Byzantine Pyrrhichios: Treasure Hunt

For millions of years, the rocky islet off the northern coast of Italy had seen few visitors other than its usual contingent of seabirds. No seeds dropped from those birds had managed to take root in stray pockets of dust, so the granite, upthrust at some remote primordial point by the shifting plates between Europe and Africa, was as barren as the moon that hung so far above. The occasional fisherman or small trader who drifted close to the dangerous teeth brushing the surface of the sea usually departed as swiftly as they had come, leaving nothing behind, not even a footprint, and taking nothing but a shivering memory of utter isolation.

Most of them, anyway.

The sun was blazing above on a sweet midsummer day, when a rivaling flash on the peak presaged the arrival – had anyone but the birds been watching – of two temporal travelers. As (Byzantine) Rose stared about them, hastily removing her hand from his, Jack quickly checked his jumper for the galactic date. "Hah! Perfect!" Pivoting slowly on one heel, he checked the rock formations against his old memory to get his bearings. "This way!" He settled the coiled rope that he'd unearthed from the remains of the Hub more firmly on his shoulder, patted his pockets for the handful of LED lights, and set off, leading her swiftly across the spine of the island towards the western point.

Rose scurried after him, fleetingly grateful at the impulse of that morning that had put her tough laceup boots on her feet rather than heels, as she hopped from rock to rock. "What is this place?" she called after his back.

He ignored her, looking for the exact spot on which to turn north, in order to find the right crack in the mountain, and set off again. She glared at his back, then deliberately paused a moment to gape at the scenery: a spectacular natural bridge leading to a tall rock pillar rising from the waves. Turning again, she barely spotted his head just before it disappeared, and hopped swiftly after him. Good thing she had; she'd have never found the crack on her own. She followed him down the miniature canyon, squeezing between the rock walls that quickly loomed overhead. The path – if you could call it that – of rain-weathered rock led down at a sharp forty-five degrees. She called after him to wait, but he couldn't hear her over the roar of the surf echoing from closely nearby; they were near the edge of the cliffs.

Suddenly he turned a corner and disappeared, and she slipped and slid after him. The canyon turned into a tunnel, leading off to the right, but there was just enough light from behind her to see, as she crept along, cautious now, her hands trailing along the stone. Oddly, as she walked carefully forward, a new light began to glow dimly from ahead. A dozen yards further on, the walls fell away from her touch as she came into a large cavern, and gasped, eyes aglow in wonder.

The cavern, about thirty feet across, stretched far above her head, where gaps in the roof let in a dim reflection of the blazing daylight outside. Below her feet, as she stood on a wide ledge at the side, she thought for a moment the floor was smooth glass – but then Jack switched on a couple of his mini torches a dozen feet to her left, and revealed the "floor" was the absolutely-still surface of a deep, deep pool of utterly clear water. He knelt and carefully attached the torch buttons to the side of the rock ledge, under the surface, and the refracting light turned the entire pool aglow.

"The water's so clear!" she breathed.

"It's rainwater, sweetheart, collected here for millenia. No outlet."

Rose stood for a moment drinking in the magical atmosphere, before the odd sounds to her left brought her attention back – but then she quickly averted her eyes again, flushing furiously. Jack was stripping! "What are you doing?" she demanded.

"Going for a swim! And I don't want to wait for these clothes to dry before we leave – if you time jump with wet clothes, they either freeze instantly into dust and flake off, or burst into flame – I've never been able to figure that one out," he added curiously, before he glanced back at his companion – and stopped dead, gawping at her in return. "Whoa! What...?"

Rose, puzzled, glanced down at herself, then back at Jack, nonplussed. "What?" Her shirt looked normal to her.

"You're glowing." He informed her.

"Yeah. It's techglow blouse. Haven't you ever seen one before?" she scoffed.

He shook his head. "Obviously not."

"Oh. Well, they glow in the dark, but it takes a minute for it to come on – it had to absorb some light from those torches. It's the threads – I don't know what they are." She shrugged.

Jack stepped back a pace and gave her an appraising once-over. The glow of the material was strengthening as he watched, radiating strongly enough to make him squint slightly. "That could come in handy," he commented.

"Oh, don't start that again," she huffed. "I'm not a saint, I'm not an angel, I'm not the one who protected the Holy City. You'll see. We're witnesses, not the saints."

Jack listened to her protests, bemused, then nodded. "Well, this could be fun." Wondering briefly if the original Rose had given the Doctor that much trouble about time travel at first.

"Why are you going swimming?" she brought him back to the previous subject, managing to look at his face without letting her eyes drop down.

He gave her an ironic grin, and merely pointed down to the bottom of the pool.

Edging forward, she peered into the depths, and gasped. A dozen wooden chests ranging from small to humongous were scattered across the rocks twenty feet below. "Is that...?"

"Yup!" came the cheerful reply, and he dove in. The ripples managed to conceal his bare behind enough for her to watch him with a minimum of discomfort as he wrapped the end of the rope he'd brought around the smallest chest and tie it securely before grabbing another long slender bundle nearby and kicking back up to the surface. He laid the bundle on the rock ledge, handed her the other end of the rope to hold while he pulled himself out a couple of yards away and shook off the worst of the water, then retrieved the rope and hauled the casket up and out.

The box, about a foot high and wide and a foot-and-a-half long, looked aged and weathered, as though it had been resting in the pool with its brethren for centuries. Only a metal hasp held the latch closed, and Jack knocked it out with a small rock and then pried open the lid against the hinges' screeching protests.

Inside was just what Rose had half expected: brilliant, glittering golden coins filled it to the rim. Jaw dropping, she reached in and took out a handful, letting them fall back one by one. Jack grinned again at her and retrieved his vest from the pile to wipe off the rest of the water before getting dressed again.

"Whose is this?" Rose suddenly demanded, glancing around as if expecting a band of pirates to jump out from behind a rock.

"Well, a few years from now, it's going to belong to my friend Edmund Dantes, but right now he's still in the Chateau d'If," came the nonsensical reply. She looked quizzically at him (relieved that he'd put his pants back on), but he just shook his head. "Don't worry, sweetheart. It's ours. Forget about who put it here, they are long dead and gone."

Catching sight of the other bundle again, she pointed at it. "What's that?"

"Something else that might come in handy," came the mysterious reply, but he didn't move to unwrap it and show her. She glared at him a moment, irritated at his arrogant secrecy, more than a little bothered by this whole so-called adventure.

She couldn't wait to be rid of him and get back to her safe, comfortable, familiar life.