From: bradkwillis@aol.com (BKWillis)
Date: 28 Oct 2002 03:37:32 GMT
Subject: Desert of Fear (New Installment, part 2 (1/2)) --

With nothing else to do but sit and worry, Babydoll had decided to take her
mind off things for a while by giving in to one of her very rare temptations.
It was really just a small thing and rather silly given their current
circumstances, but at the same time, the guilty thrill it provided was just
the ideal distraction.  Still, small and silly though it was, she made quite
certain that the deep shadows of the barn hid her from any prying eyes.  She
had a reputation to uphold, after all, and she couldn't have people, even
Servii, thinking any sort of weird thoughts about her.

She was ever-so-lightly stroking Bella's long curly tresses, running her
fingertips through those perfect little ringlets as the vampire girl lay
sleeping.

She sat cross-legged on the floor beside her companion, her back against a
post, knife stuck straight up in the floor beside her, ready for grabbing.  A
fall of Bella's mahogany locks lay spilled across her thigh while the girl
twitched and muttered in uneasy sleep mere inches from her knee.  Every so
often, Babydoll would take a quick thief-glance around, body tensed to spring
, and then, seeing no one looking, go back to gently sliding her fingertips
through those glossy curls, letting them spill from her hand like miser's
gold.  She looked over at Bella's face.

The time in the dark had done her some good, it seemed.  No more blisters
welled up on her creamy skin and the ones that were there had all split and
bled already, starting to heal into livid welts that left her lovely face
looking as though she'd been beaten.  Even so, despite the welts and swelling
and streaks of dried blood, Babydoll was still struck by how beautiful and
finely-formed the vampire was, with her delicate cheekbones and long, full
lashes.  Seeing her like this, so radiant even in her dishevelment, made
Babydoll feel frumpy and coarse, a bulldog beside a greyhound.

It was at about the moment Babydoll was thinking this that Bella mumbled her
name, nearly causing her to have a heart attack.  The mercenary froze for an
instant, mind struggling to form good excuses, before she realized that Bella
was talking in her sleep.

"...Babydoll...  ...Jubal...  ...Dakota..."

There was a note of pain in her voice, of near-panic that pierced straight
through the wall of studied indifference that Babydoll's mind tried building
around all things Bella-related.  Her whole body twitched as though racked by
unvoiced sobs.

Babydoll sat torn for a moment, instinct telling her one thing and judgment
saying the opposite.  On the one hand was an almost overpowering need to
comfort Bella, to soothe her and tell her she'd be all right, to cradle and
protect her.  It was a feeling Babydoll couldn't remember having since before
she'd chosen the mercenary's path and never so intensely.  On the other hand
was a whole raft of reasons why doing anything of the sort was a bad idea.
No Involvement was the creed she'd been taught.  Mind your own business and
don't get attached.  And besides, she really couldn't stand Bella anyway,
right?  She wasn't even human, for Derketo's sake, just a...  a _thing_ when
you got down to it, right?  A thing that could rip her to pieces if she cared
to, that might tear her apart from raw animal hunger.  Their current alliance
was just for survival's sake.  If not for the need to rescue Cain, they'd
still be barely on speaking terms--

"...please, no..." Bella sobbed in her sleep.

Babydoll gave in to her instincts without another thought.  She leaned over
and gently stroked the moaning girl's cheek.  "Shhh.  It's okay, Bell.  Just
a bad dream.  You're safe with me.  Don't cry."

A couple of quick, hitching breaths and Bella's eyes fluttered weakly open.
"P-Pigtails?  Babydoll?" Her voice was little more than a strained wheeze,
still colored by dream-fear.

"I'm here, Bell.  You were just having a bad dream." Giving herself over to
some long-suppressed nurturing drive, she began fussing over Bella, wiping at
the smears on her face and pushing her hair back.  "You're safe now.  Just
relax.  Just a nightmare."

