run along."
Purdey smiled gratefully at her friend's understanding, and disappeared beyond the curtain.
vvv
In the bathroom, Purdey had her first proper look at herself in the mirror, and was taken aback by her own dust-induced paleness, the blood on her rendered all the more ghoulish as a result. She looked like a Hammer horror movie bride, freshly risen from the grave and having just feasted on her first victim.
Her own visage was making her feel sick, so she turned away from her reflection and started to strip off her soiled clothes. Everything was probably going to have to be thrown away, she realised morosely as she peeled off her dust-covered boots. Her skirt was similarly covered in ground-in dust where it wasn't splattered with blood, and almost the entire front of her blouse was painted red. Even if she could get the bloodstains out, she wasn't sure she could ever wear it again, knowing what had transpired the last time she'd had it on.
She dropped the skirt and unbuttoned her blouse hurriedly, anxious to be rid of the awful tableau. When she shrugged the garment off, she discovered the blood had soaked straight through to her underthings, both bra and panties mottled with bright red spots, vivid against the white silk. Purdey made an executive decision that they were going to have to go as well. She promised herself that if Gambit was all right, she would make him pay for some new entries to her wardrobe to replace the ones she'd lost. Knowing Gambit, he wouldn't mind, especially if she took him along for the lingerie shopping.
Clothes now in an untidy heap on the floor, Purdey stepped into the shower and cranked it to hot. Clean, cleansing water washed over her immediately, instantly making her feel more human. Purdey looked down at her blood-stained hands as if in a dream, saw the water gradually wash Gambit's life force away, sending red-dyed liquid swirling down the drain. She rubbed her palms together relentlessly, keen for the whole ordeal to be over with, washed away, forgotten. She waited until her hands were clean before tending to her hair, combing out grit and bits of concrete that had tangled their way in among the strands.
As she stood there, beneath the stream, the magnitude of the events of the day suddenly hit her, and Purdey found herself sobbing without even realising it, her shoulders heaving mightily, bent at the waist with one hand splayed against the tiles for support. She was an experienced professional agent, too seasoned from her time in the field, too solid and steadfast, for it to be hysterics. No, it was more of a purge, an unloading of all the emotions she'd been carrying since the whole ordeal began. Her newfound knowledge of Gambit's historical trauma. Her fear that he would be recaptured, or arrested, or killed, or tortured. The idea of never seeing him again. The pressure of always having to be on her guard against everyone, even her fellow agents, lest she let some crucial piece of intelligence slip. The cloud of suspicion hanging over her head. The surveillance. Her family learning about her relationship with Gambit when he was on the run. Meeting Sara, the first member of Gambit's family she'd been privileged to acquaint herself with, in such horrific circumstances. Being in the same room as Vanessa Thyme. Watching her stab Gambit. Feeling his blood slick beneath her fingers. Fleeing through the collapsing warehouse. Nearly being buried alive. The catharsis of burning the papers. It all crashed over her, as though a bulwark in her brain that had been preventing her from thinking about any of these events to any extent had suddenly collapsed, and Purdey had woken up to a mound of revelations that would have been a lot to process on a good day, but were absolutely shattering on a bad one.
Exhaustion. That was it. She was overwrought, overstimulated, overworked, overwhelmed, and overexcited. She just wanted to go to Gambit and bring him back to the flat and cocoon herself, with him, for the foreseeable future. Somewhere safe—no demands, no threats, just them. Other people had been far too much of the problem of late. She needed to hibernate without any worries or cares for a little while, until she regained her equilibrium. But she couldn't, not yet.
There was a knock on the bathroom door. "Purdey?" It was Steed's voice, sounding concerned. Purdey opened her eyes and found herself on her knees, directly under the spray, vision blurred by the water. She had no memory of dropping to the floor, or of being in the shower for so long, but she supposed her perception of time had become rather warped along with everything else.
"I'm all right," she called, voice scratchy, to allay Steed's fears. The man was a gentleman, but Purdey knew he wouldn't stand on decorum if he thought she was drowning in the shower, and Purdey didn't need the embarrassment of Steed bursting in on her naked on top of everything else. "I'll be out in a moment."
