My Elizabeth by Puddinhead
Summary: A 2011 Buffy back in 1880 along with William Pratt. After an ocean voyage and a stop in New York City, our couple sets off across the American West.

There are showdowns, riots, murder and olde tyme bathing suits. The story is also chock full of history and you'll learn all the 'hip slang' from these wacky Victorians in no time. It also features a few real historical figures, but no spoilers. I'll only say that it is NOT Genghis Khan and Amelia Earhart. Put that thought right out of your mind.

Though this is a sequel to "Yours, William," it also works as a stand alone. I had to take down "Yours" as I'm rewriting as an original. You can email me about this if you want info.
Won Round 25 of the Sunny-D Awards for Best Alternative Universe. Won Round 26 for Best Drama, Best Original Character, Best Original Character Pairing, Best Unfinished. Thanks!


Categories: NC-17 Fics Characters: None
Genres: None
Warnings: Sexual Situations
Challenges:
Series: None
Chapters: 40 Completed: Yes Word count: 164308 Read: 58063 Published: 09/13/2011 Updated: 08/24/2012

1. Chapter 1 by Puddinhead

2. Chapter 2 by Puddinhead

3. Chapter 3 by Puddinhead

4. Chapter 4 by Puddinhead

5. Chapter 5 by Puddinhead

6. Chapter 6 by Puddinhead

7. Chapter 7 by Puddinhead

8. Chapter 8 by Puddinhead

9. Chapter 9 by Puddinhead

10. Chapter 10 by Puddinhead

11. Chapter 11 by Puddinhead

12. Chapter 12 by Puddinhead

13. Chapter 13 by Puddinhead

14. Chapter 14 by Puddinhead

15. Chapter 15 by Puddinhead

16. Chapter 16 by Puddinhead

17. Chapter 17 by Puddinhead

18. Chapter 18 by Puddinhead

19. Chapter 19 by Puddinhead

20. Chapter 20 by Puddinhead

21. Chapter 21 by Puddinhead

22. Chapter 22 by Puddinhead

23. Chapter 23 by Puddinhead

24. Chapter 24 by Puddinhead

25. Chapter 25 by Puddinhead

26. Chapter 26 by Puddinhead

27. Chapter 27 by Puddinhead

28. Chapter 28 by Puddinhead

29. Chapter 29 by Puddinhead

30. Chapter 30 by Puddinhead

31. Chapter 31 by Puddinhead

32. Chapter 32 by Puddinhead

33. Chapter 33 by Puddinhead

34. Chapter 34 by Puddinhead

35. Chapter 35 by Puddinhead

36. Chapter 36 by Puddinhead

37. Chapter 37 by Puddinhead

38. Chapter 38 by Puddinhead

39. Chapter 39 by Puddinhead

40. Epilogue by Puddinhead

Chapter 1 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
This is a sequel to “Yours, William,” which is archived on this site. I’d planned on writing an entirely different story, but this sequel crawled into my head and set up camp. So here it is! Final warning: It will be darker than “Yours,” and feature vampires, demons and slayers. There will be blood.

This is my second story and I have to start by saying thanks so much for the wonderful welcome you’ve given me. Spuffy fans > anything else in the world, even chocolate.

I’ve missed you. It’s great to be back writing again. Many thanks to Lutamira, MsJane and DoriansKitten for beta help. Love to hear what you think! And now, on with the show! (Said in the voice of Harold Zidler from ‘Moulin Rouge.’)

"Today is the greatest day I've ever known"
-Smashing Pumpkins-



Chapter 1

My Elizabeth could charm the very birds from the sky, William thought, before chiding himself for being so ridiculously sentimental. A grin spread across his face as he watched his wife from across the bustling Liverpool dock. She was chatting animatedly with the ice cream vendor as the large Italian man laughed and offered her another sample from his cart.

"William?" She called over the crowd, causing several people to cast disapproving looks over their shoulders. A lady didn’t shout at one’s husband in such a common fashion. A lady certainly wouldn’t converse freely with an ice cream vendor. And yet Elizabeth was quite happily doing both. Worse yet, he couldn’t have been enjoying himself more at the spectacle.

"William! The Hokey Pokey man says they have peach flavor. You’d prefer that to lemon, wouldn’t you?" And she had the audacity to grin at him wickedly.

"That would be fine, darling." He kept his voice somewhat below shouting level, attempting not to shock the crowd of porters and passengers bustling along the walkway.

"Peach for both of us then!" She yelled happily before turning to continue her conversation with the vendor.

He couldn't help but take a moment to admire the spectacle that was his wife: Elizabeth. She was wearing a beautiful linen gown of white and lime-green stripes, her golden locks just peaking out beneath a small hat adorned with yellow and green ribbons.

Upon further contemplation, he concluded that he had quite underestimated her charms. No, his bride was able to charm far more than the birds from the sky. His Elizabeth would surely put any woman to shame - real or mythical. Helen of Troy? She had nothing on his wife. Even the biblical Eve paled to her. Indeed, had his Elizabeth been in the Garden of Eden, matters would have ended quite differently. Once she'd talked Adam into eating that bit of fruit, she'd have convinced the serpent to join them as well. And when God himself came down, full of wrath and banishment, she'd have coaxed a smile from Him, charming Him into creating the idea of picnics and blankets and eventually joining His creation in tasting the fruit . Or, perhaps, ice cream.

"He also has chocolate!" Elizabeth's voice broke through, scattering his musings like a flock of sea birds. "Which flavor would you like, George?"

William heard a small gasp coming from behind him and turned to see the porter, half hidden behind the small hill of luggage strapped to the cart. A dark mop of black hair crowning a scrawny boy of no more than sixteen, whose name, apparently, was George. The porter looked at him a little helplessly and said, "Sir?"

"Oh, I cannot help you when it comes to my wife, George. I’m afraid you’re on your own, lad."

"Chocolate, lemon or peach, George?" Elizabeth shouted.

"Sir!" George repeated, almost desperately, in a carefully controlled Liverpudlian accent. "The lady cannot buy me a cornet of ice cream. I’m on duty, sir. And well, it’s just not..."

"It isn’t done," William said, not unkindly. "But my Elizabeth excels at doing that which should not or cannot be done. She does it quite regularly."

George nervously met William’s gaze, then dropped his eyes to the ground, blushing furiously.

"I suggest you call out a preference of ice cream or my wife may take it in mind to purchase one of each flavor for you."

George looked back to William, his mouth taking on a shocked "o" shape, before calling out, almost fiercely, "Lemon!"

William turned, partly so that poor George wouldn’t mistake William’s grin as taking pleasure in George’s own discomfort, but mostly so that he could admire the vision of his wife gathering up their ice creams and swishing through the crowd toward him. His face was beginning to hurt, just slightly, from smiling.

She handed a paper cone to William and then gestured toward the warehouse behind her.

"Mr. Bonetti told me of a wonderful shaded spot just behind the fugly building."

"The Hokey Pokey man is 'Mr. Bonetti' now, is he?" William laughed. "I thought by now you'd be on a first name basis with the man."

"The spot he mentioned has trees and a bench. If we have our ice creams there, we can watch the seagulls steal fish from the boats," Elizabeth said, sounding very pleased with her suggestion.

From behind him, William could hear George letting out a small sound - halfway between a squeak and a sigh. With a sigh of his own, William realized it was time to once again intervene between his wife and the nineteenth century.

"Darling, as wonderful as that idea is, I do believe George’s employer would take issue with him sitting down to have ice cream with us while he’s supposed to be escorting us to the ship."

She glanced down at the cone of lemon ice cream with a pout. Victorian working standards seemed to chafe terribly against her egalitarian nature, but she nodded in reluctant agreement. "George, I'll carry it for you until we're on the ship. But once we're on the ship, I'm going to have to insist that you have your treat."

Eager to get his charge to their destination, George nodded and once again nosed the luggage cart out into the throng milling about on the dock. The little party of three wove their way through the crowd, toward where their ship was docked.

"What can you tell us about our vessel, George?" William asked with genuine curiosity. "Have you been with her long?"

"Not long a‘tall, sir." George replied, his Scouse accent making the cadence of his words rise and fall in an almost musical manner. "Since this May. This’d be my third crossing."

William nodded, as the nervous boy pushed the cart over the uneven planking. The lad seemed to be relaxing, but only just a little, the longer he spoke.

"You’re on one of the stars of the White Star Line," George said.

Elizabeth came to a full stop. "White Star Line?" She asked, worriedly.

George stopped as well, looking over his shoulder to nod his confirmation.

"Oh, that would be just too perfect, wouldn’t it? If the movie that haunted my high school years followed me back in time."

George shot a puzzled glance to William, who remained stoically unmoved. These little episodes when Elizabeth would try to meld the 19th and 21st centuries came along often enough that they no longer alarmed him.

"Our ship isn't The Titanic, is it?" Elizabeth asked George, and then, before he could respond, she answered, mumbling quietly to herself, "Can’t be the Titanic! Leo and Kate had sex in a car and those certainly haven’t come along yet."

Unfortunately, Elizabeth's mumblings had just managed to be not quiet enough. William heard the sound of George sucking in air. And blinking. He could actually hear the lad blink.

William smiled and patted George on the back. "Well, then, that’s settled. What is the name of our ship again, George?"

"The Adriatic," George replied, his voice squeaky and unsure as he resumed leading their little group through the masses.

"Ah yes. Well I can understand my wife's confusion, as all of the White Star ships end in a similar fashion: The Baltic, The Germanic, The Britannic," William clarified.

"This ship-that-ends-in-ic has a good safety record though?" Elizabeth asked as she twined her fingers about, nervously. His wife actually looked worried. He was accustomed to her attitude of facing danger fearlessly. From home intruder to his uncle to London society, she took them all on without batting an eye. The woman he was looking at in this moment, so clearly filled with trepidation, was quite unlike the woman he knew. He moved beside her and slipped his arm about her waist - decorum and proper English gentleman be damned.

"Oh yes, Mrs. Pratt, very safe. The ship is actually quite un-..."

"Please, don't say ‘unsinkable," Elizabeth interrupted.

"I was going to say ‘unusual,’ ma’am." George continued, "She’s been recently retooled in the manner of The Oceanic. The first class cabins are placed amidships, which is much quieter and you’ll hear less turning of the ship's screw. She’s also got hot and cold running water in every cabin." George looked at Elizabeth with pride.

She flashed him a bright smile. "That does sound terribly modern, George."

He blushed furiously under the wattage of her smile, before blurting, "She’s got electricity too! A system of electric bells, by which you can ring for a porter or you can be called to dine."

"These modern conveniences stagger the mind!" Elizabeth shot a knowing smile to William as she listened to George expound on the wonders of The Adriatic.

As the throng on the dock began to thin out a bit, the object of George's affection came into view, tied up bright and gleaming on the dock. The ship really was a thing of beauty. Nine years old, and still touted as the pride of the White Star Line.

She was made of dark wood, with white cabins and decks topside. Four large masts were set out down the length of her, with a white and red smokestack settled midway between them. The lower gangway was thick with lines of people queuing up for third class. George led them on a wide curve around steerage and over to the gangway intended for first class.

As they approached the first class entrance, Elizabeth looked over her shoulder to the crowd entering the lower deck. "How many people are in third class, George?"

"A thousand, ma'am. And 166 in first class." George slowed down and stepped to one side, gesturing that they should take the lead on the gangplank.

Elizabeth slowed for a moment, looking at the long line winding around the dock toward steerage - her expression unreadable, before turning back to George. "And it's got enough life boats for everyone?"

"Yes, ma'am," George replied, as William reached out to take Elizabeth's arm in his, guiding his lady before him. George followed behind with the luggage.

Elizabeth shot a concerned smile to William as she placed her foot on the wooden bridge to the ship as she whispered. "I swear, this would go such much easier if I didn’t have Celine Dion warbling away in my mind's inner soundtrack."

William gave her that look. The look, was a very familiar to them both now. It said, "I don’t understand you, darling, but I’m certain you’ll fill me in on this later."

She was always making references to her other life, when she was 'Buffy' and not yet 'Elizabeth.' Sometimes he could infer her meaning, but most of the time, he could not. It was all right with him. He could wait. He would gather up these names and ideas that she dropped, small packages wrapped up in a mystery - like gifts. At the end of the day, as they readied for bed, he would carefully unpack them. Ask her what she meant. Quite often she would explain that she'd been referencing something that she referred to as a ‘moo-vee,’ which she described as a kind of play. Often she’d unwrap a musical gift, a song she had listened to during her day. And sometimes, the best times, he would unwrap a package to find that it was a memory from her life. He would sit back as she would tell him of her sister Dawn, or her mother, or the Skoo-bees; these were the brightest gifts she gave him.

"William?" He was jolted from his thoughts by the feel of her small and confident hand being placed inside his. "No more daydreaming. Our big adventure is waiting for us. And besides, George's ice cream is making a real mess down the front of my dress."

~*~

The first mate, dressed in a blindingly white uniform, was strategically stationed at the top of the gangplank. He gave a gentleman's nod to William, and William returned the acknowledgment. The deck was graced by a light breeze and it felt a world apart from the crush of the dockside crowd.

George maneuvered the luggage cart around William and murmured, "If you'll just follow me, sir."

George led them along the starboard promenade, which was shaded by a lateral extension of the upper deck. The fittings were all brass, polished to a bright shine.

As they passed a pair of public rooms, Elizabeth asked, "Is that a barber shop?"

"Oh, yes Ma'am," George answered with pride. "The Adriatic has a barber shop, bathing rooms, a smoking-room, a bar and two lounges."

"You wouldn't happen to have a library on board, would you?" Buffy questioned.

"In a manner of speaking, Mrs. Pratt. The forward lounge has the largest selection of books. It's quite close to your cabin, actually."

"And the crossing will really take ten days?"

"Yes, Ma'am, give or take a day on either side. But she usually makes the trip in ten - just as advertised. Captain Parsell has a reputation where that is concerned."

The passage was becoming narrower at this point - a tidy line of numbered doors indicated that they had moved away from the public rooms and towards the private cabins, though they were still solidly amidship. Just toward the end of the row, George stopped his cart before room seventeen, starboard side, and pulled open the latch with a bit of a flourish. The boy grinned down at Elizabeth and said with pride, "Your cabin, Mrs. Pratt." Looking at William, he stuttered with a bit of panic, "And...er...Mr. Pratt."

As he made his way past the boy, William leaned down and whispered reassuringly in George's ear, "Please don't concern yourself. She has precisely the same effect on me."

George entered the room last, hoisting the luggage cart over the raised threshold with a grunt. "If you'd allow me to kindly show you some of the features of your cabin," he offered.

Elizabeth slid past the men, no easy feat in the narrow cabin, and closed the door behind them. "George, I've been patient with you, so far. But I'm going to have to insist..."

George looked at her, puzzled.

"Your ice cream! It's been waiting for you and it's becoming somewhat drippy."

George shot a hopeful glance to William.

"There's no hope for it, lad. Might as well enjoy your ice cream," William said with a grin.

A visibly relieved Elizabeth thrust the dripping paper cone into George's hands as she slid past him to explore the far end of the room.

"I'm supposed to tell you about the features of the room," George protested, but without much force.

"For now, we'll explore on our own. Enjoy your ice cream." Elizabeth replied, brooking no argument.

The room was small, ten feet long by eight feet across, but beautifully appointed. The walls were covered in mahogany, adorned with several oil lamps. The floor was covered in a thick carpet of blue and gold stripes. In the far corner was a small mahogany wardrobe; next to that, strapped to the wall, was a small folding table and two camp chairs. In the other far corner of the room was a small wash stand with, as promised by George, taps for hot or cold water. The wall which bordered the hallway had two low tables, complete with straps, presumably for storing trunks. Along this wall were a series of hooks and life vests were strapped near the door.

Just across from the door was a portal, far larger than William was accustomed to. The portal faced the sea and would afford them privacy. Just beneath the portal, and taking up most of the floor space, was the bed, adorned with a blue and gold covering; it was both smaller and higher than a standard sized bed. A mahogany lee board ran the exterior length of the bed, which would provide security during stormy seas, but would make entering and exiting the bed somewhat problematic.

A problem, he reasoned, that could be easily solved if they simply never left the bed. He must remember to offer up this solution to Elizabeth.

William busied himself unloading the top two trunks from the luggage cart and arranging several of the smaller packages that Elizabeth had purchased while in Liverpool. By the time he'd sorted through his satchel, George had finished his ice cream; Elizabeth took the paper cone and discarded it in the small waste bin.

"George, could you please place the two larger trunks in the hold?" William asked.

"With pleasure, sir," George gushed, a little too zealously. "That is to say, thank you, sir...ma'am. I don't know when I've enjoyed my job more." George said, blushing furiously at his own boldness and backing toward the door.

"Thank you, George. I'm sure we'll be seeing more of you on the trip," Elizabeth waved an enthusiastic goodbye to him and George hoisted the luggage cart over the threshold and left the cabin, closing the door behind him.

They spent the next hour sorting through their luggage and arranging things inside the cabin. Since space was limited, it was critical to only leave out necessities, storing the remainder in the trunks that were strapped to the wall.

As he'd finished his own unpacking, he watched as Elizabeth carefully hung her dresses in the small wardrobe at the foot of their bed. She was deep in thought, smoothing out the folds of a blue and green frock.

"What is it, Elizabeth? You appear to be concerned about something. Earlier you'd expressed reservations regarding the seaworthiness of the vessel. Is that bothering you?"

She flashed her gaze to him, her lips held in a reassuring smile. "It's not that at all."

"What is it then?" he pressed.

"It's these dresses. I know that we're supposed to wear black and be in mourning and all - since the death of your mom. It's the way you people do things."

"You say 'you people' as though we English are a kind of tribe."

She bit her lip and raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. And she still looked concerned.

He moved to her side and touched her cheek gently with his fingertips. "Darling, we've spoken of this at length. We could not have been wed had we maintained mourning. It simply, well, it would not be done. It's a decision we did not come to lightly and one that I do not regret. My concern is that you are regretting it."

"I just don't want you to think that we're forgetting your mother."

"We're not, my love. But we needn’t wear costumes in order to remember my mother. These customs are not carved in stone. The vast majority of mourning practices are a matter of fashion. They came along with Queen Victoria and will likely leave with her as well."

He tucked his hand beneath her chin and pulled gently, so that she looked directly at him.

"Mother is part of the warp and weave of our life's fabric. You couldn't pull a thread without finding her there. We carry her with us every day and we will continue to honor her in our way - not in the way society dictates. We tend to not do a great many things that society tells us to do. Please, darling, no regrets."

She smiled at him and nodded. As she lifted the gown to place it in the wardrobe, she dislodged a parcel wrapped in brown paper.

"Oh, there it is. I'd been wondering where it had gotten to." Elizabeth gave a sigh of relief.

"What would that be?"

"Our wedding photo!" She began to unwrap the package eagerly.

He couldn't help but chuckle. "Sweetling, I know you're terribly fond of the photograph, but I'm not certain that a ship's cabin is the ideal place to display it. I fear we'd be forever dodging it as the waves would send it flying from one end of the room to the other."

"I'm not a complete idiot, William." She rolled her eyes, then pulled open the cabin door and slipped out onto the deck. Rather than follow her, William finished strapping Elizabeth's trunk to the wall and busied himself checking the remaining wall straps.

In just a few moments, Elizabeth reentered the room with a red-faced George close behind. She was mid-conversation and William only caught the last bit. "...which is why I thought of you, George. Because I'm sure someone has had this problem before."

"Yes, ma'am. If you could just let me know what the problem is..." George trailed off, helplessly.

"Our wedding photo," Elizabeth replied. "If we set it out on top of anything, it will end up zooming around the room and making a mess. And there's no way to hang it on the wall either."

George watched her, wide-eyed.

"So...how do we do it?"

"Do it?" George repeated.

"How can we display it?" Elizabeth looked at George as though displaying the wedding photo was a crucial factor in the voyage - just possibly more critical to the journey than working steam engines.

Desperate to please, George looked around the room. "A gentleman on a previous voyage had a similar situation regarding several maps that he wished to display. You might do what he did, if you don’t mind an unusual solution, Mrs. Pratt," he began nervously.

"Unusual solutions are our absolute favorite thing. We specialize in them. What have you got, George?"

George gestured toward the low ceiling, where several pipes ran along the length of their cabin.

"If you would be amenable to afixing the photograph to one of these pipes, I would think that it would be quite secure for the journey, Ma'am. It would be displayed on the ceiling rather than the wall, however, which would be..."

"Brilliant, George!" Elizabeth patted him on the back with such enthusiasm that George stuttered forward a step. "And we can have a perfect view of it while we're in bed, William."

Although William would have thought it impossible for George to have blushed a more crimson shade of red, the boy somehow managed to accomplish it all the same.

"How should we...you know, afix it?" Elizabeth queried.

After a brief pause, George spoke. "I've some twine I use for luggage. It's quite crude, but you're most welcome to it." After digging in his pocket, he produced a roll of thick twine.

"Oh George, I don't know how to thank you!" Elizabeth leaned over and gave the boy a tight hug.

Following such an embrace with a lady, George was left with no words at all. His mouth hung open - a forgotten garden gate.

Photograph and twine in hand, Elizabeth climbed up on the bed and proceeded to place the portrait just above where they would lie. With the low ceiling, there wasn't quite room for her to stand, so she knelt on the bed as she set to her task, winding the twine around the edges of the photograph.

George moved toward the cabin door.

"George? Don't you want your string back?" William asked.

"Oh, no sir. Your missus is welcome to it. Most welcome," he stammered. "But I must get on with my duties, sir."

"Indeed, George. My gratitude again," William replied, as George gave a brief nod and hastily backed out of the room.

William admired his wife as she stretched up to tie a length of twine to the portrait. Her movements pulled her bodice tightly across her breasts and it afforded William a most pleasant view.

"I could assist you with that, darling," he said, already knowing what her response would be.

"I've got it well under control, husband. But thanks for your chauvinism, I mean chivalry, all the same." She grinned widely at him as she tied off her final knot and collapsed back down onto the bed to admire her handiwork.

"Oh William, come here," she gestured excitedly.

Join his wife? In bed? William couldn't quite move fast enough, lifting his legs over the troublesome lee board with an ease that surprised him.

He settled in beside her, tucking one arm about her waist, as he lay back to join her in admiring the photograph - their wedding portrait, taken a mere three days prior. They'd arranged to visit the studio immediately following the ceremony. The wedding itself had been small and circumspect, held at a Scottish church just on the outskirts of Liverpool. It had been a necessity to have a wedding outside of his church - to have married Elizabeth immediately following the death of his mother would have simply not been done in his own parish.

So they'd waited until they'd arrived in Liverpool and found an agreeable congregation of Scots Presbyterians who were more than happy to accommodate the couple. He'd feared desperately that his bride would be disappointed with the simplicity of the affair, but Elizabeth seemed nothing short of delighted by the brief ceremony. Her enthusiasm for the event had delighted the vicar and his wife. She was so charming, in fact, that the vicar's wife managed to throw together a small reception in her parlor on short notice. After they'd nibbled on shortbread and punch, they'd chatted up the few congregants who had shown up at the ceremony and then arrived for their scheduled wedding portrait on High Street - a short walk from their hotel.

As he looked at the photograph, he leaned over to brush a kiss against his wife's cheek.

"You do like the picture, after all, don't you?" she asked.

"Very much, Elizabeth," he murmured.

And he did. Though the photographer protested throughout Elizabeth's endless suggestions, in the end, his wife charmed the befuddled man into taking the portrait exactly the way she'd envisioned.

The portrait itself was slightly unusual for the time - just as the couple it represented were two or three steps out of sync with Victorian society. For in this portrait, the couple did not wear solemn expressions; the bride was not demurely seated upon a chair with her husband standing behind her, his hands upon her shoulders as though she might bolt at any moment.

This bride and groom were standing, side-by-side, with clasped hands. The groom was not wearing a hat; indeed, his hair was curly and unruly enough to suggest that it had been quite recently mussed by an overenthusiastic wife. The bride's hair was even more unsettling; instead of being tied back in a proper bun, it was flowing down, arranged in no style at all. And these oddities weren't even the most remarkable aspect of the portrait. Not at all.

The thing that really set it apart was the expression on the faces of both bride and groom. They were looking into the camera and beaming blindingly bright smiles.

William chucked to himself. It was odd, it was simply not done, and it was bloody marvelous.

Elizabeth tucked her head just beneath his chin and nudged the tip of her nose under his jaw line. When she leaned in to give him a gentle, suckling kiss, he felt the air whoosh out of his chest - absolutely powerless to her.

"The ship will set sail in just under an hour. It should be quite a spectacle," William said, more out of duty than from a desire to see the said spectacle. He had desires, oh yes, but not the kind that had to do with ships.

"There's to be the traditional firing of some kind of gun," he continued. "A once in a lifetime event, not to be missed. And the throngs on the docks become quite celebratory and will..."

Elizabeth bit the tip of his earlobe gently, which effectively swept all ship-related thoughts far out to sea.

"You know," she purred, "I do believe our door locks, Mr. Pratt."

William sighed. "It would seem to be a standard feature which we should...test."

She slid her hand down the length of his chest, leisurely, before sliding her clever fingertips just beneath his shirt.

"And...the bed." William said, his mind becoming muddled in the fog of desire. "It would be prudent to...gah!" She ran her fingertips across his abdomen, teasing his tensing muscles with the slightest pressure from her fingernails.

"Prudent to...gah?" Elizabeth teased.

"To test...the bed...for..."

"For safety?" she suggested.

"Exactly so," he said, as he reluctantly climbed over the lee board to slide the door's locking mechanism into place.

Elizabeth sat up in bed and removed her hair from its bun, as was her habit when they were alone. She kept her gaze steadily upon him as she began to slowly undo the buttons of her bodice, a secret smile playing at her lips. Watching her, he felt phenomenal joy and a feeling of overwhelming gratitude at the fantastic luck he'd been given. That an unremarkable man such as he would be granted this kind of wife, this kind of life.

He placed his hand on his chest, just to steady himself, the silly romantic fool that he was. His Elizabeth was watching him still, but she didn't mind, didn't see him as a fool. Her smiled only widened at the gesture.

As he climbed over the troublesome lee board, he knew that there could not be on the face of the whole earth a man more contented than he. He slid into her arms, back home where he belonged, and the faint sounds of the farewell celebration caught on a breeze and carried through their cabin walls.

~*~

Just below them, on the Liverpool docks, within a tightly-packed group of crates, a creature waited.

The creature had chosen this temporary tomb, this crude wooden crate, but had chosen it only out of necessity, only out of the promised (hungry, so hungry) reward. The Shining Man had promised; the creature had chosen.

The crate was painstakingly constructed to carefully conceal what was hidden inside. It featured two thicknesses of wood, so it would be impossible to glimpse the contents, even through a crack in the planks. But even with no window to the world, the creature could tell where it was - exactly where it intended to be. The smell of ocean and of sweating men confirmed that it was waiting on the Liverpool docks (and hot, so hot, but mustn’t make a sound).

The creature could feel the box being jolted and then slammed roughly down on its side before being lifted, apparently by two men - one at either end of the crate. The creature repositioned itself (but carefully, carefully) while the container was hoisted down a series of stairs and turns.

Eventually, with a loud thud, the crate was slammed to the ground (mustn’t cry out, mustn’t make a sound) before being slid across a few feet of floor. After a few more thuds, the creature could hear the sound of men's footsteps, thumping away.

It was cooler here. Darker too, the creature could tell. Moving to the corner, the creature sat down, back against the wood. No longer uncomfortable with heat, consumed instead with that steady throbbing (so very hungry) that always beat steadily away from within it's core. The hunger, with sharp teeth (spiny legs of sharpest glass), crawled up the creature’s throat. Oh, the creature had a creature of it's own, living down inside: the constant, pitiless hunger.

And the creature waited in the dark, listened to the sound of its hunger and waited. (Soon now, the Shining Man promised, time to feed and feed and feed.)
End Notes:
Author's note: Ice cream was the rage in Victorian England, and vendors were primarily recent Italian immigrants, who were called Hokey Pokey men because of their call for ice cream was “Gelati, ecco un poco!”

With any luck, here you will see a photo of The Adriatic. I don't think I've taken any liberties at all where the ship's description is involved. She had many journeys between Liverpool and New York City in 1880 and I feel pretty certain that Elizabeth and William were on board for the August 13 sailing. :)

Chapter 2 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Much thanks to Lutamira, DoriansKitten and MsJane for beta'ing this for me!
All this wind will travel somewhere
Far away perhaps to blow your
Hair aside to reveal your eyes,
Green as the purest rock moss.

-The Lonely Forest-


Chapter 2

"If you'd stop wriggling so much, it would be easier for me to put it in," William said, his voice tense with exasperation.

"Well, it hurts!" Elizabeth whined.

“Once it's in, it won't hurt so much. And darling, if we don't finish this soon, we'll be late for dinner.”

“Fine, I just don't understand why it has to be so hard.” She sighed deeply in capitulation. “I'm ready for it. Do me.”

William chuckled, as he pinned the last strand of hair in place, completing her chignon. “You do approach getting your hair styled as something akin to being ravaged by a beast, love.”

“Monsters? Bring 'em on. They’re a breeze compared to hair torture. As if gloves and hats and those irritating buttons on shoes weren’t bad enough…”

She caught herself, and reached up to run her fingers gently down the back of his hand. “Not to be ungrateful. If I had eyes in the back of my head, I'm sure I'd tell you that it looks terrific, William. It's just that sometimes I miss ponytails.”

She stood up and smoothed out her skirts, smiling up at him.

“You're a vision, Elizabeth.” She was, but then, she always was. Tonight, however, she was resplendent - dressed in one of his favorites: the rose patterned gown. The skirt, not overly full, accented her tight bodice; the pink and red rosebud pattern highlighted by green leaves brought out her emerald eyes in the most enticing way.

“You're pretty dashing yourself, Mr. Pratt. I love you in this grey suit.” She reached around and pinched his ass, firmly. She was always full of surprises, his Elizabeth.

Brrrng....brrrng. Two short bursts from the bell atop their door startled them both.

Elizabeth laughed. “You know, when George told me the ship was electrified, I thought it meant we wouldn't have to mess around with oil lamps any longer. To have the bragging rights of 'electricity' and only use it for a system of bells just seems kind of silly.

“That's the second call to dinner.” He adjusted his ivory cravat before opening their cabin door. “I'm afraid we'll be amongst the last to arrive. Are you ready to depart, love?”

She nodded and stepped out into the hall; William closed the cabin door behind them and took her arm in his. Although they were well past the shores of Ireland, a thick evening fog had begun to reach tendrils up through the interior of the ship, shrouding the hallway in mist. The gentle rocking of the waves forced them to step cautiously as they made their way up the hallway toward the front of the ship and the sounds of people's voices.

The dining saloon ran the entire width of the bow end and glowed brightly, even through the thick mist. The last few stragglers were just slipping through the entrance when they approached the door. Elizabeth inhaled slightly and then let out her breath in a long, slow sigh.

“You'll do wonderfully.” He patted her arm comfortingly.

“Wonderfully-schmunderfully. I can say what I like around you or George, but the stuffed-shirt crowd intimidates the crap out of me. I'm constantly worried that I'm going to greet a person the wrong way, or poke a food item with the wrong fork.”

“As long as you don't greet the food and poke people with a fork, you'll do fine, Elizabeth. And I’m always proud of you. You know that,” he reassured.

She squeezed his arm tightly in response. “I'm still going to go with my usual battle plan of 'say little and keep my head down'.”

“You’ll charm them all. You’re certain to be the talk of the ship in no time.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she grumbled. “And when you say prophetic-sounding things like that, it gives me the willies.”

The head steward, a fussy blonde man with impressive mutton chops, greeted them with a deep bow. “Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Pratt.”

“How could you possibly know who we are?” Elizabeth blurted, incredulously, her battle plan for the evening momentarily forgotten.

“It's my duty to know all our passengers,” the head steward said, in a slightly affronted tone. “Please allow me to show you to your table.”

Elizabeth stepped in behind the steward, and William followed closely behind.

The dining saloon was quite magnificent, lined in mahogany panels and adorned with brass oil lamps. Coal burning fireplaces were set within marble mantles, giving off the illusion of a grand country home. They wove through luxuriously set tables, around which were seated resplendently dressed men and women, involved in animated conversation.. William could feel several sets of eyes upon them, curious and assessing.

The steward led them to a table toward the back of the room, near a large port-side window. As the other diners were already seated, William nodded a greeting and attempted to pull out Elizabeth's chair. When it remained cemented in place, a soft murmur of laughter rose from the table.

“They're bolted down,” a kind voice said. It belonged to a well-dressed man in his mid-thirties, seated to William's immediate right. He had dark curly hair and dark eyes surrounded by laugh lines. “The chairs quite fooled me as well.”

“I shall just have to manage sitting down all by myself,” Elizabeth said with a grin. “You said this would be an adventure, William, but I had no idea I'd need to learn so many new skills.”

The kind man laughed heartily. “I can see our late-to-arrive companions are going to make it worth our while. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Dr. Crowdner, and this is my wife, Jane,” he said, gesturing towards the petite blonde seated beside him.

“Pleased to meet you. William Pratt,” William said with a slight bow, “and this is my wife, Elizabeth. Please forgive our late arrival.”

Since the first course was in the process of being served, William and Elizabeth seated themselves hastily and made quick introductions to the other diners. Besides the Crowdners, there were two German couples traveling together: the Pollweins and the Sturcbechers. The Lovells, Daniel and Elizabeth, were seated immediately to Elizabeth's left. He was a handsome man in his mid-thirties, and easily ten years senior to his wife, who, with raven hair and white skin, had the appearance of a porcelain doll. The pair of them were quite over-dressed, more appropriate to having an audience with the Queen than dining on a steam ship. Probably Americans, William surmised.

As soon as they were seated, a waiter whisked the first course before them: a version of potage à la reine with a remarkably rich broth.

“It seems that Elizabeth Pratt shall ruin your plans, Dr. Crowdner,” Elizabeth Lovell said, giving the doctor a bright smile.

“I did what now?” Elizabeth Pratt asked, looking around the table in confusion.

Dr. Crowdner smiled at her reassuringly. “Mrs. Pratt, I had suggested that we do away with formalities. Since we’ll be dining together nightly, I’d thought it might do to use our Christian names,” he said in an upper-class English accent. “Hope isn’t lost, however. This problem could be solved most efficiently if either of you ladies had a nickname.”

“I've never had a nickname,” porcelain doll Elizabeth said softly, but stopping hard on her r's. Yes, they were most definitely Americans.

“I don't have a nickname you could use either,” Elizabeth Pratt said. “I was once called 'Bessie' for a short time, but I don't think that would work. It seems like a name for a cow, and I much prefer dining rooms to pastures.”

There was a moment of silence before Dr. Crowdner laughed heartily; he was quickly joined by several others. “Very well then. We shall name you numerically: Elizabeth the First and Elizabeth the Second.”

His Elizabeth grinned. “I take it that I'm 'the Second'?”

Dr. Crowdner raised his wine glass to her in a toast, “I'm afraid that's the penalty for being tardy to dinner, Mrs. Pratt. Second in line to the throne.” The ship bobbed a little more aggressively than usual, causing a splash of wine to escape his glass.

Once the introductions had been made and the Elizabeths sorted out, several of the diners began talking amongst themselves, the Germans proving to be quite conversant in English. Since the topic centered around the surprisingly fine quality of the meals thus far, the Pratts remained silent, as they had foregone lunch in favor an extended session of love-making.

The waiter soon replaced the soup with the next course, fried sole in tomato sauce. The ship pitched and yawed, providing the waiter with a challenge, yet he managed to leave the white tablecloth in pristine condition.

Jane Crowdner spoke up, saying in a soft and carefully modulated voice, “Mr. Pratt, you must tell us what brings you and your wife on a journey across the Atlantic.”

In between bites of fish, William gave the table a very brief biography of William and Elizabeth Pratt – leaving out such 'small details' as being cut off from his inheritance and the fact that he'd just wed his former maid. He concentrated, instead, upon the venture they were undertaking: their partnership in a California winery. The Crowdners seemed delighted by their similar circumstance, as they were leaving England so that Dr. Crowdner could join an established practice in Virginia.

When William caught his wife smiling he followed her gaze across the room to see George the porter. The lad was smartened up and wearing a waiter's uniform, serving at the far end of the saloon. Elizabeth’s hand rose of its own volition, ready to give him a friendly wave, when she caught herself and returned it to her lap.

She gave him a look which said, It would be so much easier to talk to George!.

Perhaps, but you’re doing splendidly,
his eyes told her.

Dr. Crowdner interrupted their unspoken conversation with a burst of laughter. “William and Elizabeth the Second, you are a most perplexing pair. You have the look of a pair of doe-eyed honeymooners, and yet you communicate in the fashion of old marrieds. Which is it, the Second?”

Elizabeth beamed a grin towards the good doctor. “Could it be a little bit of both? We are newlyweds and yet, it quite seems as if I've known him for over a hundred years.”

Elizabeth the First graced them with a smile. “Oh, Daniel and I are just returning from our own honeymoon. Three months in Italy and France. You must tell me all about your wedding. I'm certain that it was terribly grand.”

“Oh, it was a very small affair,” the Second said, as she concentrated upon pushing bits of fish around her plate. “Not much to tell, really.”

“What about your gown? I must know details,” the First enthused, continuing to press.

“Oh, it was...you know, white. And it had these sleeves which poofed,” his Elizabeth said vaguely. Her dress had been purchased ready-made, and although William thought her a vision in it, he was perfectly aware of what others would think of such a gown.

Elizabeth the First had a very dissatisfied expression on her face. Sensing that she was being terribly disappointing, his Elizabeth changed course and turned the tables on her interrogator. “Why don't you tell me about your gown, instead?”

The First was quite happy to comply and launched into an intimate description of her wedding gown. By the time the waiter had replaced the course with braised ham, she was still carrying on about the dress, clearly building up to her pièce de résistance. “And the designer was Charles Frederick Worth,” she announced.

Elizabeth smiled politely. “That sounds wonderful.”

“Worth,” the First said it again, because it clearly hadn't had the desired impact the first time around. “The premier fashion designer. He designs for Sarah Bernhardt. I was terrified that he wouldn't be able to work my gown into his schedule. His normal waiting list takes eighteen months.”

“It's great that he had room for you on his abnormal list then,” Elizabeth the Second said, as she took a sip of water and cast a 'help me' glance at William.

There was an uncomfortable lull in the conversation and the ship dipped on another particularly aggressive wave, causing water to splash from the goblets. William had hoped desperately that the First would lose interest in his poor wife, but the American kept looking toward the pair of them and smiling politely.

“Oh, is that your wedding ring?” the First asked, gesturing toward his wife's hand.

“Yes.”

“A small sapphire. How very...unusual. Such a frugal husband would be a most practical match, I'm sure,” the First soothed.

“Oh, I assure you, he's most generous in all the ways that a new bride would want a husband to be,” his wife reassured, nodding most emphatically.

Elizabeth the First sat in stunned silence, her jaw falling open in a manner that rather made her resemble a sea bass.

With the American Elizabeth effectively stunned into silence, his wife would be able to dine, at least. He noticed, however, that she still only managed to push food around on her plate. Her color was off as well; she appeared paler than usual and kept stealing worried glances at William through lowered lashes.

“Are you quite feeling all right, love?” William murmured to her, while the rest of the table was distracted by the waiter, who was clearing the table to make way for the next course.

“Fine, William. I'll be fine.”

But her pale complexion said otherwise and he didn't believe her for an instant.

~*~

Down in the aft cargo hold, the creature waited (hungry like sharp knives in the gullet). Curled up on her side on the floor, looking into blackest nothing (and waiting, waiting).

She had company, dark little friends lined up on the floor of her crate. She could feel them in the dark - one, two, three and four, pretty maids all in a row. They were quiet now, but then, they were always quiet before the Shining Man appeared. He demanded silence from the lot of them and they were good little girls all.

She drew her knees in, holding them tightly to her stomach (and the aching throat, so thirsty). The Shining Man would come because the Shining Man would not lie. He'd told her of the box, hadn't he? He’d shown her a vision of the world that was to be; the world of dark delights which he could help her fashion. And so she did what he said; she pushed the hunger down back her throat and waited for him (won’t say a word).

When she first saw the glimmer of light, she thought it was a dream (pretty pictures but they don't take away the hunger), but then the light shimmered and waved before snapping into place with an audible POP!

He appeared as he always did – a shining bluish image (her celestial savior, her Shining Man) that wavered and flickered (and danced so prettily). The tall, dark-haired man in the hologram looked around the crate with an intense glare, before settling upon her location in the dark.

His lips cracked into a grin, as he leaned toward her and said, “Help me Obi Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.”

When she remained silent, the Shining Man stood up and rolled his eyes in disgust. “See – that joke would have killed back home. That's the problem with working with people from your generation. You don't get any of my references.”

She said nothing. (But the hunger it bites and burns)

“Oh, don't look at me that way. I know you're hungry. This isn't any picnic for me either, sister. But you know that bitch that sent me here?” The hologram shimmered; the Shining Man's voice a wave of pure rage. “The dirty little cunt that ruined everything? Well, it's time for her to get hers. And I can't, you know, do that and take care of your dining issues at the same time.”

The creature held back a whimper in response. But that wasn't good enough, not nearly good enough, and the Shining Man roared – his image growing as bright as his anger.

“Goddamned demanding females! Even in the afterlife, I can’t get away from your fucking, incessant nagging. Do you think I want to leave you hungry? Do you think I like exacting revenge?” He paused, settling a bit. “Well, actually, I do kind of like that last part. I like it a lot. But I can't be everywhere at the same time. The afterlife's floor isn't exactly littered with dilithium crystals and I can't have Scottie beaming me in and out of everywhere I need to be. Even my kind of power has its limits.”

(But soon. Please, soon. A feeding. The hunger.)

“Tomorrow. You'll be free from your crate by tomorrow.”

The creature looked at him, her eyes swimming with tears of gratitude. The Shining Man returned her gaze with cold, dead eyes.

“In the meantime, keep thinking positive. You're the main part of the plan, kiddo. Just have a little patience and try to stop nagging me!” He paused before adding “Ha, ha. Just kidding. You're great. You'll see. Tomorrow night, you'll get out of here and feed and we'll get on with the plan. You remember the plan, don't you?”

She nodded. Oh, she remembered. A future that was glorious and terrifying, enough to make the angels weep (and the pretty maids – crying lovely fat tears). Oh yes. That vision would be worth it, worth what she'd given up, worth the crate, worth the terrible unending hunger. Just one more night.

She lay back down on her side, holding back the tears, holding back the hunger. She could endure this. She could endure anything for the terrifying and beautiful future. Dizzy with the thought of it, she closed her eyes. And waited for tomorrow night (good girl, silent as the grave).

~*~

By the time the dessert course was served, the rolling of the ship had become so severe that even the seasoned waiters were having difficulty navigating the saloon.

The Adriatic rolled and yawed, causing the oil lamps to flicker and dim. Idle chitchat came to a halt, not just at their table, but all around the room, as the diners concentrated on keeping their plates and silverware on the table.

Elizabeth did not lift a fork to her plum tart, however. Her eyes were firmly trained on the far wall, her complexion the color of spoiled milk.

“Darling, are you feeling unwell?” William asked again.

