Author's website: http://uk.geocities.com/jodie_mouse

Disclaimer: Not mine. They're borrowed. Who knows who owns Sapphire & Steel? 'Cos I don't.

Author's Notes: Thanks to bizarre Britsh sci-fi TV programmes.

Story Notes: This is mainly gen, but sort of pre-slash. No sex I'm afraid. There is a character death but not actually one if you see what I mean. Er, you'd better read the story. A warning that time travel is involved and probably a few time travel cliches.

Prologue

Did it really matter who they were or weren't? Did it really matter if they were half alien, a quarter human or nothing of the sort? For They could walk the universe through Time. Some could manipulate Time, or metals, or elements, or any machine ever made in the past or future history of the universe by human or other hands. There were the more powerful among Them. Sapphire and Steel were part of Them. A tall, blonde, slender woman shape and a slightly shorter, older, man shape with darkened blond collar length hair. They followed the Time Breaks...fissures which are dangerous and could set Destiny on to the wrong course...They followed the Time Breaks hoping to be able to contain damage, hoping to make things right. Hoping to repair Time, tame Time and steer Destiny onto the right course.

It was strange how you could tell Benton Fraser was bleeding even though he was wearing red. The red of his lifeblood was a brighter red somehow.

Sapphire watched the liquid ooze from Fraser's chest.

"He was a good man, Steel. This wasn't his time."

And it was all happening so fast. The man and woman had not even noticed Sapphire and Steel appear from nowhere. Her blue dress and Steel's grey suit markers on the edge of madness.

The detective turned, launching himself towards the woman with the unruly curly hair. The wolf pawed the dead body on the ground. So many things happening at the same moment. The bullet left the gun and started the journey towards it's intended target...unless she did something, They did something, Sapphire would see more redness. More blood.

"Stop it." Steel commanded in her mind.

She froze it. Froze Time. The blond detective lunging for the large woman with the gun. The wolf sniffing the body of Constable Benton Fraser RCMP.

The yellow plastic ducks ceasing to bob up and down gently on the now solid water. Silence. She stopped it all.

They had appeared on the waterfront too late to stop the Time Break. The wrongness of the events unfolding sounding like metal striking metal. Reverberating around Time, Dimension and Space. So They had come like Their kind always did, to try and repair the damage, to try and make things right.

Sapphire knelt beside Fraser, hand hovering a few inches above his body.

She could feel Steel's grey eyes upon her. They read each other. Much like these partners would have done if Fraser had not been killed.

Then she could see it.

"Constable Benton Fraser RCMP, Canadian. He lives for his job, for his duty. He dies in the line of his duty." Sapphire says, lifting her hand away, "But not today -- not yet."

Steel looked at her, a hard look which she can see behind as she sees behind so much.

"When?" he asked.

It was far away, may be too far for her to see, let alone to show. Steel's eyes reflected the blue glow of her own as she went deeper and deeper -- almost to the limit of her powers.

"Show me." she whispered, "Show me."

The surroundings fell away. It was decades later. World leaders gathered in a city -- Canada -- Toronto? The image was there shimmering. And the players were there. Benton Fraser, older, grey flecks in his hair. Eliza Joanna Parker the first female president of the United States. A bullet. But Fraser stepped in front. He isn't there. He is dead decades before he should be. Eliza crumples to the floor. The first death amongst the many in the war that follows. But Sapphire couldn't see further -- it is a feeling, a feeling only, of death. She tried to show Steel but the image wavered, fell away, pale grey light and nothingness all she could see.

"Steel. If he dies now..." she said, trying not to sound too urgent.

"I know. I saw it." Steel said grimly.

He walked to the frozen Detective.

"Who is he?" he asked gesturing at the frozen figure suspended in mid-air.

"Detective Stanley Raymond Kowalski but he's pretending to be someone else." Sapphire said, closing her eyes, "He's pretending to be another man. He's what they call 'undercover'."

"Like us." Steel paused, "I want to talk to him." he said pacing around the frozen Detective.

Sapphire nodded. Kowalski dropped to the ground and landed awkwardly on an arm.

"What the fuck?" he said rubbing his arm as he twisted around to see Fraser lying on the floor and a man with a hard stare glaring at him.

"How did this happen?" Steel demanded rudely hovering above Kowalski.

"What are you some kinda Fed -- wait --" Kowalski's eyes narrowed to slits, "You don't sound American."

"Just answer the question." Steel growled.