She didn't really feel equal to seeing anyone after a good cry, but she hoped Steed would attribute her puffy, red eyes to the shower. She dried herself with hands that were almost too steady, and wrapped herself in a silk robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door before slipping outside, hoping Steed wouldn't ask any awkward questions.
Steed, as it happened, was on the phone when she stepped through the beaded curtains. She approached him warily, not knowing what sort of news to expect, and desperately trying to read his facial expression for context. Steed anticipated her hissed inquiries and held up an index finger to give her pause until he finished his conversation. "Yes. Yes, thank you. I'll bring her in soon." He returned the phone to its cradle on Purdey's occasional table, then straightened up.
"How's Gambit?" Purdey blurted out, before Steed had a chance to say a word. "Was that Kendrick? Or McKay? What's happening?"
Steed held up a hand to stop the flow of questions. "Gambit's stable," he told her gently, then paused when Purdey sat down heavily in an armchair, faint with relief. "They've given him a transfusion, and Kendrick is clearing his lungs. They do think he took a knock to the head, but it doesn't seem to be serious. They haven't found any injuries other than the stab wound, and Kendrick doesn't believe it hit anything vital."
"Oh, thank goodness," Purdey gasped in a prayer of thanks. "Has he woken up yet?"
"Not yet," Steed revealed. "Kendrick put him under mild sedation while he worked on the stab wound. He went probing about inside to make sure nothing vital was hit." He eyed Purdey meaningfully. "He's ready to see you now, and he's made it quite clear you're not to see Gambit until he's given you the all-clear."
Purdey scowled. "He doesn't have a right—"
"As the Ministry's top medical man, he has every right," Steed countered, "and given how many rules we've broken as of late, it wouldn't hurt your cause to comply with one or two of the less-arduous ones."
"Oh, all right," Purdey huffed, feeling some of her old spirit re-emerge after that cleansing cry. She flung herself out of the chair and stalked toward the bedroom. "I'll get ready. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can see Gambit."
"That's the spirit," Steed praised, and then decamped to the kitchen so Purdey could change in private.
vvv
Purdey didn't dress for Gambit, per se. Or at least, not in the usual sense of the term. But as she started sorting through her softer, more feminine dresses, she knew that what she wore could put Gambit at ease. If his first glimpse of her found her looking like herself, not even herself braced for action, but the way she looked when she was relaxed, off-duty, then he would know she had nothing to fear, meaning he didn't either.
In the end, it was a task that she set for herself as much for him. Going through the contents of her closet, laying dress after dress out on her bed, she was perfectly aware that she was using it as a distraction, a device to preoccupy her overfull mind as it continued to process the enormity of what had gone on in the past few weeks. But as she got stuck into it, what had started as a simple act of preoccupation turned into an in-depth endeavour that served as a means by which to sort through her own emotions along with the clothes. It quickly became clear to her that any rationale for wearing—or not wearing—something that she might attribute to Gambit applied to her as well. Should she wear red? No. She thrust anything in a crimson shade aside as though it might burn her. She'd worn enough red today, courtesy of Gambit's blood. Even something coloured with dye was too similar to have her contemplate donning it again. Black was definitely out, too—what would Gambit think if he woke up and she looked as though she were dressed for his funeral? Green seemed too virulent, reminded her too much of illness in her reduced state, and given Gambit's aversion to hospitals, she didn't want to give him more reasons to dwell on sickness and infirmity. Yellow and orange were too overpowering for how fragile Purdey herself felt, and she doubt Gambit would appreciate the jolt to his retinas, either. Anything in the grey, tan, or neutrals family had military connotations which, given that Gambit had acquired the papers in the course of a military mission gone wrong, didn't feel appropriate, and purple reminded her uncomfortably of a hospital room she'd briefly occupied as a child after she'd broken her leg. And then there was white. Purdey froze, clutching an ivory summer dress with a tulle skirt.