“A little barfy,” she mumbled back. When he gave her a blank look, she clarified. “A little sea-sick, William. I think I’d better leave.”

William excused the pair of them from the table. It had rapidly become evident to all that Elizabeth the Second was in some distress and so their fellow diners said hasty farewells. As they made their way from the room, he could see that Elizabeth wasn't alone in being affected by the pitching of the ship. At least a dozen passengers were making their way toward the exit, all of them looking quite green around the gills.

Just as they reached the door, William felt a tapping on his shoulder. When he turned around, he was surprised to see George, wearing his usual expression of perpetual slight embarrassment.

“Sir?” George held out a napkin which had been neatly folded. “If it's not too forward of me, I noticed your missus wasn't feeling well. Ginger biscuits might be just the thing.”

William smiled at George, and placed the napkin in the pocket of his suit coat.

Elizabeth managed a weak smile. “Thank you, George. It's very thoughtful of you.”

“Not at all, ma'am. Also, it helps to keep your gaze fixed on the horizon, if you don't mind my saying so.” And with a quick bow, George turned and made his way back into the kitchen.

The moment they stepped out of the saloon, Elizabeth placed her hand up to her mouth, and spun sharply to her left, rushing toward the starboard promenade deck. Once she reached the iron rails, she leaned over the side and vomited. William followed closely behind, unsure of quite what to do. He could see several other seasick passengers some distance away suffering the same fate.

After a few moments, she turned around, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth. “Dramamine,” she muttered inexplicably, before turning around to lean over the rails again.

After a few more moments of retching, she quieted, but remained slouched over the side of the ship. He placed his hand on the back of her neck. “Better now?” he asked.

“I think so.”

He took her arm and they returned to the main hallway, the thick mist combined with the rocking of the ship to cause them to bump against the walls of the narrow passage. Glowing orbs of oil lamps dipped and danced with the rolling of the waves.

Once inside their cabin, she gave him a doleful smile. “At least I can’t throw up any more tonight. There’s nothing left.”

She went to the wash basin and ran the tap for a moment, before scooping up a small handful of water and rinsing out her mouth.

He was going to ask if she wished to go to bed, but before he could form the question, she’d already begun to undress. She was in a great hurry, as she left her dress on the floor where it fell and began to slip out of her underthings.

He turned and shrugged out of his jacket, laying his clothes out on his trunk. When he was nearly undressed, he looked to ask her a question regarding breakfast, but the thought flew immediately out of his head. She was sitting in the center of the bed, completely nude. Moonlight spilled in from the portal window splashing a bluish light upon her breasts, which rose and fell as she moved her arms, carefully undoing her hair. She was Aphrodite incarnate, his wife.

“Shit, stupid goddamn hair,” his goddess cursed, struggling with a hair pin. A grumpy and seasick deity, but his Aphrodite all the same.

He shed his remaining clothes as quickly as possible and didn’t bother with nightclothes as sleeping in the nude was their custom. By the time he'd joined her, she'd finished undressing her hair and had pulled back the covers for him.

As he lay beside her, she tucked her head beneath his chin. He wrapped his arms about her, tracing gentle circles on her back, the way she liked him to do whenever she was unwell or restless.

“I was going to bring you back here and seduce you,” she grumbled.

“You 'seduced' me before we even set sail, love. Twice.”

“Still, not much of a honeymoon when your wife gets all yacky on her first night at sea” Her voice was growing thick, as it did when she'd had too much wine or was especially sleepy. Wise husband that he was, he said nothing, and continued to soothe her back with gentle strokes.

Her breathing evened out in no time at all, her muscles growing slack as she fell into slumber.

Sleep didn't come for him quite so quickly; now that he was alone with his thoughts, the significance of the day's events began to settle down in his mind. He couldn't help but contemplate the life he was leaving behind and the life in California he was sailing toward.

His wife twitched next to him, lost in a dream.

“Fucking bugs,” she grumbled. His mysterious, amazing wife. He was quite used to her talking in her sleep. She'd done it since the first night they'd been together. Usually it was something from their shared past. Sometimes it was something from her far past – when she was Buffy and she knew him as Spike. And sometimes it was something else, entirely.

“Sears, where America shops,” she mumbled.

Apparently tonight her sleep talking was going to fall into the 'something else entirely' category.

As he began to drift off to sleep, he thought about the man he'd been a mere six months prior – before she'd burst into his life. He'd been living a milquetoast existence, a man afraid of life, afraid of love – and so lost in everyone else's expectations that he didn’t know who he was. Then she'd come along, burst into his life and torn down the walls. She’d shown him himself and remade the man.

He stroked her hair, feeling a wave of contentment wash over him.

She'd saved him from that life – the one he hadn’t known that he didn't want. She’d saved him from himself, and every day she continued to remake his world. Every night she saved him.

And with that thought, he fell into slumber – oblivious to anything else that his Elizabeth might say to him in her dreaming.
Chapter 3 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Many thanks to DoriansKitten, Lutamira and MsJane for beta help.
I'm coming apart at the seams
Pitching myself for leads in people's dreams
Now buzz, buzz, buzz
Doc, there's a hole where something was
Doc, there's a hole where something was
-Fall Out Boy-




Chapter 3

Buffy knew she was dreaming the instant she found herself standing in the grubby waiting room. The bzzt bzzt bzzt of the blinking florescent light kept an uneven beat with the tinny warbling of Madonna singing “Borderline” through a cheap Muzak system.

She was standing in front of a display of tires lining the wall; their rubbery scent permeated the room. Just beneath the row of tires was a line of grimy plastic chairs, bolted to the wall. On a low table next to the chairs was a scattering of skuzzy magazines which were hosting a small colony of alarmingly large insects, crawling across the titles in a drunken line. She shuddered and she took an involuntary step backward.

“Fucking bugs,” she mumbled, as she turned around.

The wall behind her was taken up by a dirt-streaked service counter. Just behind that, tacked to the faded wood paneling were two signs, the smallest of which proudly proclaimed “Accident Free for 1 Days!” The larger sign read “Sears – Automotive” in a particularly obnoxious shade of blue.

“Sears, where America shops,” Buffy muttered. Figures that she'd finally get a mall dream only to end up in the worst place a mall had to offer: a craptastic waiting room in the Sears’ tire department.

This was so not going to happen.

She turned to leave only to find that the exit didn't appear to be on the far side of the room. Turning back around to the counter, a little more slowly this time, she found that this side of the room didn't appear to have an exit either.

Bzzzt! The florescent light spat, causing Buffy to jump up with a start. It flickered, then dimmed, casting flickering shadows over the room. Creepy. Definitely creepy.

In the background, 'Borderline' droned on.

Buffy turned around the room again, slowly, careful not to miss anything. The room was suffocatingly small, bringing on sharp pangs of claustrophobia. As an insectile skittering of fear ran across the back of her neck, she fought back the fear she felt rising from her stomach’s core. Small spaces always made her feel trapped, as imprisoned as she’d been when she woke up in her grave so many years ago. Just beneath the scent of tires and sweat, she could detect the subtle tang of a sour odor – like rotting meat.

As her fight or flight instinct began to kick in, she turned back to the yellowing service counter, still searching for some kind of exit, only to see the same filthy service counter and...a bell. Hey! That was new. At least it seemed new. Next to the rusty bell was a scrap of grimy paper, upon which were scrawled the words: ring me.

She touched the top of the bell gingerly – instinctively limiting her contact with this place as much as humanly possible. It creaked out a tired brrrng. Buffy waited, tapping a nervous foot. Nothing. Brrrng, she rang again. More nothing.

She turned around, her back to the service counter, examining the wall for something she might have missed earlier, only to find the same tired scene of tires, chairs and magazines. The insects were still there too, weaving a conga line through the magazine pile. And now that she'd gotten a closer look, she noticed that these magazines weren't the standard waiting room reads of “Ladies Home Journal” and “Car and Driver.” Grubby and worn, they featured such charming titles as “Hot Asian Sluts” and “Titties and Kitties.” That one stopped her, because, really? A boob-and-cat fetish? That was a thing?

Her dream Sears sucked.

“Welcome. Can I help you?” A male voice spoke from behind her, startling her so completely that she jumped and let out a yelp. If she'd not been so distracted by the skanky magazines and the entire creepy atmosphere of the Tire Center from Hell, she might have recognized the voice. But she spun around too quickly for that and was therefore absolutely unprepared for -

Warren.

Warren Mears, standing there as real as the last time she'd seen him. Well, except he had his skin on now and was wearing a bright blue shirt announcing that he was part of the “Sears Blue Crew!” The florescent light gave another bzzt, pop; bluish light danced across Warren’s skin, casting deep shadows beneath his eyes.

“Hello, Buffy,” he said, drawing out the greeting with relish. His mouth split into a wide grin.

Her heart galloped a steady pace within her chest, but she carefully composed her face into her best Slayer mask. Folding her arms across her chest, she nodded at him. “Nice digs. Cut-rate afterlife must suck. How’d you end up here? Get fired from Hell's Chuck E. Cheese?”

“It's your dreamscape, Princess. Whine to your subconscious about it.”

Buffy glanced quickly around the room, futily hoping that an exit had somehow materialized, much as Warren had. No dice.

”Miss me Slayer? I've missed you. That's the one thing I really miss in the afterlife. The fun I could be having with you and all your pals. Well, that's not entirely true. I also missed the revamped “Battlestar Galactica,” because, you know, I was dead.”

His dark eyes stole a glance beneath the service counter, his hands busy fiddling with something for a moment, before he looked back at Buffy with a bitter gaze.

“Do you think I blame you?” he asked.

“Good God, no!” she burst out. “Because it would be insane to blame me. But...oh wait, I guess that would be the point.”

Slowly, almost tenderly, he pulled an object from beneath the counter and Buffy caught the black metal sheen of a gun.

Warren licked his lips, his tongue dark red and reptilian. “I'm three feet away from you Buffy. Do you think I'll miss this time?”

He cocked his head, then cocked the gun.

Buffy shook her head, full of blind terror.

Warren stroked the barrel of the gun like a lover - drawing it out, loving it. “This is where I say 'You think you could just do that to me? You think I would just let you get away with that? Well, think again.' Then I pull the trigger, the gun says bang and your world goes boom.

A grin slashed across his face just before he pulled the trigger.

The gun said bang.

The air whooshed out of her as the blast from the gun hit her solidly in the chest, lifting her off her feet before dropping her hard onto her ass, onto the dirty linoleum floor.

Slayer instincts in overdrive, she immediately sprang to her feet, her hands and eyes scrambling towards where she expected to find a ragged cavern torn through her midsection, and yet…she was whole, unmarked.

Warren leaned over the counter, less than two feet away from her. His eyes skittered madly about like dark, jeweled beetles. Soft tendrils of mist curled from the gun, stroking the barrel with gentle fingers.

He cackled with glee. “Slayer, the look on your face is priceless. Just priceless.”

“I'd call you a douche bag, Warren, but that would be an insult to actual feminine hygiene products.”

“You knew it was a fucking dream, Buffy – and yet you fell for it. Scratch the Slayer hard enough and you'll find a dumb blonde down underneath.”

She glared at him. If her mind had really constructed this Sears from hell, couldn't she conjure up some Slayer powers and kick this nerd’s sorry ass?

As if he could read her mind, Warren answered her unspoken question. “No.”

She looked at him. “It might be your movie set, Buffy. But I'm the writer, the director. You can play here, but I'm your George Lucas.”

“With your dialogue, a fitting comparison,” Buffy mumbled.

“You did not just disrespect George Lucas.”

“Really? The guy that wrote 'Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo.' You're going to stick with that?”

“That is...entirely beside the point. That's not why we're here.”

“Well, why are we here then, Warren? Why don't you get whatever it is off your polyblend covered chest so I can get on with my date with the shoe department at Macy's.”

“I represent the Powers That Wanna Be,” Warren said, as he handed her a business card with a flourish.

“Is this some kind of joke?” Buffy asked, rolling her eyes.

The card read: The Powers That Wanna Be – 'When You're Number Two, You Try Harder! - Warren Mears, Official Emissary.

Buffy shook her head, incredulous. In the background Madonna's song ended and an especially annoying tune about a sexy tractor took its place. Her subconscious had a playlist that bordered on evil.

“The Powers That Wanna Be have taken a great interest in you, Buffy,” Warren said, his voice full of self importance. “You and your 'William.' And god, isn't he a laugh riot? Spike used to actually intimidate me. He used to be a bad ass. If I had any idea that the whole sex-wrapped-in-leather package was really just hiding a teary-eyed mama's boy, I'd have staked the little pussy myself.”

“Warren? You're working for an entity that sounds like a Spice Girls cover band.”

“You really should watch your mouth, little girl. Underestimating the PTWB would be a pretty huge mistake. We're not as old as the First Evil, but we're the up-and-comers, impacting the world in a much bigger way than those dusty bastards.”

She raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“We're like oxygen, baby. We're everywhere and in just about everything. From the small to the absolutely huge.”

He seemed to be gearing up for something, so she let him talk, hoping that once he’d finished his sales pitch, she could find a way out of here. Or, perhaps, wake up, wrapped in William’s arms. That option was absolutely chuck full of good.

“You know those things that chip away at your soul on a daily basis? That would be us. Racial slurs and gay bashing? That's us. Almost every person who works at Fox News? Us. Every time Kim Kardashian is featured as ‘news,’ that's the Powers That Wanna Be.

“Yeah, Bill O’Reilly and the Kardashians. Quaking with fear here. I get it, Warren.”

“Not quite. Not quite, you don't. But you will. You see, Buffy, although we’re good at the small things, it's the big picture where we really knock it out of the park. When it comes to large-scale mindless violence and fear – that’s us too, feeding scraps to the beast. Celebrating man's inhumanity to man. Chemical warfare, child soldiers, Rwandan genocide: you have no idea.”

“Sounds great, Warren. I'll be sure to tell Bono about you next time I see him. I'm sure he can start a fund or something. In the meantime, I really don't get what any of this has to do with me.”

“Me, me, me. You self-centered bitches will be the death of me,” he snarled. “Oh, wait... you already were.”

“Warren? I didn't think it was possible, but you're even more tedious in death than you were in life.”

“You should take this more seriously, Buffy. You laughed me off before and Tara ended up dead. As I remember, the whole world came close to ending.”

“But it didn’t, Warren. You did. You're dead.” Her fingers itched to smack the smug smile from his twisted mouth.

“And even while dead, I managed to cause a bit of chaos, bring a little more death to your world. Point is, underestimating me has always been a bad mistake. But you never learn, Slayer.”

She looked at him, her patience as thin as phyllo dough. “So why are you bothering me?”

“Because I wanted to gloat a little. And I wanted you to know about us – about what was about to happen. You see, the Powers That Wanna Be have taken a great interest in you and your limp-wristed hubby and they’ve given me a mission to stop you.”

“Stop us from doing what? You guys have a thing against wineries?”

Warren ignored her and continued, “It seems that when you make your home in California, the two of you will end up sticking your white hat noses into some business that doesn't belong to you. The Cliff Notes version of this is that, left unchecked, you and Willie-boy are going to stop the opening of the Sunnydale Hellmouth.”

The florescent light gave another pop; with a snapping sound one of the overhead lights flickered and then died – throwing the room into deep shadows.

“We can't allow this to happen, so the PTWB have given me the mission of stopping you. So I’m sending a little surprise William’s way tomorrow night when I let my surprise out of her cage.”

Buffy met him with bravado. “Ah, and in the fine tradition of cartoon villains everywhere, you're describing your nefarious plan to me in great detail so that I can save the day at the last minute? Great thinking, Warren! That George Lucas comparison is becoming more appropriate all the time.”

“You will stop disrespecting Lucas!” Warren snapped. “And I'm not done. What the creature’s going to do isn’t even the best part. You see, you're not going to remember any of this when you wake up. And that’s not all. The metric fuckton of stuff you’re about to forget is the real genius of this whole thing.”

Warren was really simmering now. Even in the dimly lit room, she could see his expression had a kind of mad glow about it. She could do little else but watch as thoughts seemed to buzz and crash inside his head.

“The Powers That Wanna Be are going to give you a re-do of their own, only this time your ‘reward’ will be what you really deserve. When you wake up, you'll remember nothing of your life as Elizabeth. You're not going to remember Spike's sacrifice at the Hellmouth either, or any of the nasty things you two used to do together in the dark, so long ago.”

“What will you...? When will I...?”

“We're going old school, Buffy. Your rewind will bring you back to when you will be the most desperate to return to your own time and when you'll find 'William' to be the most reprehensible.”

She could only stare at him in response.

“When you wake up, to you, it’s going to be February of 2001. You remember what things were like ten years ago, don’t you? Your mom was sick, but not quite dead yet. Your sister was on the shit list of a Hell-God. You’ll be dying to get back to Sunny-D. And your feelings for Spike? Not at a high point.”

When Buffy didn’t respond, he continued. “Remember the night he chained you up in his crypt? Tried to stake Drusilla? Told you he ‘loved’ you? When you wake up, you’ll only have memories up to that night. To you it’ll be the morning after a love-sick Spike went psycho on you. How do you think you’re going to respond to Weak Willie then?”

“You're bluffing. Like you bluffed with the gun,” She fought a losing battle against the panic rising up, like bile in her throat, making her voice tremble.

“We'll see,” Warren said with a smug smile. “Sweet widdle William who wuvs his wife is about to wake up to a punch in his face. I couldn't ask for better than knowing what you're about to do to the guy. Makes me wish this crappy century had spy cams, because the look on your face is going to be hysterical.”

“This is a dream, just a dream. I’ll remember William,” she said. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded so weak, so worried.

“Yeah, just keep telling yourself that, sweetheart. But I have a feeling that having a wife who’s stark-raving mad might just put the kibosh on the California Dreaming. As if the surprise in the cargo hold weren’t going to take care of him anyway. I just had to add this last part for shits and giggles.”

Buffy glared at him, wanting to disbelieve, hoping that this was just a nightmare. But her long-dormant Slayer sense woke, stretched and yawned - and something in the core of her flinched, knowing that he wasn’t bluffing and this was no mere dream.

“Revenge really is a dish best served cold. Sun's gonna rise and buh-bye Sweet William,” Warren chortled.

“I’ll remember William,” she chanted, dropping her eyes to the floor. If she just willed it. If she only wanted it badly enough. That would be enough, wouldn’t it? It had to be. “I’ll remem…”

“Tick, tock. Tick fucking tock, Slayer. Time to get what you deserve.” Warren looked overhead at the barely-there florescent light, flickering an unsteadily rhythm. He fashioned his fingers into the shape of a gun and pointed his hand at the light. Squeezing his trigger finger, he simply said “Bang.”

Bzzzzt! Pop! The light snapped out and all was darkness.

~*~

Far out to sea, one hundred and eighty miles west of Ireland, a couple slept entangled in one another’s arms aboard a ship bound for America. The bride mumbled and tossed in her sleep. “I’ll remem…”

Her groom was lost to his own dreams and slept on, undisturbed.
Chapter 4 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Firstly, I would never tell you to do this if it weren't hysterical, but check out the reviews for chapter 3. It began with an "anon" review and took a hard right into hysteria. The cast of characters are wonderful. Full of wonder, I am! :)

Thank you to AmyXaphania for a banner that inspires me every time I look at it. I don't deserve her! Also, for betas who are patient and wise: DoriansKitten, Lutamira and Capella42. Thank you!

Lastly to readers for leaving feedback! WIth a special shout out to reviewers Steven, and Rupert and the PTWB. The whole gang, really. Even you, "anon" :)
Fell outta bed, butterfly bandage

But don't worry

You'll never remember, your head is far too blurry

-Fall Out Boy-



Chapter 4

Buffy woke slowly, her senses lazily stirring out of hibernation.

Her first thought was why is the room spinning? She couldn’t be hung over. She hadn’t partied last night, hadn’t gone to the Bronze.

What was it that she’d done last night?

Then she remembered. She hadn’t done anything. Spike had. Psycho-boy had chained her up and professed his undying love for her by flickering torchlight. He’d even offered to kill Drusilla for her – and what a fantastically romantic gesture that was. God.

Eyes still too heavy to open, she rubbed her hand against her temple, trying to soothe away the strange swaying feeling and underlying nausea. it didn’t make a bit of sense that the cattle prod she'd been zapped with should make her feel so woozy and off-balance, unless the bleached freak had managed to slip her a roofie as well. She wouldn’t put it past him.

Still, bizarre hangover notwithstanding, it was time for the rise and shiney. Her to-do list for the day was killer. She couldn’t miss her ten o’clock English Lit class, and she needed to go to a doctor’s appointment with her mom in the late afternoon. Last, but most pressing, was figuring out what to do about Dawnie and the she-god from hell that had her sister at the top of her shit list.

She forced her eyes open with a groan.

Whoa. Very big whoa.

Where she should have seen her pastel bedroom wall, she was, instead, faced with paneled mahogany and a large round window.

What the fuck?

She bolted upright in bed and looked frantically around the room.

It was absolutely unfamiliar, bordering on alien. Looking down, she saw the form of a sleeping brown-haired man, sharing her bed. His face was turned to her, body curved in a spooning position.

Blinking to clear her head, she took a closer look at him. He was terribly familiar, terribly and horrifyingly familiar: the pointed chin, the aquiline nose, the razor edge of his cheekbones.

Spike.

His hair was different, all brown and curly, but she knew in an instant – it was him.

And he was naked.

At least he was naked up to where the sheet lay across his hips. And…that wasn't the worst part.

She was naked too.

If she’d have woken up next to a decapitated horse’s head, à la The Godfather, that would have been disturbing. Waking up next to naked Spike was about three exits past Disturbia. How could she have underestimated the depth of his depravity?

Instinctively, she recoiled against the wall, pulling the sheets tightly around her body and using her legs to kick herself as far away from him as possible.

His eyes flew open; the bright blue of them leaving no doubt that he was indeed Spike. Not that there had been doubt in the first place.

He reached out to her, wearing and expression of absolute confusion. Her hand responded, no thought required. Punching with all the force she could muster, she smashed her fist into his nose with a satisfying squish.

A spurt of blood shot out of Spike’s nose, as bright pain blossomed up in her arm. Keeping the sheet wrapped tightly around her body, she scurried off the foot of the bed, landing on the floor with a thump.

She flexed her sore right hand – the once she’d punched him with. It sent out waves of pain that shot up her arm. Slayers didn’t feel this kind of reaction, not from a simple punch on the nose. She stared, dumbfounded, at her hand. Had the depraved little monster managed to mess with her slayer powers as well?

Her first instinct was to look for something non-sheety to wear. As she quickly scanned the room for any kind of clothing, Spike scrambled off the bed behind her. He seemed oblivious to the stream of blood flowing freely out of both sides of his nose and making rivulets down his chest; all his concentration was focused upon her.

“Elizabeth?” he asked, his voice high and panicked.

“Stay away. Stay the fuck away from me, Spike. The second I find a scrap of wood, you are so dusted.”

Her feet tangled in what appeared to be a discarded prom dress lying on the floor, and, because it just barely beat out the sheet as ‘clothing,’ she tossed it over her head.

“What’s happened, Elizabeth?” he asked. He seemed oblivious to his nudity andto the copious amounts of blood gushing from his nose.

“Stop calling me that, freak-boy.”

As she backed toward the door, she buttoned up the front of the gown with shaking hands. He followed, extending his hand to her.

“So much as touch me, and I will break your arm, Spike.”

“I fear you’re unwell again, love. You called me Spike when you were ill. Don’t you remember?”

“What I remember is that you went all nutso on me and chained me up in your crypt. This is apparently Act 2 of that little freak show, and this is me, exiting stage left.”

“Elizabeth, please. You’ve a fever!” He reached out to touch her forehead. She was faster, however, and reacted instinctively, grabbing his arm and twisting it viciously behind his back.

With her other hand she reached up to yank off the ridiculous brown wig he was wearing. Her fingers, careless in rage, dug a bloody trench along his temple in the process.

She yanked on a handful of hair, hard. Nothing. It was apparently not a wig at all, but attached to him via some kind of spell. He stifled a moan and pulled away from her, dripping blood on the front of her dress in the process.

Frantic to get away from him, she tore open the door of the room to find herself in a narrow hallway. When she was immediately hit with a wave of ocean air, the odd swaying sensation suddenly made sense. She was on some kind of boat. How the hell had Spike managed such a thing?

Her ‘fight or flight’ instincts were beginning to fire on the ‘flight’ cylinders now, so when she spied a patch of open sky to her left, she dashed down the hallway as fast as she was able.

The passage opened onto the sunny deck of a boat unlike anything she’d ever seen.

Four large masts, complete with pirate-like billowing sails, covered the entire length of the deck. A sailboat, then. A really big one, with a smoke stack settled smack dab in the middle, for some bizarre reason.

She rushed to the side, to get her bearings, to get some sense of how far she was from the shore, only to have her hopes crushed. Water. As far as she could see, nothing but ocean.

Turning back around, she noticed a small crowd was beginning to gather – all the people wearing the same type of old fashioned clothing. It was as though she’d landed on a themed ocean cruise. Instead of something safe like ‘Rosie O’Donnells All Gay Family Cruise,’ she’d landed on the one themed ‘People Who Take Charles Dickens Way Too Seriously.’

They looked at her with stunned and appraising eyes. Barefoot and with hair flowing down her back, she did not fit in.

She glared back at them and backed up against the deck rail.

This was a dream. It had to be! Except the throbbing in her arm from where she’d punched Spike told her this was something not quite like a dream.

A spell then. He’d managed to transport her into Fuddy Duddy Land via some kind of spell. All she had to do was… what? Willow handled counter-spells. Buffy punched things. Those were their roles and they were very good at them. If punching her way out of this wasn’t an option – what was?

Even if fighting her way out of this situation did suddenly become an option, she would still be shit out of luck. Her slayer powers seemed to be kaput anyway.

“Ma’am?” A timid voice broke through her contemplations. He had a very thick accent which reminded her, strangely, of the Beatles. She turned to see a teenage boy with a mop of black hair, wearing a uniform that indicated he was part of the staff of Ye Olde Carnival Cruise Lines. “Mrs. Pratt, are you quite all right?”

“Who’s Mrs. Pratt?” Buffy asked.

“Shall I get Mr. Pratt? Are you unwell?”

“No. I want to see…” and who was it she wanted to see, really? Anyone from Sunnydale: Giles, Willow, her mom. She’d be happy to see her history professor at this point.

“I want to see the captain of this ship,” she said in an authoritative voice. At least, she hoped it sounded authoritative.

The boy only looked at her, blankly.

At that moment Spike came bursting onto the deck. He was wearing old fashioned pants and a blood-spattered white shirt which he was buttoning as he ran, still bleeding profusely from his temple and nose.

He was not burning.

He was standing directly in the sun and he was acting as though it was perfectly natural. How, by the name of all that was holy, had Spike managed to work this kind of magic?

“Elizabeth,” he said.

“I told you to stop calling me that.”

“What should I call you?” His voice was choked with agony. Christ, she hadn’t hit him that hard.

“My name. No, wait. I don’t want you to call me anything. I want you to leave me the fuck alone.”

The teenaged boy looked at Spike, his face a question. Spike’s voice was urgent. “Please fetch Dr. Crowdner.”

The boy tore off toward the center of the ship without another word.

“Buffy,” Spike emphasized her name. “Please, you must return to our cabin. You’re unwell.”

A small crowd was beginning to swell, the bloody red flag of Spike’s shirt catching their attention like a beacon. The costumed audience stayed a polite distance away, as they were a well-bred crowd and were careful to only gawk at car accidents from a respectable distance.

“I’m not going anywhere with you, Spike. You need to stay the hell away from me.”

When she looked directly into his eyes, she was shocked to see the agony within them. She felt such a strange surge of vertigo that she had to turn away, just to clear her head. Gripping the rail, she looked down at the churning sea beneath her and for just for one crazy instant, considered jumping- just hoisting herself over the rail and taking a leap, doing something, anything, to escape this bizarre ship of fools on which she’d landed.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She just needed to shut out the creaking and moaning of the wooden timbers of the ship, shut out the sight of a bleeding and all too human looking Spike,, shut out the Beatles sounding boy and the strange people in Dickens’ clothing. She needed to shut it all out and return to her life. .

“Elizabeth.” A gentle voice spoke from behind her.

She whirled around. “If I hear that name one more time, I swear to God…”

A tall, dark-haired man stood before her. His kind eyes met her gaze steadily. “What would you like me to call you?”

“Buffy. My mom named me Buffy. Who are you?”

“I’m Dr. Crowdner.” He stepped towards her, with his palms out. It was an unthreatening gesture, but it reminded her of the way one would approach a feral animal… or a madwoman. “I understand that you’re unwell.”

“I’m fine. I’m just…not where I’m supposed to be.”

“And where are you supposed to be?” The doctor took another step closer to her. She took a step back, pressing her spine to the rail tightly. He was talking to her as though she were a very small child and it was beginning to piss her off more than just a little.

“I’m supposed to be home in bed. My bed. In Sunnydale. Not on a ship with a bunch of costume enthusiasts. It’s Spike. He did this.”

“Spike?” The doctor seemed genuinely nonplussed at the name, or was, perhaps, a very good actor.

“Spike,” she pointed at Spike, standing behind the doctor wearing, beneath a veneer of blood, an expression of abject misery.

“Your husband, ma’am. William.”

“Freakazoid is not my husband.” She wanted to hit something so badly that she clenched her fist, despite the wave of pain that shot up her arm. “He’s done something: some kind of alternative dimension. Or it’s a spell.”

“A spell?” The doctor turned to Spike and asked, “Has your wife suffered delusional spells in the past?”

Buffy interrupted before Spike could respond. “Not that kind of spell. A witchy kind of spell. Something that makes it so that he can stand in the sun.”

“You are surprised that your husband can walk about in the sun?” The doctor took another baby-step towards her. “Let’s return to your room, Eliza…Buffy. That would be a much more pleasant place to continue our conversation, don’t you think?”

She was just about to fire back a snappy retort and argue with him, when it occurred to her that, come to think of it, it actually was a pretty good idea. Now that the initial rush of adrenaline was wearing off, she was feeling strangely exhausted. Besides, she certainly wasn’t going to accomplish anything by continuing to freak out in front of this audience of would-be Christmas carolers.

“Okay,” she said, before casting a scowl at Spike, who stood just behind the doctor. “But just you and me.”

“That would be agreeable, for now.” The doctor turned towards a small blonde woman to his left. “Jane, would you kindly take Mr. Pratt back to our room and tidy him up a bit. Give me a few moments alone with Mrs. Pratt.”

The woman nodded and gave Buffy a weak smile before walking over to Spike and taking him by the arm. Buffy frowned as Spike continued to stare at her even while allowing the small woman to lead him away without argument.

Buffy pushed away from the ship’s rail, ignoring the arm that Dr. Crowdner held out to her. The doctor stepped in behind her.

“Could you please guide us to the Pratt’s cabin?” the doctor asked the young, scared-looking crew member who had been on deck with Buffy from the outset.

The boy led them down the back toward the center of the ship and down the narrow passageway toward her room.

~*~

William had never known pain like this. He’d suffered through hardship, through illness, death, but never anything like this. Never had he imagined he’d see his Elizabeth mad and raving, with a look of pure revulsion every time she gazed upon him.

He felt the loss of her as a physical ache. Numbly, he followed the doctor’s wife down the corridor. Upon seeing him, startled passengers slid away from him like raindrops down a windowpane. He walked on, numbly letting the woman guide him, head and heart cast down to the floor. He could see drops of blood in his wake, falling less freely than they had been earlier.

He was dimly aware of entering a cabin, which was slightly larger than the one he shared with Elizabeth. The doctor’s wife urged him to be seated, and he felt her press a cool, damp cloth to his nose.

“Here, place your head against the chair. Just lean back,” she soothed.

The room was beginning to pitch and sway in a way that made him feel most uncomfortable. He closed his eyes.

He could feel her dabbing at the wound on his temple – first with something cool and then with something stinging. He kept his eyes closed. Jane Crowdner, wise woman that she was, said nothing.

What could have happened with his Elizabeth? Was this some kind of residual effect from the trauma of time travel? Had her illness last night precipitated the event? He was lost to the cause, so how could he aid her in a solution to it?

Now that the initial shock had worn off, now that he was sitting, William felt the pain from the injuries his beloved wife had bestowed upon him earlier. It was nothing compared to the pain of being parted from her. He had to constantly fight the urge to run to her, to break through walls and obstacles and simply be near her.

“Here. Press this cloth to your nose, William.” The doctor’s wife took away the soaked cloth and replaced it with a fresh one. He did as he was told.

“Constant pressure. That’s the trick,” she said, her words clipped carefully.

After some time, three minutes or thirty – he could not tell, he felt her remove the cloth from his face.

“All better now.”

Not better. It wouldn’t be better. Not until he could hold his Elizabeth.

“Please rest easy. Your wife could not be in more capable hands, I assure you. My husband specializes in female hysteria. You’re fortunate, really.”

Fortunate? William forced his eyes open.

Jane Crowdner stood before him wearing a compassionate expression. She was holding out a fresh white shirt. “Charles is a bit longer in the arm than you are, but I believe this will do for now. I’ll just slip out into the hall while you change.”

She didn’t ask, but told. Bless her. Thinking and responding would be quite beyond him just now.

As soon as she left, he mechanically changed out of his blood splattered shirt and into the fresh one. Now that he was standing and no longer bleeding, he began to feel a great deal more like himself. Again the need, the craving, to be by her side rose within him with a vengeance. He just needed to see her with his own eyes, even if she reviled him.

Fresh shirt buttoned and legs feeling surprisingly steady, he stepped out into the hall to find the doctor’s wife waiting for him.

“Yes, let’s go and check in on your Elizabeth, shall we?” she said, breezily, as though the morning events had been nothing terribly out of the ordinary, as if they might be meeting up for breakfast. She was a kind and good woman, this Jane.

The closer he got to Elizabeth, the larger his steps seemed to be. The doctor’s wife had to scurry to keep up with him.

As William reached for the door handle to room seventeen, Jane Crowdner placed her hand on his shoulder with surprising firmness.

“Let’s just…knock first, shall we?” She smiled at William before giving two sharp raps on the cabin door. 'Charles, William and I are here. Shall we enter?”

“Ahh, Jane,” his voice, firm and commanding from behind the door. “Why don’t you come in, dear? I’d like to have a word with William.”

The door opened just wide enough for Dr. Crowdner to slip out into the hall. He gave his wife a long look and some unspoken communication seemed to pass between them.

She reached out her hand and patted William on the shoulder. “I’ll just see to your wife, then. Please, don’t worry.” She slid inside the room and shut the door firmly behind her.

“William, let’s step into the lounge.” Dr, Crowdner stepped toward the small reading lounge just two doors up the hallway from where they stood. The large glass windows of the room revealed that the cozy room was empty at this early hour.

William followed behind. “I need to see her,” he said, insistently.

“Oh, you shall. It would be best for her if we spoke first, however.”

Dr. Crowdner shut the lounge door firmly behind him and gestured toward the high backed chairs in the corner. William took a seat.

“Is Elizabeth all right?” William blurted. But he knew better than that, and so he amended it. “Is Elizabeth going to be all right?”

The doctor gave William a confident smile, which had a wonderfully calming affect.

“There is every hope that your wife will recover. Tell me, William, has your wife ever had anything similar happen in her past? A time when she’d thought you to be another man?”

What could William say to this? That his wife had come from the future and that the ‘Spike’ she referred to was another, monster version of himself?


He looked at the doctor and rubbed his hand on his temple, momentarily forgetting that it had been recently bandaged.

“William, the more I know about Elizabeth, the better equipped I shall be to assist her.”

Choosing to walk the line between the truth and a lie, William said, “My wife was ill, in the past and during that time suffered a sort of delirium, but nothing like this.”

“I believe that, for Elizabeth’s good, we should deal with her condition forthrightly. William, I do not wish to shock you but,” the doctor placed his hand on William’s forearm, as if to steady him, “your wife believes she comes from a different place and time, entirely.”

William was feeling far too numb to feign surprise at this, and so he merely nodded in response.

“This type of hysteria is uncommon, but it’s not unheard of. It also happens to be something of a specialty of mine.”

“Your wife has mentioned as much,” William said, his voice sounded strangely monotonic even to his own ears.

“I have every hope that, with treatment, she can make great strides in restoring her wits, although admittedly, a ship is hardly the ideal location for such treatment.”

“When can I see her?” William asked.

“She is most adamant about not wishing to be in your company, William. I do feel, however, that this goes against her best interests, and it certainly goes against yours. Let’s just wait a bit before you rejoin her, shall we? It’s most prudent if we proceed cautiously at this juncture.”

William nodded, feeling too shell-shocked to do little more than agree with the medical professional.

Dr. Crowdner patted William reassuringly on the shoulder. “Try not to worry. You know, with patience, our wives can often accomplish amazing things. My own Jane, for example.”

“Your wife suffered…hysteria?”

“Well, not hysteria, but her background is somewhat unsettling. However, with patient work and elocution lessons, I daresay no one that meets her is the wiser.”

It was evident that William didn’t follow the point that the doctor was attempting to make, so he leaned in and said in a conspiratorial tone, “My wife was born an Australian.”

“I would never have guessed,” William said, unsure of the correct response to such an admission.

“First, let’s you and I attend to breakfast. Your wife has settled down a great deal already – Jane will continue to see to her. In the meanwhile, I should like to discuss with you a course of treatment which I should like to commence at the soonest available opportunity. This afternoon, if she is amenable to it.”

The older man clasped his arm about William’s shoulder as he guided him from the room.

“I have every expectation that your Elizabeth will surprise us all.”

“Perhaps a pleasant surprise,” William mumbled. Thus far he was heartsick at the surprises the day had brought and wasn’t sure how many more surprises his heart could endure.
End Notes:
Do you know how they treated hysteria? Only with (according to the ads, I kid you not) "the greatest medical discovery the world has ever known."

Wait for it!

Chapter 5 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thanks to AmyXaphia for the beautiful banner. Thanks to Capella42, DoriansKitten and Lutamira for the beautiful beta'ing. And thanks to YOU for the wunderbar feedback!
Who are you? Who, who, who, who?
-The Who-



Chapter 5


Two quick raps on the door announced that the doctor had returned. At least, Buffy assumed it was the doctor – who else would it be?

She remained in bed, facing the wall and the porthole.

There was rustling, Jane moving to let the doctor in, no doubt, followed quickly by hushed voices.

“Did things progress well?” Dr. Crowdner asked.

“The same, dear. She refuses to answer to her name and hasn’t had a bite to eat. Refuses to engage in conversation.”

“It’s not unexpected.” She heard more rustling and the sounds of the door opening and closing again before the doctor continued. “You’ll do fine on your own here. Just remember what we’ve discussed. Only address her by ‘Elizabeth,’ don’t permit her persist in her delusion about living in a different time. Be firm and in control.”

Holy mother of God. Were they talking about her or a horse? If they whipped out oats and apples, she was going to climb down off the bed and help them redefine ‘hysterical woman.’ Besides, even horses had ears. Did they really need to talk about her as if she wasn’t in the room with them?

There was more shuffling about and the clink of something – possibly a bottle – before the familiar sound of a door latch announced that someone had left.

Now she was curious, dammit. Had the doctor left with his wife? If so, someone else was here and she had a pretty strong suspicion that this person would be Spike, or the costumed version of him.

She could hear the person stepping closer to the bed and then nothing. Someone was standing directly behind her.

“Buffy?”

He’d called her by her name. All that long and miserable day, no one had called her by her name. And though she’d spent the better part of the afternoon planning what she would say to him, she found herself turning around quickly and asking another question entirely. “Why did you call me Buffy?”

He stood before her, looking gravely worried. He still looked like Spike, but there were subtle differences in the way he looked. His mouth wasn’t held so tensely and there was a depth to his eyes that reflected back such pain that she quickly looked down at the bedspread.

“It’s your name,” he said simply.

“They’ve been calling me Elizabeth all afternoon and they told you to call me that too.”

“I know some things about you, of which they are unaware.”

“So, you’re admitting it? You did this?”

“I didn’t do anything Eliza..buffy. I simply know, well, I don’t know precisely what is happening. But I know you were once called Buffy. I know you lived in Sunnydale with your family. I know you come from 2011.”

“Whoa. You slipped a digit. 2001. You got the name and the Sunnydale part right, but I came from 2001.”

He raised his brows at this and then winced slightly. The claw mark she’d left on the side of his head looked deep and painful.

Following an afternoon of being called the wrong name and being reprimanded every time she tried to explain herself to her captors, it was so like a balm to her mind - to finally have someone believe her, call her by her true name. It just would have been a whole world of better if that someone hadn’t been Spike.

She scooted back to the corner of the bed and sat up – tucking the covers around her.

“So what’s your story, Spike? What’s going on?”

“My name is William.”

“Yuppers. First name ‘William,’ last name ‘Bloody,’ middle name ‘the.’ I got the memo, Spike.”

“My name is William Pratt. Please don’t address me as Spike. I find it…disturbing”

She looked at him, the angle of his cheekbones, the way he tilted his head at her slightly. “So again, I’m with the asking. What’s your story, Spike?”

“What would you like to know, Elizabeth?” He raised a brow as he folded his arms across his chest.

“Why am I on a ship with a bunch of hard core Victorian cosplayers? And why do you know that I’m really Buffy when everybody else is stuck in Crazyville? If you didn’t do this to me – who did? Not that I’ll believe you, but I might as well hear your story.”

He gave a tight smile at that, but it did not reach his eyes. “Which question would you like answered first, Buffy?”

“Who are you?”

Before answering, he turned and pulled out a camp chair that the doctor’s wife had set up earlier in the day. He settled down next to the small folding table and placed his hands on top of it, clasping them together as if exerting a great deal of self control.

“My name is William Pratt and the year is 1880. You are Elizabeth Pratt, my recent bride. We are travelling together to California.”

“So, how do you know that I’m Buffy then?”

“Because you told me of this yourself. You came to me through time. You told me that you came from the year 2011 and that due to … well, due to the fact that I had done something in the past, something heroic – that my reward was to be…”

Buffy snorted. “Heroic? Pull the other one.”

“I beg pardon?” William looked confused.

“You claim that I travelled through time because you were some kind of hero and deserved it?”

William tilted his chin up. “You said I saved the world.”

Buffy tossed her head back and hit the wall with such force that it brought tears to her eyes.

“I don’t claim to have done any such heroics, Buffy. This was told to me by you.”

“By a time-travelling me, who came from ten years in the future, to give you a reward for saving the earth. Sure, Captain Planet. And they think I’m the crazy one.”

“I know very little about the details, Buffy. You were quite hesitant to tell me the specifics. I only know that you claimed that, should you not intervene in events, I would become a type of monster.”

“Well, you’ve got that part right at least. You did become a ‘kind of monster.’ You were vamped.”

“Vamped?”

“Vampire? Oh god, why do all my conversations have to be so painful? Look, Spike, all I want to know is, why did you bring me here. Spare me the creative back story.”

“Buffy,” he emphasized her name and gave her a determined look. “My name is William Pratt. You came to me six months ago with this tale. You said you were Buffy Summers, from Sunnydale California. You were determined to intervene on my behalf and…”

“And did I?” she interrupted.

“Did you, what?”

“Did I intervene? Did you meet Dru?”

“I…I’m not certain what you’re referring to. There was to have been a party and when you told me of what was to take place, I didn’t attend the party. I was not…what was the word you used? I was not turned into the monster you’d spoken of.”