"I'm gonna pop you one in a minute! Have you called the paramedics...he's dying over there!" Kowalski said struggling to stand up.

Sapphire stepped forward.

"It's too late. Your friend is already dead." she said.

"Lady, get out of my way," said Kowalski barging past, "Fraser's not dead -- he can't be dead. We only just..."

And she could feel when he knew Fraser was dead -- the inside of him crumpled and Kowalski sunk to the ground and rubbed his eyes.

"Kowalski the fuck up strikes again...only been with the guy one day...one day...and it kinda felt we had a thing going that we were gonna be a duet..."

Steel stalked away from the scene. Sapphire could tell by the way Steel held his shoulders that the Detective was getting on his nerves and it was taking all of Steel's resolve to not lash out.

Gently Sapphire placed a hand on Kowalski's arm.

"It isn't his time to die. Do you want to help your friend?" she asked.

"Yeah, but I don't..."

"You need to do things differently this time."

The Detective looked small, like a child.

"This time? What, I don't...?"

"I can give you another chance."

She smiled at him, her best most dazzling smile. Kowalski ran a hand through his hair and nodded.

"The strange thing" he whispered, "is that I believe you."

He was crying in the bath, unable to tell where he was wet from salt tear water and where he was wet from bath water. They had all kind of mingled. The razor blade was laid out neatly on the side of the bath. Kowalski lay back and imagined how the blood would look in the water once he freed it from his body. Red lines snaking in the water and exploding into pink blooms.

It had become official six months ago. The papers signed. Dotted and crossed. It was amazing how quickly you signed away the best part of your life. Bye, bye, Stella. Except near the end it hadn't been best for either of them.

Things had not got easier like everyone said they would.

But that didn't matter. Kowalski didn't want to dwell on harsh reality, instead he wanted to remember the good times and for the good times to last forever. He didn't want to live in this ratty apartment with their old furniture and old times. He didn't want to be reminded of what was lost every time he came home from work to an empty apartment. Everything empty. So he lay in the bath with the razor blade placed deliberately on the side. Readying himself to make the first deliberate cut.

So intense was his concentration that he almost did not see the woman in the blue dress and the man in the shadows behind her.

She was thin, tall, blonde with eyes that seemed they could pierce his very soul.

"You don't have to reach for your gun, Ray." she said as Kowalski scrabbled to grab his shoulder holster.

"It wouldn't work anyway." the man mumbled darkly from behind her.

Kowalski squinted, trying to get a better look at the man but the shadows were too dark and his eyes too weak without his glasses.

"Who...?" he asked.

The woman knelt by the side of the bath, her hand hovering a few inches above the enamel.

"My name is Sapphire."

A pause.

"You won't do it." she said looking at the razor blade and then back up at him, "This room has seen too much self-death. Besides you can't."

"Why? Who would miss me? Stella don't. My family have barely talked to me for years. Who would miss a fuck up like me?" he choked, trying not to start crying again.

The woman, Sapphire, smiled. A beautiful smile, so full, so full of...peace. Calm.

"Tomorrow you will be offered an undercover assignment with Constable Benton Fraser RCMP who is currently on holiday in Canada. A week from now he will return to Chicago. He will miss you if you're not there because on the first day that you meet you must take a bullet for him while wearing a Kevlar vest."

Kowalski shook his head. Mounties? Guys with two last names?

"Why should I believe you?" he asked still trying to process the information.

Sapphire turned to look at the man still hidden in the shadows.

"Show him." the man growled.

The softness of Sapphire's hand as she clasped the side of his face surprised him. He did not know what he had expected. May be scales or something because the way her eyes glowed a bright blue definitely wasn't human. Nor was the way she fed images into his mind of a bright day by the side of the lake, a man, a mountie with dark hair and blue eyes, a white dog running by his side...and in that moment he saw flashes of what was to be and what had to be. And so much more...he could feel things...feel how much this guy would mean to him.

His heart fluttered and his face flushed. Not even Stella had known that about him. He wasn't quite sure if he'd known it himself. Sapphire smiled as she took her hand from his face. It was all too much...

If he did things right he would spend years with him. If he did things wrong he would get barely a day.

Kowalski closed his eyes and when he opened them again he was alone.

He didn't want to slice into his own flesh now. Didn't want to see blood dance in the water. Because he knew one day he would have enough of seeing blood. Sapphire had showed him.

He pulled the plug and stayed in the bath watching the water swirl around the tub and disappear down the dark hole.

End Burning Down by Jodie Louise: jodie_mouse@yahoo.com

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