"Nightmare," Bella sighed, nodding.  As she looked up at Babydoll, a faint
shimmering started at the corners of her eyes and her poor, swollen lips
twitched ever-so-slightly upwards.  "A nightmare," she repeated.  "Not real."
She reached up a shaky hand and folded it around Babydoll's wrist, pressing
the mercenary's fingers to her cheek as though craving her touch.

Babydoll, who would ordinarily knife someone for grabbing her unexpectedly
just on reflex, found herself accepting that light grip.  It did leave her
feeling vaguely unsettled, though not in a threatened sort of way.  She tried
talking to cover her sudden nervousness.

"I heard you say my name, Bell.  Was I in your nightmare?"

A tiny shudder shook Bella as she nodded.  "You were.  And Cain and Jubal
Jackson.  And all the others..."

"The others?"

"All the ones who came and went before you came along." Bella's eyes grew
distant as she remembered all the names and faces.  "Dakota Chang.  Professor
Meqaara.  Billy.  Mrs.  Barrington.  All of them."

Babydoll forced her voice to stay level.  She was acutely conscious of
Bella's touch as the girl slipped her hand down from its hold on her wrist to
fold around her hand, the vampire's small fingers barely covering her own.
Killer's hands, she thought, with her scarred knuckles and trigger-callouses.
But then, they were both killers' hands, though only her own looked the part.
Different, but in so many ways just the same.  "Jubal.  I remember him.  Wish
I'd had time to know him better.  I wonder if he ever made it home?"

"He was a good man.  Too good for the kind of war we fight..." Bella
swallowed hard and turned her eyes toward hers and Babydoll's entwined
fingers, but when she spoke again her voice had firmed somewhat.  "Where's
Cain?"

"Don't know," Babydoll replied, layers of suspicion in her tone.  "He still
hasn't come back from his talk with the top Head-Knocker of this shitpile.
I'm beginning to wonder..."

"You think the Rimmers might have...  done something to him?"

Babydoll brushed idly at the dirt on her knees, her eyes on that task.
"Maybe," she muttered.  "Or, maybe he's cut a deal and left us in the
lurch..."

"He wouldn't."

Now Babydoll shifted her attention back to Bella.  "Wouldn't he?  I've always
thought he'd shoot his own mother if it would throw the Regulators' plans out
of joint."

"You don't understand him," Bell insisted, weakly shaking her head.  "No one
ever has."

Something, whether it was Bella's defense of Cain or her lumping Babydoll in
with some sort of 'others' category, rubbed Babydoll in exactly the wrong
way.  A prickly remark was already on her lips when the two were interrupted
by a low Servii voice.

"Attend, Overworlders.  The two-eyed come 'pon us in force, and thy master be
not among them."

Babydoll rose with a muttered oath, snatching her dagger up as she sprinted
for the barn door.  Rahaaz was waiting for her there, claws tapping
impatiently on the butts of his twin Webleys as he glowered out into the
fading sunlight.

There were about thirty North Rim bully-boys heading their way in a loose
phalanx, the sharp-eyed Pereska at their head, pulling in their pickets as
they came.  Their march was steady, but unhurried, not an assault maneuver.
All were fully armed and armored, but she noted that most carried their
muskets shouldered rather than at the ready.  The group spread out somewhat
as they advanced, covering the entire front of the barn, but made no move to
encircle them.

"I think they're coming to talk," Babydoll said evenly.  "Stand down, but
stay alert.  And keep a watch out the back way." As Rahaaz nodded and
detailed off one of his men as rear-guard, Babydoll took a deep breath,
checked her knife and pistol, then strolled casually out into the barnyard.

The Rimmers halted at about forty yards, murmuring and fingering their
weapons, but making no move to bring them to bear.  Behind her, Babydoll
could hear the Servii cocking their rifles and loosening their scabbard ties
as she and the North Rim leader advanced to meet each other in the middle of
the yard.  She carefully scanned the man's face, looking for any sign that
might betray duplicity on his part.  He spoke first.