“So why I am here? Why didn’t I go back to SunnyD after I saved your sorry ass?” Buffy glared at him in exasperation.

“You…you told me that you had a choice and you chose to remain with me. We were wed shortly afterwards.” His hands clenched into fists on the tabletop, his knuckles white. He kept his gaze on the table top, on his hands. There was a storm of emotion playing just behind his eyes, but Buffy couldn’t begin to imagine why he was so emotional at this moment. He used to be a much better liar.

“So, Elizabeth is me, from the future, who decided to stay with William the Unvamped in a land that does not have flush toilets – because at some point in the future, Spike saves the world. That about sum it up?”

He continued to look at his fists, balled up on the table top. “Yes.”

“Then why is it that this wimpy version of me has zapped into the Great Beyond and the real me from 2001 ended up in your bed, naked, with you, naked – the very night after you chained me up in your crypt?”

He looked up at her, his mouth dropping open in shock. “No. I wouldn’t. Even as a monster, you said I was noble. I wouldn’t have, well, I couldn’t have. You gave me every impression that…”

He was interrupted by two firm raps upon their cabin door.

Unfisting his hands, he buried his right hand into his thick brown hair, tugging at it absently as he walked toward the door. It was such an unSpikelike mannerism that it caught her off guard.

He opened the door a crack, then upon seeing who was there, opened it all the way and stepped back into the room. A teenage boy stepped in, bearing a large covered tray. It was the same boy she’d met that morning while she’d been frantic on the deck of the ship.

“Excuse me Mr. Pratt, but I’d not seen you and your wife at lunch or dinner, so I thought you might want to dine in your room this evening.”

“That was very thoughtful of you, George.” Spike seemed to be regaining some of his scattered composure. “The table’s rather small for all this food. Shall I…?”

“Oh, I’ve another table in the hall, sir. Dr. Crowdner had asked me to bring something larger for his medical equipment. I shall just bring that in now, if you’d hold the tray, Mr. Pratt.”

Spike held the tray, keeping his gaze firmly trained on the food in front on him. The black-haired staff member wrestled a wooden table past the raised threshold and placed it near the foot of the bed, where Spike stood next to the folding camp chairs.

Once the table was settled, the young man began arranging plates of food on top of it.

“George, you’ve been too kind. I believe I can handle it from here.”

“It’s nothing, sir. I’ve…” The boy cast a look toward Buffy; a dark red blush immediately stained his cheeks. “I’ve included ice cream. They did not have peach, so I asked the chef for cherry. I hope it’s not too bold, but I wish very much for a speedy recovery for Mrs. Pratt!” He blurted out the last line, almost as though it was a declaration. Like ‘Remember the Maine!’ or ‘Vive la France!’

Blushing a furiously deep shade of red, he stumbled over the high metal threshold and emptied himself into the hallway, closing the door with a click.

Spike began to lift covers off the various plates of food as he laid the food on the table.

Buffy’s stomach growled uncomfortably. She hadn’t eaten a thing since the previous night, when she’d mooched off Dawnie’s movie popcorn.

Dawnie. Her stomach gave another uncomfortable lurch and she felt her appetite dim. How was Dawn in all of this? And her mom? She’d been away for a day now – they had to be at Defcon Five Freakout Mode.

“Why don’t you try to eat something, Buffy? There is roast turkey and filet of beef. You need to keep your strength up. We can talk of these matters once you’ve dined.”

He had a point, she thought. Starving herself wasn’t going to help her get out of this situation and it wouldn’t help her get back to Sunnydale. Brains and muscles worked better with food in the tummy. She eased herself off the foot of the bed and sat down at the camp stool he’d placed across from his own.

“Food for now, but later you get with the explaining. You know I’m not the ‘giving up easily’ type, Spike. I have people that need me back home and I will find a way back to them.”



~ * ~



Meanwhile, in the belly of steerage, a young man wakes…

Sepp woke from his dream sporting the most painful erection he’d had in his nineteen years. His cock lay on his belly, sharp and hard – an elephant tusk of need. God, what a dream!

He placed his hand in his front pocket, and fished out his pocket watch. Eight o’clock. The rest of the boys must still be at dinner, then. Third class was often served late into the evening, from the talk he’d heard on the ship. It was just as well. After spending most of last night vomiting, he wasn’t up for food anyway. It was his horniness, not his hunger that needed tending.

With his bunkmates at dinner, he might as well have a go with his weisswurst in the privacy of his own room. What a luxury. Almost leisurely, he began to unfasten the buttons of his trousers, when the thought came to him so clearly that he jumped, smacking his head on the overhead bunk.

What if it wasn’t a dream?

It was so clear, so different from his own head that he looked around the room, just to make certain that no one else was there.

What if the crate is really there? What if that girl is actually inside it? That girl who could give you such an erection, with her dark hair and red, red mouth that looked so lovely around your cock?

His fingers paused from their frantic unbuttoning.

It wouldn’t hurt to check just see if it’s like it was in the dream, ,if the crate is there, if the pry bar is there the way that Shimmering Man showed you. If those things are there, then maybe she will be there as well - with her eager red mouth.

Sepp buttoned up his fly and slid off his bunk. What would it hurt, really? It would only take a few moments to check. The crew was busy with dinner and wouldn’t notice one passenger slipping into the cargo hold. He grabbed a stubby yellow candle and a few matches on his way out the door.

He slipped down to the end of the darkened hallway and down the narrow stairs to find himself before a large metal door, which was labeled with many incomprehensible English words, and one word that he did understand: verboten.

The Shimmering Man had shown Sepp this door in his dreams. The man had made odd hand gestures toward the door before showing him that it was unlocked, despite all the words written across it.

Sepp tried the door. The latch opened as easily as it had in his dreams. With shaking fingers, he stopped long enough to light the wick before stepping into the room.

The candle’s light was dim, but he could just make out that he was in the cargo hold of the ship. The lines of trunks and crates were densely packed which, combined with the dim light of his candle, made navigating the room difficult. He knew where she was, however - against the wall in the far corner.

He walked with one hand trailing along the wall, the other held his flicking flame before him.

The pry bar. Don’t forget the pry bar.

Och! The man in his dreams had shown him that lying just behind the door of the cargo hold was a small collection of tools, including a pry bar. He took a few steps back and, thrusting his candle into the dark space behind the door, saw the dim wink of metallic tools flash back at him. The pry bar lay conveniently at the very top of the pile.

Holding his candle with one hand and the pry bar with the other, he used his hip and feet to feel his way along the wall. If possible his cock throbbed even more painfully now that both his hands were busy holding something. If he could just get to the dirndl in the crate and she could wrap her lips around his weisswurst as she’d done in the dream.

When he could just make out the corner of the room through the shadows, he saw it. The crate. Her crate. Just as her knew it would be. Nondescript, with the number 868 stamped clearly in the upper right hand corner.

In his lust, he nearly dropped his candle as he stumbled toward the crate. He placed the candle and pry bar on the floor and ran his hands eagerly over the rough boards

“Schnuckelchen, bist da drin?” he cupped his hand and shouted into the crate. He waited a moment before realizing that he was a dummkopf. She wouldn’t know his language. In his dreams, she’d used her mouth, but not for talking.

“Hello?” Sepp called, but there was response.

Not knowing what else to do, he gave three sharp raps to the top of the crate. Tap, tap, tap.

Christ. Had he gotten this far only to find that the whole thing had just been a dream? He stroked his erection through his trousers. Had he came this fucking far in the dark only to find nothing?

Tap.

Immediately, he tore his hand off his cock and looked at the crate.

Tap, tap.

“I bin da um da z' helfn!” He shouted, forgetting in his lust that he’d already decided that she didn’t speak his language.

Tap, tap, tap. Tappity, tap, tappity, tap tap.

His lover was becoming frantic! So, come to think of it, was Sepp. He began to pull at the cross beams with the pry bar, just as the man had shown him in his dream. He pulled hard, and the board pulled free: first one board, then another. Once he’d worked the front boards free, he found another layer of boards – this time fashioned like a door, with hinges on one side.

And the whole time he was tearing through the boards, his lover was talking to him, through the wood, tap, tap, tappity, TAP TAP TAP.

He was nearly in a frenzy by the time he’d pulled off the final two boards and swung open the box’s wooden door. He expected her to spill out at his feet, with her warm and willing mouth ready to please him. She did not.

He grabbed his candle to shine a dim light into the crate. The flickering glow revealed, not a lady, but…dollies. Child’s toys – four of them all lined up along the wall. Only these dollies were in no way a child’s playthings. One had a knife jammed through the center of her head, directly where her ears were. The one next to that had two shards of glass poking from empty eye sockets. The third had, where its mouth should have been, a large railroad spike jammed in, and sticking out through the back of its head. The forth doll was unharmed. It looked at him with its dead, unblinking eyes.

Sepp stumbled backwards – out of the crate and onto the floor. He’d kept a firm grip on the candle, thank Christ. Its flickering light played across the mutilated dolls as he pushed his legs along the floor until his back was against the wall.

From inside the crate he heard a rustling, and then a small sound, like a coo.

Jesus und Maria! He made the sign of the cross and gripped the candle tightly, standing with shaking legs. As he fumbled towards the door of the cargo hold, his heart thudded a mad rhythm inside his chest.

He was trying to run backwards – too terrified of the thing that lay inside the crate to risk turning his back on it. When he saw the feet, dressed in women’s shoes, and the bottom edge of a long skirt just step out of the shadow of the crate’s door, he froze.

As she stepped into the dancing circle of his candlelight, he could see her, his dream woman. With her thick ringlets of raven hair, large dark eyes and porcelain skin, she was rather like a doll herself. His gaze flickered over to where her tortured toys were arranged near the crate’s door and he shuddered.

She smiled, showing a row of perfectly white teeth inside her beautiful, wunderbar mouth.

As she stepped toward him she tilted her head to one side, then quickly back to the other side. It was an odd, snakelike gesture, and made him back up against the wall of the ship.

He wanted to explain himself, but without the English, knew he would fail before he began. If he could, he would tell her that he hadn’t intended to bother her. He would explain that this had all been some kind of terrible mistake. But even as the thought was forming in his mind, her face shifted. Her beautiful blue eyes turned yellow and feral; her teeth elongated as she lunged toward his neck.

His last conscious thought, as his lifeblood poured out of his neck and down her throat, was that the terrible mistake had been his own. His mute audience of dollies, passively watched his being devoured – their pointed accessories winked and sparkled at him, until the candle guttered out and all was black.



End Notes:


Sepp – An Epitaph
To commemorate his short and boner-filled life


Sepp awoke with morning wood in his third class bed
Remembering his dream of getting wunderbar head

Though he knew it was wrong, Sepp crept from his bunk, he
Should have stayed put and just spanked his monkey

He found the girl’s crate, plus a nasty surprise
A row of dollies with shards in their eyes

His dream girl emerged, but poor Sepp was cursed
For she sucked on his neck, not his throbbing weistwurst

A victim of his times, now please let us mourn
A life cut short for want of internet porn
Chapter 6 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
First of all - thank you for the reviews so much! I have this whole dissertation in my mind about why they're so important. But I'll spare you. Just, trust me, they are. I don't feel like I'm rowing a boat by myself upstream when you're all here.

Thanks to my wonderful betas: Capella42, Lutamira and DoriansKitten - for removing my extra commas, and telling me when things don't make sense - and for not minding when I ignore their advice and put in some part that they think might be better off left out. Swell banner by AmyXaphania!

Mother the doctor knows something is wrong
Cause my body has strange information
He's looked in my eyes and knows I'm not a child
But he doesn't dare ask the right question

~Suzanne Vega~


Chapter 6

They both seemed quite content with silence during dinner; each was lost in their own thoughts.

Buffy puzzled over the confusing array of silverware set out on the table, before deciding to be an equal opportunity employer and use all of them in turn. While she ate, she snuck glimpses of him watching her through carefully lowered lashes. Simply seeing her eat seemed to sadden him for some mysterious reason – she couldn’t begin to fathom why.

At least watching her gave him something to do, since he wasn’t putting any effort into eating. In the past she’d seen Spike decimate a blooming onion and crunch through the bones of spicy buffalo wings as if they were potato chips. Tonight he trailed his fork through uneaten cuts of beef, lost in a world of his own.

As she tore off a chunk of bread, she considered how much effort this must be for him. Whatever kind of stunt he’d pulled to create this Victorian world, he was giving it his all to play the part of a proper English gentleman. What on earth had inspired him to conjure up this as the way to seduce her?

It came to her in a flash, and she smacked her forehead with her hand, which was, unfortunately still grasping a large section of bread and crumbs scattered out – a mini bomb of carbohydrates.

“It was Halloween!” She was triumphant.

“I beg pardon?”

“Halloween! When I dressed like the old fashioned damsel. You thought that was my inner fantasy and that it might be your way in. That’s why you did all this.”

He sighed, then shook his head and pushed back from the table.

“Again, I’m not him. Not Spike. I’m William, with no memory of these things”

Now that their silence had been broken, it seemed to embolden him. He drew a deep breath, almost as though he were bracing himself for some kind of impact.

“Buffy.” He always said her name with such deliberation. He drew it out, apparently feeling uncomfortable with whatever it was he was about to say. “I notice our wedding portrait is missing.”

She took a deep breath of her own and continued to chew on her bread.

“The portrait that you’d tied above our bed is missing, Buffy. Where is it?”

He wove his fingers through his unruly hair, tugging absently as he waited for her response.

“I put it away in the big wooden closet thingie.”

He nodded at her again, but there was a slight question in his bright blue eyes.

“It…bothered me. Looking at it. It just seemed better to put it away.”

“I understand,” he said, carefully. And then added, oddly, “Thank you.”

“Thank me?”

“For not destroying it.” His gaze flickered down to his lap, and he moved his hand away from his hair with a deliberate motion.

Such attention on his hands made her conscious of her own hands, and she tucked them under the table as well. There was a ring on the third finger of her left hand that she’d rather not discuss just now. As she’d put the portrait away, she’d considered tucking the ring away as well. But a closet floor was no place for a ring. It could get lost, especially on a rolling ship. And though looking at it made her feel uncomfortable, considering taking it off made her feel even worse.

And so they sat awkwardly, hands tucked under the table, neither looking at one another and desperately casting about for something to say when they were interrupted by two sharp raps on the door. Assuming that it was George, come to take away their dinner, she moved to the most out-of-the-way location she could think of: her corner of the bed.

Spike opened the door to admit George and, much to her disappointment, two other men. One of them was the dreaded Dr. Charles Crowdner, who had spent the better part of the day trying to rid her of her ‘delusion.’ He greeted her with a polite “Good evening, Mrs. Pratt.” She rolled her eyes in response, which she was pretty sure was the Emily Post approved response in such a circumstance.

Spike and the doctor conversed about the quality of dinner that evening and how the air had been fine for an evening stroll. ‘William’ did a fine job conversing in a stuffy gentlemanly manner. While the two men bored one another, the staff member who had followed the doctor into the room immediately set to fiddling around with the electrical bell that sat atop their door, which was a bit odd, because the bell had been working perfectly; she’d been hearing it brrng throughout the day.

George cleared away their dinner dishes and placed them on a cart out in the hall. He returned with a small folding cot, which he placed against the wall near the head of the bed before leaving the room with a bow.

As soon as George left, the doctor stepped out into the hall and retrieved a large metal case, easily three feet square and weighing, by the sounds the doctor was making, an impressive amount. The crew member that had been fiddling with the electric bells moved in to help, but the doctor waved him away, muttering something about the contents being ‘highly sensitive equipment.’ He placed it on the floor next to the table with a groan.

Buffy watched with curiosity and more than a little dread. “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,” she muttered to herself.

“What is it, Buffy?” Spike asked.

“British TV reference. You wouldn’t get it.”

Dr. Crowdner interrupted, his voice full of irritation. “William. You’d agreed this afternoon to address her as ‘Elizabeth.’”

“You’d instructed me to do so, but I agreed to nothing at all. This is how my wife wishes me to address her. And need I remind you at last night’s dinner it was you who insisted upon giving her a nickname. Now she has one: Buffy.”

Dr. Crowdner shook his head. “Well-played, William. Clearly, I have underestimated you.” Looking at Buffy, he added, “I’m not quite as easily managed as your husband, however. I shall call you by your true name, Elizabeth.”

“You’re the boss, Charlie.” Buffy responded.

Spike flashed a smile at her, dropping his proper Englishman mask for just a moment, before locking it firmly back into place and looking at the floor circumspectly.

The doctor didn’t acknowledge her remark, but turned to the crewman who was unstringing cords and wires from the bells above the door and pulling them down to the table. Dr. Crowdner began to unpack the large case that he’d brought in earlier.

He hoisted a large metal box onto the table with a thud. The machine itself looked simple enough – large metal box with electric wires going into one end and wires attached to a wand going out of the other end for…electricity? God, she hoped not. What if their idea of fixing her was just shocking her noggin? She’d watched ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ with her mom and was not in favor of going the way of Jack Nicholson.

“Um, Spike? What’s with Dr. Frankenstein?”

He gave her a smile, but it was a nervous one and did nothing to boost her confidence.

Spike nervously adjusted his waistcoat. “Doctor, it is going on nine o’clock. Is it absolutely necessary that we begin this tonight?”

“Time is of the essence, William. The sooner treatment’s begun, the sooner she’s cured, yes?”

“Right here,” Buffy grumbled. “She is right here. But hey, if you want to go all third-persony, that works too. What are you going to do to her with this machine?”

The doctor ignored her, and nodded to the crew member who had been helping him. “I’ll turn it on when you’re ready.”

The other man nodded and stood under the door. He held a wire cutting tool in one hand which he placed around a thick black electrical wire that they’d pulled out of the wall.

“Ready,” the man said.

Dr. Crowdner flicked a switch and the large metal box thudded to life with an uneven bumping sound. No short circuits or flaming jets from the walls. Just an anticlimactic thumping box.

“Well then. Quite better than expected.” The doctor seemed pleased with their rewiring efforts. “Thank you. I expect we may require the use of this for several days. I’ll contact the steward should we require your services further.”

The crew member nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him.

The machine continued thumping along in the background until the doctor silenced it with the flick of a switch.

“Very well. This should do quite nicely,” the doctor said.

“What is it?” Spike asked, simply.

“This is the therapeutic device I told you of earlier today.”

“I was somewhat distracted today; I don’t recollect discussing any such device.”

“It is for her treatment. As we discussed, your wife suffers from hysteria, William. And though it is a common condition for females, she has one of the more severe cases I’ve come across. This device is the most effective treatment for her ailment.”

Buffy had endured quite enough, and slid down the end of the bed to stand next to Spike. “Yo, Doc. She is right here. She wants to be spoken to and not spoken of. Third person sucked hard enough in English 101 and it stops now. If you’re going to discuss me, you talk to me.”

A wordless void stretched before them, before the doctor capitulated.

“Very well, Elizabeth. You suffer from hysteria. As I said, a common enough affliction for the fairer gender, but in your case, quite debilitating. The word ‘hysteria’ derives from the Greek word for ‘uterus,’ therefore it is only logical that treatment for this illness would be approached from the same portion of your anatomy.”

Treating her brain via her uterus did not seem particularly logical to Buffy, but she let the doctor continue.

“For decades, medical professionals such as myself have provided a standard treatment of digital manipulation for treatment of these symptoms. A pelvic massage to the point of hysterical paroxysm brings the sufferer days, if not weeks, of relief. With the advent of modern machinery, however, we can now cure pelvic hyperemia in a fraction of the time with much greater success rates.”

Buffy looked at him skeptically as he retrieved the wand end of the device. It was made of a smooth, dark metal, about six inches in length and slightly tapered, similar to the shape of a carrot. Dr. Crowdner held the device in the palm of his hand, holding it out for her to examine.

“A doctor places the device near the patient’s perineum. It produces a massaging sensation until the patient experiences paroxysm at which point the session of therapy is complete.”

Buffy shook her head. “How is putting that thing near my cranium going to cure pelvic hypothermia?”

The doctor gave William an exasperated smile.

“Not your cranium, Elizabeth. The device will massage your perineum. Your … personal area.”

It dawned on her in a flash. “Oh, no you don’t. This whole area,” she waved her hands over her body “is very personal. I’m personally attached to it.”

“I assure you, I’ve used this treatment on literally hundreds of patients. You simply need to lie back and…”

Buffy didn’t let him continue. “Voldemort, I promise that if you come anywhere near my hoo-hah with your wand, I’m breaking it in half.”

“Please, calm yourself, Elizabeth. I assure you, we only have your best intentions in mind.” The doctor’s voice was firm, brooking no argument.

“We? Spike, you’re on board with this?”

Spike had been watching the conversation unfold while tugging on his hair and fidgeting about nervously. When she called him by name, it took a moment for him to register that she’d even been speaking to him.

“If there’s even a chance that this treatment could assist you, it would seem a wise course of action,” he responded.

“But I don’t want him to do that to my body. Do I get a say in what happens to my body?”

Spike thought for a moment before giving her a resigned look. “You don’t wish to attempt this therapy? Just for a moment?”

“A definite ‘hell no.’ It looks way too cattle proddy to be anywhere near my lady parts.”

“Very well.” He took a deep breath. “Dr. Crowdner, I’m going to have to insist that we pursue this course of action another time.”

“Another time?” Buffy asked, and she could hear the doctor asking the same question, very nearly in unison with her.

Spike held up his hands. “It’s late. I’m exhausted. We all are. Doctor, I understand your urgency and I thank you for your time and efforts on my wife’s behalf, but I shall not go against her wishes in this.. And Eliza….buffy, I know that you’re tired, but you must understand that the doctor is only trying to help. Let’s be amenable to attempting this one another day, shall we?

Buffy nodded, not entirely sure of what it was she was agreeing to, but fairly sure it meant the Dr. Feelgood and his wand of wonder would leave. A Victorian vibrator. Who knew? When she got back to her own time she hoped she could find a way to tell Giles and her mom. People from the 60s and 70s thought they invented vibrators and orgasms in general.

She’d half expected the doctor to be angry, after all the time and trouble it had taken to set up the machine. He surprised her by giving Spike an understanding smile.

“I understand, William. Elizabeth’s shyness is also quite common among my patients.” He placed the wand next to the machine before turning to face Spike again. “On occasion when the wife has been reluctant to have the treatment performed by her physician, she has instead allowed her husband to administer therapy. This might be your best course of action, William.”

“The machine looks rather complicated.” Spike looked at the doctor dubiously.

“Not at all,” Dr. Crowdner reassured. “The switch is a simple enough matter. The rest is fairly straightforward as well. Place the wand on her perineum – ask for her assistance in finding the most sensitive area – and let the machine perform its stimulating action. There are several attachments in the case should the wand not produce paroxysm within a reasonable amount of time.”

“Ah, well…yes,” Spike said, rubbing the back of his head with his hand.

“I’ll leave it here for a few days, but my medical opinion is that you insist upon immediate treatment. You can’t wait for her to become reasonable if reason has left her, William.”

Spike nodded, and the doctor shook his hand.

“Good evening then, William.” The doctor glanced up at Buffy in her corner of the room. “Good night, Elizabeth.”

“Sleep tight, Charlie,” she responded with a wave.

He shook his head as Spike stepped to the door to see him out. Once the door was closed, he turned toward the cot that George had propped at the head of the bed earlier that evening.

“Are you tired?” He began to unfold the simple canvas cot.

“Exhausted.” She nodded. “Did you pack pj’s for me?”

“PJ’s?”

“Pj’s….nightgowns. Something for your abductee to sleep in?”

He looked at her, wearily. “I believe you packed some nightgowns, but I’m not certain where they are.”

“Really. Since you claim that we’re this married couple – you’d think you’d know where I keep my stuff.”

“We aren’t in the habit of wearing nightclothes, Buffy.”

And that shut her up pretty effectively.

While she rooted around through the large wooden closet, he unfolded the pile of sheets and blankets that had been placed in a tidy pile next to the cot. Now that it had been unfolded, it took up a large section of floor space and making the bed appeared to be somewhat awkward.

She didn’t find anything that looked like a nightgown right away, though there were absolutely loads of silky long shorts and chemises. She finally unearthed a white granny gown from the very bottom of the pile. Just the ticket.

She turned around to find him putting a pillowcase on a pillow that had seen better days.

Spike nodded at her awkwardly. “I’ll just go for a walk around the deck while you change, then.”

As he placed his hand on the latch, she stopped him with a question that had been forming in the back of her mind all evening.

“Spike? I find something very odd.”

He dropped his hand from the latch and turned to look at her, his blue eyes puzzled. “What is it?” His voice was calm, but weary.

“I don’t understand why you haven’t told me what you think is happening. I mean, if your version of things isn’t a lie – wouldn’t you be at least trying to tell me what you think happened?”

He shook his head. “I don’t follow you, Buffy. What I think happened…with the doctor just now?”

“No. To me. Dr. Crowdner thinks I’m insane. I’ve told you what I think is happening. But I don’t understand why you’ve never said what you think.”

“You’ve never asked.”

“So, I’m asking now. Do you think I’m crazy? Do you think a big bad is messing with me?”

“I don’t believe you are ‘crazy.’ About that fact, I am most adamant. As far as other entities interfering in your life? I find this difficult to believe. You tell me that such creatures exist, and I believe you, but in our time together, it’s not something that has been part of our world.”

“So if it’s not a big bad and I’m not nuts, what do you think?”

He clenched his jaw and looked down at the floor for a moment before speaking.

“You were ill last night. I think that this illness has … done something that has affected your sense of time.”

“You don’t think I’m telling the truth?” She was indignant.

“I believe that you are convinced that you are telling the truth. That somehow you’ve forgotten ten years of your life. I don’t believe this to be true, however. I believe you are the woman I love, the woman I wed – and that you will come back to yourself. That you will come back to me, Elizabeth.”

His eyes still on the floor and his jaw still clenched tightly, he quickly turned to face the door, so she could not see his face.

He didn’t say anything for a few moments, before he cleared his throat and said, very quietly. “I shall take that walk now. Should you be asleep before my return, I wish you pleasant dreams.” And he slipped out the door.

She stood there, numbly holding a granny gown in one hand. Either he was telling the truth, and her heart should be breaking into pieces, or he was the world’s best liar and she should be kicking his ass up and down the deck of this ship. The worst part was – both of these options were horrible. Couldn’t there be a third thing? Was that too much to ask?

Her eyelids were feeling heavier by the second, and she began the arduous task of getting out of her button-laden gown. After a good night’s sleep she’d be in a better position to sort this out. With any luck, she’d wake up back home on Revello Drive and this whole thing could be a dream. They did that on TV shows sometimes, when the writers really messed up the plot. It wouldn’t be too much to hope that it could apply to her as well.
End Notes:
This model came along around 1890 and is a little fancier than Dr. Crowdner’s.




The first electromechanical vibrator was used at an asylum in France in 1873, though the first patent was in 1883 by Dr. Joseph Granville. A patent for electric vacuum cleaners didn’t come along for a full ten years after this. Did Victorians have their priorities straight or what? There will be a movie coming out shortly on this topic starring Maggie Gyllenhaal (called, what else, “Hysteria”).

If you’re interested in the topic, I’d recommend a few of the sources I used for it. The first one is everything you want to know, but the second is a nice quick read.

"The Technology of Orgasm: 'Hysteria,' the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction" - Rachel Maines (Johns Hopkins Press, 1998)

“In the History of Gynecology, a Surprising Chapter” – Natalie Angier - February 23, 1999 New York Times

Chapter 7 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thank you to my betas: DoriansKitten, Capella42 and Lutamira. Also for extra goodies on this chapter, hugs to Science and Wolffan! Awesome artiness by AmyXaphania.

Someone nominated this story for Sunny-D awards – thank you so much!!

"If life's not beautiful without the pain,

Well, I'd just rather never, ever even see beauty again."

~Modest Mouse~



Chapter 7

Buffy didn’t know what her first thought was upon waking, because it was quickly replaced by her second thought: mornings are the worst. Whenever anything awful landed in her life, mornings were always the worst – that split second before she realized that everything had been turned upside down only made the moment of realization sting like a slap in the face.

Even before she opened her eyes, she knew; she could tell by the gentle sway and creak of the ship. Still, she opened her eyes to confirm it - paneled mahogany walls, white painted pipes on the ceiling. Ship, sweet ship.

Since her bed was raised higher than a standard bed, his cot was a few feet below hers. The room was so void of sound that she wasn’t entirely sure he was even there. She’d been so exhausted the night before that she’d zonked out before he’d returned from his walk on the deck.

Carefully and quietly, she scooted to look over the edge of her bed.

He was on his back, only two feet away and sleeping deeply. It was odd to see him like that – unaware and vulnerable. Something strange and fluttering caught in her throat for an instant, and she forced herself to swallow.

She couldn’t help but take advantage of the opportunity to study him unaware. He was wearing some kind of Victorian version of a t-shirt, white linen, which stretched tightly across his well muscled chest. One of his arms had been tossed up near his head while he slept, his long, tapered fingers, currently lacking black polish, curled into a sleeping fist. Despite all of his assurances that he was not Spike, the truth was that his body looked exactly like Spike’s.

Next she took a long and appraising look at his face. Yesterday she’d never really looked at his face for any length of time, but each time she’d glanced at him, even momentarily, she’d noticed subtle differences that made her feel very odd inside. Now that he was asleep, however, studying his face shouldn’t be such a difficult thing to do.

The first thing she noticed was the dark shadow of stubble dusting his jaw and chin. She’d never seen Spike in need of a shave before and it definitely made his face appear more human and brought out the hollows beneath his cheekbones. His eyes were closed, and his lashes lay on his cheeks. He had ridiculously thick lashes for a man, really. He should be ashamed, but then when had Spike ever shown much shame? His eyebrows too were… and then she stopped. His scar was gone. No longer marred by that jagged slash – his left brow was now perfect and unmarked.

Well, she supposed that if he had enough mojo to conjure up a ship and period costumes, a little de-scarring would be the least of his feats. Still, there was something subtle, something human about his appearance that made her wonder if, just possibly, ‘William’ was telling the truth. Trouble is, she thought – how can I know for sure?

His eyelids chose that moment to flutter open and she was gazing directly into eyes of the brightest blue, which smiled at her, their corners crinkling up. His mouth also curved into a tender smile before, in an instant, his expression changed totally and was wiped clean, like a cloth sweeping across a dry-erase board.

She scooted backwards in her bed, tucking her head out of sight – but it was too late.

“Good morning, Buffy.” His voice was hesitant. He said her name almost like question.

“Morning,” she muttered in response. She couldn’t quite work up to calling him ‘William.’ To do that would be a kind of defeat. But neither could she find it in her heart to call him ‘Spike.’ He always gave the kicked puppy expression when she used that word. Perhaps she’d just manage to not call him by a name at all or revert to ‘hey you’ whenever she needed to talk to him.

Since there was little space to move around in the room while his cot was set up, she sat up and looked out the porthole. Daybreak was just beginning to spread her fingers across the water, amber shards of sunlight glittering out from the water’s surface. The water was much calmer today, but as she looked out over the ocean, she could feel a lump rising in her throat. She couldn’t help but be reminded of the other ocean that lay near Sunnydale, the place where she belonged and, more importantly, the place where she was needed.

She looked over her shoulder to find him folding up the cot and placing it near the head of the bed, blankets and sheets folded next to it in a tidy pile. As he rubbed his hand on the back of his neck and stretched, she felt a twinge of guilt. That canvas cot looked uncomfortable as hell. Then, she shook her head at herself. She had nothing to feel guilty for. This was the guy who slept on top of sarcophaguses. Unless….he wasn’t. Damn her doubt.

He moved to the wooden closet at the foot of their bed and began putting on his clothing for the day. Since his back was to her, she was able to observe without pretense. The amount of effort that went into clothing was pretty exhausting. No t-shirt and jeans. Layers which included underwear, a shirt, a vest, a suitcoat. It was like watching him put on armor.

She bit her lip. Not that the gear she had to wear was much better, piles of material that weighed an unhealthy amount. She felt like she was dragging a quilt around all day yesterday.

Her thoughts were interrupted by two quick raps on the door. Spike casually attached his shirt cuffs with large bits of jewelry as he walked to the door.

A chubby blond porter stood at the portal holding their breakfast tray. Spike thanked the boy and took the tray, before closing the door behind him.

He set it on the bed while he unfolded the small camp table and chairs. Buffy slid off the edge of the bed and settled into a chair – her tummy rumbling at the scent of freshly baked bread.

He lifted the cover from the tray to reveal a selection of fruit, cheese and breads, along with an assortment of breakfast meats and a brewing pot of tea. At least with calmer seas she was feeling less nausea. She dug in.

Breakfast went much as dinner had gone the night before. There was no conversation and very little eye contact. He stirred an unholy amount of sugar into his tea and swirled the spoon in the cup – his expression contemplative.

When they’d finished breakfast, he gathered up the plates and placed them out in the hall. He went to the washstand and began to rummage about in a small leather bag which had been hanging from a hook just to the side of the sink. After a few moments of searching, she could hear him mutter.

“Looking for something?” she asked.

“I cannot seem to find my razor.”

“Oh, that. They took it. The doctor and his wife took all those things yesterday morning.”

“Why on earth would Dr. Crowdner take my razor?”


“I suspect to keep it out of my hands. They were very polite about it, but I definitely got the sense that they were keeping the sharp things away from the crazy lady.”

He met her eyes, his lips thinning to a line. “I’m sorry. This must be extremely demeaning for you.”

“It’s no big, but it would be nice to get them back. I like having pointy things near me. It’s kind of like a habit.”

“They’ve a barbershop on board. Would you mind if I stepped out? My face is in dire need of a shave.” He rubbed his hand along his stubbled jawline.

“No problemo. I understand. You should see my legs.” She winced. Why did it seem like most of the times she spoke she ended about once sentence past the point where she should really have stopped talking?

He gave her a very perplexed look before nodding and leaving the room.

Feeling ridiculous in her granny gown, she opened the closet door, only to let out a defeated sigh. It was like looking at Blankets R Us or the back room of an upholstery store, just yards and yards of material that she was so not in the mood to drape herself in.

She was feeling ansty and frustrated and just a little bit pissed off. What she needed, what she craved, was a good training session with Giles.

Bunching up her fist, she punched into the row of hanging dresses, which met her blow with a defeated whoosh of air.

What she wouldn’t do for a pair of shorts and a tank top.

~*~

William lay back in the barber chair, eyes closed, as the smooth blade slid up the edge of his jaw line. The rhythm of this, the familiarity, was a steady comfort.

He’d had very little wait time for the chair, the other gentlemen in the shop giving him stiff nods and appraising glances. They’d been involved in animated conversation just prior to his arrival; by the abruptness at which they’d turned silent, it wasn’t difficult to guess that the topic of conversation had been William and his mad wife.

Since the top choice for gossip was sitting in the room with them, the other customers had to make do with speculating about a third-class passenger who had gone missing last night. It was assumed that he’d gotten drunk and fallen overboard, poor lout.

After giving his razor a few strokes on his leather strop, the barber moved to the right side of William’s face. The barber tilted William’s chin upwards with a steady hand before beginning to shave his neck.

William consciously relaxed his jaw with a sigh. It felt so odd to be away from her, he was filled at once with a mixture of longing and, he hated to admit it, relief. He felt horribly guilty about that last emotion, but there it was all the same. Being in her presence was so painful at times that he could only endure it moment to moment – and could never manage to think very far ahead. He couldn’t stand to contemplate what would become of them if she did not regain her memories, if they remained ‘Buffy’ and ‘Spike,’ in her mind – never returning to Elizabeth and William.

“Sir?” the Barber interrupted William’s train of thought and William opened his eyes to see an assortment of aftershave products displayed before him on a tray. He selected the laurel water and dabbed it on his cheeks and throat before drying his hands on a white towel which the barber offered to him.

He left the room with a nod, freeing the undoubtedly relieved passengers to commence speculating about him once again.

Although he was tempted to take a short walk on the deck, he turned instead towards his room, feeling compelled not to leave his wife alone for long. The confines of the cabin would feel restrictive under normal circumstances, and their situation was far from normal. He knew that it must be especially trying for Elizabeth, who had far too much life in her to tolerate being confined for long.

He turned the latch and entered swiftly. As he stepped into the room, he nearly tripped over his wife, who was lying on their cabin floor. Startled, he took a step back.

She was wearing a bright blue chemise and bloomers – and only wearing that. Her hair back in a ‘ponytail’ – she was lying on her back on the floor, arms behind her head and lifting her arms and legs in unison while she counted.

“Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…”

“Elizabeth?” In his shock, he called her by the wrong name. “What are you doing?”

She gave him a dirty look, then turned her head to concentrate upon what she was doing.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m exercising. Twenty.” She lay back on the floor and stretched her arms above her head, pulling the silky chemise fabric tightly against her breasts.

His cockstand was immediate and ferocious, forcing him to quickly turn his back to her.

“What?” She grumbled at him. “Am I not ‘properly attired’? Trust me; I’m wearing more coverage than ninety-nine percent of California right now.”

He bit his lower lip and did a little counting of his own. Concentrating upon numbers did a grand sum of nothing to will his erection away. Perhaps if he just stepped past her he could settle at the table and read the guide book he’d purchased before their journey.

He turned around to find her lying on her back, arms still behind her head. She was lifting her legs off the floor and making slow circles with them. It looked to be at once the most uncomfortable and most erotic thing one could do with ones legs. He thanked god that split-crotch bloomers were completely out of fashion. If she’d been wearing those at this moment, he wouldn’t have stood a chance. He’d have been consumed by his lust - a sudden spark originating at his cock and eventually set his entire body aflame. The last thing remaining would be his smile.

With his hips, and erection, circumspectly facing the wall, he side-stepped around his wife as she settled her legs back upon the floor and placed her arms by her sides.

After retrieving his guide book, he settled into the folding chair and opened the book to a random page. Anything to take his mind off, his eyes off, her. His gaze flickered down to where his wife lay on the ground, not two feet away from him. Her chemise had ridden up enough to expose a small section of her stomach. He could just see her navel winking at him coyly behind lace trim.

She was doing hip thrusts. Her arms and legs supporting her weight, she lifted her pelvis in the air in a rhythmic pattern, while counting, her voice breathy, “Ten, eleven, twelve.” Oh, he was damned for certain now. There was no hope for him whatsoever.

As her hips lifted into the air, he could see the faintest trace of her dark curls, just showing through the fabric at the juncture of her thighs. He gripped his book tightly and willed his eyes to the page. His eyes were, unfortunately, having none of it and remained firmly focused on Elizabeth’s hips.

She sat up then, her back to him, and lifted her arms high above her head as she began a series of stretches. He could see the slightest trickle of perspiration running down the side of her neck and forming a little damp spot, just where her chemise met her shoulder. He licked his lips. It would be wrong, it would be exceedingly strange to want to kiss his wife’s neck in such a circumstance, he knew. To find that even such a thing as her perspiration would arouse him, would cause him to crave…

She shifted position, turning to face him. Perspiration caused her chemise to cling to her breasts in the most alarming and pleasant way; the tips of her nipples peaking the fabric. His eyes immediately flashed down to read his book. He was so quick that she would have never noticed that he was staring at her. Ravishing her with his eyes, really. He bit his lip again. Was his erection noticeable? It might be, from her position on the floor. He crossed his right leg over his left, blocking her view and effectively solving that potential problem.

While remaining seated, she began a series of slow leg lifts. Though he was concentrating upon his book, he could tell that she was looking at him. He redoubled his efforts at reading. By all accounts, anyone would be convinced that he was fascinated with this guide book and paying no attention whatsoever to his wife.

“I’ve never seen anyone do that before.” She startled him and he very nearly dropped the book.

Recovering quickly, he smiled and said in a nonchalant voice. “Do what before, Buffy?” He was immensely pleased with himself that he’d remembered to call her Buffy in these circumstances.

”Read a book like that.” She lifted her legs into the air and held them there while she counted slowly.

“It’s a standard guide book.”

“Not that.” She lowered her legs before beginning another lift. “I mean, the way you’re reading it. Upside down.”

Dear god. He scrambled to turn the book right side up, before turning it back to the upside down position. “It’s a …a map.”

“A map,” she repeated and he thought the whisper of a smile might have crossed her lips, but it blew away before he could be certain.

She began to bend down – reaching down to touch her toes, then to place her palms on the floor before springing up vigorously to begin the process again. Her breasts bounced perkily to her rhythm.

He clenched his jaw and forced his concentration back to the maps, which looked surprisingly like a Table of Contents page.

~*~

A few raps on the door interrupted Buffy’s exercise routine.

“Three guesses as to who it is. The first two don’t count,” she grumbled.

She scooted behind the door while Spike opened the door a crack. “Good morning, Dr. Crowdner.”

“Good morning, William. Forgive the early hour, won’t you? How did you fare last night?”

“Fine. All is well.” Spike tugged nervously on his hair.

“Yes, well, I was hoping to begin therapy this morning. Is your wife up and dressed?”

“Tell him I’m naked and armed,” Buffy hissed from behind the door.

His cheeks flushed a bright red.

“She’s not precisely…prepared for company at the moment, doctor.”

“Very well. Perhaps we could take a stroll on the deck then, William. There are several matters regarding her therapy that we should discuss.”

“Certainly,” Spike agreed. He nodded in Buffy’s general direction, but kept his eyes trained on the floor, as he slipped out, closing the door behind him.

Buffy leaned against the wall and sighed. She’d dodged another doctor bullet – but only just.

Well, well ‘William.’ This morning had been a bit of a revelation after all. Just when he’d put on the Proper Englishman Mask so well that she began to think he was telling the truth, he’d gone all ‘Spike’ on her once she started to show a bit of leg.

Oh sure – he’d acted all awkward and polite at first. But when he’d been sitting behind her, she could see his reflection in the mirror behind the wash basin. How his gaze trained on her ass, her thighs. The look in his half-lidded eyes, even the way he curled his tongue behind his teeth just before biting his lip – that look was pure Spike. She kicked herself for being halfway to believing him.

And he had the audacity to claim he was studying maps, upside down. In case he needed to navigate while standing on his head. God, he was the king of lame.

She was feeling more than a little sticky and gross, so she went to the wash basin and ran the tap for a moment. After dampening a cloth she washed her arms and neck while she contemplated what to do about Spike.

How long could he play at this game? Even worse, what if it weren’t a game and she really had somehow landed back with a human version of him? Did he know anything, and if so, how would she convince him to be honest with her?

She looked at herself in the mirror. Her reflection looked back at her, grimly. She appeared different in the mirror, older. Her hair was darker and her nose had a slightly strange upturn to it. She also looked…older. Whatever he’d conjured up, it hadn’t done her any great favors in the looks department.

She untied the twine holding her ponytail together and began to brush her hair with frustrated, angry strokes.

Regardless of the little changes she saw in the mirror, she was still herself. The Slayer. Not powerless. So why did she feel so damned weak in this situation?

“What Would the Slayer Do?” She asked her mirror self, imagining a Sunnydale Buffy looking back at her.

“Kick his ass until he talked?” Her reflection suggested with raised brows.

“Not really an option since I no longer seem to have Slayer powers.”

“Slayers aren’t just known for their brawn. Find a way to get past his defenses.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Easy for you to do. Think. What is Spike’s weakness when it comes to you?”

“Well, as cringe-worthy as it is to admit. It seems to be his penis.”