White. Bridal white. Instantly, her mind flashed back to the scene outside the warehouse, and Gambit, trying so hard to be brave, asking her a question with monumental implications and the same clear-eyed, heart in hand, honesty he'd always treated her with. A question that she'd answered in the affirmative, and meant it. She still meant it, she realised, staring transfixed at the dress. Meant it with an almost visceral ache in her heart. But not at the price of Gambit's health. If he woke up and thought she was giving him a fantastically unsubtle hint…well, she didn't want Gambit to feel pressured to make good on his offer right away, even if she wasn't in any doubt as to his sincerity in posing the question.
Not white, then.
That left her with pink and blue, both perfectly suitable, but Purdey opted for blue. It seemed optimistic without being overpowering, and Gambit has always said that it brought out her eyes. She put on a plain, short-sleeved, sky-blue example and regarded herself in the mirror, willing herself not to see the blood-soaked spectre from before. Her eye caught the lengthening shadows through the window reflected in the corner of the glass, and reminded her that it was getting late. Fashion therapy session over, she hurried out to meet Steed.
A little while later, at the Ministry's medical wing, she mused that, while she hadn't yet had a chance to test the therapeutic effects of her wardrobe on Gambit, it certainly wasn't having a tranquilizing effect on Dr. James Kendrick.
"If you'd asked me before today to name my most recalcitrant patient," the good doctor grumbled, stripping off his gloves, "I would have said Gambit, but today you're making him look about as difficult to handle as a lump of putty."
"Well, he is unconscious at the moment," Purdey pointed out, squirming impatiently on the crinkly paper laid out on the examination table. "Which is why I'm so eager to get this over with. I want to see him."
"Yes, I'd gathered that," Kendrick said dryly, shining a light in each of Purdey's eyes in turn. "But Gambit will be all right, barring any surprises, and so, it seems, will you." He clicked off the light and nodded, just once, in satisfaction. "Cuts and bruises, mostly. There is rather a lot of dust in the lungs, but your body is already clearing it out on its own. Still, I'll give you something to help it along. Gambit's already been treated, but we'll keep it up for a period once he's up and about."
"At this rate, he'll be out of here before me," Purdey sighed impatiently. "I've been here so long, I half expect him to come looking for me, rather than the other way around."
"I'm sorry that my usual method of making sure my patients aren't about to die on me isn't speedy enough to meet with your approval," Kendrick grumbled, taking a bottle out of medication out of a cabinet and handing it to Purdey.
Purdey took the bottle with a touch of humility. "I'm sorry, Kendrick. It's been a very long day, that's all."
"Never mind." Kendrick waved her off. "It's a doctor's lot that no one is ever happy to see him. I'll be content with the fact that you didn't swear at me."
"That's a depressingly low bar," Purdey opined, sliding off the paper with a crinkle and pocketing the bottle. She fidgeted for a moment, then added, hesitantly, "Is Gambit really going to be all right?"
"Barring any unforeseen circumstances," Kendrick confirmed distractedly, filling in some information on a clipboard. "I'm not in the habit of giving false hope, not in this business. But toddle off and see him for yourself. I know you're not here for my delightful company."
"You shouldn't do yourself down," Purdey said brightly, gifting the doctor with a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Thank you for looking after us. Especially Gambit."
"It's my job," Kendrick said gruffly, but with a touch of a smile. "Since you lot seem incapable of looking after yourselves."
Purdey threw back her head and laughed for what felt like the first time in a very long time. "I'll pass that along to Gambit."
"Please do."
vvv
Steed was waiting outside the examination room when Purdey exited. By mutual assent, they started walking toward Gambit's room, located at the other end of the Ministry's medical wing. "What's the verdict?" he inquired gently.
"I'm fine," Purdey informed, somewhat impatiently. "As I could have told you without going through all of that fuss."
"Better safe than sorry," Steed stated unrepentantly. "I'm sure Gambit will appreciate knowing at least one of you has a clean bill of health when he wakes up."
"Kendrick says he'll be all right," Purdey cut in, feeling worry creep into her consciousness. "Did you hear something different?"
"Nothing at all." Steed patted her arm soothingly. "But he was still sleeping when I checked on him a few moments ago."
Purdey took a deep breath in relief and quickened her pace. She was tired of talking about Gambit. She needed to see him for herself and draw her own conclusions. And, more than anything, to touch him.
