Purdey got back to the little hospital just in time to catch Gambit's crutches lesson, courtesy of the ward sister. The ward sister being young and pretty, this was good value, seeing as Gambit kept colouring up every time the girl took his arm in order to steer him straighter down the broad corridor. He hadn't recovered his memory in the night, Purdey deduced cheerfully. He'd have been trying to get her phone number otherwise.

He was dressed in his own clothes at least, and if the one trouser leg flapped open to accommodate the bandage at his knee, the rest looked right enough. Someone had tackled the three-day beard, too, which Purdey considered a bonus. It had reminded her uncomfortably of "Terry Walton". Without it the bruises showed more clearly, although even the black eye was fading into a glory of greenish purple. It was just something about the expression that was wrong, still -- a tentativeness that she'd never associated with the man.

Then again, I suppose if I had lost fifteen years I'd be feeling pretty tentative myself. She looked around for Steed and spotted him at the nurses' station, in colloquy with Dr. Peterson, as unrumpled and elegant as if he hadn't spent the night away from home. They had assorted pill bottles and papers spread out on the counter, so she forbore to interrupt them, not wanting to find herself entangled in details just yet, and went to see if she could help the ward sister with Gambit.

"Need any help with the stairs?" she asked as she drew alongside.

Gambit looked up from the crutch tips he'd been placing and had to hop on his good foot when one of them skidded sideways. Purdey caught one elbow while the ward sister caught the other and between them they made certain he didn't lose his balance.

His composure was a different matter.

"You again!" he exclaimed, gaping at her as if she were wearing nothing but woad. The temptation to tip his chin up and close his mouth was irresistible, so she did it, and was rewarded by a blush that swept up to the roots of his hair and left his ears glowing.

"Yes, me again," she said to the top of his head, Gambit having ducked it down to study his toes. "Didn't Steed tell you I was coming?"

Gambit shrugged briefly and mumbled, "I dunno. He might've. But I don't know what you're called, so..." He shrugged again, and fidgeted with the crutches.

"You call me Purdey," she said, wondering if he had decided yet if he were glad to see her or not, given how angry he'd been last night. "When you're not calling me other things." She couldn't help the acid note that slipped in at the memory of his fist coming toward her the night before. It had awakened other memories, and on the whole amnesia would have been preferable.

Gambit's jaw tightened on whatever he might have answered, and he recovered his elbows from the two women. "I've got to practice," he muttered, swinging the crutches forward again. Purdey ignored the scowl and walked alongside, determined not to let her equanimity slip again.

"Yes you do," she said lightly, and turned her attention on the ward sister. "Stairs and chairs still to go, right?"

"Yes, Miss," the ward sister agreed. "Have you had crutches before?"

"Twice," Purdey said. "I fell out of trees two summers running before my parents decided to keep me busy with dance classes."

"Are you a dancer, then?" The other woman asked, although her attention was really on Gambit.

"I was," Purdey answered, taking the cue. "Royal Ballet, believe it or not. But I was never much more than the last swan on the left."

"Really? No, don't swing out so far, you don't want your center of gravity too far from your supports... That's still very good. Did you like it?"

"It was great fun," Purdey said, falling in with the conversation easily, recognising that it was meant to give Gambit time to work his own way out of whatever foul mood had taken him. And he did. By the time they'd chatted about dance classes and nursing school and steered him up a short flight of steps and down again the scowl had vanished. When they went to practice getting safely in and out of chairs he had given up even pretending not to listen.

At last the ward sister settled him for in the chair the last time and went off to fetch his noon doses. Purdey flopped elegantly into the chair across the corridor and found that he was studying her. She gave him a grin. "Tired yet?"

He shook his head, and then smiled shyly. "Well, maybe a little. It's awkward like, not being able to use both feet."

"I remember." Purdey replied, glad to have some common ground to talk about. She stretched her own legs out and contemplated them thoughtfully. "Of course, the last time I had to use crutches I was six years old and I hadn't hurt my knee, so I could set them aside and crawl if I was in a hurry."