“Uh huh. I think you just saw Exhibit A while he was watching you exercise. So the key to finding out i this whole thing is a set up, to see if he really is Spike, would be to…”

“Attack him via his penis?”

“Exactamundo!”

“And how would I do that?”

Her mirror-self gave her a very patient look and then Buffy noticed something in the background of her reflection: a large machine sitting atop a table. It was large and grey and had a peculiar looking wand attached to it.

“As far as a Spike test goes – that looks to be the gauntlet. If this whole thing was a set-up to get into your pants, he wouldn’t be able to pass this test. He’d never be able to keep up the pretense. And once you got him to admit that he was behind it, you’d be halfway home.”

Buffy groaned and turned from her reflection. She moved toward the wooden closet at the end of the room, carefully avoiding even looking at the large metal box on the table sitting beside it. As she stripped out of her slightly sweaty blue underwear she considered the pros and cons of allowing her ‘husband’ to apply such ‘therapy’ to her nether regions.

She selected a chemise and bloomer set that bordered on red, then slipped a simple dress of dusty pink over her head and began the arduous process of buttoning it up. Her mind was torn. There were so many possible courses of action that it was impossible to know the right path. Meanwhile, she felt the constant pull of her family and her duties back in Sunnydale. She couldn’t stand to contemplate what would become of her if she couldn’t set things right. If she remained ‘Elizabeth’ to his ‘William’ – never returning to ‘Buffy.’ It simply couldn’t be an option.

There were two brief raps on the door; the latch lifted and the door opened just a crack. “Buffy, the doctor would like to see you for just a moment.” His voice sounded awfully weary for eight in the morning.

“Come in,” she replied, still not entirely decided on her course of action.

William came into the cabin and Dr. Crowdner followed close behind, his arms full of books.

“Good morning Elizabeth. I trust you slept well.”

“I slept marvelously, Charlie. And you?”

“Quite well, thank you.” He placed the stack of books down on their table before continuing. “I’ve just been speaking with William about your therapy and brought several books on the topic which I’d like to go over with you.”

“That won’t be necessary,” she interrupted.

“This treatment is for your own good, Elizabeth. You simply cannot continue to resist therapy.”

“I’m not resisting it. I’m quite willing to participate. Enthusiastically, even. As long as William is the one administering it.”
End Notes:
And now a word from our sponsor:


Chapter 8 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thank you to capella42 for beta'ing this chapter. Thanks to Xaphania for the banner
A ladies words are always filled with grace and goodness, in spite of her real feelings. She must appear to assume the best of situations, no matter how annoyed she really is.

-On Victorian Manners-


Chapter 8



“Don’t think about elephants,” William reminded himself throughout the long afternoon.

Considering that they were essentially trapped in a small room, they managed to find a stunning plethora of activities to engage themselves with for the remainder of the day. William suggested chess, and Elizabeth agreed. This effectively ate up the better part of two hours. After chess, they played a few dozen hands of whist, after which she spent an inordinate amount of time examining the guide book he’d purchased for the rail journey. He spent the time ‘sorting through’ business papers that needed no sorting whatsoever.

Neither she nor William had said a word about the obtrusive machine, squatting on the table and being terribly difficult to ignore. Whenever he glanced at the thing he felt a strange mixture of trepidation and arousal. It was terribly confusing.

Just as Elizabeth had exhausted the guide book, and handed it back to William, he could hear the voices of their fellow passengers echoing down the hall as they made their way to dinner.

As she settled back into her camp chair with a sigh, a rather brilliant idea came to him, quite out of the blue.

“Buffy, would you like to take a walk on the deck?”

“What? You mean now?”

“Yes. The other passengers will be at dinner for at least an hour. We should have the deck quite to ourselves.”

It went without saying why they would want the deck to themselves, that “Mad Mrs. Pratt” would most likely be quite an object of interest to her fellow travelers.

Elizabeth smiled at him. It was only a little smile – the corners of her mouth turning up in the slightest way. But it was a genuine smile, the first he’d seen since she’d changed, and he accepted it like a precious gift.

“Yeah. Leaving this room sounds like all kinds of good.” She popped out of her chair and went to the wardrobe, where she picked up a pair of shoes. When she sat back down and began to slip on her shoes, William retrieved his coat and a shawl for her, as evenings on the deck could become quite breezy.

Elizabeth was struggling with the buttons of her shoes, trying to fasten them with her bare hands and cursing slightly under her breath.

He quickly retrieved the button hook and knelt down beside her. “Perhaps I could assist you?”

When she gave a quick nod, he set to work threading the buttons through the eyes. It was astounding, really, the things that she was unaware of. Watching her dine was especially telling. So many things that she had been accustomed to were now absolutely foreign to her.

It struck him that it would have been like this for her when she first arrived in his household all those months ago. As ‘Bessie’ the maid she’d not known about their dining habits, how to dress herself, the complex social order which surrounded her, yet she’d never complained or expressed the slightest frustration. How blind he’d been to how difficult it all must have been for her.

He finished fastening up her shoes and stood up, offering his arm to her out of instinct. She gave him a slightly suspicious look and stood, rejecting his arm. Mentally he cursed himself for being a fool.

The hall was absolutely empty, as he’d hoped it would be. The deck too was devoid of passengers and crew. It was a lovely, clear evening, with very little breeze. The sails snapped and fluttered in the wind as they made their way to the rail. He positioned himself slightly behind her, to act as a shield to the wind.

She placed her hands on the deck rail and looked out at the water; her expression was calm and yet she appeared deep in thought. His Elizabeth would get like this from time to time, he knew. It was best to leave her alone during these moments. But, what ‘Buffy’ might prefer? He had no idea.

She let out a sigh. “So that I understand things. The plan is, when we get off the boat, we’re going to California on a train, right? That’s why you have the book I was reading?”

“That’s correct. We’re going to a vineyard in the Napa Valley.”

“Not Sunnydale?”

“Sunnydale doesn’t exist yet, love.” She responded to that immediately, her head jerking up to look at him with a suspicious glance. He kicked himself inwardly and quickly worked to take her mind off his slip, his daring to use an endearment. “We could go to the place where Sunnydale will be one day – if you’d like that.”

“Yeah. I’d like that.” She gave nothing away, only gripped the rail and stared at the water stoically.

“You talked to me a great deal about Sunnydale,” he said, watching as her expression softened at his words. It was like a balm to his heart, and he couldn’t resist saying more. “The Scoobies, your mother, your sister Dawn.”

“Dawn?” She appeared agitated now. “What did I tell you about Dawn?"

“Ah, you told me many, many things about her, Buffy. How she would perplex you; how she would get you into terrible predicaments; how you loved her.”

“And from what year do you claim that I came to you? That I was telling you these things about my sister?”

“You came to me from the year 2011.”

“So, you’re saying that Dawn was alive when I came to you? I talked to you as if she were around in 2011. Glory didn’t kill her?”

“Ah, Glory! The hell-god, yes?”

Elizabeth nodded enthusiastically. He was such a git for not seeing this before. How could he have been so foolish, so thoughtless?

“Eliza-buffy, Dawn is fine. You told me of Glory and that you’d defeated her. Dawn quite made it through the entire ordeal.”

The relief on his wife’s face was so transformative that is was almost painful to watch. He was a bloody idiot for not anticipating that she might have been worried about such a thing.

“You’re sure? You’re positive that Dawn made it through ok? You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”

“I have never dealt with you dishonestly, darling. I never will."

Her green eyes looked into his, searching for something. After a moment she seemed to find some kind of confirmation there, and nodded, her eyes beginning to well with tears. She gripped the rail tightly and looked away from him, back to the ocean.

“Can you tell me anything else about Dawn? How we defeated Glory? What she’s doing now?”

He moved to touch her shoulder, to reassure her, before catching himself. He balled his hand into a fist and stuffed it into his jacket pocket instead.

“You told me of her going to college and finding a job. You’d told me of the man she was dating and how you weren’t terribly fond of him. Ah, you spoke a great deal about how attached she was to her eye-phone.”

“What’s an eye-phone?” Elizabeth turned to cock an eyebrow at him.

“I’m not sure love. You said she was married to the device and that she was an ‘app junkie.’”

“I guess it’s a kind of killer cell phone,” Elizabeth said. “She always was a little bit nutso for phones.” She gave him a smile. Her second, no less thrilling than the first. He captured it, tucked it away for when he might need it, and returned it, tremulously.

“What did I tell you about the rest of the crew? Giles, Xander, Willow, my mom?”

Her mother’s death. A chill ran through him. She didn’t know. It hadn’t happened yet, in her mind. The smile on his lips froze, turned inwards, choked him.

He’d promised her total honesty, yet how could he tell her this now, just when she was beginning to thaw, starting to settle into her skin? He reached to put his arm around her shoulder, before he caught himself just in time and leaned out to hold onto the rail instead.

“You told me some aspects of all these people,” he responded honestly. “But you left a great deal of information blank. Especially about my own past. You said that some things were better not to know, since on this timeline they would never really happen.”

Elizabeth frowned. “But the things that happened in my own past….would be a shared past with ‘Elizabeth,’ wouldn’t they? So I can know about them.”

And she had him there – she truly did. It was at that moment that he heard the sound of other passengers returning from dinner, and he felt an astonishing amount of relief at the intrusion..

He gestured toward the hallway, where people were beginning to appear. “Perhaps we should return to our room now?”

She glanced over her shoulder, sighed, and then rolled her eyes. “Good call. I would so like to avoid…all of this.”

He held his arm out for her, damning his instinct, but before he could remove it, she surprised him by taking hold of it and tucking in by his side. He swallowed and guided her toward the main passageway.

They hadn’t gotten far before William recognized a woman heading their way: Elizabeth the First. Behind her was a small pack of lesser females, like geese flocking. He attempted to side-step her, by swerving around an exhaust, but she was too clever, and diverted the flock to intersect them.

“William and Elizabeth Pratt! What a pleasure to see you out this evening!” Elizabeth the First leaned in to place a hand on William’s arm; her eyes were sparkling and full of dark curiosity.

“We were just retiring. Good evening.” William said, sounding terribly final and quite rude.

Elizabeth the First was the Rock of Gibraltar, unmoved. “We’ve so missed you at dinner. Is everything…quite alright?” She looked intensely at his Elizabeth.

“Quite fine. I wish you good evening,” William said, as he lifted her hand from his arm and stepped to the side, pushing himself through the crowd.

“Well! I never!” Elizabeth the First huffed.

As he made his way toward the center hall, he heard his wife mutter ‘bitch’ just beneath her breath and he couldn’t help but grin. They swiftly retreated down the hall and into their room. No sooner had they shut the door, when two knocks sounded.

William hesitated for a moment, then opened the door to find George, holding a platter and beaming a smile. “We’ve a lovely dinner for you and the missus tonight, sir. May I set it up for you?”

“Indeed, George. Thank you.”

George sat out dinner which consisted of roast lamb in mint sauce, halibut in a white sauce and aggressively arranged asparagus spears, among other items.

George bowed out of the room and they consumed their meal in silence. They were just finishing dessert when William spoke. “Darling, it just occurred to me that the doctor is likely to stop by this evening.”

Elizabeth bit her lip.

“Perhaps if I stop by and visit with him first, it might circumvent his visit.”

“Oh yes. That sounds like a great idea!”

He stepped out of the room and down the hall to take a bullet for his wife.

~*~

She was idly playing with the crumbs of something called whortleberry tart when two quick raps on the door announced that George had returned to collect the remnants of dinner. She quickly let him in.

“Was dinner satisfactory, ma’am?” George asked, as he stacked up the dirty dishes.

“Very good George. Thank you for taking such good care of us.”

“It’s nothing, Mrs. Pratt. My pleasure.”

“Your mother must be terribly proud of you.” Buffy couldn’t help herself. He was just so adorable and tried so hard.

George blushed furiously, and she was strangely, disturbingly, reminded of ‘William

“I’m the eldest of my family, ma’am. My paychecks go a long way to helping me mum and sisters.”

“You’ve got sisters?” Buffy perked up.

“Three of them, all younger than me.”

“I’ll bet you miss them.”

George put his dish down and looked at her thoughtfully, before looking away in embarrassment. “Yes, ma’am, I do. Nothin’ like family, you know?”

She felt the tears prick and sting at the back of her eyes. It was all the talk of Dawn on the deck, she told herself. It was being thrust into this too-weird situation. It was hearing this boy talk about missing his sisters. It was all of it, and none of it combined. It was just being human and being homesick. Not quite trusting herself to talk, she nodded in his direction while being too cowardly to meet his eyes.

George, perhaps sensing that this topic had brought about an uncomfortable burst of emotion from her, continued to clean busily. He stacked the dishes in a cart he’d placed just outside the door, then came back into the room, head down, eyes on the floor.

“I know it’s not my place, ma’am. It’s just, well, I seen a lot of folk come and go on this ship. And when it comes to family, well, your husband, Mr. Pratt, there’s no finer man.”

She glanced up to find George bursting into a furious blush, which seemed to be a semi-permanent condition of his. He backed out of the room with a nod.

The moment George left, her dam burst. The tears that had been threatening to spill since the moment they’d first discussed Dawn on the deck came spilling forth with a vengeance. It wasn’t even that George had said anything so profound. Simply that he ‘had sisters’ which had caused this tsunami of tears. God, it was as pathetic as when she used to tear up over the Folgers Christmas commercial.

She climbed into bed and scurried to her favorite corner, burying her face in a pillow. If she could just…get a good cry out, maybe that would make things better. Help her not be such a Sobbing Sally when Spike came back into the room.

Tucking her face back into the pillow, she let the tears and the cries flow freely. It was a matter of pure luck that she heard the click of the latch while she was in the middle of taking a breath.

Someone had come into the room. She could only assure it was him. She stifled her weeping, willing herself to be as strong as she needed to be.

“Buffy?”

She steadied her voice, as best she could, and pulled her face away from the pillow. “Just feeling tired,” she said, enunciating carefully and trying very hard not to sound terribly hoarse.

“Are you all right?” His voice was serious. Damn him. He’d seen right through her sham.

Her dependable defenses kicked in. When in doubt, go on the attack. It was her tried and true motto.

“Are you deaf? I said I was tired.” She bit out her question, before pausing, softening, and asking, “How was the doctor? Did he give you crap?”

“What?” He sounded horrified.

“Did he…did he give you trouble about us not…you know?”

“Buffy? I am trying darling, I am. But what kind of ‘crap’ and what kind of trouble do you refer to?”

In her anger, she forgot her red eyes, her puffy face and turned to face him. “Did the doctor give you grief for us not using the stupid machine today? I assume that’s why you went to him. Did he give you crap about it?”

“Oh.” He tugged on his hair and gave the machine a nervous glance. “He tried to. I didn’t let him.”

A pause hung in the air. She knew she should say something, anything, about the machine, about what she’d agreed to do. But he spoke instead.

“You appear to be upset. I don’t mean to intrude, but…it appears that you’ve been weeping.”

“Well, that’s none of your business,” she snapped before turning to face the wall again.

“Is there…is there anything I can do?”

“Not without a time machine,” she muttered miserably. “Or…you could try telling the truth about why I’m here.”

He said nothing to this.

For the longest time she heard only silence, then he asked, “Would you like me to retire to the hall so that you may ready yourself for bed?”

“I want to sleep in my clothes tonight. I don’t care. Just leave me alone.”

“Very well.”

She could hear rustling. He was removing his clothes, putting on some kind of goofy olde tyme pjs, no doubt. She could hear the sound of him assembling his cot, unfolding blankets, then the oil lamps flickered and died.

Curiosity got the better of her and she heard herself asking, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Only if I can ask you one in return.”

She thought about it for only a moment. “Okay. I want to know … I know I agreed to you using that machine on me but…what if I change my mind? What if I never let you use it on me? What would you tell the doctor then?”

He chuckled. The irritating man had the audacity to laugh! “Your definition of ‘a’ question is somewhat broader than mine, Buffy, but I believe I can answer you. We needn’t use the machine if you don’t wish it. Should the doctor persist, I can tell him anything you wish. It’s not a thing I would force on you, love.”

She gave him no response. That was certainly what she’d expected Spike to say. How was it that, even when she was feeling sobby and depressed, he had a way to piss her off like no other? Her melancholy was quickly being replaced by irritation.

“It’s my turn,” his baritone voice rumbled in the dark.

“Your turn?”

“My turn for a question.”

“Oh, God.”

When he could tell that this would be her only response, he continued.

“In your life in Sunnydale, your life with the Scoobies, when you were feeling sad, what did they do to comfort you?”

Well that was unexpected. It caught her so off guard that she found herself responding with total honesty.

“Willow would hug me. She was always big with the touchy. Giles would lecture me with some fatherly advice. Xander would try to distract me with a lame joke and Dawn would always instigate some kind of disaster that would take my mind off things.”

What a strange kind of question.

She sat up in bed and wrestled with the duvet until she had managed to cover herself. She was sorely tempted to peek her head over the side of the bed to see him there, on the cot just below her – but she resisted.

Feeling uncomfortable, she lay back, twisting this way and that, knowing that, at this point, sleep was hours away. Was he fidgeting too, there in the darkness on his cot?

She waited, counted backwards, then craned her head up to look out the porthole and attempted to count stars.

When he spoke to her out of the dark, it gave her such a start that she jumped, slightly.

“Who is the roundest knight at King Arthur’s table?” he asked.

“What?”

“Who is the roundest knight at King Arthur’s table?” he repeated.

“I have no idea…” she trailed off, having no idea what this was about.

“Sir Cumfrence.”

She lay in stunned silence. Was he…? Was he trying to tell a joke?

“What is the definition of a gentleman?” he asked.

Oh dear god, he was.

“I have no idea, William. What is the definition of a gentleman?”

“One who knows how to play the viola, but doesn't.”

She couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Not laughing, quite, but loud gasping hyena bursts that shock the mattress. It wasn’t the joke – they were god-awful. It was him, bless his sad, sad sense of humor, and his lame attempts to cheer her, Scooby style. It was at once the saddest and sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her.

Once her laughter had subsided, she took a deep breath and said, “Two whales walk into a bar. The first whale says to the other, ‘WOOOOOOO. WEEEEE OOOOO. WEEEEEEE EEEEEE OOOOOOO.’ The second whale says, ‘Shut up Steve, you're drunk.’"

He said nothing, at first. Then his laughter burst out like a firework, lighting the room and her being with its flame and warmth. She closed her eyes tightly, wondering at this strange new place she’d managed to find herself in.

Neither of them noticed, she’d just called him ‘William.’

~*~

Dr. Charles Crowdner could be startlingly light of foot when necessity commanded it. He walked up the outer hallway, stopping directly before room seventeen.

“Charles, please, we must return to our room!” his wife whispered insistently for the fourth or fifth time. He’d lost track at this point.

“It is part of my professional duty,” he sounded terribly convincing, at least to his own ears. “To assure myself that there is no trouble with the device. William assured me that he’d attempt therapy this evening. If I didn’t check back on his progress, I’d be remiss in my duties.”

Jane crossed her arms and looked at her husband skeptically.

“Need I remind you, I am one of the few doctors who are open minded enough to even attempt to allow a patient’s husband to attempt therapy. But they’re a very…unusual couple. Quite unique, I would think.”

“Stop kidding yourself,” Jane whispered urgently. “You’re a terrible busy-body and you know it.”

“I’m a responsible physician. Now pipe down, darling, so that I may listen.”

They held their breaths as Dr. Crowdner put a glass to the door before placing his ear at the other end.

“WOOOOOOO. WEEEEE OOOOO. WEEEEEEE EEEEEE OOOOOOO,” a pause, some mumbled words and then the sound of William laughing, maniacally.

“Oh, dear,” Dr. Crowdner mumbled, stepping away from the door.

“What is it?” Jane was concerned and anxious.

”It's very difficult to tell. Either things are going extremely well or have just gone horribly, horribly wrong.”
End Notes:
Questions. You got questions? I got answers!

1. Uh, did you forget about Dru? When will we see her again?
2. I thought our couple was going to get funky with that exciting machine. When will that happen?
3. I’ve been dying to know a little bit about nineteenth century socio-economic conditions and how that atmosphere led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Will you be touching on this at all?

Answers: All of these topics will be addressed, and two of them will be discussed in the very next chapter! No matter how much William and Buffy may drag their feet!

Chapter 9 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thanks to my betas: DoriansKitten, Capella42 and Lutamira. And thanks to Amy for the lovely banner. A big thanks to Wolffan and Science for hand-holding and general midwifery and to all of you for reading and commenting! And to William for having those cheekbones! And to my cats!
If you start to get confused because of thoughts in your head
Don't feel those feelings. Hold them in instead.
- Book of Mormon, the Musical -


Chapter 9

“Show me again,” Dru begged, her hands clasped together in supplication – the very picture of a Catholic schoolgirl.

The Shining Man’s hologram grinned and winked at her. “It seems like we might be forgetting something. We didn’t forget how to ask nicely, did we?” (Didn’t forget. Just didn’t want to.)

Dru dropped to her knees before the hologram, which leered, then said “Atta girl.”

With a shimmer and a flash, the image of the Shining Man was replaced by another vision. Two figures in silhouette. One was clearly Dru and the other was a man with bright white hair and a long black leather coat. They stood side-by-side in front of a Hellmouth, the lifeless form of a slayer at their feet.

(Together, Dark Prince William and I will kill a slayer, forever changing the destiny of the Hellmouth.)


“Yeah, yeah…” the Shining Man snapped back into focus, wiping away the vision with a swat of his hand. He pointed a finger at Dru, and raised his brows. “But not tonight. The next couple of nights you need to build your strength. Pick off some of these bottom feeders. I don’t want you going for your William just yet. The moment you take out someone from first class, they’ll suddenly begin to care and I want you a little closer to shore when that goes down.”

Dru nodded
(Bossy, full of cross words)

and began to stand. “Not quite yet

“Tonight, you’ll find your dinner on the stairwell, smoking a cigarette. He should be there in about ten minutes, so be a good girl and don’t dawdle.”

He gave a strange little salute, before he shimmered and then winked out of sight with a faintly audible pop.

Dru shifted into game face, then embedded the nail of her index finger deeply into the wooden bottom of the crate, cutting a jagged line along the floor just at her dollies feet.
(That’s the line you’re not to cross while Mummy is away.)


Though it was blackest night inside the crate, her dollies could see her line, she knew. They didn’t need light to see anymore than they needed words to talk to her. (Where did they begin and she end?)

Dru was feeling giddy. She always felt such a charge of dark delight after her Shining Man came to call (an ungentleman, but her savior). Her Shining Man took such good care of her. He’d arranged the crate for her, taught her where to catch fishies for dinner. He’d shown her a better way than the dreary existence she’d had with Angelus and Grandmum. The Shining Man had confirmed her destiny. She would create her Dark Prince William and rule at his side in a world of their making. He’d shown her the visions, and her Shining Man had never lied to her.

Nor did she lie to him, not precisely. She just didn’t tell him everything. (A good girl is a silent girl.)

Dru hadn’t told him of the vision that her dollies had shown her (clever darlings). Like the Shining Man, her little dears were never wrong and they’d been speaking to her a lot longer, though poor Miss Lily didn’t enunciate so well with that railroad spike in her mouth.

They’d begun talking to her on the night of her own mummy’s murder (such bright red blood, shining around her head like a halo). On that night they’d told her of the change that was coming. They’d told her of Angelus, of Grandmum. They’d told her of William, too, her Dark Prince that waited for her to bring him forth into unlife.

They’d told her of her future, her destiny. “Together, she and her Prince William would kill a slayer, forever changing the destiny of the Hellmouth.”

And like her Shining Man, they’d shown her visions as well. Lovely pictures (dancing in flames and blood). And though the words were identical to the Shining Man’s prophecy, the visions themselves were not.

In both visions, Dru could see herself, the body of the dead slayer and the Hellmouth. However, in her dollies’ vision, her prince did not have strangely white hair and a long black coat. Their Prince William was wearing a brown suit coat and had a gun strapped to his hip, his hair brown and curling.

Which vision showed her the true face of her Dark Prince? She did not know.

Miss Penny mumbled to her (not William’s time yet) and Dru stepped on Miss Penny’s delicate china foot, crushing it into shards beneath the heel of her shoe. (Yes, my darling. Mummy knows.)

Dru had been so very patient. Such a good, good girl, she’d been. Though the Shining Man bid her to wait, she would go to her prince when he called her.

(Three days, maybe four.) That was Miss Edith.

Dru reached over and patted Miss Edith’s head lovingly. Yes, she could bide her time for a few days. Build her strength until the time was right to find her Prince, gift him with his new life.

Blowing a kiss to her little row of silent maids, she opened the door of her crate and slipped out into the night, where the beating heart of her dinner waited on a nearby stairwell.

~*~

Sleeping in her clothes was a bad idea when she’d worn jeans and a tank top. When she was covered in yards of Victorian gear, it was spectacularly bad. Buffy woke up tangled in yards of material, the collar of her dress was digging into her neck.

William was already awake and dressing himself in front of the large closet. She moved quietly, tilting her head slightly, to get a better view. He’d just slipped his undershirt off his head and was looking through drawers, shirtless, his back to her. He certainly had a body like Spike’s. When he reached to a high shelf to retrieve a fresh undershirt, his muscles rippled and flexed. He was built more like a predator than the quiet English gentleman he proclaimed to be.

When he abruptly turned towards her, she slammed her eyelids shut quickly.

“Good morning, Buffy,” he said. She hadn’t been quite quick enough.

“Hi,” she mumbled, irritated at the happy tone in his voice. She’d let her guard down a little bit yesterday, and found herself regretting it. Especially when faced with a cheery, half-naked ‘husband’ who had a body that he, frankly, had no right to have.

“Sleep well?” He slipped an undershirt over his head and gave her a shy smile.

“Not really,” she grumbled.

“Sorry to hear it. Perhaps breakfast will be just the thing to restore your spirits.” He continued to dress, buttoning up a sky blue shirt. The color of it would bring out his eyes in a very disturbing way, she just knew it. It was really sneaky of him to be so cheerful, thoughtful, half-naked and blue-wearing this early in the morning.

Two knocks on the door announced that the porter had arrived with breakfast. While William went to collect the tray, Buffy wriggled off the end of the bed and sat down at the table, running her fingers through her hair in a futile detangling effort.

William set the tray down before them, lifting the covers from the various dishes and pouring their tea, while Buffy placed some toast on her plate.

“Not hungry this morning?” he asked.

She shook her head no. It was absolutely maddening how he was ignoring her level best efforts at being rude to him. He kept persisting in cheerful conversation. The bastard.

“I do hope you’re not getting seasick again. I could make inquiries to Dr. Crowdner, if you think that would help.”

“I’m fine!” She glowered at him.

That hint, mercifully, he seemed to take, and he began to eat his breakfast with no further attempts at conversation. She nibbled at her toast and watched him, trying to find a way to work through who he really was.

“Do you work out?” she asked, abruptly.

“Beg pardon?”

“Do you go to the gym? Work out? Seems like a strange thing for a gentleman to do.”

He smiled at her, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. That shirt did bring out an icy blue shade to them, damn him.

“I box, Buffy. I believe that is the word you used.”

She couldn’t help but let out a short burst of laughter. “You don’t really seem like a boxing type!”

But he only remained smiling at her. “I couldn’t agree more, however you took issue with that, and insisted I persist in the sport. And you were quite right to do so. It was most enjoyable and has come in quite handy from time to time.” He raised his teacup in a toast to her.

“Who … who do you claim I was to you. I mean, before I was your wife. How did I come into your life? Some kind of Dutchess of East Pemblytonberkshire? What is your story exactly?”

“You were a member of my household staff.”

“Ah, the old reliable governess falls in love with the master of the house?”

“Something like that.”

“Like that? What was I?”

“A parlour maid and part-time nurse to my mother.”

“Oh god.” Her petulance was momentarily forgotten at the absurdity of the thought. “Did I suck at it?”

He laughed. “Not at all! You were a most excellent nurse. You brightened my mother’s days like no other – which is a primary duty for a nurse, after all.”

“But the maid thing. You can’t tell me that I was any good at that.”

“England has never seen anyone like you. Nor will they again, I’d wager.”

She looked at him skeptically.

“You were very …. transformative.” His eyes took on a distant look and he smiled to himself. “You were extremely good at…teaching me things, Buffy. You also had very thorough techniques when it came to finding hidden objects and protecting our family from unpleasant influences.”

It always felt so strange when he talked about her unremembered life. Either she’d done these things which she had no memory of, which left her feeling hollow and used somehow. Or he was lying, which filled her with silent rage. She vacillated between the two options – both of them making her feel equally miserable.

If she believed him, it meant that ten years of her life were gone, forever. That she’d forever lost her family, her friends, her life. That she’d some how turned into this woman who would choose to be living in this time, married to this strange version of Spike. On the other hand, if he was lying, she had a chance to regain her life, return to her destiny as the slayer, return to those who counted on her.

He had to be lying. He was just way better at it than she’d ever given him credit for.

When they were interrupted by two brief knocks on the door, William went up to answer it. Buffy scooted her chair back, assuming it was the porter to collect their dishes, and was surprised to see Dr. Crowdner standing in the hallway instead.

“Good morning William, Elizabeth,” he said, crisply, nodding curtly at the pair of them. “William, I need to speak to you, alone. Would you please step into the hall for a moment?”

William looked confused, but nodded and stepped out with the doctor, closing the door firmly behind him.

Oh, this didn’t look good, not at all. Private conversations about her, like she was a child while Daddy and the Doctor discussed her treatment? That wasn’t going to fly. She scooted over to listen at the door; the thickness of the metal was not very conductive to sound, however, and she could only catch a few snatches of conversation that made very little sense.

The doctor seemed very snippy. He asked if William had used the ‘device’ yet, and William, quite truthfully responded that he had not. The doctor then launched into a sermonette on being “sensitive toward the weaker sex.” It was difficult to catch through the metal. He definitely seemed to think that William had somehow been unkind towards her and said that he would like to collect the machine and return it to the storage hold.

William cracked open the door, and began backing up into the room, so she scurried backwards toward the table quickly.

“Very well. Once we’ve had breakfast put away and dressed for the day, I’ll arrange for a porter to get you so that you can supervise putting the machine away.” William closed the door behind him, and leaned against it in obvious relief. “Bloody hell.”

The way he said it chilled her blood; he sounded exactly like Spike.

“What did you say?” she asked, her voice a monotone.

“Bloody hell?” He looked perplexed, before guessing the cause of her irritation. “Forgive my cursing. You and I…used to engage in it while in one another’s company quite frequently. You were especially good at it.” He gave her another smile. His tenth of the day? She’d lost count at this point.

He rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. “The doctor wishes to take this machine back, at any rate. I seem to have offended him in some way. I suppose it’s just as well.”

“Don’t you want to use it?” She stuck her big toe in to test these waters.

“We needn’t bother with it.” He said, not meeting her eyes.

“Don’t you want to use it?” she asked.

“Not really.”

What kind of man wouldn’t want to use that on his wife? His reluctance drove her to push him in the very direction he sought to avoid. He must be afraid of using it on her; he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his mask in place in an intimate situation.

“I want you to use it. Now.” There, her stupid mouth had said it. Her same stupid mouth that had suggested he be the one to use it on her in the first place.

He raised one brow and tilted his head, looking at her in a way mirrored Spike exactly. If she’d considered backing out of the deal, the look he’d just given her had well and truly closed that door for good.

“Yes, William, I’d like you to use the device on me, now.” If he didn’t want to use it on her, the only obvious course of action was to insist upon it.

He blinked. “Why?”

“As part of my therapy, of course.”

“No, Buffy. Why? Why now?” He reached out to touch her arm, but she jumped backwards before he reached her.

She turned her back to him, angrily unbuttoning the front of her dress.

She could hear him step behind her. When he spoke, his voice was low and measured. “If you won’t answer that question, can you answer this one? Yesterday you had begun to thaw, just a little. Why are you so angry at me today?”

The fool. She was angry at him because she’d begun to thaw, because he was beginning to get past her wall. She couldn’t tell him that, of course; she wouldn’t be so stupid as to give away the game. But she did seem to be winning, at least for now. He did not like the way things were going and that, if nothing else, gave her the motivation she needed to continue along her path.

Buttons undone, she let her dress slide to the floor. She was still wearing the light red chemise set she’d selected yesterday morning. She turned to face him defiantly.

He immediately looked away nervously. Puzzling. As her husband, William should be quite used to seeing her in her underwear. As Spike, he should be leering at her. Yet, he was doing neither.

She scooted over to the foot of the bed and climbed up, watching him, carefully. He merely ran his fingers through his tangle of hair, tugging on it anxiously

He leveled a steady gaze at her. He looked almost mournful. “You don’t have to do this, Buffy.” Again, he was trying so hard to talk her out of it, that she couldn’t resist pushing him.

“I insist on it, William. Fire that baby up.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, line drawn firmly on their cabin floor. With a flick of a switch, he turned on the machine, crossed her line.

Tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump. It was a fantastically uncomforting and unsexy sound. She watched her opponent carefully, trying to anticipate his next move. He reached over and picked up the wand, his long, tapered fingers holding it delicately. His eyes flashed over to hers.

“Do you…? That is to say…there are attachments. Do you suppose that…?’ He trailed off, a blush staining the sharp angle of his cheekbones.

“You tell me. As my husband you must know your way around here.”

She lay back on the bed, willing her thighs to unclench. If it came to a Victorian game of chicken, she was going to beat him like a drum.

“Very well.” His voice was low and steady. “Please lift your hips and I’ll help you remove your bloomers.”

Breathe, she reminded herself. Any moment now he’s going to let his mask slip and let Spike peep out. The second he did, the game would be over. The charade could end and Spike would have to admit the truth.

“I’ve got this,” she grumbled. Lifting her hips, she wriggled out of her bloomers and let them fall to the floor. He bent down to pick them up, placing them on the bed beside her as he stepped closer to the bed, standing between her legs.

Purposefully making an unsexy face, she squinted up at him, expecting to see him leering in the direction of her crotch. Instead, his blue eyes looked into hers, full of something that looked a lot like tenderness. It absolutely undid her.

She closed her eyes, remembered to breathe and doubled down.

“Ready when you are, Spike.”

Tha-thump, tha-thump, the machine reminded them.

His fingers touched the inside of her calf, very gently - his warm and human feeling fingers. Damn him. “I believe it would go more easily if you’d relax.”

“I am plenty relaxed,” she gritted out through clenched teeth.

She willed the muscles in her legs to unclench, concentrating upon breathing, on outlasting him in this game.

“Now I shall place the device on your inner thigh, so that you may become accustomed to its movement. It has a strange sort of fluttering action, and I shouldn’t wish to alarm you.”

He thought that he could trick her by feigning thoughtfulness. She was almost insulted that he didn’t know she’d see through that.

He pressed the rod gently against her inner thigh, just at the top, next to her opening; the tip undulated steadily against her muscles, making her jump slightly at first, until she became familiar with its rhythmic motion.

“The moment you want me to stop, you need only say my name.” His voice was low and sincere.

“Spike,” she tested.

He might have winced slightly at that; she couldn’t tell. This was supposed to be going quite differently. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes once more. In for penny, in for a pound. She could do this. She’d had orgasms before, usually alone in her bedroom, although Riley had given her three, possibly four, of them. If he kept calling her bluff all the way to the final hand, she could go there.

“I’ll begin now, Buffy.” He placed the tip of the device just at the opening of her vagina and leaned the wand up, so that it rested on her clitoris.

Holy Ravioli Batman – it felt wonderful, nothing like frantic rubbings in the dark. This felt entirely different; this slightly out-of-control feeling was like touching a live wire.

Her eyelids fluttered open involuntarily to see him looking at her, looking into her eyes and not at her pussy, as she’d expected. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “Is this…satisfactory? Is it pleasant?”

She wanted to say something snarky. She wanted to beat him at this fucking game. But most of all, she didn’t want the sensation to stop, didn’t want him to stop looking at her like that.

She cast a quick glance to his crotch to confirm that, yes, he was sporting a very noticeable erection. He wasn’t doing anything lewd, however, nothing Spikelike. No leering looks or rubbing. Just attending to her, watching her with something that looked like tenderness.

Coward that she was, she closed her eyes and nodded at him.

He moved the wand at another angle, touching her sensitive nub in a way that sent little shocks down the back of her spine and up through her abdomen. He then began to bob the tip of the rod against her slit, up and down, touching lightly, just enough to produce a jolt of sensitivity, before moving away. How could he know how to do this, how to touch this part of her in just the right way when she wouldn’t have known herself?

She heard someone let out a soft moaning sigh, and realized that it was her.

The tension built like a heated coil that began at her clitoris, and spread out through her body like tiny electrical connections. She kept reminding herself, whatever you do, don’t say his name. If you say his name… he’ll stop.

She bit her bottom lip as he moved the rod against the tip of that little bundle of nerves in her nub, pressing more insistently now, reading her body’s cues and picking up the pace of his rhythmic tap-tap-tapping.

She twisted her hands in the sheets, seeking for something, something like a continuation of this or a completion of this. She felt his hand, warm, comforting, first on top of her fist, then as she twisted her hand around, his fingers entwined with hers, soothing her, holding her in place, undoing her. It was this touch, this gentle hand-holding that seemed to be her demise.

Her orgasm started, not deep inside as she’d experienced before, but at the tip of her clitoris. It came upon her almost like a muscle spasm, but a very pleasant one. Like a firework bursting into flame and color. Her pussy muscles clenched and twitched, straining against the tip of the rod, pushing it upwards slightly. She’d absolutely given up all control at this point and she dared not open her eyes. She just rode the feeling. The first mini climax surged over her, and then another, and finished with a third – each one bringing her up just a little bit higher, before crashing back down, that free-falling feeling that she got while on roller coasters.

Her clit was fantastically sensitive after the third and final wave, and she scooted backwards slightly in bed. He complied by moving the wand away from her slit, even while he leaned over and pressed his lips against her forehead. It wasn’t quite a kiss, just the soft pressure of his mouth upon her forehead. She could feel his lips move, murmuring something that she couldn’t make out over the tha-thump of the machine; then with a squeeze of the hand that he was still holding, he moved away from her and stepped over to silence the machine.

She could feel tears, hot and defeated, leaking out of her closed eyes and down the side of her face. Her chin began to quiver, but she forced the tears back with a shaking breath.

Her bluff hadn’t even really been called, but she’d lost the game all the same. She’d lost simply because he’d never been playing and she was too blind to have noticed. He was William; he’d only ever been William and her former life had been swept away. She was the one who’d been wrong. The whole time she’d only been playing a big game of chicken with herself, with the life she’d found herself in versus the life she where she knew she belonged.

Moving her hand up to wipe away her stupid, weak tears, she felt his warm fingers, touching the back of her hand, gently. She snatched her hand away, her eyes opening to flash at him angrily.

Lying there, nearly naked and feeling vulnerable, she wanted to hate him, to see something in him that justified this terrible anger that she felt. His expression gave her no foothold for that, however. His blue eyes held her gaze steadily with compassion and love.

“Buffy? What do you want me to do?” His voice was just above a whisper.

“I want you to leave me alone, William.”

At first he said nothing. He merely looked at the floor for a few long moments before she could hear his voice, serious and sad. “Very well.”

He moved over to the door and paused with his back to her. She realized he was being a gentleman again, not wishing to open their cabin door while she lay mostly naked and spread out like a centerfold. She scooted up on the bed, curling into a ball and dragging the covers around her in the process.

She could hear the soft click of the door as he left the room.
Chapter 10 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Hi! Sorry this is a wee bit late. I cannot lie - real life has been treating me like a baby treats a diaper. But...! Just kept pushing and voila! Chapter 10! Thanks to betas: DoriansKitten, Capella42 and Lutamira, without whom this chapter would contain a lot more suck. And current suck is my bad, and my inability to leave it the hell alone once they're done with it. The lovely banner is by Amy.

It won't take me so long to update next because of less suck in real life! (She says, hoping not to jinx it!)

Chapter 10

He sat by Elizabeth’s side on a hill overlooking Hampstead Heath, a blanket and picnic spread before them. The noon sun warmed his face, and as a slight breeze stirred her hair, he smiled at her.

He knew it was a dream. They’d never picnicked on the heath nor would they now that they were half a world away. Though it wasn’t reality, it was a balm to him and he would do nothing to disturb it. He reached out to tuck a stray strand of Elizabeth’s hair behind her ear.

She smiled shyly at him, plucked a grape from the cluster packed in their picnic basket and placed it gently against his lips. As she slid the fruit into his mouth, she allowed her fingertip to linger. Boldly, he pressed the tip of his tongue against her finger pad and she bit her lip, her green eyes sparkling at him wickedly before withdrawing her finger. She traced her hand down the length of his arm before she entwined her fingers with his.

He found himself without speech, afraid that words might break the spell and he would lose her again. He was too weak a man to risk waking and sending her away. If a dream version of her was all he could have, he’d hold onto it – a drowning man grasping at a straw.

The wind picked up, bringing with it the scent of newly turned earth. The breeze whispered through her hair and rustled her skirts as she stood; he rose with her. She squinted at the horizon, just below the row of trees, her expression taking on a look of sadness.

“Time is coming for me, William,” she said.

He squeezed her fingers tightly, keeping her anchored to him through force of will.

“Time moves like a river and I’m never the same me in the stream.” She looked at him mournfully.

“Stay here with me then, darling.”

“Can’t, William. You know that. This is only borrowed, a memory. Time is throwing us forward, like it or not. William, Spike, Buffy, Elizabeth – who we are isn’t up to us. It’s up to time.” Her expression was growing more serious by the second, and he looked to the horizon, to see what it was she was looking at.

Big Ben loomed over the line of trees in the distance, though it belonged at the Palace of Westminster and not Hampstead Heath. The moment he laid eyes upon it, the giant clock’s hands struck twelve, and it began to bong out the time. He quickly shifted his gaze back to Elizabeth to find an unnerving sight. Each time the bell rang, her image would shimmer and divide. It was as if she were a reflection on the water, splitting with each ripple of time.

By the time the clock had chimed twelve, her image has solidified into two distinct versions of Elizabeth – identical to one another. He still held the hand of the Elizabeth at his side; the other version stood next to her and both of them looked at him, full of regret.

“I’m sorry, William,” they intoned together, eerily.

“Sorry?” he stammered.

The Elizabeth who was the furthest away from him gestured toward the hill where the clock had been. The hill was now covered with a swarming mass of what looked to be humans. They were oddly white, however, from head to toe. Their movements were insect-like in nature, massing into clusters before moving apart again. They were making a steady progress toward where he and Elizabeth picnicked at the top of the hill..

“Buffy should have been the one to fight the white demons. How did I end up being the one who’s got to do it? I made my choice to be with you. She’s the Slayer.” The Elizabeth who was the furthest away from him looked at her twin grimly.

“Buffy?” William asked, looking down at the woman whose hand remained clasped in his.

She looked at him skeptically and asked, “Who the hell are you?” Her voice was measured and she sounded exactly like the ‘Buffy’ he had been getting to know in recent days.

The furthest Elizabeth reached down and pulled a butter knife from the picnic basket. She glanced down the hill at the steady march of massing ‘white demons’ before turning to look at William and her twin self. “The odds don’t look so good for me in this fight. For any of us. I think you’ve got the wrong girl.”

‘Buffy’ said, “You’ve got that right.”