Purdey wasn't entirely certain what to expect when she entered the hospital room, but she'd lived this particular scenario often enough that the image of Gambit in a hospital bed wasn't an unfamiliar one. And yet, on this particular occasion, the breath left her body when she walked in and saw him, almost as white as the sheet he was lying under. She'd thought Gambit had looked as ashen as she'd ever seen him when he'd recounted his harrowing ordeal at the hands of Vanessa Thyme, but he was even paler now, the blood loss robbing his cheeks and lips of all colour, his hair and eyelashes shockingly dark in contrast. As Purdey stood frozen, stunned by his ghostly pallor, she sensed rather than saw Steed at her shoulder. "He looked much the same when he came back from Berlin," he murmured, clearly noticing that Purdey's face had lost almost as much colour as Gambit's. "He was shot three times, after all. Even with a transfusion, it took weeks before he had colour in his cheeks and his eyes brightened up. I expect he'll bounce back rather more quickly this time."
"He'd better," Purdey asserted, snapping out her trance and moving to his bedside to take his hand. "He owes me a night out after everything that's happened." Her brave words were undercut by the way she squeezed that hand, then pressed it to her lips before sitting down. Gambit didn't stir, and Purdey looked worriedly at the bladder dangling on a stand beside the bed, which contained the last of the blood trickling through the IV and into him. "He'll be all right," she said softly, more to herself than Steed.
Steed watched her conduct her vigil for a moment, then decided it was high time to give her some privacy. He cleared his throat delicately. "Have you eaten anything today?"
"Not very much," Purdey admitted, never tearing her gaze away from Gambit. "I haven't had the appetite to force anything down."
Steed frowned. Purdey's appetite was remarkably resilient, and her refusal to accept food was a better indicator than any as to her state of mind. "I could bring you something," he offered.
"I don't want anything," Purdey demurred softly. "Thank you, Steed."
Steed decided to change tack. "Well, then, you won't mind if I get something for myself?"
Purdey glanced distractedly over her shoulder at him. "Of course not. I'll be here."
"I'll see you later then." Steed slipped out quietly, already planning to bring Purdey something. The instant Gambit awoke, her stomach was going to remind her just how hungry she was.
With Steed gone, Purdey sat still as a statue, eyes unwavering from the monitor that showed her the steady, reassuring blip of Gambit's vitals. "You'll be all right," she repeated to Gambit's silent form. A cough sounded behind her. "Back already, Steed?" she said automatically, not bothering to identify the visitor.
"No, miss." It was a woman's voice, and Purdey twisted around to find a nurse standing there with a cart and regarding her with interest. "I'm here to check for and clean up any dust that might still be on Mr. Gambit. Dr. Kendrick and his team had to work very quickly when he was admitted, and he wants to be certain that nothing was missed." She swept a hand toward the door. "If you'd care to wait outside, I won't be a moment."
"I'll do it," Purdey cut in, already rising to her feet, hand outstretched.
The nurse frowned disapprovingly. "That's not really proper procedure."
"Nothing I haven't seen before," Purdey cut in, letting the woman draw her own conclusions. "You can ask Dr. Kendrick if it's all right. I've only just been to see him.
The nurse looked uncertain, but recognised that Purdey was unrelenting, and gave in. "I'll be back in a moment," she temporised. "If you'll just wait…"
Purdey waited until she left before she completely disregarded the woman's instructions, took the sponge, and dipped it in the water. After the day she'd had, she wasn't about to wait for permission from the nurse of all people to care for Gambit. Her desire to do the job herself wasn't solely to keep another woman from running her hands all over Gambit's body, although she wasn't terribly keen on that idea, either. But, more importantly, it gave her something to do, something that would help Gambit, and for a woman who had never been content to sit on the sidelines, it was a godsend. Purdey started with Gambit's face and went to work, hoping she wouldn't wake him, and hoping she would at the same time. She wiped some dust away from his cheek, the sponge coming away with a smudge of white, but the flesh she'd revealed looked hardly less pale than it had with the coating. Purdey swallowed hard and kept working. She'd told Gambit, once upon a time, that she wasn't the fainting kind. She didn't mean to start now.