"Overworlder, dusk grows near and your welcome here grows scant with the day.
Form up your beastmen and make ready to depart.  We shall escort the lot of
you back through Prayer's Eye Pass and into the High Desert, and good
riddance."

Babydoll offered him a slightly feral smile.  "Sorry, Jack.  We don't leave
here without Cain.  Bring him out and we'll all be on our way then."

"Cain is not with you?" Pereska's voice held only a trace of bored- sounding
surprise, as though he were hearing a joke he'd been told before.  "I
wondered why I was speaking to his lackey.  Well, whether he's here or not is
immaterial to our agreement.  Depart in accordance with our truce, or depart
as carrion for the hangbirds."

Babydoll let her hand drop to the grip of her machine pistol.  "Well, I don't
think it's so immaterial." She mimicked Pereska's bored drawl.  "Now, why
don't you be a good host and tell me what you've done with him?"

"I've done nothing with the Overworlder Cain.  The less the Rim sees of him,
the better we shall be." He arched an eyebrow and gave one of his catty
smirks.  "Perhaps he has made his own way out and left you to your fates.  It
seems the sort of thing he'd do."

Babydoll stifled her wince.  That insinuation hit far too close to home for
her liking, but she wasn't about to let this clodhopper see that.  And though
she didn't want to, she found herself inclined to believe that Pereska was
telling the truth, at least as far as not knowing where Cain was.  That
slithery chill in her bones was telling her that she was holding a losing
hand in this game, but it was the one she'd been dealt.  All she could do was
play it out to the end.

With an airy self-assurance that she came nowhere near feeling, she shook a
scolding finger at Pereska and his troops.  "Now, now, Old Man.  We went to a
lot of trouble to steal that one-eyed bastard from Avis City, so we can't
very well just march out of here without him.  As soon as he's here with us,
from wherever he is, we'll go.  Until then, we're waiting for him right
here."

"Your loyalty is admirable," Pereska replied, whiskers twitching.  "Your
judgment and impertinence are not.  I tell you once more that I do not know
where the Overworlder Cain is, nor do I care, save that he is gone from this
village.  I tell you also that this is your last chance to leave Shatterstone
on your own feet.  March out with us _now_, or we evict you by main force."

The troopers behind Pereska began shaking out into a longer skirmish line and
muskets came off shoulders as he eyed her, waiting for her answer.  A
signalman lifted his bugle toward his lips to summon reinforcements and
Babydoll silently decided to kill him first, letting the disruption of their
communications buy a few extra moments of confusion.  From the barn at her
back came the rasping clatter of Servii armor as rifles were brought up to
bear.  Babydoll's fingers tightened around the butt of her pistol, her
muscles tensed and ready to spring.  Pereska, cool bastard that he was,
simply stood unmoved and unmoving, waiting.

The whole scene was about two breaths away from exploding into a holocaust of
gunfire when the air was rent by a high, screaming whine that never came from
any living throat.  The North Rim bravos blanched and shrank back from the
nerve-grinding din, while the Servii in their makeshift defenses twisted
their fingers in Signs of Warding.  Babydoll just grinned ruefully and shook
her head.

The air shimmered a few feet away from her as the familiar shape of a
weather-worn stone mausoleum materialized on the scraggly sward.  As Rimmer
and Servii alike stood amazed, Babydoll walked over and propped casually
against its side, waiting.

"Always have to make an entrance, don't you?" she asked as the door creaked
open.  "Could you have cut that just a _bit_ closer?"

"I've had a tight schedule," Cain replied with a shrug.  "Sue me."

A smart retort was on Babydoll's lips, but she chewed it back as she eyed her
Time Lord compatriot.  He looked different from when she'd last seen him;
he'd changed clothes, coming up with another of his time-worn black
trenchcoats from somewhere, and had a hastily-applied bandage slapped over a
cut on his jaw.  And though he'd cleaned up a bit, he looked more tired than
ever.