Elizabeth looked at William, smiling before intoning solemnly, “Goodbye, my William.”

“Elizabeth, no,” he cried. Though his left hand remained clasped with Buffy’s, he reached out with his right to grasp Elizabeth’s hand, to stop her from moving toward the mob that was now swarming up the hill. The instant he touched Elizabeth’s hand, however, both versions of her looked at him, shimmered and then vanished in a burst of flame and smoke, leaving him with a small fistful of ashes in each hand.


He woke.

~*~

The dreams came every night. They were simultaneously comforting and heartbreaking. It was wonderful to see her look at him with eyes of love, to feel the warmth of her hand in his, to know the trust implicit in her smile. But those moments were always bought and paid for with her leaving him. Sometimes the white demons tore her away. In other dreams, a yellow-eyed female demon would pull them apart. By one method or another, he ended up with the cold finality of empty arms.

Upon waking, he could never return to sleep, and so he took to reading or wandering about the deck until sunrise. He’d done this for the past three days, finding a comfort in the routine of it. After a long stroll in the wee hours of the morning, he would spend the next few hours in the lounge nearest his cabin. He always propped a book before his eyes, occasionally he would even bother to read the thing. He found that when other passengers assumed he was reading, they would leave him in peace, to the mutual delight of all parties. Fellow gentlemen seemed awkward in his presence, and the ladies cast him pitying glances that he could well do without.

Afternoons were spent in the makeshift gym that the boiler workers had set up adjacent to their sleeping quarters. George had shown him the small but well-equipped area and introduced him to some of the men who used it. They’d welcomed him, no questions asked, no prying glances. He’d spend pleasant hours lifting weights, jumping rope and generally exhausting his body. It was mindless, body-punishing and terrifically therapeutic.

Evenings were the most uncomfortable. With the natural cycle of passengers and crew, there was no place for him to be evenings other than his cabin, having dinner with his wife. They spent a few hours together in near silence each day. What little communication passed between them was stilted and awkward, as though they were both generals overlooking a battlefield, each unsure if the other was enemy or ally.

Shortly after dinner, he would step outside while she readied for bed. When he reentered the room, he would dim the lights and they would fall asleep, she in her bed, he on his cot – feet apart and yet more than a hundred years between them.

She no longer seemed angry at him, nor did she appear to be as sad as she’d been initially. There was a distance to her nonetheless. It was as if she’d erected a wall, not merely between her and him, but between her and the rest of the world. She watched a great deal and she was polite, but she remained practically mute. Although she seemed, for lack of a better word, sane, Elizabeth was simply not there, and the new resident, Buffy, seemed to be barely there as well.

She always fell asleep first. Even as she slept, he could feel the pull of her, drawing him to her side, like the sea tugging at the shoreline. It had been that way since she’d first lain with him. She had transformed him and he found sleep almost impossible if she wasn’t lying in his arms. Deep in slumber now, he could hear her breathing become rhythmic; occasionally she would mumble aloud. These were the best times of his day - simply being with her, while she was at peace.

As he lay in the dark, his mind traveled down various pathways. Usually he would wonder about what she’d done during her day while he meandered about the ship. She appeared to have read a great deal, judging by the stack of books piled at the foot of the bed. Her interests were varied and somewhat gruesome, truth be told. She also seemed to dedicate a good portion of her time exercising. Whenever he inquired about her day, or made efforts to reach her, she would erect her wall anew. By day three he’d stopped asking all together.

After his disturbing dream of two Elizabeths and white demons on Hampstead Heath, he’d given up the idea of falling asleep again. As it was nearing half past four in the morning, he decided to spend some time in solitude in the lounge.

William slipped down the hall and into the dark room. It was well-appointed, with thick gold carpeting and plush armchairs set intermittently along the wall. He lit the small gas lamp in the corner before selecting a well-worn volume and settling into a chair. Though the room was visible to the public, with large glass windows facing the hallway, it felt quite secluded.

Since he’d been feeling rather maudlin he’d chosen a dark poet who was not his usual taste, but then, precious little about his life was usual these days. After settling in an armchair in the corner, he began to read. Strangely, though the poet wrote despairingly of lost love, his words brought a kind of comfort to William, and it wasn’t long before he found himself soothed almost to the point of drowsiness.

As he nodded, nearly falling into sleep, a faint sound disrupted him. An indistinct tap tap tap came from the direction of the door and he stood to greet the visitor, placing his book on the side table.

He could see through the glass that his visitor was a beautiful woman, raven-haired and with large blue eyes. He’d not seen her aboard the ship, which was surprising because he’d spent his days wandering about The Adriatic and was therefore well acquainted with all his fellow passengers. As she stared at him through the window, he felt a growing discomfort; he decided to simply wish her a good evening and return to his cabin to wait for the dawn.

He opened the door.

The woman didn’t move into the room, however, nor did she step aside to let him pass. She simply watched him, a small smile began growing on her lips, reminding him very much of a cat he knew in childhood. Though the cat had been an excellent mouser, she had also been exceptionally cruel to her prey.

“Like looking at a sweet in a shop window, you are,” the woman said, unnervingly.

“Yes, ah, very well,” William replied, nervously tugging his hair. “I was just returning to my cabin. Please feel free to avail yourself of the lounge.”

“Don’t need an invitation, but your welcome is very gentlemanly of you, my William.”

He looked at her, startled. ‘My William?’

He felt a rising need to return to his cabin, to be by Buffy’s side. Not just a need to leave this woman, but a drive to escape. An icy prickling began to tease his spine.

Since she wasn’t moving from her position and she blocked his exit, he had no choice but to step back to allow her entrance. As she walked into the room, she pressed her hand directly in the center of his chest, forcing him to take a step back.

“Poor lost lamb,” she purred. Despite the chill in the room, he felt perspiration gather on his neck and snake a dripping trail down his back. He squinted at the strange woman.

“I will take my leave of you now, madam. My wife awaits me.” He took another step backwards, and to the side, seeking to find a path around her. The woman simply followed, keeping herself between him and the door.

She smiled at him, but this time her smile had a hint of anger, sharp and bitter. “Not meant to be a husband. Not a lost lamb either. Meant to be a dark prince.” While keeping one hand on his chest, she took hold of his shoulder with the other arm, pulling him into a kind of embrace.

Fear gurgled in the pit of his stomach and began to rise.

“Ma’am, I insist you unhand me.” It sounded absolutely ridiculous to his ears and yet, apart from physically forcing her away, he knew of no other way to extricate himself from the situation.

The woman only smiled in response, her eyes twinkling at him wickedly.

He could feel his heart stuttering about madly in his chest as he fought to keep down a surging tide of fear. He stepped backwards and to the side yet again, attempting to work past her. She followed, still gripping him tightly.

“I don’t care for this dance, William. I’d like another.”

“Leave me alone, Madam.” He reached up to force her hand away from the center of his chest – it was icy cold and immovable.

He stepped back again, but not of his free will this time. Now she was moving him backwards, the pressure of her hand on his chest propelling him until his calves pressed against the back of a chair. The force of her hand increased, shoving him down into the cushions. She followed the momentum of the gesture, and hovered over him, effectively pinning him into the chair.

“Not supposed to be coy, my prince. Supposed to want your dark gift. Supposed to want me.”

“I assure you, I do not, madam. I fear you’ve managed to mistake me for another. Or possibly you’re not precisely right in the head and are in need of medical assistance.”

She shot him a look with daggers for eyes.

“It’s my dark gift to give. And it’s very, very rude to not accept a present, William. I shall be quite cross with you.”

William struggled, vainly, to rise from the chair. William knew his own strength in the boxing ring. He could easily have bested a man twice her size. Yet the woman held him in a grip that was almost inhuman.

The stranger smirked at him, and keeping one hand on the center of his chest, forced his knees apart with her other hand before settling between his legs in a kneeling position.

“Want another sort of dance, do you? All alike you are – man or demon. All want to dance.”

With her free hand, she fluttered her fingers across the crotch of William’s trousers. He felt a sudden rush of adrenaline as his body responded to her touch autonomically.

She laughed, a dusky, musical sound, and looked at him, her blue eyes sparkling. “That’s my boy. Likes pleasure with his pain, doesn’t he?” Slowly, teasingly, she undid the top button of his fly.

Although he was flooded with revulsion toward the woman, her physical manipulation through the material of his trousers caused his cock to harden, ever so slightly. Disgusted with her and with his own body, he thrashed his legs against her torso, seeking to break free from the virtual prison. She remained immovable – an iron vice.

His feet scrabbled on the floor, straining against the wood, to push the chair backwards and away from her grip. It was no use. Like the rest of the chairs on the ship, this one too had been bolted to the floor.

With both hands, he reached out to shove her backwards. Her teeth snapped at his hands, much like a dog would bite at a fly, laughing at him. Meanwhile, her free hand unbuttoned the second button of his fly.

His heart was thudding so loudly in his head, that when he first heard the crashing sound, he wasn’t sure of the direction. Instinctively, he looked toward the door to find it flung open. There, standing within the doorframe was…amazingly, impossibly, his wife.

Buffy strode into the room, looking far more like a warrior than a wife, despite being clothed in a white flannel nightgown. Fury sparked from her eyes as she spat out, “Get your mitts off my husband, you ho-bag.”




-------

Author's notes:

What's going to happen? Will there be a ho-down throwdown? (YES, I just made a Miley Cyrus reference!) Will Buffy have to kick some ass, even though she's human? Will Miss Edith possibly rescue Dru? Or possibly George? Could William simply try to box with Dru and she'd laugh herself to death? (Laughing yourself to death is just ahead of "fire" in things vampires dread.)

Chapter 11 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thank you to Science for being mean. :) Thanks to DK and Lutamira and Capella42 for beta-ing. Thanks to Amy for the banner. Thanks to YOU for reviewing because that is full of awesome!
I am afraid of myself and the darkness that’s rising inside of my heart
So I hope I can trust you
Because I know I can’t trust myself
Open my eyes remove anything in the way
-Lonely Forest-



Chapter 11

Spike and Dru.

Buffy shook her head, trying to clear her vision. She knew she was seeing William and Dru, prey and predator, but there was something basic and visceral, rooted in her history, which caused her to see them as she’d always known them: a pair of monsters.

Except … the look on William’s face was anything but monstrous. Pale and wide-eyed, he was terrified. With one hand, Dru had him pinned onto the chair like a butterfly to a mounting board; her other hand had snaked its way into his trousers.

Though without Slayer strength, Buffy’s mind immediately lept into warrior mode, like Pavlov’s dogs hearing the gong of a dinner bell she’d long since grown conditioned for battle.

Buffy reached over to the umbrella stand just inside the door and whipped an umbrella out, bringing it over her knee with a sharp cracking sound -fuck that hurt-. She’d snapped off the wooden handle, creating a stake-with-a-handle. As she raised it, she continued rushing towards Dru, keeping slightly to the side.

Even as she flew towards Dru, her Slayer experience told her one thing, very clearly: Dru would win in a fight. Physically, they didn’t hold a hope against her. They, no, she would have to find another way to best the vampire. The only advantage Buffy had in this fight was experience. She knew vampires, and she knew this specific vampire very well. The first step was to get Dru talking, keep her distracted from William.

“I told you to get your hands off my husband.”

“Not your husband. He’s my Dark Prince,” Dru hissed at her.

“Hands off, or I dust you. How about that, Drusilla?”

Dru looked at her, startled. Rather than reacting thoughtlessly, as Buffy had hoped, Dru stood up and narrowed her eyes at Buffy, considering her thoughtfully before saying, “Didn’t tell William my name. Didn’t tell anybody. How is it that you know it?”

“I’m the Slayer,” Buffy intoned, trying to make her voice sound as bad-ass as possible.

“The Slayer?” Dru looked skeptical, tilting her face to the side, studying Buffy as she took a small step toward her.

Knowing that eye-contact was crucial in establishing dominance, Buffy met Dru’s intense blue-eyed stare for an instant before being forced to drop her gaze. Buffy could feel the pull of Dru’s thrall working its way into the back of her mind, crawling around like worms at the base of her spine.

Dru’s laugh confirmed Buffy’s fear. She wasn’t buying it.

“Not the Slayer. I’d be able to sense it if you were. Just a pretender. Just playing dress-up in mummy’s clothes,” Dru said in an unsettling sing-song tone.

Dru took another baby-step toward Buffy, her grin widening, stretching grotesquely as she morphed into game-face. “I see things, wife of William. You’re not anything like a Slayer. Truth is, you’re just a girl,” Dru drawled around her fangs.

“Oh yeah? You don’t think that Slayers have protection against your thrall? And if I’m not the Slayer, how would I even know what thrall is? If I’m ‘just a girl,’ how do I know your name, Drusilla?”

Thoughts and logic had never been Dru’s strong point, but this seemed to stop her, if only for a moment. Buffy was going to have to bring something much stronger to the table if they were going to leave the room alive.

“Can’t be the Slayer. The prophecy says that my Dark Prince William and I will kill a Slayer. And I’ve not crowned him my Prince yet.”

“That whole ‘batshit insane’ thing wasn’t a recent development. Who’da thunk?”

Dru took another step toward her, and Buffy lifted her umbrella handle stake over her head. Maybe, if she got very lucky and Dru was having an off-day, Buffy could get in one correctly-placed poke. And if she missed, or if Dru countered cleverly, both she and William would pay. She with her life, and William with his soul.

Buffy thought frantically, searching for anything she could use in this battle of wits, something to throw this battle of wits in their favor.

“You know things, don’t you, Dru? You can sense things. Not just things that humans can’t see, but things that other vampires are blind to. You live in worlds invisible to them all.”

Buffy was speaking Dru’s language now, and Dru straightened up in a jerking motion, as if she were a puppet whose strings had just been snapped. She tilted her head in a jerking motion and looked into Buffy’s eyes with her thrall set on stun. The wriggling sensation against the base of Buffy’s spine intensified as she strove to dig her way out.

“Think I’m lying about being the Slayer? Then look into my eyes and answer this. If I’m not the Slayer, how did I kill the Master?”

Dru’s yellow eyes narrowed as she looked at Buffy. The crawling feeling in Buffy’s spine wormed its way to the back of her skull as Buffy resisted, remembered to breathe, stay calm, and remain in charge.

“It’s … true.” Dru was incredulous. “You ended the Master!”

”Tossed him onto a stake, right in his Nehru-jacket wearing chest,” Buffy confirmed.

Buffy took another step to the side, generously giving Dru a very clear path to the open door. “And that’s not all. Angelus is…” The moment she said the A-word, Dru’s game-face melted like a sno-cone in a microwave.

“Angelus?” Dru cast a worried look toward the open door.

“Angelus and Darla. They’re on the ship and they’re pissed.”

“Pissed?” A combination of fear and confusion was keeping Dru dazed and thoughtless.

“They’re angry at you, Dru. Very, very angry.”

Dru’s self-preservation instinct kicked all predatory thoughts to the curb.

“Where is Daddy?” Dru’s voice was tremulous, belying the monster within.

Thinking quickly, attempting to not just get them out of this current jam, but to locate Dru’s lair, Buffy responded, “You already know where they’re waiting for you.” Okay, if ever there was a most obvious bluff in the history of Bluffington, this was it.

Dru, luckily, had turned the wheel over to fear at this point and was blind to Buffy’s lie. Once she’d sensed the truth of the Master’s demise, she’d taken everything else Buffy said at face value.

“They’re with my little ladies? And…” Dru’s face collapsed as she put a hand to her mouth. “…Miss Edith?”

“Darla said she had plans for Miss Edith specifically.” Buffy nodded enthusiastically.

Dru’s wide blue eyes filled with tears as she sped towards the door. Ignoring Buffy, she glanced back at William. “I’ll be back for you, my Dark Prince.” She paused for a moment, as if she wanted to say more, then shuddered and moved out the door and down the hall in a blur.

For a nanosecond, Buffy was pulled in two directions: following Dru or protecting William. With a thin hope of doing both at the same time, she shouted to William, who remained rooted to his chair, “Run to our cabin, and don’t let anybody in but me.” She ran after Dru as fast as her non-slayer legs would carry her.

Buffy didn’t get far. Dru flew amidship and down a stairwell, but at such great speed that Buffy lost her trail after the first set of stairs. Buffy would have more time to explore the possibilities later. Though the sun would be up soon, Dru still might be crazy or angry enough to launch a counter-offensive and until then, it would be wisest to return to her cabin. At least within the confines of their room, they’d be under the protection of magic. Dru would require an invitation to pass through the mystical wall of protection.

She rushed to room seventeen, knocking on the door with a frantic fist. “William?”

He opened the door instantaneously and she fell into the room.

As William moved to slam the door shut, she stayed his hand. “No, wait. We need to keep it open. Need to know if she returns.”

William looked at her, dumbfounded.

“She won’t be able to cross the threshold of our cabin without an invitation. At least, I don’t think she will.”

“Buffy, you’ve no idea of her strength. You cannot imagine to take her on yourself.”

“I do know her strength, William. I know her.”

“What…what is she?”

“She’s a vampire, a creature that has the appearance of a human, but who hosts a demon inside.”

The eastern horizon was lightening considerably now. Daybreak would come any moment and she’d have time to regroup, figure out a plan of attack. So intent was she that she jumped a little when he spoke, his voice deadly serious. “I was one of those creatures, wasn’t I? In the life where you knew me, the life that you rescued me from. I was a vampire.”

She turned to look at him. Whenever he was troubled, he tugged on his hair and at present it was disheveled to the point of looking like Albert Einstein on a bad day. His eyes burned with sincerity and something inside her chest tugged a little at the sight of him.

“Yes, when I knew you as Spike, you were a vampire.”

“And this Drucinda - she seemed to know me, to be expecting me. Did I know her in my other life?”

“Yes, Drusilla was the vampire who made you.”

He gave her a puzzled glance.

“This kind of monster can make another monster. She made you. Well, she killed you and turned what was left of you into a vampire, like her.”

“And she seeks to replicate this?” William tugged on his hair.


“It looks like it. Somehow she found out you’re on board and she’s targeting you specifically. It seems to be … directed action. Like someone is telling her what to do. I handled her last night by keeping her off guard, but I may only get that lucky once.”

The first rays of dawn began to bathe the deck in an orange glow. Certain that Dru would remain…wherever she was, until sunset, Buffy shut the cabin door and leaned against it with a sigh.

“William, apparently the ‘me from 2011’ left out a few critical details about your past. I’m going to need to fill you in on vampires and slayers. That’ll be the easy part. The hard part is gonna be coming up with a plan for what to do about Dru.”

~*~



When George arrived several hours later to collect their untouched breakfast tray, he gave them a concerned look. Buffy wanted to reassure the boy that all was well, but truth be told, all was far from being well; the best she could offer George was a weak smile.

They were just finishing their talk in which she’d filled him in on much of his history. It had been an especially bumpy road and William was in worse shape than she. He reminded her of a man she’d seen in a World War I documentary about shell shock. His eyes had taken on a wide and glassy appearance and his movements were jerky and skittish.

He’d sat in the camp stool opposite her, hands on his knees, his expression heartbreakingly earnest. He’d wanted to know the whole truth of it – of who he was and what he’d done. Whenever she’d tried to evade or show him a kindness of skimming over an especially bad topic, he’d pushed through to the truth anyway.

Now he knew his entire ‘other’ history, or as much of it as Buffy herself knew. William now knew of Angel and the Scourge of Europe. He knew of his lover and sire Drusilla and of how long they’d been lovers. He knew of Slayers and his killing of two of them. He had been pushing her to tell him about their own history just as George interrupted them.

Once the porter had left them alone again, he scooted his chair back against the wall and began to pace the room. Since Dr. Crowdner had the ‘therapeutic’ machine removed a few days ago, they at least had a bit more room in the small cabin. Buffy watched him, trying to discern what was going on beneath his troubled exterior.

He forced himself to stop pacing and leaned against the door, seeming to steel himself for a blow. He looked at her and tilted his head to the side, his sincerity palpable. “As Elizabeth you told me that you loved me, that I loved you. Yet when you speak of my past, it sounds as if we were enemies. Which is it, Buffy?”

She didn’t quite know what to say to him. He seemed so wounded and yet, the idea of them being lovers sounded so incredulous.

“As Elizabeth, you told me I’d saved the world.”

It was so utterly unbelievable that she wanted to laugh. Wanted to, but couldn’t. The miserable expression on his face was just too much, so in the end, she’d found a kindness within herself. “Those events haven’t happened in my memory, William. I wish I knew more, but I just … don’t.”

He didn’t look terribly reassured.

“What did I tell you of my mother?” He pushed. “As Elizabeth you intimated that Mother had a somewhat unpleasant ending during my incarnation as Spike.”

Here she was at a loss. “I honestly don’t know how she died. There was nothing in the books about it and you never talked about it at all. At least, up to the point I can remember.”

He looked at her gravely and nodded, but she could see how distraught he was. She was halfway to his side before she realized she’d even moved toward him. His hand was once again tangled in his unruly mop of hair. Gently, she reached up to take his hand in hers.

“William, it didn’t happen. This is the reality we have now. Knowing what happened in the other reality is like knowing what happened in a dream.”

He looked at her, his blue eyes crackling with vulnerability. “Am I to become a monster? Does she seek me because my becoming a vampire is meant to be? Am I intended to become Spike, no matter my incarnation?”

“Do you want to become Spike?” she asked simply.

“No!” he shouted.

“Then I don’t think the rest of it matters - what Dru wants, what destiny wants. As you would have said when you were Spike, ‘sod that.’ You decide your own destiny, William.”

He didn’t look terribly convinced. She couldn’t have been more surprised when she saw her hand reach up to smooth down his unruly curls. He gave her a wary smile in return.

“And since I’m being all Destiny Girl here, it’s time I took my own advice.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“For the last few days I’ve felt like a victim, like something has been taken away from me. At first I thought my life had been taken away – that I’d been tricked into living a life not of my own choosing. Come to find out, this is the life I’d chosen. I just don’t remember making that choice. And when I realized this was real, again, on with the victimhood and the Poor Buffy Pity Party. But, whether I remember doing it or not, this is the life I chose, the time I chose.”

It was almost funny, really. All those days alone in her room she hadn’t felt this kind of direction, this level of determination. But now, looking at him and hearing herself articulate it, for the first time since she’d landed in this strange place, she began to feel a real sense of self, a sense of power.

Letting go of his hand, she strode to the back of the room. “So destiny gave me a mindwipe. So destiny took away my Slayer powers. So what? It’s about what I want. Even without powers, I still know how to think like the Slayer. I still decide my own fate.”

At that, she reached over and opened the wardrobe door, fishing out a pair of boots and the dreaded button-hook. She slipped the first boot on her foot and began pulling the buttons through with the hook.

“Where are you going, Buffy?” He looked at her with eyes full of concern.

“Need to dig around some dark places on board to see if Dru is holing up where I think she is. Then I’ll need to figure out what to do about having a vampire on board.” She finished hooking one boot and began on the other.

“Would you like … no, that’s not right. I should like to join you, if you wouldn’t mind.” He looked at her, serious and committed.

“Thank you, William. I would like that.” She looked at him, startled at the depth of her own sincerity. She really would like to have him by her side as she stepped into this new world, to be a kind of partner to her.

Oddly, it reminded her of a movie her mom had forced her to watch a few weeks ago: Pride and Prejudice. William and Buffy, however, had a much odder version of ‘May I have this dance?’ Theirs was both wordier and stranger. ‘Would you like to accompany me into the dank belly of the ship? I expect we’ll meet some charming vermin!’ ‘Why yes, that sounds divine.’

Smiling at her secret joke, she looked up to find his blue eyes trained on her, eyebrows raised quizzically. “You still find amusement in the oddest of occasion.” He grinned.

“You’re not doing so bad yourself, Smiley. Besides, you might as well laugh in the face of danger. Keeps him off balance.” She took his arm as they made their way toward the cabin door.



-----------

End Notes: My head is often in the story so much that 'real life' passes me by. This week, I had to take my car to a tire shop, due to a slow leak in a tire. Jose, the service counter guy asks, "Which tire is leaking?" Me: "Rear, but...left or right depends on which way you're facing. Um, it's port!" Jose is perplexed. "Port?" Me: "You know, not starboard. Portside." I gesture with my right hand, helpfully! Jose is not following. Trying to clarify, I ask, "What do they call that on cars? You know, portside on cars is...?" "Passenger side?" Jose asks. Ahh, yes! That probably would be a better way to refer to things on a car! Then I got to endure the smirks of the dudes in the waiting room who thought I was wack for using nautical terms on a Mazda 5. But guess what? Jose fixed my tire for free! Thanks guy! And though it was dreaded tire shop, Warren didn't show up! So there's that!



Chapter 12 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thank you to everyone for sticking with the story and for your feedback. Turns out my recent move to the bible belt has sapped my will to live ability to write. That is on the upswing now, however, I'm happy to report. Thanks to Science and Lutamira for beta'ing and being patient with my blatant comma abuse. Awesome banner thanks go to Amy.

Chapter 12

William looked at his wife as she moved towards the door of their cabin, mind set on searching out the creature’s hiding place. Her wild eyes and tangled hair would attract a great deal of attention on deck. He had half a mind to ask her to stop for a moment so that she could tame her hair into a more socially acceptable style, but when he looked at the fierce and determined glint in her eyes, he could only remain mute. He didn’t give a fig what the other passengers might think of them anyway, and he knew Buffy wouldn’t care.

After days of her lethargy, to see her alive and on fire like this? He couldn’t bear doing the slightest thing that would dim the spark growing inside her.


Buffy stomped into the hall, then turned amidship, leading him down a large stairwell in the center of the ship. After going down one flight of steps, she stopped.

“This was the last I saw of Dru.” Buffy pointed down the dim hallway leading aft. “She might have gone down this hall, or she might have just kept going down the stairs. I have no idea.”

“What sort of place would Dru favor?”

“Something dark and quiet. She’d want a hidey hole,” Buffy responded.

“My guess is that she went further down the stairs, then. I know the ship fairly well, and that hallway houses the crew’s quarters and the boiler room.”

They continued down the steps, the hallway narrowing as they descended. The stairs ended at the next landing, where they found themselves looking at a ruined metal gate. It was rather flimsy lattice-work, intended separate the third class section of the ship. The locking mechanism had been ripped off, as though it had been made of paper instead of metal. The top hinges had been partially torn from the wall.

Buffy shot him a knowing glance. It was the kind of look that partners would share. It said, “Do you see what I see, William?” And he did. The creature that attacked him would clearly be capable of rending metal in such a fashion.

Gingerly, Buffy stepped around the sagging metal frame and went down the short hallway leading to the rear of the ship. In the thin morning light they could just make out a few supply rooms and, at the end of the hall, a large door which read ‘Cargo Hold’.

As full of fire as she was, he was half afraid that she’d try the handle, but she did not. She spun around at smiled up at him, her gaze confident and sure.

“Who we need here,” she said, “is George.”

He grinned. “Excellent idea, love. Perhaps I could locate the lad while you wait in our cabin?”

She rolled her eyes. “Not really the waiting around type.”

“I know. That’s what worries me.”



“Fine. I’ll come with you,” she grumbled, as she gave a reluctant last glance at the locked door and followed him up the stairs.




~*~

George’s shoes rang on the metal steps as he descended. His brows raised in surprise as he stepped over the remnants of the metal gate.

“I suppose some of the fellows in third class got a bit deep in their cups last night and have gone and torn apart the gate,” George offered by way of explanation. “I’ll need to report this as soon as we’re through. Would you like to wait until the mess has been tended to?”

“No, thank you, George,” William said. “As I said, we simply need to, well, to look in the cargo hold. Just for a few minutes.”

“Very well, sir.” George reached into his pocket and fished out a large ring of keys.

After sorting through the confusing jumble of keys, George finally found the correct one and fitted it in the lock. The door swung open easily, and George attempted to lead the way into the room, but Buffy stepped in just ahead of him, ever the protector. William stuck as close to her side as he was able in the confining corridor. The hold was an inky black mystery. The light spilling from the doorway illuminated enough of a patch that they were able to see a small shelf with several oil lamps.

Perhaps it was the unrelenting darkness of the room, but there was a sense of otherness which permeated the hold. A sense that something was not right. A crawling sensation, like rats moving silently behind a wall.

George struck a match and touched the flame to the lamp's wick. William couldn’t help but notice the slight tremble to George’s fingers, betraying that William wasn’t alone in his unease. William took another silent step into the room, attempting to remain by Buffy's side. He noticed that George and Buffy were behaving similarly, moving stealithy and taking soundless footsteps as they moved about just inside the doorway.

Buffy squinted into the darkness, then took a few steps further into the room. William felt his heart lurch in his chest as she did so, and he found himself holding his breath. Buffy looked over to him; even in the dark her green eyes sparkled with a knowing look. She’s here, William. I can feel it. Not knowing what else to do, he nodded in response.

Once George had adjusted the wick to maximum brightness, he held the lamp above his head to illuminate as much of the room as possible. The glow flickered against stacks and stacks of wooden crates, nearly identical, as far as the light would reach. William cast a quick glance to his wife, who had her lips pursed in an unreadable expression.

It was painfully obvious that if the creature were hiding here, it would take days to find her, even with a crew of several men.

Upon seeing the dozens upon dozens of wooden crates, Buffy’s look of determination flickered briefly. She hovered there, just on the edge of the room, while he struggled with the right words to say to coax her out of this evil place. Surprisingly, before he found the right thing to say, it was George who broke the silence.

“Mrs. Pratt? Mr. Pratt? If you don’t mind my saying so, I’ve a terribly uncomfortable feeling just now, and I’ve duties to attend to. Would you mind terribly if…” He trailed off, blushing furiously at his boldness.

“You’re so right, George,” Buffy reassured him. “Exposing you to this place is just dumb. We’ve seen what we needed to see for now. Thank you for your help.”

The light from the lamp jittered and danced as George placed it back on the shelf with shaking hands. He trimmed the wick until the flame guttered out, then he led the little party back out to the hallway and locked the door behind them.

With one final glare at the door, Buffy reluctantly followed the men up the stairs.




~*~

After said quick goodbyes to an apologetic George before retreating to the comfort and privacy of their cabin.

The moment he’d shut the door behind them, she burst out with it. “You know as well as I that Dru was in the storage hold. Even George could sense it.”

William nodded. “It’s stronger with you though, isn’t it? You can sense her, somehow.”

“Yes, William.”

“How is that so?”

“It’s a Slayer thing. Besides having super-strength and terrific healing abilities, Slayers have a kind of vampire radar.”

“Radar?” he asked.

“We can just tell where vampires are. A kind of sense. Didn’t you kind of wonder what I was doing wandering around the ship at five in the morning in my nightie?”

“Well, now that you mention it…”

“I woke up in the middle of the night with a strong sense that there was a vampire nearby. It was the first time I’d felt like myself, like a Slayer, since this whole thing started. When I noticed you were missing as well, I opened up the door and followed the sound of your voices. And followed the vampire tingling.”

“The same feeling you had when you were in the cargo hold?”

“Yes. And may I add how much it sucks that of all my powers, the only one that sticks around is this one? I would so trade super-strength for spidey-sense.”

He nodded, but remained silent.

“So, now that we know where Dru is, the question is, what are we going to do about it?” Her eyes sparked and burned, thoughts turning in her head.

“We could go through all those crates, one by one,” she mused, almost to herself. “And that’s a really stupid idea. Why would they let the two of us go through everybody’s stuff? Even if we did find her, I’m just a girl. What am I going to do about it? Without slayer powers, I’m useless.”

“Hardly that, love.” He winced. Would she notice that he’d called her love? Would she mind?

She continued to pace about their cabin, her nervous hands toying with the broken umbrella handle.

“What we need is for the majority of those stupid crates to…disappear,” she grumbled in frustration.

“And how could we manage to do that?”

She stopped pacing for a moment and looked at him, an idea forming just behind her green eyes. “Once we dock in New York City, the people who actually own the crates will claim their cargo – leaving only the shipped items. And Dru.”

He couldn’t help but grin at her, even in these circumstances. “You’re quite brilliant. Do you know that?”

She scoffed at him, but he could see a ghost of a grin touch her lips for a moment.

“So, the only remaining question would be what then?” he asked.

“How do I keep everybody safe in the meantime?” She stopped twirling her stake about, and looked at him with growing confidence. “How do I keep Dru in lockdown?”

“Excellent! So let’s handle that question, shall we? In order to secure the creature in the hold, we would first need to…”

“See the captain,” Buffy interrupted.

“See the…?” He paused and looked at her. Her eyes sparkled, and she gave him a confident nod. The small fire that had begun burning in her jumped a little, danced. He was powerless to it. “The captain it is, then.”

~*~

After waiting for nearly three hours, William had begun to doubt they would ever see the captain. At first the officer of the watch had told them that such a meeting would be impossible, but William had insisted, and they’d waited, firmly placing themselves in a conspicuous position near the wheelhouse.

Buffy’s impatience had been growing by the hour, and by three o’clock she was coiled as tightly as a watch spring. William had nearly given up hope when the coxswain came to inform them that the captain had a few moments time and would meet with them in his cabin.

They were led to a well-appointed room just behind the quarter deck, where Captain Parsell was seated behind a desk full of charts and assorted papers. With his grey hair and beard he was the absolute picture of a stereotypical sea captain, though his hair was a little on the long side of respectability. He greeted them with a warm smile and gave a nod to the coxswain, who abruptly departed.

“What can I do for you? Mr. Ellis informs me that you’ve a matter of some urgency which you wish to discuss.” The captain looked at William expectantly.

“Ah, yes…” William began, nervously. During their endless hours waiting on the bridge, he’d gone over the speech in his mind dozens of times. Now that he was actually faced with the captain, he found that he’d spent far too much effort concocting a story and far too little time considering what a bad liar he was.

“My wife and I were in the cargo hold earlier today and were met with a most disturbing sight. We witnessed several vermin that were clearly infected with rabies.” He’d been told by an old schoolmate that the cleverest lies were the ones that were close to the truth. When he’d first learned of vampirism, Elizabeth had described it as being similar to rabies, and so he borrowed her explanation.

“Rabies?” The captain looked horrified. “I don’t wish to impugn your judgment, but are you quite certain?” His eyes flickered to Buffy, who nodded enthusiastically.

“Big, stinking foamy rats,” she confirmed.

“This is gravely concerning,” Captain Parsell muttered. “We shall need to send in a crew to exterminate them.”

“Or not!” Buffy exclaimed.

“I beg your pardon?” The captain asked.

“That is to say, wouldn’t it be more prudent to simply lock down the hold, rather than risk your men being infected?” William suggested, feeling his cheeks color at his boldness.

"I can understand your alarm," the older gentleman assured, not unkindly. “We have a certain protocol when dealing with this type of situation. The passenger’s safety is my primary concern. We must clear out the hold as soon as possible.”

Buffy shot William a helpless glance before speaking. ”It’s not safe. We were hoping you’d just lock it down, tight. Sending your crew into that hold would be the worst kind of mistake, really.”

The captain gave her a startled look.

“They’re huge rats. Ginormous, really,” she offered by way of explanation. She was losing and she knew it. She shot another worried glance to William, and he couldn’t help but feel a desperate need to not disappoint her in this.

An unexpected thought came to him, and before he could analyze it too carefully, he simply blurted it out in the form of a question. “You’ve lost a few passengers on this voyage, haven’t you, Captain Parsell?”

Both the captain and Buffy slowly swiveled their heads to look at him. The puzzled gazes on their faces were oddly similar.

“I’d wager that an unusual number of third class passengers, in the aft part of the ship, have been reported as missing. Am I correct?”

“It is true.” The captain’s voice was measured and cautions. “Occasionally the lads will have too much to drink and end up overboard….”

“But not like this voyage,” William pressed. “Unless I miss my guess, almost every night, a missing passenger has been reported and always from that area of the ship.”

Buffy beamed at him, her eyes glowing with pride. His heart stuttered a bit in his chest – not out of nervousness at his boldness with the captain, but at that look that his wife was beaming in his direction.

“It is true,” the captain was humbled, pensive. “Last night was the only night in which we’ve not dealt with the issue. Only two days ago I doubled the security detail to address the problem. How did you know? Did you hear my staff discussing the issue?”

"Nothing like that,” William assured the older man. “But the cause of the missing passengers isn’t what they’re drinking. It’s what’s in the hold.”

“You propose a solution then?” The captain was faltering now. William had expected a blustering man-in-charge attitude and had instead encountered a humble man who seemed genuinely concerned about the safety of the third class passengers.

“If you could simply lock down the doors of the cargo hold, very securely. I would suggest chains, the strongest you’ve got. Secure the doors firmly. One night of this, and your missing passenger problem would be taken care of, I assure you.”

“The…rats…you spoke of?”

William nodded.

“It’s an extremely odd solution to a vermin infestation.”

“And it’s extremely odd vermin that make passengers disappear,” Buffy added.

The captain folded his hands neatly and looked at the backs of his hands, lost in thought. He nodded contemplatively and met William’s gaze with raised brows. “Very well. I shall follow your suggestion.”

Buffy gave a quick whoop of victory, then quickly cast demure eyes at the floor, completely missing the look of adoration from her husband.

~*~


William had insisted she return to the cabin without him while he made arrangements for the remainder of the afternoon. When he entered the cabin, he'd hoped to find her asleep, but he really knew her better than that. She was pacing the length of the floor, twirling her umbrella-stake, a veritable steam engine of suppressed energy.

The moment he entered the room, she pounced. No nuance, no sublety to his bride – just shining honesty. “What have you been up to?” she asked.

He couldn’t help but laugh. “Making very innocent arrangements with the steward.”

“What kind of arrangements?” She eyed him suspiciously.

“I’ve reserved a bathing room. You are scheduled for five o’clock, and I have reserved the 6 o’clock time slot.”

“Am I stinky?” she asked, offended and embarrassed.

He couldn’t help but chuckle. Her American frankness was something that always caught him off-guard, yet he found delightful.

“You smell divine, darling. I merely thought after our exertions, a warm bath would be soothing.” He moved to the wardrobe and began busily sorting through their belongings. He was certain he’d seen some scented soaps when she’d unpacked. Besides, if he kept busy she would be less likely to question his motivations in scheduling her bath.

"Thank you,” she said, her voice quiet and sincere.“You’re quite welcome,” he replied, keeping his head away from her so that she couldn’t detect the blush that was sure to be creeping up his cheekbones.

“I know I’ve been…well, a huge pain in the ass…” she faltered, insecure. As much as he wanted to hide from her at this point, he couldn’t resist the pull of her. Uncovering a wrapped bar of scented soap, he grasped it and turned to face her, pressing it into her hand with both of his hands, then held her hands in his, lingering.

“It’s alright, love.” This time he looked at her as he said it, unafraid.

She returned his gaze with a watery smile before looking nervously at the floor. He released her hands and stepped backward.

“To the bath, then?” she asked.

“Quite right. It’s only just a little past five o’clock now. The bathing room is just around the corner.” He fished a small skeleton key from his pocket and pressed it into her hand next to the soap.

She moved around the room, gathering clothing and other toiletries before stepping towards the door. Just before she closed the door she graced him with a shy smile. His heart gave a strange squeezing lurch and he damned himself for being a besotted fool.

He waited a full minute after the latch had clicked before setting to work and preparing for the real reason that he’d arranged her reservation in the bathing room. He figured that he’d likely have a half hour to himself, but to remain on the safe side, he’d make his preparations in under twenty minutes.

With any luck, she’d be so preoccupied with keeping the ship safe and checking the Captain’s security in the hold that she’d not look too deeply into William’s eyes for the rest of the evening. Besides, as their meeting with the Captain had proven, he was becoming quite proficient at deception. There was no reason to think he wasn’t capable of deceiving his wife for her own good.

With a determined nod, William set to work.

------------------------------


Author's notes:

Captain Henry Parsell – was a real guy and the captain of the Adriatic during this time period. By all accounts he was a sweet man. In his later years he even joined the ladies afternoon tea parties without fail. “He has a distinct personality about him which makes one glad to know him and likely to remember him. He is an intelligent man and of so genial a type that he never gets out of patience with a passenger.” With any luck, just below you can see a little pic of him.






Were you wondering about welding? I know I was. “Why didn't they weld the doors shut?” Come to find out – up to this point in time they only had forge welding! No spot welding, no arc welding. Just the kind of welding where you heat two things up and smash them together. The same way they'd been doing things for thousands of years. The same way Thor made his hammer. It was the advent of electricity that changed things around. (Electricity: Not Just For Vibrators Anymore!)
Chapter 13 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Your continued feedback helps shape the story and I never take it for granted. Thank you! Also thanks to DK, Science and Minx! They beta'ed this and they're awesome. They don't even morph into mean bitches if I don't take their suggestions! Props to Amy for the banner!
Chapter 13


Buffy flittered nervously around her cabin, unable to settle on any activity for long. What was taking William so long? He'd left the room for his bath nearly fifty minutes ago. She paced the length of the floor with long strides, channeling her anxiety into twirling the broken umbrella handle ninja-style.

When William finally, mercifully, came through the door, she sat down at the small table. He flashed a quick glance her way before putting his clothes away in the wardrobe. It was uncomfortable to see him so stand-offish; he usually tried so hard. The tension of the situation with Dru must be getting to him as well.

"Perhaps we could go down to the storage hold," she suggested to William's back. "I'll sleep better when I see that door securely barred."

He nodded in agreement, but said nothing. His curls were still damp and clinging to his neck and cheeks. He looked so vulnerable, fresh from his bath. It suited his modest nature to have dressed in the bathing room. He wore a grey suit which made the blue of his eyes look like a spot of calm sea in a storm.

His new, strangely silent attitude was beginning to get on her nerves. She felt a bizarre need to apologize, ask him if she'd done something wrong, even though she didn't do things like that. The touchy-feeling stuff was way out of her league. She bit her tongue and turned toward the door.

He moved aside and, in his quaint old-fashioned way, held out his arm to her as they stepped out of the room.

They heard the clanging of the workmen before they'd descended the first set of stairs. By the time they reached the bottom of the stairwell, the ringing was absolutely deafening. Captain Parsell himself stood off to the side, conferring with a steward about something or other, their voices raised to almost shouting levels, but still indistinguishable over the din. Several burly workmen were pounding away at the door with impressively large hammers. They were in the process of securing the door with wide metal bars, which spanned the width of the large doorway and were secured on either end with thick bolts that connected to the frame of the ship. There were six bars in total, from the top to the bottom of the door frame, leaving no more than five inches space between them.

Knowing what she did about vampires and the limits of their preternatural strength, she was quite certain that Dru wouldn't be able to leave the room. She gave William's arm a little squeeze in celebration, and he glanced at her with a grin. Success.

The captain acknowledged them with a nod and stepped over to greet them. Unable to say much due to the cacophony of sound, Captain Parsell looked at William with a smile and raised his brows in question. William returned the captain's smile and reached out to shake his hand. When the captain turned to nod at Buffy, she gave him a quick salute, and his shoulders shook with laughter.

With nothing left to do, she tugged gently on William's arm. They turned toward the stairs and the comfort of their cabin.

As soon as the door latched behind them, she couldn't help but gush. "Did you see that door?"

"I did, indeed."

"I don't know what I expected, but not that. I thought the captain would half-ass it with a couple of locks, and we'd have to have another talk. But that ..." She shook her head in admiration.

William looked at her, sincerity shining from his blue eyes, before glancing at the floor; he nervously shoved a hand in his pocket and began fidgeting with something. "You're confident this Druella couldn't break through the bonds?"

