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The explosion knocks Kate off her feet.
She can feel the jagged rain of dust and gravel and fragments of brick tumbling down around her as she picks herself up, staring open-mouthed at the remains of what had been, as far as UNIT intel could determine, some sort of high grade weapons store. It isn’t every day a cabal of megalomaniacs hell-bent on bombing Britain’s rail network operates out of a garden shed, but – quite frankly – it’s less surprising than it ought to be.
Lots of things are less surprising than they ought to be, these days. And that most definitely includes the interruption that jolts her from her train of thought wondering how far away Josh and Osgood are, whether any weapons stored here are safely neutralised.
“Coming down in the world, aren't you? Didn't think they sent the top brass out to garden shed emergencies.”
She’d know that voice anywhere, closes her eyes for a brief second before turning on her heel to face the newcomer. “Miss McShane. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“It was Ace last time.” The woman in front of her raises her eyebrows, a wicked twist to her lips like she’s not standing there in a dust-covered suit, her hair falling raggedly around her face from what looks to once have been a neat bun. “Remember?”
Kate just shakes her head, the pretence of annoyance fading fast in the face of what are, in fairness, very pleasant memories. “I should have known. The second things started exploding, I should have known. What have you gotten yourself into now?”
“Oh, y'know.” Ace grins unrepentantly at her, and it's the sort of smile that Kate hates the most, the one that says mischief and danger and you love it really. Which she absolutely, categorically does not, no matter how appealing that little smirk can be. “You're just jealous I got here first.”
“Jealous? This is quite literally my job.”
“And it's not my fault your job and my hobby happen to overlap, is it?”
She can only snort at that, undignified but honest, and the lines of Ace's face redraw themselves into laughter in return, a softening of combative edges that she can almost admit to enjoying. “Why is it we only meet over near-disasters?”
“You haven't complained before.”
“No, I just—” She hesitates, eyes falling down the neat lines of Ace's shirt and trousers. Somehow she hadn't thought of her as someone prone to ironing her clothes but the edges and angles suit her, even dust-stained and rumpled. “I'm beginning to think you only exist where there's trouble.”
“I create trouble," Ace says with breezy confidence. "As well you know.”
“And I ought to arrest you. As well you know.”
“Oy, I'm a respectable citizen these days.”
“Respectable citizens don't play around with enough explosives to— to—” She waves a hand in the general direction of the scene behind her.
“To blow up a garden shed?” Ace surveys the smoking ruins, suddenly the picture of innocence, as if four decades of wisdom and cynicism have melted away in the blink of an eye. “It wasn't me, officer, I swear, I was just walking past when it happened.”
She shouldn’t be smiling. Even more certainly she shouldn’t be on the edge of laughter, the edge of authority she has cultivated over the years missing in action at the impish look on Ace’s face, the echoes of teenage insouciance sitting surprisingly comfortably around the lines and creases of middle age. But this is the way it always goes with Ace: danger, adrenaline, and the infuriating way she slips underneath Kate’s defences to make her feel....
She’ll settle for fond, because fondness at least explains the way she’s left Ace out of her last two reports. That, and the knowledge that if she confiscated Ace’s stash of explosives the damned woman would just make more.
She’s always liked clever women, and it turns out it's useful to have a pet arsonist on side.
Oh, and wouldn't Ace just kill her for that thought.
“You’re incorrigible,” she says instead, turning back to the remains of the shed. There’s a smoking crater in the centre, deeper than she’d expected – a lower level, most likely. The survey they’d done the day before hadn’t shown any tunnels, which is quite frankly a blessing. She’s not in the mood for chasing villains through dank underground passages. “I take it there was nobody inside?”
“Did a recce earlier,” Ace confirms. “It’s weapons I want to destroy, not people.”
“Then our source was right, this was a stockpile. How did you know?”
The eyeroll is almost audible. “Kate, who do you think your source was in the first place?”
It clicks into place with enough logic that Kate is halfway angry at herself for not putting two and two together the minute she set eyes on Ace. Mostly though, she realises with a ripple of frustration, she’s angry with Ace for the deception. For the fact that she’s out here in the middle of nowhere, covered in dust and debris, all for nothing. “You really thought it was a good idea to lure a UNIT team out into the depths of Wales and then blow up their target in front of them? It didn’t cross your mind how dangerous that might be?”
“Hey, don’t blame me for the fact it took you so long to get here! There was chatter about an imminent attack and when your lot didn’t seem to be doing anything about it— well. I’ve got an awful lot of Nitro-9 sitting about, seemed a shame to waste it.”
“Do you know how many tip-offs we get every month? How long it takes to investigate them all?”
“Fine!” Ace snaps. “Next time I’ll sign the bloody thing, alright?”
“Next time,” Kate says, already regretting what she’s about to do, “just call me.” She holds out a hand. “Phone, please.”
“Yes ma’am,” Ace says smartly, handing it over, and Kate ignores the little shiver of electricity that flutters up her spine at that, the knowing smirk on Ace’s lips that tells her exactly how deliberate it was.
She pokes her number into the contacts section, saves it under a nicely anonymous K, and gives it back to Ace, their fingers brushing for a second longer than they strictly need to. Plausible deniability, even though the look on Ace's face says otherwise. She’s still cross. “If you use that for anything other than official business—”
“No booty calls. Got it.”
She sighs, more to cover the fact that she wants to laugh than because she’s actually annoyed. “Nobody says that any more, Ace.”
“Get away with anything, me,” Ace says with pride. “One of the perks of getting old.”
That she does laugh at. “Why do I suspect that’s not something that’s come with age?”
“For the same reason we both know I’m not gonna be using this for official business only?” She waves her phone at Kate with a grin. “Look, I should get going. Your backup must be on the way, and the last thing I want is to get tangled up with UNIT.”
“That’s not what you said last time,” Kate murmurs, and she’s rewarded with genuine laughter, Ace’s fingers soft on her cheek. She’s not sure when they got so close.
“It’s not.” She sounds smug, pleased, and Kate’s mind is still humming with surprise and adrenaline, never mind that Josh and Osgood will be here any minute. Never mind that the last thing Ace needs is more encouragement.
It’s all too easy to just lean in and kiss her.
She’d blame it on a moment’s weakness but it’s more than a moment now and Ace is kissing her back with just as much enthusiasm, one hand curling into her jacket to pull her closer. Kate couldn’t think of a better way to stop that infuriating mouth if she tried.
Well.
Maybe she could think of one or two things.
She’s halfway to losing herself in a fantasy where this kiss becomes something more, her brain fuzzy at the edges with the feeling of Ace’s lips, slightly cracked but otherwise satin-soft with lip balm against her own. Wonders what Ace would do if she pushed her up against the stone wall behind them and—
Her phone starts buzzing in her jacket pocket.
Of course it does, because work never stops, not even for this, and she pulls back with an apologetic smile, duty snapping her thoughts back in order. “Damn. That’ll be Josh and Osgood.” She has about five seconds before she really has to pick up the call. “They're likely minutes away, so unless you want to spend the day in an interrogation room I’d suggest you find somewhere else to be, and fast.”
Ace pouts, rocking back on her heels. “Is that any way to talk to a girl you’ve just kissed?”
“Your choice,” Kate says, sliding her phone out from her pocket. Her finger hovers over the answer button. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She backs away, hands in the air, the pout turning into a smile that’s softer than she expected before she turns on her heel to leave. “See you around, Kate Stewart.”
“Don’t call me,” Kate shouts in return, and Ace’s laughter drifts back on the wind.
By the time she finishes talking to Osgood, confirms her location with Josh, Ace has gone.
Kate is quite certain she’ll be back.