"You were only seven when you started dancing?" He asked, doubtfully.

So you were listening even then? "Yes. Well, ballet, anyway. I'd always danced with my father. But that was when I started formal lessons. And I was behind most of my classmates: they'd started at four." She'd never really talked about the early part of her life with Gambit, not that he'd ever asked. Come to think of it, she didn't know that much about his childhood either. And now was as good a time as any to enquire. Chances were good that eighteen Gambit hadn't learned to play his cards quite so close to his chest.

"Did you have to take lessons when you were small?" she asked, doing her best not to seem overeager. "Piano? Or tap?"

He shook his head. "Never any money for it. One of the lodgers taught me how to play pub piano when I was ten."

"Pub piano?"

"Six chords and remember not to hit the keyboard during any part of the song where you might need a seventh." He ducked his head to hide the grin that had almost made him look all right to her, but after a moment looked up again and might have said something more if the ward sister hadn't chosen that moment to return with her tray.

There was a bowl with a spoon, as well as the glass of water and assorted pills, and Gambit eyed it unhappily. "It isn't a proper lunch," admitted the ward sister, "but you've got to take some of these with food, and besides, you'll need the strength if you're to go to London this afternoon."

The expression of dismay turned stony, making Gambit suddenly seem his proper age. Purdey knew that look. He was either frightened or about to do battle. But whether it were the mention of London or the pile of pills he was faced with, she thought it best to distract him. She got up and wandered over to confirm the contents of the bowl. "What is the matter with Mary Jane, she isn't sick and she hasn't a pain..."

"And it's lovely rice pudding for dinner again," Gambit finished the quotation softly. He picked up a spoonful of the yellowish glop and let it trail back down into the bowl. Then he squared his shoulders and fished one of the pills out from the rest. "I'm not taking that one," he told the ward sister, polite but firm. "It makes it too hard to think."

"So does pain," the ward sister countered.

"I can manage." Battle then, although Purdey could hardly blame him. Mike had never been keen on meds, not when they left him more incapacitated than the pain did. And he wasn't swearing this time, which was a plus.

"There's always aspirin," she offered. And then added, because she couldn't help being curious about what he was thinking. "You can buy some when we get to town, if you're still sure you want to go."

He looked up sharply, his expression flickering from suspicion through a kind of bleak resignation to something that almost looked like a plea for understanding. "I have to get to London," he said. "I have to."

She put her hands in her pockets to keep herself from patting his shoulder. The eyes were so damned young looking, it was hard to not want to mother him, just a little. She glanced around for something else to focus on, settled on the two men at the counter. "Right. I'll go and let Steed know that you're almost ready to go then, shall I?"



Dr. Peterson would have liked to scotch the London trip on the grounds that Gambit's refusal to take the medication was proof that he wasn't cooperating, but Steed, who had a better idea of just how much endurance his colleague could display when he needed to, merely took the pill from Purdey and tucked it back into its bottle. "We'll see if we can't get it into him once he's seen the Post Office Tower," he said.

"And if that doesn't work?" Peterson growled. "Amnesiacs can be incredibly capricious. He might look at all the changes in London and still insist that it's 1961. If only his autobiographical memory is involved..."

Steed, who had spent part of the long night reading through the same stack of books as Dr. Peterson, only grinned. "He was born in London. Sooner or later, something is bound to convince him that we're telling the truth. And we're running out of time. I only asked for twenty four hours."

"Do you really think he could get out of here now that we'd be ready for him?" the doctor snapped.

"Yes," Steed and Purdey chorused. They exchanged swift smiles and Purdey went on. "And the more desperate he is to get away, the more likely he'll do someone bodily harm as he goes. I think he may already be half-convinced that it's 1976, but that doesn't matter to him nearly as much as getting to London does."

"But why?"

"I don't expect we'll know that until we get him to London." Steed hooked his brolly onto his arm and tapped his bowler into place. "No time like the present."