"Yeah, she won't be getting out." Buffy was unsure of so many things in this strange world, but this felt like a certainty.

"That's a great relief to us all," he mumbled, peering at her through lowered lashes. He moved to the rear of the room and rooted around the bottom of the wardrobe before fishing out his beloved travel guide. After adjusting the brightness of the oil lamp on the wall, he settled into a chair and began flipping through the pages.

Without conscious thought, his hand stole to his pocket and fiddled with something before he cast a guilty glance her way and snatched his hand away as though he’d touched something hot.

"Are you like ... mad at me or something?" Buffy couldn't help but blurt.

God, this new jittery attitude of his was unnerving.

"Not angry at you, no," he replied, his eyes never leaving the surface of the page.

"Why'd you go all Easter Island statue on me then? All silent and serious?"

He closed his eyes, his lips thinning to a line before speaking. "I don't mean to be. I suppose I'm simply unsettled by the ... situation. I'm not accustomed to such matters. I assure you, everything is fine."

But he did not open his eyes, avoiding her. If 'bad liar" were an Olympic Event, William would win the gold, hands down.

She moved towards him in one fell swoop, snatching the travel guide from his hands and smacking it down on the table top.

“Not fooling me. Not even fooling yourself. What’s up, William?”

His startled blue eyes met hers, as his hands began to nervously comb through his hair.

"Nothing. Nothing whatsoever.” And still, he did not meet her eyes.

She moved toward him, positioning herself between him and the table, hands on his shoulders, forcing it.

“And again, I ask. 'Sup, William?”

He dashed a hand into his pocket, toying with the something there before pulling it out as if scalded. Could he be any more transparent? It was almost sad ‘besting’ him at this game.

She leaned over and slid her hand into his trouser pocket. His hips rocked up at her touch, but her other hand held him securely enough in the chair that he didn’t leave.

“What have you got, Master William? Something you can share with the class?” she teased.

He slid sideways in the chair, but her grip held him tight as she wriggled her hands into his trouser pocket. She could just sense a … something. A pouch? A type of purse? Her eager fingers snatched it and drew it into the light.

A small, black velvet pouch. Curious, she stood up and rapidly back-peddled from him.

“So what’s this?”

“It’s private. It’s none of your concern.” His voice was urgent as he pursued her across the floor.

Unfastening the button easily, her fingers rapidly came into contact with … fine strands. Well, that was weird. Grasping it quickly, she fished it out to find a lock of blonde hair, tightly bound with a black velvet ribbon.

He looked up at her, and a bright red blush stained his sharp cheekbones. He lowered his gaze to the floor as he held out his hand.

“It’s nothing. It’s … it’s mine. ‘Twas given to me. Please return it.”

Realization hit her like a wet bag of sand. “It’s my hair?”

“Yes,” he said, simply, still not meeting her gaze.

“I gave this to you?”

His only response was a nod.

She wove her fingers through her hair, searching for the one spot this might have come from. It wasn’t even hard. Near the nape of her neck, nearly at the base, she could find a rough patch of stubble that had beer sheered off nearly at the root.

And with that discovery, she had to take a moment.

“Why?”

He looked up at her through lowered lashes. “Why what? Why did you give it to me? Why do I have it now?”

“How about you answer the first one? Why’d I give it to you?”

“You gave it to me when my mother died.” He didn’t offer further explanations. He didn’t need to.

She nodded.

When the silence between them stretched and yawned, she took a deep breath and steadied herself.

“And the reason you have it now …?” She was patient. Oh, she knew people thought she was an impatient bitch, but look at her temperance now, her ability to let him hang himself.

He remained as mute as stone.

“And the reason you have it now …” she continued, “is that you’re a ginormous dumbass.”

He looked at her, brows raised.

“You’re going to take Dru on yourself, aren’t you? Going to slay that dragon and save your damsel. Good god, William. Saran Wrap called, and even they think you’re too transparent.”

He tugged absently at his hair, but remained silent.

Folding her arms across her chest, she sighed, still struggling to wring a confession from him. “In your day planner for tonight, would you or would you not have penciled in ‘Kill a Vampire’?”

Still, he said nothing.

“William, I’m not oblivious here. You were going to try to kill Dru. It’s why you have the little token thingie. It’s why you’re being all avoidy.”

He jerked his chin toward her. “And what if I am? “

“If you am? You am being fantastically clueless, that’s what. You face Dru you’ll either die or be turned into a monster. I’m not about to let you do that.”

He shook his head, hard. Strangely, it reminded her of the way a wet dog might shake his head, thoroughly and completely, as if to rid himself of all thought.

He stared at the floor for a long while and remained still. So still it was eerie. He was completely and utterly silent. After a long, long while he spoke with a gravity that startled her.

His words were simple, direct, and to the point. His gaze was so intense it seemed capable of searing an after-image on her vision. Buffy was half certain that when she closed her eyes she'd see the ghost of his face. She didn’t close her eyes, however, but met his gaze unblinking, as he asked, “Who is Dru after?”


“You,” she blurted, before she’d thought to frame it cleverly and to her advantage.

He smiled a hangman’s smile. “Exactly”

“NO!” she shouted.

“Why not?” he asked, simply.

“Because she’ll kill you,” she replied, simpler still.

He smiled wryly at the floor and shook his head. “I’m not about to put the innocents on this ship at risk, put you at risk, when I’m the one she’s after.”

“But she’s not getting out of that hold. You saw it for yourself. The captain has sealed it up tight.” She folded her arms across her chest.

“Then you’ve nothing to concern yourself with,” he responded with a ‘checkmate’ tone of voice, folding his arms across his chest in response.

“I’m not letting you leave this room, William. If I have to stay awake all night, I’ll do that. Fine by me.”

“Fine,” he grumped, and shaking his head, he slumped himself into the corner chair without another word.



~1:30 a.m.~

Buffy sat in bed, her back against the wall. She was exhausted. Her eyelids felt as thick and wooly as her thoughts. William remained in his corner chair, chin resting on his hand; his eyes closed. He looked far more like a tired little boy than a dragon slayer at the moment.

She struggled against sleep, giving her heavy lids brief rests. She would close her eyes for a few beats, then drag them open again to see the same familiar sight of her slouching husband. The blessed moments of darkness, with closed eyes, were becoming longer and longer. She was just falling down into slumber, when an image of Dru flashed through her mind, and she snapped her head up, smacking it painfully against the wall.

Exercise. That’s what she needed. Getting the blood flowing would be just the thing to keep her perky for the next hour or two.

She climbed off the bed and hesitated a moment before unbuttoning her dress. Though she felt slightly uncomfortable exercising in her ‘underwear,’ she could hardly get anything done with yards of cloth trapping her legs. Besides, bloomers and a chemise covered way more skin than her standard summer wear of a tank top and short skirt.

After hanging up her dress, she began a series of stretching exercises, but silently, so as not to wake William. No easy feat in the confines of their cabin. She’d just begun to count out crunches in a whisper, when she caught the sound of William, groaning softly. Stopping mid-crunch, she looked up at him. His face wore an uncomfortable expression.

“I … thought you were sleeping,” she mumbled, not knowing what else to say. “Are you sick or something?”

He shook his head. The look on his face shifted subtly, changing from one of discomfort to one of defeat.

“Would you mind, terribly much, not doing that?” he asked.

“Not doing what? Crunches?”

He ran his fingers through his tangled hair and nodded.

“It helps me stay awake. What? You’re going all Victorian prude on me? Trust me, I look like a Little House on the Prairie refugee compared to what the rest of California wears.”

“It’s not that …” he trailed off.

“What then?”

He rubbed a hand across his face. He looked so worn at that moment that she felt a small twinge inside her chest. Then, keeping his eyes closed, he wearily raised both arms above his head in an ‘I surrender’ position.

“I win?” She rose to her feet. Despite his worn out demeanor, she couldn’t help but feel a small thrill of victory. It was her nature; she couldn’t help it.

“If you’ll stop ‘exercising,’ yes, you win. I shall remain in the room for the duration of the night.”

He stood up and shrugged out of his suit coat. As he did so, a small wooden object slid out of his coat pocket and tumbled to the floor, landing with a clatter. It was a spindle that he’d surreptitiously removed from the chair and crudely sharpened into a stake. Objectively, she had to give him props. It was a far better design than her umbrella handle version.

“You were a busy boy while I was in the bath.”

He said nothing, but wove past her, reaching out to assemble his cot from its storage spot in the corner of the room. Her hand darted out to stop him.

“Tonight, I think, you should sleep in the real bed.”

He scoffed at her. “And assign the cot to you? I wouldn’t hear of it.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant …” Buffy trailed off. She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks, damn them. She quickly turned her gaze to the floor as she stammered out an explanation. “It’s just that … if you’re in bed with me, I’d be able to tell if you tried to sneak out.”

“Ahh,” he murmured noncommittally. The mattress squeaked as he sat down on it, then moved to lay next to the wall, leaving Buffy the side closest to the door.

“Aren’t you going to undress?”

“No,” he blurted.

“Well why not? It’s not anything I haven’t seen before.”

He said nothing.

“I swear, William. Sometimes you’re such a prude.”

“I was a prude. Then I met you.” His stubborn façade broke at that, and he flashed her a tired grin. “Very well, since you insist. But my trousers shall remain on.” He raised a brow at her. His newfound confidence was profoundly disturbing.

He unbuttoned his shirt, then balled it up and tossed it in the corner of the room. After that, he stripped off his linen undershirt and gave it the same treatment. It was very cavalier and Spike-like of him, and she found it both terrifying and exhilarating. She’d never seen William with his shirt off before and that in itself was proving to be chock full of wonder. Due to boxing and all his recent days in the exercise room of the ship, his chest was tightly muscled, his arms sculpted with lovely ridges and planes. And his abdomen was tightly ridged with a six-pack.

She was just forcing her eyes up to the lamp above their bed, when she caught a half-formed smirk on his lips. It was so like Spike that it stopped her cold.

“How do I know you’re not going to go sneaking out once I’m asleep?” she asked.

He blinked at her, a mask of contrition rapidly replacing his smirk. “I shan’t.”

“Not good enough.”

Grumbling, she climbed out of bed, and crawled into William’s former slouching chair.

“Buffy!” He called, exasperated.

“What? You go ahead, sleep. One of us might as well. I mean it, William.”

“Buffy, this is just foolishness. I give you my word, love. I will not leave our chamber tonight.”

“Nope, nope, nope.”

“Well, then I won’t be sleeping either.” He slid out of bed and slumped into the chair across the table from her. She glared up at him, ready to begin another argument, when he cut her off with a smile.

“We’re a fine pair, aren’t we?”

She nodded.

He reached across the table and gently stroked the back of her hand. “What would it take, love, for you to rest easy tonight? For you to lie down and sleep?”

“I don’t know if I can, William. Even if you gave me your word. There’s just too much at stake. Too much to lose.”

“And there’s nothing I could say? Nothing I could do that would assure you that I’d remain here through the night?”

“Well, short of tying you up – no.”

There was only a moment of silence before he spoke. “I’d be amenable to that.”




-----------------

Author's note:



And now a word from our sponsor, Miss Cleo.

Oh children, there be amazin’ treats in store for you in da future. All paths are laid clear to me by the reading of the Tarot, you see. Dis girl and dis boy, dey fall right to sleep, day do. Dere be no hanky-panky at all. Da boy William, he be tired and be bringin’ no more surprises to his lady love dis night. And dat Buffy, she be settlin’ down right away and be decidin’ dat bein’ a quiet wife is jus’ da ting for her. Dat bad one, dat Dru? She be stewin’ in the belly of da ship for da rest of da trip and will be givin’ our young lovers no more surprises a ‘tall. I am Miss Cleo and I am never wrong about da future, my little ones. For more genuine psychic readings, just dial 1.800.244.7226! That’s 1.800.BIGSCAM!

For those who may not know Miss Cleo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2LR2JpIo7s&feature=related

(Her Jamaican accent wavers like the baritone of a pubescent boy.)
Chapter 14 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
If I stop updating this story on Spuffy Realm, I will still continue to update it on Elysian Fields and my livejournal so you might want to check there. Thank you to Capella and Science for the beta and, as always, Amy for the banner.
Chapter 14

~~The Adriatic’s main cargo hold ~ 1:30 a.m.~~

“You brainless BITCH!” the Shining Man roared at Dru. In his rage he appeared more opaque than translucent. His colors popped orange and red, like a fireball scorching a path across the floor of the small wooden crate.

“Did I ask you for so much?” he demanded. “DID I?” He leaned down to where she’d curled herself into a corner of the box.

She shook her head ‘no’ in a frantic gesture, her dark hair flying about her face wildly.

“What were your instructions, Dru? What was the one thing you were supposed to do?”

Dru wasn’t certain answering was her wisest move here. Talking only seemed to fuel his rage. Remaining mute, she clutched her dolly tightly against her stomach, both hands wrapping protectively around the small object.

“The one thing I asked was for you to sit down and shut up. Was that really so hard?”

Actually, Dru thought, that would be two things. She tugged Miss Edith close and peered up at him through tangled hair.

“The plan was to turn William just before we arrived in New York City, not in the shipping lanes off the coast of Canada. Turn William now, and you’ll be swimming for hours, dragging his sorry corpse behind you, only to end up in Canada! Canada in the nineteenth century, for fucks sake! Hockey isn’t even in beta-testing in 1880!”

His image gave off a popping sound that reminded her of bacon frying. “What part of that seemed like a good idea to you? Why did you disobey me, you stupid cunt?” He leaned down, pressing into her space, filling the air with his strangely sulphureous scent.

Dru stroked Miss Edith’s hair, finding a thin slice of comfort in the contact. “William called to me. Asked me to dance. My William loves to dance.”

The Shining Man peered into her eyes, rage feeding the flame that licked around the edges of his image, flashing crimson and gold. She began to pat her dolly’s head with frenetic energy.

“If I were corporeal, I would strangle the living shit out of you, Dru. Don’t care if you don’t need to breathe. Just the feeling of my hands crushing your windpipe would be the perfect thing to help take off the edge right now.”

“It’s a good thing you’re just a pretty picture, then, isn’t it?” Dru’s steady voice was in direct contrast to her insides, which felt as solid as a sea sponge. Where she found the courage to stand up to him, to allow herself this sauciness, she did not know.

The Shining Man became still as if he were zapped by a freeze ray. Just as she began to feel a small swell of pride at stunning him into silence, he blinked. Then his lips thawed slightly and slowly split into a wide grin.

“Don’t need to touch you to cause pain, though, do I, Dru? Even pretty pictures can carry a big whammy. Because sometimes the pictures aren’t so pretty. Sometimes they can be downright … disturbing.”

A wave of fear crashed over Dru’s head, pulling her down. Not this. Not again. She curled her trembling frame into the fetal position with Miss Edith as her core.

Zzzzap! The picture in her mind arrived with a sizzling sound and a scent of rotten eggs. To say picture in her mind wasn’t accurate, however, for it was as real to her as the walls of the crate surrounding her. Far more substantial than the flickering image of the Shining Man, at any rate.

It was her father but not as she wanted to remember him, as she willed herself to think of him during all those endless, nightly battles. It was Daddy as she’d found him on the parlour floor that one dark winter morning. His throat had been torn out, a sticky pool of blood blossomed on the carpet beneath him. The air carried the sick copper stench of his death, the same scent which filled her head now.

His face was so still in death, so pale. His eyes remained closed. It was a small mercy, but one she treasured, for the thought of what horror might be reflected in those eyes made her insides tremble.

Instinctively, she reached out her hand to touch his familiar beard just one more time. There was a spot left on his cheek that was relatively free of blood. She could lay her hand upon it for reassurance, as she’d done when she was a little girl.

Just as she began to extend her arm, his dead eyes fluttered open. The familiar tint of his brown iris was replaced by an unnatural yellow glow. Her father’s blood-filled mouth opened, in a jerking, obscene manner, as if he were a puppet being controlled by an unskilled master.

“Drusilla?” her father’s voice croaked.

“No, no, no, no!” Dru clutched onto Miss Edith, scrabbling her legs against the wooden floor and screwing her eyes shut tightly. It did nothing to take away the picture inside her head, however.

“Daughter, come closer.” The unearthly voice burbled at her.

“No, no. I’ll be good. Make it go away. Please, make it go.” In desperation, she let go of Miss Edith so she could ball her hands into fists and pound them against her temples. If the Shining Man wouldn’t take the picture away, she’d drive it out of her head.

Her father’s stiff, blood-splattered lips tugged up at the edges. When it spoke this time, however, it used the Shining Man’s voice. “Because if you disobey me again, Dru, it won’t be Daddy visiting you. It’ll be your sister. You remember what Angelus did to your sister, don’t you?”

And she did. Sweet, merciful Christ, she did.

“Very well,” her father’s corpse said with the Shining Man’s voice. With a final zzzzzap, he popped out of existence.

Dru remained curled in the corner, fists still raining blows down upon her head. “Will be good. Very, very good. You’ll see.”

“Dru? Stop hitting yourself. Why are you hitting yourself?” the Shining Man asked in the sing-song manner of a cruel older brother.

She attempted to collect herself, but felt disconnected from not just the Shining Man, but the crate, the ship. She felt disconnected from her own body. Loss, hatred, love washed over her, tugging the shell of her this way and that, like seaweed being dragged through tidal pools. Squeezing her eyes tightly, she scrabbled a hand out to feel the comforting porcelain surface of Miss Edith. Gripping her dolly tightly, she wrapped her thin frame around it, making herself as small as possible.

On the edges of her consciousness, she could discern the Shining Man’s voice. It sounded strangely muted, like a man speaking to her while underwater. His words were distant, garbled, and she could only determine their meaning with great concentration.

“I took you in because I thought it would be easier than dealing with the White Demons, but I might change my mind. I might just leave you, Dru, alone on this ship. I wonder what you’d do without anyone to take care of you. No Angelus, no Warren. No one at all …”

Dru heard another voice then, a strangely familiar female voice. “You’ll never be alone. I’ll never leave you, Mummy.”

Cradled in her arms, Miss Edith’s face glowed up at her. Though the Shining Man droned on, winking and flickering furiously, it was as though mother and child were alone in the room.

“We don’t need him or Angelus. Never needed them and never will. Nasty boys with cruel words and sharp teeth.” Miss Edith’s voice was steady and measured, like warm honey coating Dru’s mind in a comforting blanket. The doll sounded exactly like Dru’s little sister. How strange she’d never noticed it before tonight.

“We could manage this quite well on our own. Don’t you think?” Miss Edith stared up at her with cold, unseeing eyes.

“Yes, yes we could.” Dru nodded enthusiastically at the little bundle in her arms.

“Don’t need his images of that white-haired Dark Prince, either. I can bring pictures to you, too, and none of mine are frightful,” the doll cooed in Dru’s dead sister’s voice.

At that, a beautiful image slid through Dru’s troubled mind, rippled and turned and whirled. She was in the arms of her brown-haired William, dancing under a western sky. The moonlight winked off the pistols he wore strapped to his hips as he twirled her gracefully. When he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly against his cold, lifeless chest, she let out a trembling sigh that was almost like a prayer.

“You and William. He can be yours, Mummy. Can be ours. You just need to listen to me.”

The Shining Man prattled on, paying no attention to the fact that his audience of one was no longer with him. She was, instead, staring into the eyes of the little bundle she held tightly in her arms, and she was listening very, very carefully.

~*~

~~The Adriatic, Room 17 ~ 1:40 a.m.~~

William lay on the bed, his arms above his head, his wrists crossed and just touching the brass headboard. Buffy straddled his waist in order to better access his wrists and the bed frame. The moment she’d done that, he’d closed his eyes, thankfully. His lashes lay against his cheek, too long and thick for a man, really. He almost looked serene, if you didn’t notice his tightly clenched jaw. Stretching up to weave a bit of twine through the frame, her breasts brushed briefly against his bare chest, and she felt him shudder beneath her.

“It’s a good thing George left the twine behind,” she mumbled nervously.

William’s only response was a tense nod.

She wove the twine through the frame and back around his wrists, slipping a finger inside the bonds to assure that it wasn’t too tight.

“I don’t want it to be uncomfortable,” she said.

“That is not what’s making me uncomfortable,” he gritted out.

Oh.

Winding the twine around his wrists for a third time, she checked for tension once again before tying off her work with a firm knot. She hesitated, just for a moment, before shimmying off his lap. Looking at him lying there, trussed up and trusting her, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt. Should she really make him go through with this? Sure, he’d sort of offered, but at the moment it seemed like she was abusing his trust somehow.

“William? If you want, we could …”

His eyes fluttered open, cool lamps of blue flame in the darkened room. His low baritone spoke carefully. “We’re both tired, Buffy. Exhausted. It’s nearly two in the morning. Let’s just sleep, darling. Please.”

She tugged the covers up over his torso, covering herself in the process. Turning her back to him, she shut her eyes tightly, determined to sleep. After all, she’d just been about to drop. Slumber was sure to claim her within moments.



~~2:30 a.m.~~

It was as though someone had replaced her entire blood supply with espresso. Sleep? What was that? She lay in a miserable bundle feeling as wired as an infomercial pitchman. The mattress, which had always seemed quite comfy before, now felt as if it were stuffed with sharp objects. Her former refuge had become a trap filled with triangles and pointy things whose number one agenda were to keep her from sleeping.

She readjusted herself for the umpteenth time, turning to face William again, peeking at him from beneath her mostly closed eyelids.

The moon shone through the port hole, illuminating his body in a silver glow. His toned chest rose and fell with measured breaths. Though his eyes were closed, he didn’t have the relaxed countenance of a dreamer. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut as if he were sitting in a dentist’s chair. His jaw too, clenched tightly, a muscle ticcing out a steady beat.

Kinetic tension roiled off him in waves. Opening her eyes up for a better look, she could see a fine sheen of sweat glistening on his skin.

She reached up and touched his side gently. She knew he wasn’t asleep. They might as well keep each other company.

“William?”

His eyelids flickered open, but he didn’t turn to look at her.

“Are you sick? You look ill”

“I’ll be fine, Buffy. Please, just sleep.” He bit his bottom lip as though in pain.

She leaned up on one elbow, worry growing. “But you’re not fine now.”

Instinctively, she checked for a fever, placing her palm on the center of his chest. He sucked in a sharp breath, and he looked at her with an expression bordering on agony.

“William? What’s wrong with you?”

“I’ll be fine, as I said. It’s just better if you don’t touch me just now.”

Fighting her instinct to confront him directly, she removed her hand in a deliberate motion and lay back in bed, determined to watch him.

He was clearly in some kind of distress but too damned proud to tell her about it. It was his stupid idea to be tied up in the first place. If he’d changed his mind about it, all he had to do was say something. If he wanted to be a stubborn ass about it, fine, he could knock himself out.

After another twenty minutes, she could stand it no longer. Just when she was ready to admit defeat and try talking to him again, he startled her by speaking.

“Buffy, I’m afraid I must ask you to loosen my bonds.”

About time. She sprang up, feeling more than a little smug that he’d been the one to break the silence. She was just about to straddle his waist again, when it dawned on her that she really didn’t need to do that. The knots were just as accessible to her if she sat next to him. All she really had to do was lean up from where she now lay.

It wouldn’t be quite as much fun to do it that way however, she had to admit. She willed herself to not grin as she carefully climbed back on his lap.

Stretching up, she slid her fingers between the knots, testing them.

“These don’t seem to be too tight at all. Is it your shoulders? Like having your arms above your head is making you crampy?”

“Buffy…” he groaned.

“Making you cranky then.”

“If you could simply remove the bonds …” He enunciated each word carefully, as though she were a particularly dull child. A wicked idea flitted across her mind, and she ground her bottom against his groin as a reminder that among the many things she was, she was not a child.

She felt a hardness there, but something about it was wrong, very wrong. She’d have expected to come into contact with his erection. She knew what an engorged cock would feel like and, Victorian gentleman or not, would fully expect William to be in this condition. What she didn’t expect was the shape of this.

Was William deformed?

It stopped her cold. She’d never seen him nude before. He’d barely given her the chance to see him shirtless. But surely, if he had something very wrong in his nether regions, she’d have known by now. Surely Spike wouldn’t have been able to strut around with such confidence if he had extreme wackiness going on with his penis.

She stopped untying him and climbed off his lap.

He looked up at her, his eyes a question mark.

“Have you got something weird stuffed in your pants?” Well, she could have perhaps phrased that a little more delicately, but there it was.

He closed his eyes and mumbled. “Oh, god …”

She unfastened the buttons of his trousers, half expecting him to protest. For some reason she couldn’t quite understand, he did not.

Once she’d unbuttoned his trousers, she began to untie the drawstring around his olde tyme underwear, when he finally found his voice.

“It’s a … device. If you’d untie me, I’d be able to remove it.”

“If you removed it, I wouldn’t be able to see it,” Buffy replied, urging his hips to rise so that she could slide his trousers and underwear down to his knees. Again, surprisingly, he complied.

Now that he was laid bare, she could clearly see that he had attached a strange metal device … to his penis! It was made of metal and fastened to his cock like a clamshell, secured to his hips by a thin leather belt.

“I think I speak for everyone who’s ever lived when I ask you, ‘What the fuck, William?’ You’re torturing yourself?”

His eyes remained closed as he spoke. “It wasn’t intended as a torture device, strictly speaking. It has, unfortunately, rather become one tonight.”

Now that she’d gotten over her initial shock, she noticed how the halves of the device had to be pinching him. It was pointing downwards and definitely designed to accommodate a flaccid penis, not the full-on erection that William had been sporting for some time. It was like putting a ten inch sausage in a six inch casing; it had to hurt like hell.

She looked for a way to release him, only to be thwarted by the padlock decorating the front of the device.

“Key?” she asked.

“If you’d simply untie me, I could tend to …”

“Key?” she interrupted.

“Why must you do this?” he asked, finally opening his eyes and looking into hers with an earnest expression.

“You took care of me in my ‘medical emergency,’ as you may recall. It’s the least I can do.” She busied herself by sliding off the bed.

“My front jacket pocket,” he replied, after a beat.

She fished the key from his jacket pocket and, almost as an afterthought, slipped her hand inside the wardrobe to snatch up a small bottle of face cream. ‘Chafed’ wouldn’t begin to describe William’s condition at the moment; he’d need this.

She swiftly unlocked the padlock and very gently pulled the two halves apart. His cock was red and raw in a few places, but still quite erect, and as it sprang free it lay on his groin in a far more natural position.

Moving carefully, she undid the leather belt, then dropped the device onto the floor in a heap.

“Why, William?” She couldn’t help herself. “Do you wear this vile thing every night?”

“No. Just tonight.”

“Why? Why now?”

Before he could answer, it came to her.

“It was Dru, wasn’t it? You saw it as a kind of protection against Dru. That was another reason you wanted to be alone in the room while I was in the bath.”

“That it was,” he admitted. “It may seem foolish, but when she accosted me in the lounge, it seemed she was particularly interested in that area of my person. If I could perhaps slow her down, it might give me a slight advantage in battling her.”


She looked down at him in wonder. Her brave knight, off to slay a dragon but only wearing shining armor on his cock. A most unusual hero, but then she had to admit that she was a very atypical distressed damsel. She found it so sweet, so charming, that for a moment it was hard to breathe.

“That was very brave of you, William.”

“It was?” His voice sounded more shocked than pleased. “At the moment it feels horribly embarrassing.”

She sat beside him. Smiling to herself, she poured a small dab of the face cream into the center of her palm and warmed it between her hands before carefully dabbing her lotion-covered fingertips to the side of his cock, which was looking particularly sore and red.

The air escaped his lungs in a ‘whoosh’ and he looked at her, startled.

"It’s all right,” she soothed.

“You needn’t…” he trailed off.

“I know. But as I reminded you, we were in the reverse of this situation just a few days ago. I think it’s your turn now.”

His eyelids fluttered shut, and his sigh was almost too faint to hear.

She gently placed one hand on his upper thigh. His muscles tense and bunched beneath her touch, then went slack as he took in another measured breath.

The tip of his penis was also a bright, angry red, having been confined against the rough metal for so long. Very tenderly, she touched her fingertip to his opening, the pearl colored lotion just matching the dab of pre-cum that wept from his slit.

He shuddered beneath her touch. His abdominal muscles flexed and his thigh muscles tightened in anticipation.

He’d been suffering in silence for far too long. Now wasn’t the time for teasing explorations; it was the time for comfort, for release.

Holding his shaft gently, but firmly, she slid her lotion-coated fingers down the length of it. His responding groan made her cast a quick look to check his expression. He wore a look of pleasure, not pain. Trailing her fingertips up the length of his cock, she danced light touches across the head before gripping him gently and stroking down, once again.

His hips rose of their own accord, bucking against the pressure of her hand. His fists knotted in the sheets as he gulped in a lungful of air.

“Oh, please…” he moaned.

Holding his cock even more firmly, she slid her fingers up to his tip and then back down again, this time reaching around with her other hand to gently cup his balls.

He came with a shuddering sigh, his creamy spendings splashing onto his abdomen as he raised his hips to her touch.

Carefully, almost cautiously, she pulled her hands away and glanced up at his face.

He laid there, arms still bound above his head, absolutely vulnerable to her. There was something about seeing him stripped bare in every sense that filled her with a sense of vertigo, and she found herself reaching out to hold his hand.

She squeezed it, and he returned the gesture, adding a shy grin that completely undid a knot deep within her. It was just a half-smile, but it swept caution and thought out to sea, and began to work at crumbling the foundation of her carefully laid wall.

She leaned up, pressing her body against his, feeling her nipples brush against his chest through the cool cloth of her chemise. She brushed her lips against his, the barest whisper of a kiss.

As she pulled back, his smile was so radiant that it was almost painful to look at. She glanced down to his chest in her sudden discomfort.

“Our first kiss. Well, our first kiss as far as you can remember,” he murmured.

“Our first kiss when I was Elizabeth - did I kiss you, or did you kiss me?”

“You kissed me, love. It seems to be the way of things, regardless of our incarnation.”

She closed her eyes and laid her head on his chest, placing her fingertips lightly on his left side, so that she could feel the comforting thrum of his heartbeat.

“As Elizabeth, at least we kissed before I’d watched you orgasm.”

His chest shook with laughter. “Actually, no, darling. But that’s a story for another time.”

What a mysterious man he was. She’d tried to see him as bookish wimp, or potential monster, but he was quite far from both. He had a quiet bravery, a loving determination that defied her every attempt to dissect him, to file him neatly away.

Pulling back from him, she reached up to the bed frame and began untying the twine, but with a gentleness that surprised her. She could feel him watching her, cautious and still, his eyes brightly burning through the shadows.

Once she’d worked the last knot free, she unthreaded the twine, wound it into a ball, and threw it into the corner of the room where he’d tossed his shirt earlier.

His gaze remained on her, studying her movements, ready to retreat to his cot upon her slightest request. Damn him. He made it so impossibly difficult to keep him at a comfortable distance.

Helpless to him, she lay on her side next to him. When he shifted his arm slightly, she resisted no longer, and tucked her head up on his chest, just beneath his chin. He released a contented sigh, and she tensed, just for a heartbeat, before surrendering to the moment.

She wrapped her arm about his waist, for the first time that she could remember feeling completely safe, feeling loved.
End Notes:
Happy Christmas to you all!
Chapter 15 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thank you to Amy for the banner. Thanks to DK, Capella, Science and Lutamira for the beta. To those who are reviewing this story, thank you very much.
Our hopes and expectations
Black holes and revelations
Hold you in my arms
I just wanted to hold you in my arms -Muse-


Chapter 15

My Elizabeth is in my arms, and the world is a perfect place.

William’s first thought upon waking was ridiculously sentimental, he knew, but he smiled secretly to himself and held onto it all the same. He twined his fingers in her hair, gently, so as not to wake her. Then he stopped, froze, remembered.

Not my Elizabeth, my Buffy. And not mine really. Not yet.

His careful fingers caught in her hair. He stilled his movements and recalled the previous night’s events: the flurry of activity over the creature in the hold and Buffy’s insistence in securing the safety of the ship, the fire in her eyes as she set about her mission, his relief that she’d begun to find herself again. And then later when they were together in bed, she’d seen him in that ridiculous device and tended to him with the gentlest touch. There was something there, something like compassion, like love.

She’d kissed him. Wonder of wonders, she’d pressed her lips against his and sighed. And when he’d held her in his arms, she had allowed it, welcomed it even.

In those moments he could see his Elizabeth shining through her Buffy skin. In her memory, she was seven years younger than the woman he’d known and wed. But he could see the woman that she would become - buzzing just beneath the surface.

She made a soft, cooing sound in her sleep and her fingers flexed briefly against his chest, then relaxed. His toes curled up in response and he bit his lip to assure his silence. The standard morning erection he’d woken with had turned into something far more substantial, from sandstone to granite. He inhaled slowly, luxuriating in the scent of her, willing his body to obedience. He had to remain still, to prolong this moment with her in his arms, for what would happen upon her waking was bound to be less pleasant than this.

He suddenly remembered something from childhood – sitting on a stool in the kitchen while the cook, Mrs. MacLaughlin, baked gingerbread men. Buffy smelled a bit like that, the slightest hint of ginger. Perhaps that was what had brought on the memory. Like now, his hunger and impatience growing as he waited. As a boy, he knew not to taste the biscuits before they were finished. Burnt fingers and tongue would be his only reward for that. But he’d known her in her future – with her battles won, the woman had finally emerged. As the man who had known what the finished treat tasted like, it was an exquisite torture to wait for the baking.

Run, run, fast as you can. You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man.

Buffy’s breathing slowly became shallower, and she shifted position again, rubbing her leg against his. She nuzzled the tip of her nose just under his jaw, and he held back a groan as his erection went from granite to something far harder. Was diamond harder than granite? Dear god, the effect this woman had on him, to cause him to consider himself with a diamond cock.

He felt his cheeks warm and was grateful she remained asleep.

He lay there, halfway between agony and bliss, as the moments spun out, and he soaked them up gratefully.

Suddenly her soft body hardened, and her breathing stopped for a moment. She was awake then, and knew who she was, knew who he was. The moment, golden as it had been, was just about to take a turn.

He waited for it, willed himself to breathe steadily as if asleep. He could feel her lashes flutter against his chest as she blinked a few times and then closed her eyes. She made a soft “mmm” sound and rolled on her side, away from him. She was such a dreadful actress that he couldn’t suppress a grin.

And it was quite as he expected, really.

Run, run, fast as you can. You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man.

With her back to him, he had the luxury to watch her at least. He opened his eyes to see her hair falling across his shoulder. The green chemise she wore looked beautiful with her eyes, he knew, remembering the long afternoon in which she’d tried them on in their hotel. He had determined they’d have a proper afternoon tea, and she’d insisted that he attend her private fashion show. The result was the most decadent tea he’d ever imagined, and he would never again be able to taste clotted cream without also tasting her.

What if he was to shift ‘in his sleep’ much the way Buffy had? Lie on his side and casually allow his groin to brush against her bottom. If he let her feel his erection, the fantastic attraction he had to her, would she be repulsed? Frightened? Elizabeth, he knew, while Buffy remained hidden.

Still, there was last night. And not just the way she touched him and her kiss. There was the way she looked at him when she thought he couldn’t see, little glances that lingered just a bit too long. It wasn’t what she used to feel for him, but it was something. It was a start.

She made another “mmm” sound and scooted just a bit further away from him.

Realizing that the moment had slipped away, he shifted slightly, preparing to leave the bed when two brisk knocks sounded from the door, along with a muffled, “It’s George, with breakfast.”

“One moment, George,” he called as he climbed off the end of the bed.

Buffy bolted up, covers tucked around her. “Guess I slept in!” she said to the sheets bunched in her fists, for she certainly wasn’t looking at him.

“I’ll get the door. Shall I fetch your dressing gown, Buffy?”

She nodded vigorously in response, but she still didn’t look at him.

William opened the wardrobe and fished out his own dressing gown, wrapping it around his body before finding hers and handing it up to where she sat in the middle of the bed. It only took her a moment to slip it on. Adjusting his dressing gown in a manner that would hopefully mask his raging erection, he opened the door to George.

“Good morning Mr. Pratt, Mrs. Pratt!” George was in exceptional spirits this morning, and William couldn’t help but beam a smile in return.

“Breakfast this morning is blueberry scones, smoked ham, fruit compote, and clotted cream.” The porter laid the heavy tray onto the table with a clatter.

“George, I don’t believe I could imagine a more perfect breakfast,” William said.

The boy looked up at him quickly, to see if he was in jest, but the sincerity behind William’s words must have been reflected in his eyes, for George’s grin only widened.

“George, were there any problems on the ship last night?” Buffy asked. She had been so silent around George of late that he seemed slightly taken aback.

“Problems, Ma’am?”

“Like, did anything go wrong? Anything creepy happen? You know, with the cargo hold and the … rodents.”

“Oh!” The light dawned for George. “No, Mrs. Pratt. Nothin’ a ‘tall! No overboard passengers, no problems. Not a peep!”

Buffy smiled in relief. William couldn’t help but notice a blush creeping up George’s cheeks as he returned the smile and gave a nod.

Turning to William, he announced “I’ve only two more breakfasts to bring to you after this, sir.”

“Why is that?” William asked.

“We’ll be docking in New York in two days time.”

William shook his head. “Impossible to imagine that we’ve come such a distance in so short a time. Marvels of the modern age.”

“Indeed, Mr. Pratt.” George nodded and backed out of the room, closing the door with a soft click.

As was his habit, William removed the lids from their breakfast tray and took his usual seat, facing the door, as Buffy climbed down from the bed to sit across from him. Her dressing gown was wrapped tightly around her thin frame and the look of it reminded him of a cocoon containing a moth which was quite determined upon not emerging.

He took a sip of orange juice as Buffy began to butter her scone. Her rumpled hair fell directly into her face, and she made no effort at all to brush it back.

Run, run, as fast as you can.

“Good morning,” he said in what he thought an exceptionally pleasant tone of voice.

“Huh?” Buffy mumbled. He could just make out one eye glaring at him through her tangled curtain of hair.

“Good morning. With all of George’s business, I hadn’t greeted you.”

“Oh, sure. Right back at you.” She pulled her hair back long enough to take a quick bite of scone before letting it fall back to veil her face.

He cut a few bites of ham and they continued to dine without words. Their only accompaniment was the sound of clinking silverware and the very faint calls of seagulls through the door.

“Very good news about the cargo hold, yes?” He was determined, and he could be a very patient man when required.

Buffy nodded and brushed the hair from her eyes to look at him with an unexpectedly intense expression.

“I wasn’t so sure our prison was going to hold Dru, to tell you the truth. I can’t believe I slept so well because if anything were to go wrong …”

When she trailed off, he prompted her. “If anything were to go wrong …?”

“Well, I’d feel responsible. It’s my job to protect people. It’s what I do. It may be the only thing I do well. I’m not so good with relationship things. But being the Slayer? Putting monsters in their place? That I can handle. And if I had messed that up … I don’t know if I could forgive myself.”

William was stunned into silence, staring stupidly at a piece of ham he’d speared with his fork. He didn’t know if he was more perplexed by this unexpected flurry of words or her willingness to be so honest, so vulnerable with him. And her confession that she was ‘not so good with relationships’ – was this part of what kept her at such a distance?

Not knowing what to say in response to this flood, he could only look at her, feeling absolutely helpless.

Her green eyes looked back into his and offered no mercy. She didn’t shyly lower her gaze nor hide behind her golden veil of hair. She just looked at him with a gaze that offered her total honesty.

“I think you did a splendid job in securing the hold, Buffy. There’s nothing to worry about.”

She nodded and took a sip of tea.

“Have I told you how much I miss coffee?”

He chucked. “Nearly every morning, darling.” Damn. He’d let another endearment slip. He glanced over to her quickly, but she was occupied scowling at her teacup.

Working to deflect attention from his last utterance, he asked, “Did you hear George earlier? He said we’d be in New York City the day after tomorrow.”

Buffy nodded absently and dipped the tip of her spoon in the clotted cream, muttering, “What the hell is this stuff?”

William cleared his throat and attempted to keep his voice calm and conversational. “We’re to spend three nights in the city before we begin our rail journey west.”

Mercifully, that caught her attention and she looked at him with interest. “How long will the trip to California take?”

“We have at least one, possibly two train changes to make, but the trip should take approximately three weeks.”

She dropped her eyes to her plate, and he remained her patient husband who watched silently while so many questions skittered and bounced around his mind. Had she considered just slipping away once they arrived to New York? Did she want to go to California with him? Was the trip to her former home the only reason she stayed with him?

She remained hidden from him behind a wall of her own thoughts and her curtain of tangled hair.

Remembering the feeling of her in his arms this morning, the way his heart had jumped about in his chest when she’d kissed him last night, his hand reached across the table to hers – almost as if the damned thing had a mind of its own. Without any permission from his brain or his pride, his fingertips brushed the back of her hand, lightly.

She looked up with a start.

He smiled. “The trip out west should be a wonder. It’s an entirely new world – I think for both of us.” The longing in his voice bordered on embarrassing. He swallowed, then slowly and deliberately removed his foolish hand from hers. She didn’t move to stop him.

“Yes,” she replied very quietly. But when he looked at her, she graced him with a slight smile that held some measure of hope.

Left to her own devices, she’d remain behind her barriers. But he’d been on the other side - knew what her walls held out and what they kept in. He understood what she was capable of and slowly, step by step, he would win her.

Even the hardest rock can be worn away with enough time. If she were stone, he would be water, steady and determined.

He considered that it really was a pity their journey west would avoid the Grand Canyon, that wonder of water over stone. The spectacle would be nothing compared to William’s wooing of his wife, but it would be something to see all the same.

Since he grew weary of forcing her through conversation, he let the silence spin out as they picked through the remnants of breakfast. Still curious about the clotted cream, Buffy dipped her fingertip into it and brought it to her lips, pink tongue darting out to taste.

William shifted uncomfortably in his seat and was saved by two quick knocks announcing that George had returned to collect the trays.

“Come in,” William called, gratefully.

The porter was in a bit of a hurry, as was usual at this time of day. After a cursory inquiry as to their enjoyment of breakfast, he quickly gathered the tray and was just leaving the room when William stopped him.

“George, we won’t be needing the cot any longer. Could you please arrange to have it collected later today?”

“Indeed, sir!” George was radiant. His smile looked as if it were electrified. Suddenly William felt very fortunate that Buffy’s back was to the spectacle that was the very delighted George. “I can certainly have that taken care of! And may I say, sir, that I’m so pleased to know that Mrs. Pratt is feeling recovered … that is to say that you and she are … oh, dear lord. Good day, sir!”

George slammed the door with a kind of frantic energy. There was only the briefest pause before the clanging of metal echoed through the door, announcing that the boy also managed to drop the tray.

William sighed and looked to his wife.

She returned his gaze – her green eyes brimming with questions.

He inhaled and did not look away, waiting for her to say something, to give some sign. She remained silent but still he held her gaze, hoping desperately that she’d see the steely determination of a husband, but fearing she’d only find the lost look of a lovestruck fool.

A few seconds dragged by, then a few seconds more. She registered neither approval nor disgust regarding their new sleeping arrangements. She merely continued to look at him, her eyes still questioning. He longed to ask “What is it that you question, my love? How you feel about me? What kind of man I am? Why I want to sleep with you? Or could I hope that you don’t understand why you want to sleep with me?”