"How'd you manage to get to the TARDIS so quickly?" she demanded.

He smirked back at her as he bustled toward the barn, sparing only a cursory
glance for the gobsmacked soldiers behind him.  "I didn't.  It took me the
better part of a day and a night on bird-back to get back to Serviion." He
glanced up at the sinking sun.  "In about an hour, I'll be running into the
Skyborn patrol who'll give me this." He pointed at the bandaged cut.  "Then
I'll almost get shot down by the Servii Gate Wardens, and then have to kill
two former Murgonj toadies on the way to our office.  Hey, Rahaaz!"

"Aye, Overworlder?" the War Captain replied, face full of superstitious awe.

"Gather up your troops.  We're riding out of here in style." He turned back
to Babydoll.  "How's Bella?"

"Better, but not good," the blonde answered.  "She's still weak.  I don't
know about moving her..."

"No choice.  I'll put her in the Zero Room.  That'll help her recover
faster." He walked over to the shadows where the vampire girl lay, Babydoll
trailing behind.

Bella managed a smile for him.  "Hi, Cain," she whispered.  "I was worried
about you." She sent a self-satisfied look at Babydoll, who turned her eyes
away, a little embarassed.

The big Time Lord grunted noncommitally.  "You should know better, babe." He
started wrapping the old coat she was lying on around her, covering her like
an infant, when Babydoll put a hand on his arm to stop him.

"I'll handle this," she said.  She nodded toward the barnyard.  "You go make
your goodbyes to the shitkickers out there."

Cain's eye shifted between the two for a moment, his expression unreadable.
He gave a tiny shrug.  "As you like, babe.  Make sure she's completely
covered--"

"Yeah, yeah," the mercenary interrupted.  "Come on, I didn't go through all
this just to let her get fried now..."

----

Most of the Rimmer toughs were too shaken by the mausoleum- TARDIS's sudden
appearance out of thin air to get anywhere near the thing.  Pereska was the
exception, making a point of walking a slow, appraising circle around the
device and giving it a thorough looking-over.  He did not, however, try to
touch it.

The look he gave Cain when the latter re-emerged from the barn carried a
certain grudging respect.  "You're a lot of things, Overworlder," he
grumbled, "but a charlatan you're not."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Pereska," the Time Lord replied on reflex.
"I'm about to make you a happy man anyhow." He reached out and clapped the
North Rim leader on the shoulder in a parody of good-fellowship.  "It's been
real and it's been fun, Pereska, but it ain't been real fun."

Not to be outdone, Pereska likewise offered a mocking bow.  "Overworlder,
your departure is a gift I hope I am able to savor forever."

The two nodded to each other.  There was no love lost between them, but each
understood and bore some grudging respect for the other.  With that, Cain
swung the TARDIS door open and let out a piercing whistle.  "All right, boys
and girls!  Into the TARDIS!  Form one line, no pushing!" As the rather
doubtful-looking Servii came out of the barn, he waved them into the timeship
one by one, weapons a-clatter.  Last came Babydoll, Bella wrapped like an
infant in her arms, sprinting as best she could through the fading sunlight
with her burden.

Cain ducked in behind her, pausing with his hand on the door.  He turned and
offered Pereska one last wicked smirk.  "Y'know," he mused, "all-in-all,
you're not such a bad guy considering that you're a complete smegging
arsehole.  Cheers." He sketched a lazy wave over his shoulder as he stepped
inside and closed the heavy bronze door.  Seconds later, the TARDIS wheezed
and groaned its way into the Vortex, leaving only a vague outline in the dirt
to show it had ever been there.

The North Rimmers watched it vanish, Pereska standing with one eyebrow
raised, the others giving back a few paces in wary unease at the noise.  The
Rim leader just stared at the spot where they'd been, then finally shook his
head and walked off.

"Bastard," he muttered, snickering despite himself.  "You still managed to
get the last word in..."