None of those questions would be asked nor answered. Not now. She had her walls, and he had his common sense.

And so he asked a different one.

“Would you like to take a stroll on the deck?”

She paused and considered this new question briefly before responding.

“That sounds great.”

~*~

It was late evening when they returned from their second walk of the day. After dinner had been served by a giddy George, Buffy had suggested they take another stroll and William had eagerly agreed.

Though it was August, there was a slight chill in the air, rising from the frothy Atlantic. He hoped for the opportunity to place an arm about her shoulders during their walk, but she’d wrapped herself in a thick shawl and remained a far enough distance that this was not a possibility.

After a quick trip to check on the doors of the hold, they made their way to their cabin. Just as they turned down the hallway, he heard a voice from behind, calling his name quite insistently.

He turned around to see Dr. and Mrs. Crowdner hurrying down the hallway towards them.

“Oh, god,” Buffy muttered.

He reached out to squeeze her hand, then thought the better of it and carefully reached out toward the doctor instead, greeting him with a handshake.

“William and Elizabeth Pratt. How lovely to see you,” Dr. Crowdner exclaimed.

“Yes, you as well,” William said in what he hoped sounded like a congenial tone.

“Is everything … quite alright?” the doctor asked, his gaze flitting between William and his wife. The doctor’s wife, Jane, took on a very patient expression which William feared very nearly matched his own.

“Yes, quite,” William assured. “We were just enjoying the night air and were about to retire for the evening, actually.”

“Oh yes, quite.” The doctor glanced over to Elizabeth. “And your wife? She is feeling much ... recovered?”

“Yes, she is,” Buffy interjected. “And her hearing, as always, is working perfectly.”

William couldn’t help but chuckle. “Her spirits are in fine form, as you can see.”

Not seeming to know quite how to respond to that, the doctor responded with nothing at all. Jane Crowdner leaned over to nudge her husband’s arm. “Perhaps you could show me that constellation you were speaking of earlier? I fear the city lights of New York will dull the night sky and I’m quite curious about it, dear.”

Dr. Crowdner gave a quick nod to William and Buffy, wished them a good evening, and continued down the hall toward the aft end of the ship.

Once they slipped inside their cabin Buffy grumbled, but only briefly, about nosy doctors and nineteenth-century medical practices. As much as she may not want to admit it, William knew that he hadn’t lied to the doctor in the hallway. Her spirits were in as fine a form as he’d seen them, and she didn’t have a sour enough temperament to complain about the doctor for long.

She sat at the small table and began to unpin her hair. Earlier that day she’d allowed him to arrange it in a simple style – so that she was presentable during their turns on the deck. Though she’d allowed her hair to be styled without complaint, she seemed greatly relieved to be wearing it down about her shoulders. She combed her hair in silence, a slight smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

Even in this action, he could see a dim spark in her eyes. Those same questions that had hidden behind her eyes earlier in the day still lingered, peering out on quiet moments.

He remained slouched against the wall, unsure if he should prod or remain silent. He chose the latter course of action and continued to enjoy watching his wife comb her hair.

She turned to the closet, opened the door and pulled out her nightgown, the voluminous cotton dress that she’d worn the night they’d met the creature. He waited and watched. It wasn’t until he began to feel slightly dizzy that he realized he’d been holding his breath.

Carefully, dare he say stealthily, he exhaled.

She turned her head to the side and glanced over at him, pausing.

“Shall I … retire to the hallway while you dress then?” Damn him for having to ask.

She nodded her response.

He slipped out into the hall and walked the few steps to the lounge. He’d thought, perhaps, that a book might pique his interest for the last day and a half of their voyage, but the room had lost its luster. What was once a cozy refuge had been transformed into an uncomfortable space and one he couldn’t linger in.

He quickly returned to the room and, after announcing himself with a sturdy knock, strode back into the room.

Buffy lay in bed facing the ceiling, covers tucked under her chin.

As he reached up to trim the wick of the oil lamp, he caught himself and slowly lowered his hand. No, he thought, not tonight. She might hide, but he needn’t.

With his back to her, he shrugged out of his suit coat and slid his bracers from his shoulders. Next he removed his shirt, then undershirt and placed them on the back of the chair. He sat down and took off his shoes and socks, taking care to surreptitiously sneak a look at his wife.

She was watching.

Though he’d stolen the quickest of glances, he’d seen that her face was no longer turned upwards, but was now facing him, though her eyes appeared closed.

Wearing only his trousers, he gathered up the rest of his clothing and went to the wardrobe to begin tucking the items away. Once everything had been sorted, he unfastened his trousers and let them slide to the floor.

He almost stopped there. Modesty and a sense of basic decorum flooded his senses briefly, Then he remembered that hungry look in her green eyes, when she had undressed him so long ago, back when she was his wife in deed and not just in name, back when she was his Elizabeth.

His fingers untied the drawstring, and his underwear slid to the floor.

Standing before her like this, or rather, with his backside to her like this, he could feel his cheeks burn as though he were standing in front of an oven. If it were possible for his hind cheeks to take on the furious glow that matched his front ones, she’d know for certain how difficult these bold acts were for him.

He reached over and gathered his nightshirt in one hand, willing his hand not to tremble and betray him. It did not.

In what he felt certain was a very casual manner, he slipped his nightshirt over his head, just as he turned to the side – attempting, besotted idiot that he was, to catch a hint of her expression.

His stone wall of a wife lay in bed facing the ceiling, still and stiff. Her eyes, however, were screwed tightly shut. Indeed, her entire face was bunched up in a most unusual expression.

Was it because she found him repulsive or because she was willing herself not to peek?

Either way, he cursed his foolish boldness and swiftly moved toward the lamp, twisting the wick down. The lamp guttered and spat, quickly sending the room into darkness.

He climbed into bed beside her, lifting the covers cautiously, careful not to touch her. Since the bed was rather narrow and she was lying on her back, he positioned himself on his side, facing towards her.

For a long while neither of them spoke, nor did they sleep. Her breathing was no more relaxed than his, and he could tell by her restless movements that she was a far distance from slumber. He’d just heard the ship’s bell chime ten o’clock when she said, just above a whisper, “William?”

“Yes?”

“I’ve been sort of … wondering something all day.”

At last. Thank Christ. Those questions hiding behind her eyes all day. She was finally going to allow him his glance.

“What is it?”

“Well, that thing you had. That penis prison. Why did you have that thing in the first place?”

That was not what he was expecting. It was about as far away from what he was expecting as a person could manage. As Elizabeth, as Buffy, she had a way of keeping him off balance that he found simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating.

“It’s a somewhat involved story.”

“Can you give me the Cliff’s Notes version then?”

“The what?”

“The shortened version,” she explained. “I just want to understand why you’d have that to begin with. Was it some kind of punishment? Did the me-as-Elizabeth know about it?”

He was at a loss of what to say. He wouldn’t be able to explain that he’d initially purchased it to stop his impossible attraction to her. And how, once they’d become intimate, she’d insisted he bring it along on their honeymoon, with a wicked smile. This version of her had never known intimacy with Spike, nor William, and to fill her in on these details now would be something of a tricky mess.

She turned, faced him and raised her hand up as if to touch his cheek, then hesitated and settled instead upon his forearm. He blinked. If his voice had been difficult to find earlier, it was impossible now. Such a simple thing as her warm fingertips upon his arm completely unmade him.

Buffy continued, “It seems … well, kind of disturbing and I’d really like to know if …”

Just then a scream tore through their room. A woman was shrieking very loudly, and by the sounds of it, just outside their door.

William bolted up, heart thundering in his chest.

Dru.

The creature from the hold was surely the cause of such terror. He knew it with a dread certainty.

Scrambling out of bed, he put on his trousers, threw his suit coat over his nightshirt and ran towards the door.
Chapter 16 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thanks to the Gang of Four: DK, Lutamira, Science and Capella. Though they probably fantasize about beating me to death with a large comma, they refrain. Also, they're awesome. Thanks to Amy for the banner. I would love to hear what you think about this chapter - especially this chapter. And ... there is a footnote at the end of this - just so ya know.
You only live forever in the lights you make.

- MCR




Chapter 16

William tore the door open and looked frantically down the hall. The screams were coming from the lounge. As he instinctively ran toward the sound, he nearly tripped on a champagne bottle which was inexplicably rolling along the passageway next to his door.

It was simply too bizarre. Champagne and screams? For a brief instant hope swelled inside his chest that this was a dream before his thudding heart drowned out the thought, and he continued his mad scramble toward the lounge. Dread and fear fought for dominance, and he only hoped it wasn’t as bad as it sounded.

And that he could tend to whatever it was before Buffy came into the fray.

He rounded the corner of the lounge just as he spied a porter running down the hall towards him. As he entered the room, he immediately recognized the screaming woman and her husband. It was the Lowells, or was it the Lovells? Whatever their surname, it was the American honeymooners, Elizabeth I and her spouse.

Elizabeth I had fallen to the ground and was scrambling toward the door, propelled by her kicking legs. Her husband was also backing towards the door wearing an expression of absolute puzzlement. Both of them stared into the far corner of the room.

Fighting his rising terror, William looked too.

A young man lay slumped on the floor, clearly dead. His skin shone unnaturally white in the lamplight, forcing William’s eyes to the bright red bloom on the victim’s torn throat. Beneath a mop of dark black hair, the boy’s brown eyes stared lifelessly at a spot on the wall.

George.

Oh, merciful Christ. Not George. Please, not George.

William felt the world spin on its side and closed his eyes, welcoming the darkness.

When he opened them again, the room was still there. George was still there. William, however, was not. He felt as if he were a kite, hovering far above the scene. As if he were viewing a play, detached from it all. Even the sounds - Elizabeth I’s screaming, the urgent shouts from the porter who had just entered the room - echoed up from a distance far below.

Mr. Lowell/Lovell was yelling something to the porter, and in order to understand the conversation William forced himself to listen carefully, as if he were working out a translation from a foreign language.

“… not human, but it looked human. Wearing a woman’s dress. It ran that way the moment my wife startled it!”

The chubby, blond porter stepped into the room. His face immediately took on a horrified expression.

“Is George …?” The porter looked at William.

“He’s dead,” William heard himself say.

“The creature …!” Lowell/Lovell shouted. “Running in that direction. Shouldn’t someone …?”

William’s legs ran towards the door, for which he was grateful. His mind was disengaged, and it was no small mercy that the rest of him was alert enough to act. He elbowed past the men at the door and ran toward the portside deck.

He thought he was running as fast as he could, but when he heard the sound of a man shouting just ahead of him, he managed to push himself just a little bit harder. Bursting onto the deck, he saw a crewman rushing to the deck rail.

“Man overboard! All hands! All hands!” The large sailor leaned over the side of the ship.

Though his legs were trembling powerfully, William still felt as if he were watching the action from far above. He ran to the rail and peered over the edge. Down below in the inky waters of the Atlantic he could make out a figure, a woman with long black hair, wearing a white dress and swimming away from the ship at an impossibly fast speed.

Dru.

“How can she …? How can …? What is that thing?” the sailor mumbled, before turning around and shouting again. “All hands! Man overboard!”

The moonlight provided enough light for only the briefest glimpse of Dru, and then she was gone.

A light from the wheelhouse blinked several times, and the ship began to shudder as the helmsman struggled to bring the great vessel to a halt. A few more crew members appeared topside, spilling noisily up from the aft passageway.

Suddenly, from amidst the din on the deck, William could make out one voice in particular echoing up from the hallway. It was Buffy, and it was just one word. “William!” The desperation contained within sent William scrambling back toward the lounge, shaking legs be damned.

“Do not attempt to rescue that … thing. It’s not what it appears to be,” William shouted over his shoulder at the small crowd gathering at the deck rail.

“I should think not. She … it … is faster than The Adriatic herself.” The stunned sailor shook his head.

William tore down the hall. In that brief time a crowd had begun to gather near the lounge’s door. There were at least a dozen people milling around. Elizabeth I had been joined on the floor by her husband, who lay supine, clutching his jaw. Buffy stood over him, wrapped in her dressing gown and cradling her fist, looking every bit like a boxer who had just taken out her opponent in the first round.

“William!” Relief flooded her expression when she saw him. “Is it … Dru?”

“It was,” William nodded hastily, “She’s gone. Off the ship and swimming for shore. She won’t be back.” Looking down at the American lying at her feet, his gaze flickered back to Elizabeth. “Are you alright?”

“He grabbed me, tried to make me stay here,” she replied. Though she held her right hand gingerly, she looked at him with a fighter’s resolve. “Did Dru hurt anyone?”

Oh, god.

“Come, Buffy, let’s return to our room.”

But she sensed it. She could read it in his eyes, could feel it in the stuttering pulse of the gathering crowd. She knew.

Buffy turned, facing the blond porter determinedly blocking the lounge’s entrance. One glance from her, and the boy stepped aside, granting her a full view of the gruesome scene in the corner. Even in the dim light, she immediately saw what Dru had wrought. Her steps faltered, just for a moment, before she continued toward George’s side where she fell to her knees.

“George …” The heartbreak in her voice made it impossible for William to breathe.

With a trembling hand she reached out and touched George’s tousled hair with her fingertips, smoothing it gently, a mother comforting her child. Wearing a look of abject sorrow, tears splashed unashamedly down her cheeks while her eyes remained fixed upon the gaping wound on his neck.

“I’m sorry, so sorry, George.” Her voice was a whisper between sobs.

For the first time since he’d met her, bursting into his life as Bessie the maid, she looked … weak.

William stepped carefully around George’s body to kneel beside her, placing his hand upon her shoulder.

She looked at William numbly, as though she didn’t quite recognize him. “It’s my fault. I knew, and I didn’t protect him.”

William wrapped an arm about her waist. “Come with me, please. There’s nothing for you here.”

Her only response was continued weeping. Her shoulders convulsed with sorrow and shame. Her hand, which had been smoothing George’s hair, shook so violently that she had to simply let it drop to the boy’s chest.

The engorged crowd buzzed and shifted slightly, parting long enough to allow Dr. Crowdner entry. He wore his profession confidently, and William was shocked at the relief he felt upon seeing the man.

The doctor looked at George briefly, his expression solemn. “Is the perpetrator still afoot?” he asked William urgently.

William shook his head. “It’s gone. Off the ship and swimming for shore.”

“It?” Dr. Crowdner asked, but he didn’t pause for a reply. He knelt down on the far side of George’s body, reaching out to William’s wife. “Mrs. Pratt? Elizabeth?”

She didn’t acknowledge the doctor. She simply continued to stare down where her hand lay in the center of George’s chest, near the place where his heart used to beat.

“Buffy?” The doctor’s tone was gentle, and he reached for her hand.

Startled from her reverie, she looked up at the doctor. “My fault,” was all she said.

“I would think not, dear,” Dr. Crowdner assured. “There is nothing you can do for the boy now. Buffy, you need to return to your cabin.”

She ignored him completely.

The doctor reached up to George’s face, sweeping his hand down in a tender gesture to close his eyes. He stood and stepped around the boy’s body to stand beside Buffy. Laying his hand on her back, he urged, “Please return to your room with William. George is gone now.”

William found his own voice then. “He wouldn’t want this for you, Buffy. Wouldn’t want you to see him like this. He’d want you safe in your cabin, wouldn’t he?”

Buffy nodded slowly.

Though the men on either side of her attempted to help her to her feet, she rose on her own accord and began to move toward the doorway. Her steps were small, cautious, a woman walking on glass shards. She kept her eyes dead ahead, not looking at the people milling all around her, but seeing though them.

William walked beside her while the doctor stepped ahead of them, effectively parting the crowd with a look.

As William reached the door, he cast a final glance at the small figure crumpled in the corner of the room - so vibrant in life, so pale in death – an abandoned toy thrown carelessly in the corner of the room. Then the crowd shifted, swallowing George up whole.

~*~

Dru’s arms dove through the cool water rhythmically. (Steady strokes like a beating heart.)

“Turn a little further South, Mummy,” Miss Edith burbled from where she lay beneath the waves, strapped to Dru’s chest – a macabre figurehead on the undead H.M.S. Drusilla. “We want to make land in Maine, not Nova Scotia.”

Dru changed course imperceptibly and without question. (Shining angel, guiding her mummy.) Her darling baby had told her about the topside doors they’d used to lower cargo into the hold and how those doors had been left unsecured. (Short-sighted humans looking for the wrong sorts of beasties.) Her child had shown her the way to the shore and a vision of the lovely dark barn that awaited them on land.

Her ever-thoughtful Miss Edith had even gifted her with dinner. She’d shown her the boy, standing nervously outside William’s door. He’d been holding a bottle of champagne, so uncertain. It was though he’d been sent just for Mummy (a chocolate on a tray).

The compliant little calf had been too startled to make a peep as she dragged him to the lounge to dine. She’d looked deeply into his eyes just before sinking her teeth in his delicious, pulsing throat. It was such a pleasure to see his lovely lights before she trimmed the wick (hopes and plans dancing about behind his deep brown eyes). She’d even glimpsed his thoughts regarding William and Buffy, which had only made the blood taste that much sweeter.

Though Miss Edith had been very talkative in the hold, now that they were in the water she’d spoken little, except for the intermittent directional commands. Dru missed her darling’s voice. In the hold Miss Edith had been so very comforting as Dru had said goodbye to the rest of her dollies. And when Dru began to fret over the Shining Man’s reaction, Miss Edith assured her that he’d no longer trouble them unless Dru wished it.

“And why would I ever want to see the Shining Man again?” Dru pondered aloud between strokes.

“You wouldn’t,” Miss Edith gurgled gleefully. “All you need is me, Mummy.”

“And William, soon,” Dru added. (Dancing beneath the western sky.)

“Yes, and William,” Miss Edith confirmed, patiently.

“Tell me again. Say the words.” (Such lovely words, they sparkle and dance.)

“Certainly, Mummy,” Miss Edith complied. “Together, you and your Prince William will kill a slayer, forever changing the destiny of the Hellmouth.”

As the words flashed before her Dru picked up her pace. (What’s a Hellmouth? It sounds divine.) Untiringly, she stroked steadily on toward the unseen shore, her dark destiny, and her William.

~*~

Safe inside their cabin, William could hear the tumult just outside their door. Senior crewmen had arrived, issuing orders and attempting to disperse the crowd.

Buffy remained where he’d guided her – seated at the small table, wearing a blank expression and cradling her injured hand. When she’d sat sobbing by George’s side, he’d have given anything to be able to quiet her, but now that he was faced with this unsettling silence, he found himself bitterly regretting the sentiment.

Two quick knocks sounded, and Dr. Crowdner let himself into the cabin. He nodded to William before setting his attentions upon Buffy.

“I see you’ve injured your hand. May I examine it?”

Buffy looked at him blankly and complied, holding her right hand out at arms length.

In the chaos, William hadn’t gotten a good look at it and was shocked by what he saw. Her right hand was swelling rapidly, and dark purple marks were already blossoming on her knuckles.

“Oh, dear,” Dr. Crowdner said, gently placing her hand upon the table top. “Severe trauma to the metacarpals. I’m going to need to wrap this and give you something for the pain.”

Buffy met his gaze, neither agreeing nor arguing with him.

The doctor reached into his bag and retrieved a long length of white cloth which he wound loosely around Buffy’s injured hand. Once he’d tied her bandage off with a knot, he retrieved a small bottle of laudanum and a dosing spoon.

Since William had cared for his mother, he was quite aware of the strength of the medication The amount the doctor was giving Buffy was substantial. It wasn’t dangerous, but it was enough to put her into a deep sleep for hours. The doctor looked up to William inquiringly, but William put the question to his wife instead.

“Darling, the doctor would like to give you something for the pain and to help you sleep. Would that be alright?”

Buffy opened her mouth like an obedient child.

“Darling,” William repeated. He knelt in front of her and, placing his hand gently upon her cheek, looked into her eyes. “Dr. Crowdner is going to give you laudanum now. It will ease your pain but also place you into a sleep for a time. Do you wish to take the medication?”

Recognition flickered behind her eyes, relaxing her doll-like expression. “I’d like something for the pain, yes. And to sleep.” Her voice was clear, and she was Buffy again, if just for that moment.

She opened her mouth again, and Dr. Crowdner fed her the laudanum.

Though it was a gesture she’d normally balk at, William took a chance and gently grasped her uninjured arm. She acquiesced without a word, stood and allowed him to guide her into bed. She climbed up and faced the wall, curling into a tight ball. William lifted the bed covering and tucked it around her small frame as well as he could.

Dr. Crowdner leaned over and asked him, very quietly, “May I have a word with you in the hallway?”

Unable to leave her alone, William pulled Dr. Crowdner toward the doorway. “May we speak here instead?”

“Certainly,” the doctor agreed. “She should sleep deeply through the night. I shall be back to check on her first thing in the morning.” He paused awkwardly before continuing. “I need to tend to Mr. Lovell now. I’m not entirely certain your wife didn’t break his jaw.”

William nodded.

“The first mate has also requested that I ask you to report to the bridge as soon as you’re able.”

William looked at him numbly.

“I shall inform them that you are disposed.” He patted William’s arm reassuringly. “We won’t leave your Elizabeth alone. Their inquiries about the incident shall simply have to wait. They can speak with you in the morning. Jane and I shall stop in and sit with your wife.”

William nodded. Strange that. Once Buffy had gone to bed, it seemed that his voice had abandoned him.

“Goodnight, William,” the doctor said, his hand extended. William looked at the proffered hand in confusion for a moment, before his distant mind realized that he was supposed to shake the thing. Obediently, William shook the doctor’s hand.

“Are you quite certain you are all right, William?” The doctor looked at him quizzically - professionalism laced with kindness.

“Yes, I’m fine.” His voice returned to him at last and he nodded to Dr. Crowdner in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. The doctor gave William a weary smile and let himself out into the hall.

Once the door latched, he heard himself repeat the word “fine” to the silent room. He took a few short steps to where Buffy lay curled in a fetal knot in the center of their bed.

He longed to touch her hair, pat her shoulder soothingly. Hell, he longed to wrap his arms about tightly around her. But he wouldn’t disturb her for the world just now.

He slumped into the chair at the small table. Distantly, he heard the ship’s bell ring eleven o’clock.

One hour ago he’d been in bed with his wife. One hour ago George had been alive and Dru wasn’t loose in the world. How could one short hour bring such a hurricane of change?

He closed his eyes. He knew the answers wouldn’t come any easier than sleep, but he welcomed the darkness all the same.

------------------------

A note from a hardcore dork:

I questioned the wisdom of writing anything about this chapter. The stern voice of my subconscious urged me to just let the chapter speak for itself. Then something else grabbed ahold. You’ve come this far with me – and I feel I owe you just a little bit of something here.

Before he first stepped on the Liverpool dock, George was always destined to die. While plotting I raged like hell against his destiny, twisting and turning to find a way around it. In fact, the more I got to know him, the more charmed I was, allowing him more and more page space. I even prolonged his life for three chapters. But I knew it had to be and, yep, when I wrote it, I wept.

Did he die because that is the Joss way? I don’t think so. George was dear and deserved a better life, like so many do. He died, in part, because that’s how life comes at you – at times terribly brutal and unfair. It’s what we do in the aftermath of those awful moments that define who we are. It’s those decisions we make and those careful steps we take that change the fabric of us.

George’s life was short, but his light will shine upon Buffy and William’s path for the rest of the tale.

George Alexander Lewis -1863-1880 - Adored Son, Beloved Brother, Dedicated Employee, Adventurer. Blushing boy with a lion’s heart. Rest peacefully, George.

/dork
Chapter 17 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thanks to Science and Minx DeLovely for being my Writing Swap Buddies. Thanks to Lutamira, DK and Capella for the beta. In reviews for the previous chapter a reviewer went after my betas. Let me be very, very clear. Any mistakes are mine alone. You wanna vent invective about a dangling participle? Wig out on me alone. Miss Amy did the banner. Thanks to you for sharing your thoughts about this.
A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson



Chapter 17


Buffy began to stir just as the sun rose across the water. She uncurled slowly and blinked several times, her face expressionless.

He wanted - no craved - to go to her, smooth her hair down and lay his hand upon her cheek. Instead, he remained slumped in the chair, uncertain of how to approach her.

Guilt, sorrow and a dozen unanswered questions had swarmed around his head throughout the long night. Sometime around three in the morning, he’d located a flask of whiskey and an hour after that he’d found another. They lay empty upon the table, false friends who had at no point allowed him the mercy of actual drunkenness.

She took a breath as though she was about to speak, then changed her mind, her lips thinning to a line. He took a breath of his own, preparing to say something, anything, to shatter the shroud of silence, but found himself wordless. He let his breath out in a sigh.

She climbed off the bed carefully, holding her injured hand in front of her. William stood hesitantly, unsure if he should go to her side or stand in the hall while she dressed for the day. Uncertain of his path, he chose to light the lamps to ease the early morning gloom.

“The ship is moving again,” Buffy said in a monotone.

“Yes, they started the engines several hours ago. They did not find … anyone in the water and have abandoned the search.”

She nodded and opened the wardrobe door with her uninjured hand, gathering a handful of underthings.

He walked to the cabin door, preparing to wait in the hall, when she stopped him with a soft, “William?”

“Yes?” He turned.

“My hand’s all messed up. I think I’m going to need your help with this.”

“Of course.”

He walked over to where she stood before the wardrobe, her back to him. Now that he was near her, he was overwhelmed with the need to hold her in his arms, to ease her, yes, but also to soothe the aching hole near his heart. He damned himself for being a selfish, weak man.

He clenched his fist, willing his hand not to touch her hair.

She slipped her dressing gown off easily enough, but her nightgown had a row of buttons that would be impossible to manage one-handed. She turned toward him, her eyes on the floor. “These buttons?” she asked.

He began to unbutton her nightdress in a very matter-of-fact manner. Hoping to dispel the awkwardness, he said, “Dr. and Mrs. Crowdner should be by shortly.”

“Why?”

“He wants to check on your hand.”

He continued working the buttons free. Once he’d unbuttoned half a dozen, he said “I believe we could slip this over your head at this point.”

She nodded and assisted him in sliding the gown down her arm, easing the sleeve of her right arm very carefully around her injured hand. Once he’d aided her with that, she slipped the nightgown over her head and let it fall to the floor.

Though she had a pair of ivory bloomers tied around her hips, she wasn’t wearing a chemise, and her breasts were bare to him. One short day ago the sight would have engulfed him with lust, but looking at her now filled him with a tenderness that made his eyes sting. She seemed so raw, so vulnerable.

He took the fresh chemise from her hand gently and slipped her injured hand through the arm opening. Once he’d accomplished that, she slipped her left arm into the garment and lifted it over her head to slide it down her body.

“Do I have anything black?” she asked.

“No, we … decided against black. Perhaps this?” He pulled a gray traveling gown from the back of the closet. She nodded in agreement, all business.

They worked it past her hand with a little difficulty. Once she had the gown on, William buttoned the tighter fastenings at her wrists, but she seemed set upon buttoning herself up where she was able.

He looked down at his own attire. He was still dressed in the nightshirt and suit coat combination he’d thrown on when he’d first been alerted by the screams in the hall.

As Buffy moved aside to sit at the small table, he wished that he could speak to her honestly and ask her one of the dozens of questions that had plagued his night. He simply didn’t know how to begin; he dreaded how she might respond and so remained silent.

He selected a dark grey suit. Once he’d put on his trousers, shirt and waistcoat, he rolled up his shirt sleeves and collected his shaving kit. After he placed the kit next to the wash basin, he ran the hot water and worked up a foamy lather in his shaving mug, then slathered the lather on his cheeks and neck.

Flipping out his straight edge razor, he brought the blade to his chin. His hands were shaking. The mirror’s reflection showed the razor tap-tap-tapping out a staccato beat against his throat. He closed his eyes.

Steady, my good man. Get a hold of yourself.

He took a deep breath and opened his eyes, commanding his hand not to shake, but the fool thing was shaking like a dog pulled from an icy river. When her small hand touched his shoulder gently, he nearly jumped.

“It’s okay, William,” she soothed, squeezing his arm.

“I should be able to manage shaving.”

“I should be able to manage dressing myself.”

He turned to look at her, his wife – though she wore her businesslike demeanor well, he could see the sorrow just hiding behind the edges of her mask.

“Combine the useful halves of us, and we’d almost make a complete person,” she said, reaching behind him to pick up a small towel with her left hand. She dabbed at his cheeks, wiping the shaving foam away. After she’d finished, she tilted his chin up and carefully wiped the foam from his neck before laying the towel in the sink.

She placed the palm of her hand upon his cheek. It was small but so warm, and it did not tremble.

“They have a barbershop down the hall. Maybe you could go there today.”

He nodded. “A good idea, yes. Thank you.”

He wanted to reach out to her, gather her in his arms, kiss the top of her head. It seemed so easy, so natural for her to touch him. He, on the other hand, was practically paralyzed when he was near her.

He couldn’t hold her, didn’t deserve to, not when he couldn’t even talk to her, couldn’t ask her the one question that he dreaded the most.

She was just turning away from him when he stopped her, unable to wait any longer.

“Buffy … I’ve something difficult to ask you. I would do anything to spare you this question, but I’m afraid you’re the only one who can answer it.” He nervously ran a hand through his hair.

She looked at him. “What?”

He inhaled deeply. “It’s George. You said that Dru had turned me into a creature like her. How do we know that she hasn’t done the same to George?”

Buffy’s mask slipped a little further, but she looked quickly at the floor, speaking in a carefully controlled voice. “When vampires kill humans, they usually do it to feed. If she’d wanted to turn George she wouldn’t have left a mark like that. She’d have been less … brutal.”

“I understand,” he replied.

She returned to the small table, awkwardly brushing her hair with her left hand. He remained by the wash basin, desperately trying to think of something to say to her, something comforting, something distracting, even. He could be such a bloody fool when it came to these things.

When a knock sounded at the door, he felt a wave of relief. He hoped the Crowdners might be able to ease her where he had failed. At least the doctor would be able to care for her injuries.

He opened the door to admit the couple, who exchanged quick greetings before the doctor joined Buffy at the small table. After some inquiries about how she’d slept, he unwound her bandages. Her right hand was shockingly swollen, her fingers resembled small sausages. Purple and blue bruises stained her knuckles, which were also puffy and distorted.

William swallowed hard and took an involuntary step towards his wife.

The doctor pressed against the knuckles gently, one by one. Buffy winced, but did not cry out.

“I still don’t believe you’ve broken any bones. The swelling should begin to subside today, but the bruising is most severe. You shall have limited use of your hand for several weeks.”

Buffy nodded.

Dr. Crowdner leaned over and sorted through his black bag for a moment before fishing out a small packet of white crystals. “I should like you to commence a therapeutic soak with Epsom salts. While we do that, perhaps William could attend his meeting with Captain Parsell?”

Oh. It had completely slipped William’s mind. He had a meeting with the captain about last night’s events. About George.

William took a steadying breath and rubbed his hand against his stubble-covered chin. “Yes, I should attend to that.”

He walked over to the small table where Dr. Crowdner was busily assembling ingredients for Buffy’s treatment and lay his hand on Buffy’s shoulder. “Darling, I need to see the Captain.”

“Well, I should come with you,” she responded.

And yes, he really should have expected that. Here he’d been worried about leaving her alone.

“If you’d like, I can wait,” he said. He felt the Crowdners’ shocked eyes upon him. “But I believe he wants to speak to me about what I saw of the creature before you arrived. I should like to meet with him and find out what he’s curious about. If you’d like to meet with him as well, we’ll arrange it once your hand is attended to.”

She nodded, then turned her gaze to Dr. Crowdner, watching skeptically as he continued to mix powders into a basin of warm water.

William shrugged into his suit coat and left the room, steeling himself for his meeting with the captain. As he walked down the hall, he looked over his shoulder. A small crowd had gathered near the doorway of the room in which George had died, like crows flocking to the dead.


~*~


“Mr. Pratt, come in. Thank you for meeting with me.” Captain Parsell’s eyes normally held a youthful spark that belied his age. That was not the case this morning. The captain looked old beyond his years. Weary. He gestured to a chair positioned across from his desk, and William took a seat.

“How is Mrs. Pratt? I understand she has sustained an injury?”

“Dr. Crowdner is seeing to her now. She’s suffered a bruised hand, but it appears there are no broken bones.”

“That’s a blessing, at least.” The captain nodded. “I’m certain that you want to return to your wife’s side, Mr. Pratt, so I shan’t waste your time with polite conversation. I’ll get straight to the point.”

Captain Parsell sat up in his chair, clasping his hands together and resting them on the nautical charts that were strewn about the desk.

“I’ve spoken to Mr. and Mrs. Lovell at length. They have provided a somewhat disjointed account of the events that took our George’s life. I’d like to hear your recounting of the events. What did you see?”

William had been bracing for this part. During his walk to the captain’s quarters he’d prepared to tell it all while keeping his emotions at a distance. Shockingly, it seemed to be working. He felt a level of detachment that was almost comforting.

He told the captain about hearing the screams and finding the Lovells in a state of panic. He described how George was already dead by the time William had arrived on the scene and how he’d followed the direction ‘the creature’ had taken. He hadn’t really seen her but for a moment, in the water and swimming away from the ship.

The captain stopped him there. “So it was a woman? Not a beast? The Lovells were quite confused in this regard.”

William nodded. “A woman turned into a beast, if such a thing makes sense.”

“Precious little in this makes sense, Mr. Pratt, but I thank you for your honesty.” The captain folded and refolded his hands nervously before continuing. “There were reports that your wife claimed guilt. She seemed to think George’s demise was her fault in some manner.”

William nodded, but found no clear path in how to describe Dru and the events leading up to last night. Silence spun out and the captain did not step in to fill it.

“My wife and I feel some responsibility as we were aware there was such a creature on the ship. We mistakenly thought the creature was contained.”

“You have encountered this creature before?”

William nodded.

“And that was why you’d wanted me to secure the hold. Yes, of course.”

William cast a guilty glance up to the captain. If he’d been honest with the man from the start, perhaps George would still be alive. If Buffy felt she had blood on her hands, how much more was on his own?

Captain Parsell looked down at his desk for a long moment before looking back up to William. “I suppose if you’d come to me with tales of a madwoman hiding in the hold, I’d have thought it preposterous and dismissed you entirely. So you came to me with a more believable tale – one that would spur me to action.”

Though the captain had a reputation for his intuition, William couldn’t help but be amazed at his uncanny ability to see through the heart of the matter.

“We thought it the wisest course of action at the time, Captain Parsell.”

“And I don’t suppose you’d be able to tell me any more about the creature, Mr. Pratt?”

“I know precious little beyond that.”

“The woman, the … creature – I’ve been told that she didn’t bite anyone but George. My men conducted a thorough search of the hold just before dawn. They found a few oddities, but no sign of remaining creatures, not even vermin. I cannot help but remain gravely concerned about the other passengers, however. Should there be a contagion such as rabies…”

“Oh, no,” William insisted. “Now that the creature is gone, the passengers are safe.”

The captain nodded, his hands forming a tepee just beneath his chin. “Then I suppose that is that. The harbormaster will have questions, naturally. I should like to supply him with honest answers. Should there be any remaining danger, I’d rather we endure a quarantine than put anyone else at risk.”

“The only threat to the ship swam away last night, Captain. I assure you.”

“That’s fine then, Mr. Pratt. I thank you for your time. I’m sure you wish to return to your wife’s side, so I won’t detain you any longer.”

The older man paused for a moment. When he continued his voice had lost the official sounding captain’s tone and he sounded so fatherly that William had to glance up at the man. “It’s not your fault. You and your wife, you’re not to blame for the actions of a beast.”

“I understand,” was all he could reply as he stood and walked toward the door.

William was about to turn the handle, when he stopped and, without turning around, asked, “What will become of George?”

“Since we’re only a day out of New York City, I shall arrange a burial upon docking.”

William bit his bottom lip. It really wasn’t his place to say anything.

“Is there … something that concerns you Mr. Pratt?”

William turned to face Captain Parsell. “It’s just that George was an adventurer. He was so proud of his life upon the sea. It seems a pity to leave him in a grave in a strange land where he will be unremembered, unmourned.”

The captain raised his brows, curious.

“It seems that a burial at sea would be fitting for the lad,” William suggested. “There would be a place for his shipmates to remember him. And a place for his family, back in Liverpool to go for their remembrances as well. In some way, I sense that George would have liked the idea of continuing his adventure.”

Shocked by his own boldness, William nodded and mumbled a quick, “Good day,” leaving the room before the captain could respond.

~*~


George’s service was held at four o’clock that afternoon.

Word had spread quickly among the passengers and the stern deck was overflowing with the tightly pressed crowd. The foremost portion of the stern was filled with crew and staff.

The moment the Pratts arrived on deck the first mate pulled them through the gathering crowd so they could stand beside Captain Parsell and the Crowdners. Just behind them stood the Lovells, both wearing somber expressions. Mr. Lovell sported a purpling jaw.

The captain stood next to a long board. One end rested upon the deck rail and the other was held up by four seamen. Upon that board lay a bundle just over five feet in length – George. His body was bound in sailcloth which had been carefully stitched. A set of heavy metal bars had been attached to the foot end of the body and a neatly folded Union Jack lay atop the white bundle.

Though the crowd was dense, there was very little jostling or chatter. The Adriatic was turned in a windward direction and the sails luffed lazily in the light breeze. Her flags had been lowered to half mast, but the wind was not strong enough to stir them. The ship’s silence was complete – her usual creaks and groans muted in solidarity with those grieving.

All in their world had stopped for this moment to honor George.

A bell rang out and First Mate Ellis intoned, “All hands to bury the dead."

Captain Parsell removed his hat, quickly followed by crewmen, sailors and passengers .

The captain opened a small, black book and began to read. “Foreasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God, of his great mercy, to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we commit his body to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body, when the sea shall give up her dead, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection.”

Placing a fatherly hand upon the top of the cloth-bound figure, the captain gave two gentle pats, murmuring, “Rest peacefully, dear boy.” He removed the flag from atop the body and carefully folded it.

Looking to the crewmen holding the end of the plank, the captain gave a curt nod and said with a much louder voice, “Let go.”

As the men tilted the board up, George’s slight body slid from the plank and fell over the rail of the ship, falling into the sea with a splash.

The throng remained silent – the ceremony was over almost before it began - the brevity serving to emphasize the solemnity of the occasion. And it seemed fitting, especially for George, who would have blushed furiously at all the fuss made on his behalf.

The bell sounded again, and the passengers began to move toward the center of the ship, evidently eager to depart from an area that held such sorrow.

Once the crowd had thinned, William could see a clear path to the hallway leading toward their cabin. He was just about to take Buffy’s arm and guide them back to their room when the captain placed his hand on William’s shoulder.

“Mr. Pratt, I would urge you to stay for this final moment. The crew would welcome your presence.”

William nodded, puzzled.

Just at the captain’s feet stood a small wooden chest - a sailor’s kit, that small collection which held all of a seaman’s earthly belongings. George’s kit, William presumed.

The first mate began the proceedings. “I have here the kit of George Lewis. What am I to hear for an opening bid?”

Buffy looked at William, her expression a mix of disgust and confusion.

“Five pounds,” a deep voice said from somewhere behind them.

A sailor’s kit contained clothing, basic sailing gear and other necessities. Five pounds would easily be three or four times the value of George’s meager possessions.

“Six pounds,” said a tall officer standing to William’s left.

“Seven pounds,” Dr. Crowdner offered.

The bidding went on until it reached the princely sum of forty pounds, when it was sold to Captain Parsell himself. As soon as the captain had been declared the winner, he re-donated the kit, and the bidding began again.

“It’s a tradition amongst sailors,” Dr. Crowdner leaned over to explain, his voice barely audible above the auction. “The monies are forwarded to the family of the deceased. In this case, I believe that would be George’s mother.”

During the next round, William joined in. After placing a winning bid of twenty-five pounds, he donated the kit back to the ship and the process began again when Dr. Crowdner placed the final offer. It wasn’t until the kit had been resold a dozen times that the crew and staff finally began to drift away.

After having raised just over two hundred pounds, the honors of final bid had gone to the first mate, who gave George’s kit to a young cabin boy no older than fifteen. The lad had an eager look on his freckled face and William couldn’t help but feel that George would have been pleased. Looking over to his wife’s soft expression, he could see that she agreed.

The wind began to pick up, and Buffy glanced up at him. Her hair tangled in front of her eyes and it was at that moment that he noticed that she’d worn it down about her shoulders, in the style of her time and most improper for a funeral. Rubbing his hand on his unshaven cheek, he shook his head. They were terribly unfit for society, the pair of them.

He reached out and tucked a lock of her wind-tossed hair behind her ear. “To our cabin, love?”

Buffy put her arm in his without a word.


-----------------------------------------


Author’s note:

You have questions…

Yes, Buffy’s hand really would be that messed up for a few weeks. MsJane is my medical expert on that one.

Yes, that funeral was just how they did things. Lutamira (who kicks ass) found no fewer than twelve primary accounts of nineteenth century burials at sea. You know those old people who chuckle over the obituary pages when they find out who they’ve outlived? I was so delighted by the funeral details that I looked just like that. My husband described me as “creepily morbid.”

Yes, the person who stictched up the body in sailcloth was typically the sail maker and the final stitch went through the nose of the deceased(!!!). I didn’t include that detail because William and Buffy wouldn’t have been in a position to know this since the body was prepared before they got there. The nautical specialists believe this final step was to ensure the person was really dead.

Yes, they really did bid on the kits of departed crew members, although the practice was waning in 1880. The amount William bid would have been worth just about twelve hundred pounds in 2005 prices (thank you UK National Archives). The total amount of two hundred pounds raised for George’s mother would have been worth just about ten thousand (2005) pounds – a very nice sum indeed and indicative of the high regard in which he was held. The vast majority of the money was donated by officers and the more wealthy bidders and not average seamen.

Yes, I would have left out the bit about Dru not turning George – but two readers brought that up in reviews! So thanks!

No, I am not, in fact, creepily morbid – at all!
Chapter 18 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Be it a read-through or a thorough beta, these people helped and I thank them: Lutamira, DoriansKitten, Science and Minxy. Mistakes are still mine alone. The banner just for this chapter was made by Capella42, who found a photo of an 1880s NYC skyline! Thanks to her as well!

Chapter 18

Buffy opened the cover of the book to see an inscription, letters formed carefully and leaning slightly backwards.

To My Elizabeth - I feel certain that you and Miss Fuller will agree on a great many matters regarding a woman’s place. Her thoughts have enlightened the world, as you have illuminated mine. I will forever be yours, William.

She closed the book again and squinted at the cover. ‘Woman in the Nineteenth Century’ by Margaret Fuller. The title sounded like it would be a book of manners, which Buffy thought would be good for a laugh - something to pass the time anyway. But it was, alas, a book containing serious writing.

She sighed and flipped past the table of contents, determined to make headway into the thing.

An hour later, she placed the book face-down on the table, exhausted and defeated. Who could write a sentence one hundred and fifty words long? Margaret Fuller, was who. By the end of the sentences, she’d forgotten where the things had started out to begin with. She’d struggled up to page thirty-five, when the author was waxing on about ‘the beauty of Cordelia’ before giving up entirely.

Cordelia. The word assaulted her like a hand slap, making her recall her other self - the competent Slayer, not the wounded wife.

After she tucked the book away, she looked over to the bed, where William lay fast asleep. He’d stopped by the kitchen following George’s funeral and had gathered up some cheeses, meats and bread, which they’d eaten in their room, the only food they’d managed to eat that day. As soon as he returned the tray to the kitchen, he’d fallen into bed, still wearing his vest and trousers.

She was fascinated, watching him sleep. It was the only time she could really look at him. When he was awake he might catch her studying him — but when he was unaware she could look as long as she pleased. He really was a beautiful man.

Asleep he reminded her so much of Spike — but awake he seemed like a different man entirely. The way he spoke, moved, looked at her. Spike wore his sexuality like his duster - it surrounded him. William was different. He kept his sensuality beneath a cloak, only allowing her to see that side of him in the rarest moments.

His cheeks were covered in stubble. She’d never seen him look so rough, as William or as Spike. His lips were barely parted. She reached out her hand, placing it close enough to his face that she could feel the comfort of his warm breath.

His too-long lashes rested again his lower lids which was puffy and shadowed from lack of sleep. It dawned on her just then that this was the oldest William had ever been. As Spike, he’d been frozen in time — but this man could age, could be grievously wounded, would one day die.

She pulled her good hand back and looked at her other hand, the bandaged right one. He would die one day, perhaps that day would be soon, if she remained like this — a fragile human. She felt like she was losing herself, turning into ‘just a girl’ at long last. She couldn’t protect George, couldn’t protect William. Right now she couldn’t even make a fist. Or undress herself.

Buffy leaned back against the chair with a sigh. George’s funeral, her helplessness and her guilt all combined to exhaust her. Sleep would at least give her a break from her thoughts. She couldn’t bear to wake him though. He’d sat up all night, miserable and guilty over George’s ending, while she’d floated away on an opium cloud. If the price of letting him sleep was swallowing a bit of pride, she could willingly pay that. She slipped out the door and down the hall.

The Crowdners seemed surprised but pleased to find ‘Elizabeth’ at their door. When Buffy explained the situation, Jane Crowdner was all too happy to help, and followed Buffy back to her room.

Jane made easy, light conversation while she unhooked Buffy’s shoe buttons and unfastened her gown.

“I can get it from here,” Buffy said. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure,” Jane assured, but she didn’t move to exit the room.

Buffy looked at the older woman expectantly, and Jane responded with a nervous smile.

“Forgive me for prying, Elizabeth, but I wonder, do you still remember nothing of your life with William?”

Buffy shook her head no.

“I’m sorry. It must be terribly strange for you.”

“It’s a little weird, yeah,” Buffy nodded. Jane was so genuine that Buffy couldn’t resent her concern.

“I saw a little of you during those first days — before your memory loss. You were a very pleasant woman.” Jane caught herself. “I mean to say, you’re quite agreeable now as well, Elizabeth! It’s just that … you and William, you seemed very happy together.”

“I understand,” Buffy said.

“He loved you, loves you, a great deal. I know that you know that, and again, I do not intend to interfere. I just wanted you to know that you seemed to love him too. Very much. You were one of those couples that others can only marvel at.”

Buffy nodded, saying nothing as a pool of moisture suddenly flooded into her eyes. It had been a very long day.

Jane reached out and squeezed Buffy’s good hand reassuringly. “And I’ve gone and said too much. Charles is forever on me about that trait.” She smiled breezily. “But then, he loves me. And where there is love there’s always a path around obstacles.”

Jane patted Buffy’s hand once more. “Take good care of your hand; we’ll worry about that, you know. Perhaps you could write to us when you arrive safely in California. You can contact Charles through Saint Vincent’s Hospital here in New York City.”

“Sure. I’ll write a letter or something. And thank you, Jane. Tell Charlie I send my thanks as well.”

Jane laughed. “I shall tell him exactly that, Eliza …buffy. We’ll never forget you, either of you.”

The older woman gave Buffy a quick hug and let herself out of the room.

Buffy shrugged off the dress and draped it over a chair, as hanging the thing up would have required two hands. Once she was down to chemise and bloomers, she turned down the lamp, and climbed up into the bed, settling in the narrow spot between William and the wall. He immediately turned to her, nuzzling his bristly cheek against her bare shoulder. “Mmmezabeth…” he murmured.

That’s me - Mmmzabeth. The girl who used to be Buffy.

Holding her bruised hand close to her chest, she willed herself to sleep.

~*~

She woke to the sound of their cabin door opening and a clattering William, bearing a breakfast-laden tray.

“Good morning,” he said. He seemed distracted and distant and set about placing the tray on the table with no further conversation.

Now that he was clean-shaven, she found herself missing his scruffy, almost-a-pirate look. She climbed off the bed and joined him at the table.

“Oh!” William said, blushing slightly, “Would you like me to assist with your dressing gown?”

“I’m good,” she replied, covering a slice of toast with a thick coating of jam. She took a bite, careful not to spill anything on her chemise. “When do we land in NYC?”

He paused a moment, as if he were translating her words. “Recent events have delayed our scheduled morning arrival. It’s expected that we should arrive by mid afternoon.”

“And I’ll be home again. Well, not home-home, but America-home.”

He gave her a small smile, but his sadness over losing George covered him like a blanket. Even that small smile seemed a great effort.

“Lots to do today,” she added, in what felt like a lame attempt at conversation. “I’ll be pretty useless at packing, I think.”

“It’s no trouble.” He looked up at her then, his blue eyes slightly startled. “Forgive me! Do you need assistance with breakfast?”

“God, no.” She shook her head. “You cutting up my food for me is where I draw the line! I got this.”

He nodded awkwardly and returned to his breakfast. Between his sadness and her frustration, they settled into an uneasy silence for the rest of the meal.

~*~

New York Harbor was a cesspool. In her mind she’d conjured up a grand arrival with waving throngs. The landing of her imagination would have been fit for Jack and Rose if The Titanic had been a little luckier. Instead it was more like a scary documentary she used to doodle her way through in high school.

Barrels, crates, even dead animals covered the surface of the water near the pier. The stench of it was almost unbearable. To make matters worse, harbor traffic was a tangled mess. How the captain managed to steer past all the assorted schooners and barges was a mystery.



She’d been craving a look at land, at home, after so long at sea. But the NYC skyline of her time didn’t match this distant reality. The city seemed small and dirty. Worse, it felt foreign. She felt foreign.

William stood behind her, an arm about her waist - the pair of them solemn in the midst of the boisterous crowd lining the deck rail.

“Where’d the Statue of Liberty go?” She turned to William, puzzled.

William gave her a blank look before a light dawned. “Do you mean Bartholdi’s statue?”

“No idea.”

“Large statue of Lady Liberty? A gift from France?” He questioned.

“Yeah.”

“She’s being assembled as yet, love. It’s a fantastically large undertaking and I don’t believe they’ve acquired the funds yet.”

Figures. She couldn’t even score that bit of familiarity. Feeling covered with harbor-stench and disappointment, she turned to face him. “Can we just … go back to our cabin, William? I was looking forward to the end of this long, sad trip, but now I just feel kind of tired.”

He put his arm in hers wordlessly, and they returned to their cabin.

~*~

They waited until the ship had been docked for half an hour before venturing out of their room. The First Class crush had dissipated, and they didn’t need to wait for a porter.

As they made their way down the gangplank, she couldn’t help but notice the tightly packed section of the Third Class deck, which had been roped off.

Buffy turned to the porter. “When does the back of the ship get to deplane?”

“I beg your pardon ma’am?” the porter asked.

“The other passengers. When do they get off the ship?”

“Oh, we’ll need to dock at Castle Gardens for that. They need processing, ma’am.”

“Processing? Sounds like something you’d do to cows,” Buffy grumbled.

The porter seemed unsure of how to continue. “They’ll need a health inspection, customs paperwork, that sort of thing.”

“And we can just stroll on in? Don’t even need to say ‘ahh’?”

The porter looked at her, nonplussed.

The stepped onto the pier and Buffy felt a wave of disorientation wash over her. After so long at sea, she’d lost the feel of her land legs and gripped William’s arm a little tighter. She felt helpless enough without the indignity of crashing and burning the moment she stepped ashore.

“I shall need to hire a broom,” William said, eyeing a row of carriages lining the street. “I’ll be but a moment.”

William stepped to the not-quite-a-curb and spoke with one of the drivers, then returned to her side and nodded to the porter, who pushed their trunks to where the cab waited for them. After strapping their luggage to the roof of the carriage, the driver opened the door and William assisted Buffy into the cab.

“Excuse me a moment,” William said. He pulled the driver aside and had a brief conversation with the man. Then he thanked the porter and joined Buffy in the carriage.

They were underway immediately. Buffy could see the city through the small side windows and the larger window in front, but since the cab was enclosed it was terribly stuffy. She had no way of knowing the temperature, but ‘mid nineties’ seemed a safe guess. Now that she was on land, she missed how the ocean had cooled the normal August heat. Though the temperature was difficult to take, enduring it beneath layers of clothing brought it up to the level of torturous.

William craned his neck around to look out the window. “New York City — first city in America to reach one million inhabitants. Seems so strange, doesn’t it?”

She couldn’t understand why that would seem strange to him, or why a million would seem like such a great number, so she said nothing.

“Everything seems so new,” William carried on. “And large. The buildings are absolutely huge. Our hotel takes up an entire city block. It can shelter six hundred guests.”

Buffy offered him a weak smile. “It’s what America is good at. Bringing super-sizing to the world since 1880.”

They jostled along through the increasingly congested streets, each of them lost in their own thoughts. The heavy weight that William had been wearing since George’s death appeared to be lifting somewhat and she felt grateful for that at least.

After twenty minutes, the carriage came to a halt in front of what looked to be a city park. The driver climbed down from his box and opened William’s door.

“We’re here, sir. Madison Square Park,” the driver said.

“We’re at the hotel?” Buffy asked.

William blushed and graced her with a shy grin. “I’ve asked the driver to stop for something else. A surprise for you.”

He climbed out of the carriage, then assisted Buffy through the door. She looked up to see the strangest sight. She couldn’t miss it. Nobody within a three block radius could miss it. A large copper arm holding a torch rising up from a tent in the center of the park. An arm from the Statue of Liberty. Or what would one day be the statue.

Buffy was immediately reminded of a scene from ‘Planet of the Apes’ — not the Tim Burton remake, the really old one with Charlton Heston. At the end of the movie, Charlton had found Statue of Liberty sticking out of the ground and realized he’d been ‘home’ all along. He’d screamed in despair at the sight, yelling impotently and pulling up handfuls of dirt - kind of like Buffy felt like doing now.

Like Charlton Heston, she was in the right place and the wrong time. The large green arm sticking out of the ground only served to mock her. Instead of holding a torch, the statue might as well have been extending her middle finger.

“If you’d like, we can climb to the balcony in the torch,” William enthused. But then he looked to her face and his expression dimmed. “But perhaps you’re tired. It’s been a very long day, after all.”

“Thanks, though. That arm is really … something,” she said.

He tugged nervously on his hair and nodded before assisting her back into the carriage.




Since she’d served to kill what little buzz William had, they continued the trip to the hotel in silence. Though it took ten minutes, she would have been able to walk it in five. They were caught in was Gilded Age rush hour, and for sheer misery it kicked the crap out of L.A. traffic. For one thing, cars didn’t poop. The amount of manure in the streets was impressive enough, but was nothing compared to the stench that came with the summer heat.

The Metropolitan Hotel was a large brown building taking up a full block of Broadway. It had a lower floor, which Buffy assumed held shops and hotely kinds of things, and four stories of guest rooms. At least the windows were large, she thought hopefully, as she already knew that air conditioning was completely out of the picture.

William paid the driver and made quick arrangements with a hotel porter for their trunks before joining Buffy’s side.

“Shall we?” He gestured toward the door and gave her a tired smile.

The lobby of the hotel was as grand as it was hectic. It was absolutely packed with chairs, all of which seemed to be occupied. They threaded their way to the brightly lit mahogany paneled front desk. They were greeted by a thin man with dark, darting eyes. He reminded Buffy instantly of a rodent — twitchy and quick-tempered.

“Good afternoon,” William said. “I’ve a reservation for Mr. and Mrs. William Pratt.”

“Good evening,” corrected the desk clerk in a clipped tone. “Pratt, yes. Allow me a moment.”

The ferrety little man opened his registration book with a thud and scanned down a list of names.

“Yes, here you are. Room 308.” The clerk spun the registration book around so that it faced them and looked at William expectantly. “If you would register, Mr. Pratt? Sign your name?”

William blushed furiously and shook his head. “Yes, it’s been a … very long day.”

Rodent-man’s only response was a sniff.

Once William had signed the register, the clerk looked just behind them. “Fred, room 308.” He then turned to William and said in his best Kindergarten teacher voice, “Follow the porter to your room.”

William hesitated. “I beg your pardon, but could you direct me to the dining room?”

The desk clerk gave William a bored look.

“Where is the dining room?” William repeated.

“The final seating for dinner was at seven o’clock. It is now 7:10.” He turned his back to them without another word.

Buffy winced as she clenched her right fist. She normally had urges to limit punches to demons, but this week had found her wanting to punch humans at a pretty high frequency. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed that the desk clerk might be some kind of ferret-demon. She could always punch first, ask questions later.

“That will not do.” William’s tone was low, threatening even. She’d never heard him sound like that.

The desk clerk turned around.

“I was quite clear in my request. Where is the dining room?” William enunciated each word carefully.

“Large double doors, at the end of the lobby,” ferret-face mumbled.

“Thank you.” William gave the man a tight smile and turned to lead their party of three across the lobby.

Once they reached the dining room doors, William turned to her. “I’ll just be a moment,” he said, as he slipped inside the room. After a few moments, he emerged bearing two dinner plates and trailed by a very confused looking waiter.

William smiled calmly at Buffy before addressing the waiter. “Pratt, room 308. Fred can confirm that we are guests here. It is Fred, isn’t it?”

The porter bobbed a nod.

“Fred, if you’d just lead the way? My wife and I shall dine in our room this evening.”

Fred guided them to a large staircase, hoisting the luggage cart up the steps expertly.

“The desk clerk seemed rather rude, didn’t you think?” William leaned down to ask her conspiratorially.

Her shy husband seemed so pleased with himself, she couldn’t help but smile. “You’ve single-handedly invented room service, William.”

He returned her grin. “You and I have difficulty dining with others, it seems.”

When they finally arrived at room 308, poor Fred was sweating profusely. He tried to open the door with a flourish, but only managed a wheezy thud. The porter waited politely for the couple to enter the room before he brought the trunks inside.

To say the room was spartan would have been generous. It held a small bed, two chairs and an end table. An Econolodge in East Cowlick, Missouri would seem grand by its standard. So that William wouldn’t see her disappointment, she busied herself looking out the window while he saw Fred out.

She unfastened the latch and tugged the window up with her good hand. She could sense William standing just behind her, hovering, but he had the good sense to not try to assist her. She managed to work the sash open six inches before giving up. At least their room was high enough from ground level that the stench from the streets was lessened.

She turned to find him standing by the bed, awkwardly hold two plates in the middle of the sparsely furnished room.

“A picnic on the bed?” she suggested.

“That will do nicely.”

She sat down and he handed a plate to her before sitting beside her, removing two forks from his jacket pocket with a flourish.

“No knives, no butter…” he began.

“It’s perfect,” she corrected. Balancing her plate on her lap, she cautiously dug in.

As William had employed the ‘grab and dash’ method in acquiring their dinner, her meal consisted of the basics: several rolls, a few slices of roast beef and a cluster of grapes. She couldn’t help but notice that his dinner had even less variety, and she plopped half the grapes onto his plate.

Fortunately the roast was fork-tender, so she managed her meal one-handed. When they’d finished, William stacked their plates in the hall by the door and came back into the room, fidgeting with his pocket watch.

“It’s just going on eight o’clock. We could stroll through the hotel lounges, if you like. Or perhaps take a walk outside? The evening seems to be cooling a little,” he suggested.

“If its okay with you, I’d kind of like to crash.”

He blinked and tilted his head to the side.

“I’m feeling quite tired myself, William. I just want to go to bed. If you want to wander around, knock yourself out.”

“No,” he said. “I’d love to go to bed with you.” He stopped, horrified. “That is to say…”

She interrupted him with a laugh and held up her wrist. “Here. Can you help me with the buttons?”

He unbuttoned her wrists and then her waist, wordlessly. Once he’d unfastened her dress, he knelt down and unbuttoned her shoes.

“I’ve got it from here,” she murmured. He complied with a nod and went over to close the curtains before beginning his own undressing process.

She let her dress slide to the floor and draped it over the back of a chair as the room didn’t have a wardrobe.

Watching him unbutton his shirt, his back to her, she felt a strange tenderness, a familiarity that pulled at something in her chest. She may have been foreign to the time they were in, but he was foreign to the place. Yet he gamely carried on, caring for her, making their way through all of it.

He shrugged out of his shirt, then lifted his undershirt over his head. He really was a very beautiful man.

“Will you need any assistance with your trunk?” His eyes flickered to her quickly before he trained them on the floor, a slight blush staining his cheeks.

“It’s too hot for a nightgown,” she replied, stepping towards him.

He nodded curtly, his hands hovering over his trouser buttons.

“Do you need any help, William?” she asked.

“Well, no,” he stammered. “That is to say, it’s not the matter of your hand, love, but rather that… ehm. I’m quite fine, I assure you.”

“You do know that it’s only my hand that’s damaged, don’t you? The rest of me is fine. Good to go, really.”

He looked at her and nodded slowly, comprehension beginning to dawn behind his blue eyes.

She stopped in front of him and placed the palm of her hand on his chest, just above his heart in the gesture she’d seen him make when he didn’t think she was watching.

“We are married, William. There’d be nothing wrong with it. I’m willing and I’m pretty sure you’re willing.”

His adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

“We could make love,” she said.

He exhaled a trembling breath and tilted his head at her questioningly. “You mean to say…?” But he could not finish. And so she finished for him, with words that would leave no doubt in his mind.

“I’d like to have sex with you, William. Now.”

---------------------------

Author's note: I pretty much had three choices here: (A) cram in a few quick paragraphs of sex, (B) leave this as a cliffhanger and devote the next chapter to sex or (C) some other alternative.

The illustration of NYC Harbor ran in the September 1879 issue of Harpers Weekly.

The photograph of Madison Square Park was taken in 1881, where the arm was on display from 1876 to 1882. It cost 50 cents to go onto the torch balcony. The ‘broom’ or technically ‘brougham’ carriage our couple rode in looks very much like the one parked here. Yes, I did do little spasms of joy when I found the photo. Go ahead, mock me!

A debt of thanks to “Hotel: An American History” by A.K. Sandoval-Strausz and “The Gilded Age” by O. Hoggenboom. “Woman in the Nineteenth Century” by Margaret Fuller was also a big help. It was considered the first book on feminism from the U.S. Margaret Fuller died in 1850 while returning to NYC when her ship, The Elizabeth, sank just fifty yards from the coast. Locals scavenged the shore instead of lifting a finger to help rescue passengers. Margaret, her husband and child (as well as many others) drowned. The captain of The Elizabeth was on one of the earlier life boats. Captain Parsell would never have done that.


Chapter 19 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thanks to DoriansKitten, Minx, Science and Capella for the beta. Any and all errors, especially having to do with abusing commas, belong to me. Thanks to Amy for the banner. Thanks to you for reviews!
"Home is just another word for you." - Billy Joel

Chapter 19

“Why?” he asked.

“Why do I want to..?” She trailed off, her green eyes clouded with confusion.

“Why do you want to have sex with me?”

She gave a nervous laugh and looked at the floor. “Really, William. You know about these things. Why do people have sex?”

“For a great many reasons, I imagine. But I’m asking why you want to have sex with me.”

She didn’t respond. She just kept looking at the floor.

Cautiously, he placed his hand beneath her chin, tilting her head until she met his gaze.

“Why, love?”

She jerked her chin out of his grasp and took a step backwards.

“Fine, then. Let’s not. I…I changed my mind. Forget I said anything.” She turned from him and stalked toward the bed.

“No, please. Darling…”

He sat on the bed in front of her, taking her hands in his as she stood before him. When she didn’t make eye contact with him, he lifted her left hand to his mouth and began to kiss her fingertips tenderly, one after the other. “I want to make love with you desperately. You have to know this. It’s all I bloody think about.”

She looked at him, her eyes softening.

“I love you, Buffy. I know quite well why I want to make love with you. My question is why do you want to make love with me?”

“Can’t we just have sex without knowing why?”

“We could,” he replied. “But it’s important for me to know.”

She surveyed him, as though she were standing on the edge of a steep hill, considering the cost of that first step.

“Why, love?” His voice wavered and broke on the question.

“Because … because I want to feel something good. Because I want to feel something, to feel alive again. After George’s death and being weak and feeling like an alien in my own country – I want to feel a comfort. A connection.” She looked at him, her expression honest and her chin set firmly. “I feel a connection with you.”

“That’s a start,” he replied.

“A start?”

“A beginning for us. Well, another beginning for us.”

“But you don’t want me? You’re not saying yes.”

He placed an arm about her waist, gently pulling her closer to him, but he didn’t answer.

“We’ve had sex before. You’ve had my body many times, haven’t you, William?”

He nodded.

“And I gave myself to you willingly, just like I’m giving myself to you now. What difference does ‘why’ make?”

“The difference is … you don’t love me.”

“I want you. Isn’t that enough?”

He knew she didn’t love him even before she’d so cleverly evaded the topic, but it felt like a knife in his chest. He was shaking and felt so weak, he was grateful he was seated. Wrapping his arms about her waist, he placed his head upon her stomach and pulled her close. When her left hand came up and soothed a path through his curls, it brought such a comfort he thought he might weep.

He felt so unsteady that he couldn’t lift his head, and so, still wrapped about her in this odd embrace, he said, “I love you, Buffy. I’m in love with you. But if you’re not in love with me too, we will have to wait. I will have to wait, as much as it pains me to ask it of you.”

“Why? Out of some whacked-out old fashioned sense of how gentlemen behave?”

He pulled back from their embrace, but he did not stand. For some strange reason it seemed vitally important that he remain seated while she stood. It was a small thing, but he could at least give her that bit of control.

“Please don’t, darling. I’m not like that. This has nothing to do with the times we’re in. It has to do only with the people we are.”

She shook her head, obviously baffled.

“You’re right, Buffy. I’ve had you, many times. But I’ve had all of you – not merely your body. You were mine once. Your generous heart, your bright mind. To be given your body without those other aspects of you would be a kind of crime against what we once were.”

Tears welled in her eyes, and he felt his chest tighten unbearably at the sight.

“I don’t understand, William.”

“I desperately want to explain, love.”

He tugged his arms to bring her down to sit on his lap, holding her close against his chest. After a few moments, she wrapped her good hand around his shoulder, and he felt the tension begin to ease from her body.

“Buffy, think of the best moment in your memory. I know it won’t be of the two of us, but I know enough of your past to imagine that you’re in your old home in Sunnydale. See the faces of those who surround you. Look at the room you’re in, the furnishings, the feel of the place. Do you see it?”

He could feel her nod, her head resting near his forehead.

“Now, remove the people, those faces you love. Take away the furniture, the decorations. Place yourself in that empty room. Though you are ‘in the same place,’ you’re not home at all. You’re in the empty shell of what used to be home.”

He raised his head to look at her. “If I take you now - and believe me, every inch of me is longing to do just that - I fear we’d find ourselves in an empty shell. I couldn’t bear that kind of risk for us, darling. I’m just too weak for it. You’re … my home, my all.”

She nodded, her chin trembling. “So where do we go from here then? What if my memory doesn’t come back? What if I remain Buffy and never return to Elizabeth? Maybe it’s not me that you love at all. Maybe it’s her.”

He considered her words carefully. “I can understand how you might think that, darling. But I assure you, it’s you I love. You’re my home, and I know my home.”

“But the question remains, where do we go from here?”

He reached out to hold her hand, considering carefully before responding. After a few moments thought, he brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of it tenderly. “I have a reasonable proposal to that.”

She looked at him skeptically.

“I should like very much for an opportunity to woo you.”

“To what me?”

“To woo you, my wife. To win your heart.”

She raised a brow, but the very beginnings of a smile threatened her lips. He was a very observant man, and that was all he needed to continue.

“Just for a few days. I should like permission to court you.”

“Like date?” And the grin that had been threatening burst forth, rain on a parched garden.

He leaned up and tenderly kissed the tip of her nose. “If that is the term, yes. I should very much like to date you, my darling. To have an opportunity to get to know one another. To have you fall as madly in love with me as I am with you.”

She shook her head, but the ghost of a smile remained on her lips.

“So that shaking your head no, that’s a ‘yes’, isn’t it?”

“I guess it is. I don’t get it entirely, but yeah, it’s a yes. If you’ve got a burning urge, date away.”

“Thank you.” He beamed a broad smile at her before bringing his index finger up to glide gently along her bottom lip. She shivered – a delicious sensation on his lap. Lifting his face to hers, he captured her lips in a gentle kiss. When she pressed her fingertips against the nape of his neck, he deepened the kiss, licking her bottom lip and teasing the tip of her tongue with his.

She broke off the kiss abruptly, leaning back and breathing heavily. The expression behind her green eyes was unreadable. “That’s enough for tonight, Romeo. Dates before kissage. Your rules, you live with ‘em.”

He couldn’t help but laugh as she rose from his lap and pulled the covers back from the bed. After she climbed in, William turned down the gas lamp. The city light crept through the curtains, illuminating the room with a cozy glow. She curled beneath the covers, facing the wall.

When he climbed in beside her, he placed a cautious arm about her waist. She did not remove it.

“I’m the first woman in the history of ever to be rejected because her husband loves her too much. I just wanted you to know that.”

He chuckled. “You and I never approach things in a usual manner. It’s only a small part of the wonder of us. I intend to show you more tomorrow.”

“I bet you do,” she said, failing utterly at sounding grumpy. Sounding instead, he thought hopefully, just a little bit charmed.

Snugging his arm about her waist, he spooned next to her, murmuring softly in her ear. “Good night, Buffy.”

“Hmmph,” she replied.

~*~



William’s Wooing: Day One

They made it down just in time for the eight o’clock breakfast seating. She was resplendent in her green and white striped gown, the one she’d worn the day they’d boarded The Adriatic, half a lifetime ago. She’d allowed him to style her hair simply and even gone along with his suggestion that she wear the small, green hat which matched the gown. Though she’d complained at the time, he’d seen her admire herself in the mirror and adjust her hat with a satisfied grin when she didn’t think he was looking.

Since their accommodations were on the American Plan, all their meals were included in the price of their room. The dining room was massive, bordering on intimidating. Once the diners were seated, at exactly eight-oh-five, an army of waiters marched out from the kitchens, placing their platters upon tables with military precision. As soon as the first wave of waiters retreated, the reinforcements arrived, laden with a fresh assault of food. There were sausages, ham, bacon, varieties of eggs, breads and fruits - a dizzying selection.

Buffy chose a bit of fruit and scrambled eggs, ever careful to select food that would require only one hand for consumption. She was a very proud woman, his wife.

“Mmm, coffee,” she sighed as she took a deep sip. “You’ll never know how much I missed you.” She closed her eyes, looking far too sensual than a woman had a right to that early in the morning.

William added sugar to his tea as he attempted to convince his groin to become interested in something - anything - other than how luscious his wife looked at that moment.

“So, what’s the what? Any plans for today? Because chilling in that cell they call a hotel room? Not my idea of a good time.”

“I’d thought we could go to Central Park.”

“Yeah?”

“It seemed a nice antidote to all our time at sea and all the city sounds and scents.”

“I’m all over it.”

“By being all over it, I take it that you are in agreement?” William grinned.

“It sounds like a very nice day, William. Now, what do you think I’d have to do to convince a waiter to leave a coffee pot at our table?”

~*~




Central Park Boathouse – 1880

~*~

“So, your solution to curing all that time at sea is to rent a rowboat, William?” She failed miserably at sounding stern.

“Renting a boat and rowing your lady love around a lake is terribly romantic. I was under the impression that women knew this. It’s in all the books, also several poems.”

“I’m sure it is,” she said, settling down with her back to him. She’d chosen the seat in the center of the boat and not the one further away from him. He took careful note of this minor victory.

“I thought this would be a peaceful activity for us. Also, it would be a splendid opportunity for me to show off my muscles.”

She turned to look at him, raising a dubious brow.

“And my talent for fishing,” he added hastily.

She laughed at that, mercifully, and he tried very hard not to feel a surge of happiness. If only she knew that he’d been telling her a near truth – for fishing was exactly what he’d be doing. Casting bait upon the water, hoping for a cautious nibble.

Slow and steady catches the prize, William.

They chatted amiably as he rowed about the lake, attempting to keep to the shade, though it was early enough in the day that the heat was still comfortable. A pleasant morning breeze stirred across the water, which held no more than five or six other boaters, so they were afforded plenty of privacy.

He waited until they’d been on the lake for fifteen minutes before he broached the subject. Before he brought up the real reason he’d pulled her out into the middle of the body of water, where she couldn’t dodge and slip away from the conversation.

“So, you must be curious about the story of how we fell in love,” he said at last. He sounded so calm, so even. He was more than a little impressed that he could act so well.

“Not really,” she replied, her gaze intent upon the shoreline.

It was exactly the reaction he’d anticipated. He knew her well, in both her Buffy and Elizabeth incarnations. As Buffy she avoided this kind of intimate conversation and thus far William had gone along with it. But to continue along that path would keep her at a distance, and he could not woo effectively at arms length.

“It’s probably just as well,” he lied. “You’d likely not believe me anyway. The tales of people you assaulted. Oh, look! I think there are swans at the far end of the lake. We should row over to them, don’t you think?”

“Um, sure,” she mumbled distractedly.

As he rowed, she fidgeted with her bandaged hand. He remained patient, silent. Slow and steady, William.

With a sigh of frustration, Buffy unwound her bandage. “Stupid thing. It’s about time I took it off,” she grumbled, unwrapping it completely, before stretching her fingers out cautiously. Her hand appeared much improved. The swelling was almost imperceptible now, and the bruises were beginning to fade.

But he knew she was trying to distract herself, distract him. And so he kept rowing in silence. He’d always been absolute crap at fishing. Pity that.

Just as he eased the boat near the swans, an old woman appeared on the nearby shore and began throwing bread to the birds. All the nearby waterfowl, swans included, immediately swam to shore.

Once the birds had squawked noisily away, they were left with only the sound of the waves lapping against the side of the boat. Buffy turned around to face him. The seats were so close together that he had to pull his legs apart so her knees could fit between his.

“You might as well tell me, I guess.”

He blinked at her, feigning innocence as well as he could manage. “I beg your pardon?”

She rolled her eyes. “The whole assaulting thing. You might as well tell me about that. Who did I assault?”

“Well, you nearly assaulted me with a fireplace poker, once!”

“Probably because you deserved it. And ‘nearly assaulted’ doesn’t count.”

“There was my uncle. You assaulted him. I was a witness to one occasion, though I have it on good authority that you’d threatened him several times.”

“Your uncle?”

“An older man. A man of God, truth be told. You assaulted him in our dining room.”

She squinted off into the distance and bit her bottom lip. She was so close, so very close. One tug on the line, please, Buffy. Just give me a nibble.

“So how’d I assault the old man of God, then? And why?”

A bite!

“Well, it’s a wonderful tale, actually. I replay it in my mind often. And I should start by reassuring you that the old codger had it coming. I resorted to physical violence myself in the end.”

And so he began to tell her the Story of Them, somehow managing to begin in the middle and work his way out from there. As he told the tale, he emphasized those parts of their history when she stood out as Buffy the clearest – as a protector, as leader, and when she’d encouraged him to box when no one else would.

He simply told her the truth, illuminating the woman he’d fallen in love with, the woman he still loved. Showed her that she’d always been Buffy, even when he knew her as Elizabeth.

Slowly, bit by bit, she softened around the edges. Laughing at how much she’d thrown the Pratt home into chaos in the early days, and placing a comforting hand on his when he spoke of his mother’s death.

He skimmed over everything but the most basic details of their sexual history. There was a time for that, but it was a crucial part of his courtship. He knew that cautious fishermen and wise husbands took care to tug on the line gently.

By the time he’d gotten to the part of the story where he asked her to marry him, he stopped suddenly.

“Oh, I’ve gone and lost track of time entirely. Please, forgive me. We’ve been on the lake for hours.” He began rowing toward the boathouse.

“I like being out here. No complaints from me.”

“You may say otherwise when we return to the hotel, love. Your cheeks are decidedly rosy. I’m afraid you may have taken too much sun.”

“Ha, please. California girl here. We never use the words ‘too much’ and ‘sun’ in the same sentence.”

He shook his head and continued rowing.

After they pulled into the boathouse and William settled up with the man behind the counter, they strolled over to an arched bridge where several hansom cabs were available for hire.

Even before he could offer his arm, she took it. He felt flushed with victory.

“So, William, you were telling me that you’d proposed to me. And then you got awkward and manufactured being interrupted by the position of the sun in the sky.”

He nodded. She was leading in this dance, and he knew it was crucial to allow her to continue.

“You asked and I said yes, just like that?”

“Not quite ‘just like that,’” he replied.

“Good.” She failed spectacularly at hiding a grin.

He remained silent, though it wasn’t without great effort and the insides of his cheeks hurt, just a little, from him biting them.

“Did anybody mind? Lord of the Manor marrying his maid? It’s the stuff of romcoms, but your family must have thought I was a gold digger.”

“No, darling, I was seen as the scoundrel in our relationship. The only person who cast aspersions upon your character was the uncle I told you of. And I assure you, I set him to rights.”

She looked at him questioningly.

"His jaw was almost as purple as Mr. Lovell’s was, and he lost a tooth in the fray.”

“Since Mr. Lovell didn’t need any dental work, I guess you’re one up on me, then. And people thought you were a scoundrel?”

“Of the worst sort. They thought I had seduced an innocent. If they only knew the truth of it. ‘Twas you seducing me with your wanton … OW!”

She’d kicked him in the shin, midstride, while maintaining a perfectly placid expression.

“To say nothing of the physical damage you inflicted upon my person, that you continue to inflict. If the world knew the truth of it, Buffy, I can’t imagine what they’d think of us.”

She looked to the sky and shook her head. “And on that note, how about lunch?”

William checked his pocket watch. “If we hire a cab, we could just make it back to the hotel for the one o’clock seating.”

“If you want,” Buffy shrugged, eying a line of vendor carts on the footpath near the bridge.

When he spotted an ice cream cart, he couldn’t suppress a grin. Perhaps the only advantage in this whole miserable affair of her losing her memory was that he knew exactly how she felt about lemon ices, and he’d be allowed the joy of watching her discover them again for the first time.

“Or we could,” he suggested, wriggling his eyebrows at her, “just be terribly irresponsible and forgo lunch for lemon ices.”

“Works for me. What’s a ‘lemon ice’? Like a popsicle?”

“Better,” he assured. Dear God, he hoped he brought a sufficient amount of pocket change. She was certain to go for thirds, possibly fourths.

-----------------------------

Author's Note:




The Metropolitan Hotel. I don't know the year, but the hotel was destroyed in 1895, so it has to be "around" when our couple stayed there. William and Buffy visited while it was still nice, but a bit past its prime.
Chapter 20 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thanks to DK and Capella for the beta, to Amy for the banner and to you for reviewing!

Union Station – Portland, Maine – Just past midnight

The train station certainly looked empty from the outside.  Not a light winking from even the most obscure window.  But someone was inside, for Miss Edith had told Dru of him (Miss Edith was never wrong).

“Just try the door by the alcove, Mummy,” her darling baby instructed from where she lay tucked under Dru’s arm.  Miss Edith was a little worse for wear following their voyage – her sausage curls now flattened and brittle.  But her eyes still shone with cruel intent. 

Dru twisted the door handle to find it locked. 

“The station master has fallen asleep on his paperwork, drunk again.”  Miss Edith’s tone was chiding.  “If you pound on the door, you’ll wake him.”

Dru smacked the door with her flattened hand.  (Station Master, come out and play!)  When the sound was less than impressive, she kicked at the thing; the thud-thud of it reverberated through the door.  She saw a weak light flicker from beneath the doorframe, and Miss Edith let a satisfied cackle escape.

After a brief moment, Dru heard a jangling of keys and the door opened a crack.  But a crack was all she needed.  She shoved the door wide and thrust the man back into the room as she swept inside.

“I … you …” the portly man stammered.

(No talking!)  Dru shushed him by pressing her index finger to his trembling lips.  “Just looking, my dear.  Watch my eyes.”

And he did.  For what choice did he have?  He fell down into her thrall in short seconds (his mind a quivering pudding), staring at her gape-mouthed, as a small rivulet of drool making its way down his chin.

“He needs to bring us to the shipping area.  Business before dining, Mummy,” Miss Edith reminded her in an increasingly familiar parental tone.  (Bossy dolly)

“To the shipping area,” Dru instructed the drooling man, and he wended a path to a large storage area in the back of the building.

“This will do very nicely!”  Miss Edith’s doll eyes gleamed dully in the faint moonlight that crept in from the windows.  “Now we set to work.

Two hours later, Dru surveyed their handiwork while picking bits of station master from between her teeth.  His blood had been thick and tasted like gravy.  The old, fat ones always did.  Following dinner, she’d drug the corpse (bloated bag) into a shed and covered it with an old blanket, upon Miss Edith’s instructions.

“All that’s left for you to do is to climb inside, my Mummy.”

“I know that.”  Dru felt cross, petulant. 

The crate itself was a great improvement over the one the Shining Man had devised.  While the station master had had still been under service to Dru, he’d lined it in black cloth which her clever darling had procured from a shipment to a dressmaker.  The (corpulent, soon-to-be-a-corpse) man attached a line of latches that locked from the inside, to make it easier for her to feed en route.

If one had to travel for weeks in a crate, her conveyance was as comfortable as humanly possible.  Inhumanly possible too, come to think of it, she thought with a smirk.

Still, Dru stalled, crossing her arms and looking at the crate stubbornly.  (Wood-lined, like a coffin, it is.)

“Come now Mother.  It won’t be so bad.  You know I always take care of you.”

Dru sighed, placing a dainty foot inside the box.

“Such a brave girl you are,” Miss Edith encouraged.  “And your William waits for you.  Little lost lamb, with his own Mummy dead of consumption.  Needs my Mummy’s kiss for his new life.”

Before closing the lid, Dru’s fingers lingered on the shipping label which was neatly affixed to the lid.  ‘Expedited shipment!  Fragile!’  And just below that, in Dru’s own spidery script, ‘Recipient: Buffy Summers, Denver, Colorado – Will call.’  Miss Edith had gotten a severe case of the giggles while instructing Dru how to fill out that last bit of the label.

“That’s it then, Mummy.  Now shut the lid and first thing in the morning, we’re on our way.”  The doll’s voice echoed in Dru’s mind, almost as if the tiny dear had a thrall of her own.

Dru closed the lid and fastened the latches, ever the obedient one.

(Patience, my Dark Prince. Mummy’s on her way)

~*~

William’s Wooing:  Day Two

Buffy woke up alone.  Strange that such a small bed could seem so empty without him. A note lay on his pillow, just above the indentation his head had made.

Darling, I’ve gone out to make a few more preparations.  Courting is a troublesome business when it causes me to spend time away from your side.  I shall return as soon as possible.  Looking very much forward to our day together, I remain, as ever, yours, William.

Allowing herself a moment of sentimentality before dressing, she traced his neat, backwards script with her fingertip.  ‘Yours, William.’ 

She climbed out of bed and flexed her injured hand.  Though it was still a bit stiff, she could make a fist now.  She’d managed to use a knife and fork at dinner last night and had been able to undress herself for bed, smiling a little as she remembered the hopeful look in William’s eyes when he asked if he could assist her.

Yesterday they’d retreated to the hotel to escape Central Park’s mid afternoon heat.  He’d snuck out for a few hours in the late afternoon, claiming he had important ‘husbandly’ errands with an irresistible grin.  It would be so much easier to protect her heart if the man hadn’t been so damned charming.

Standing before her trunk, she reluctantly dressed for the day, selecting a blue cotton dress.  Wearing these clothes, she felt like such an imposter; it never failed to feel as though she were putting on a costume.  As she fastened a line of buttons, it was as if she were latching down the persona of Elizabeth, the good wife, and tucking Buffy neatly away.

When William looked at her, she knew who he saw:  Elizabeth - the woman he’d fallen in love with. That woman wasn’t her – wasn’t Buffy.  Buffy, the ex-slayer.  Buffy, the now-nothing.  Buffy of the two and one forth failed relationships, if you counted Parker.

How did the old saying go?  The only common denominator in all your past failed relationships is you.

If there was a part of her that wanted to keep William at arm’s length for her own good, there was an even bigger part that wanted him to stay away for his.

~*~

“Forgive me, love!  I’ve made it back just by ten o’clock, haven’t I?”  William burst into the room – a flurry of packages and enthusiasm.  

“It’s okay, William.”  She couldn’t help but laugh.

He beamed a smile at her.  “The good news is that I’ve got the last of it sorted.  No more mysterious errands.”

She nodded.  “That’s nice.”

He dropped the bundle of packages on the bed and carefully cradled her right hand in his, lifting it to his mouth to kiss the back of it.  “Forgive me, love. You look absolutely beautiful.”

“So …” she said awkwardly, “Big plans for today?”

William’s response was to sort through the packages on the bed and hand her one of the larger parcels with a goofy grin.

“Ah, you’re giving me a clue?”

He nodded and began to nervously tug on his hair.

She unwrapped the brown paper to reveal a strange woolen outfit in two pieces.  The top looked like a black sailor suit with white trim and sleeves reaching to the elbow.  The bottom was a pair of loose pants with a skirt attached, although the skirt was quite short, times being what they were, and looked as if it would go just past her knees. 

“Ice skating?”  She blurted the first thing that came to her mind.

His blue eyes crinkled up in laughter.  “No, not quite dear.  It’s a swimmer.”

“No way.  Like a swimsuit?”

“Exactly like one!  I’ve purchased one for myself as well.”  He tucked a smaller parcel into a cloth day bag before reaching over to tuck her suit in as well.  She was still recovering from the suit being far more wooly and voluminous than anything that was designed for water had a right to be, and her skepticism must have been evident, because when he looked at her his grin slid from his face.

“It’s just that … you seemed to feel, well, a bit disappointed with America so far.  I thought perhaps you just needed to see a different aspect of it.  And when you used to speak of California, you seemed so fond of the beach that I thought Coney Island would be the perfect remedy.”

“It’s a wonderful idea William.  Very thoughtful.”  She reached over and gave his arm a reassuring squeeze.

“We’ll just collect our hats and be on our way.  It’s only a short trolley ride and then a ferry across the bay.  We shall be basking on the beach in no time.”

After she’d unearthed a slightly bent straw hat with a wide brim, she turned to find William wearing a white straw hat with a bright blue band.  He looked adorably dorky in it, and she couldn’t suppress a little laugh.

“The beach agrees with you then?”  He looked so pleased with himself, and she was surprised to discover that she was actually kind of excited about being able to hit the beach – even if she had to wear half a sheep to do it.

“Yes, William.  It’s going to be awesome.”

The trolley ride was crowded and sweaty, though they were lucky enough to find a seat in the corner.  By the time they got in line for the ferry, a slight breeze had kicked up over the surface of the bay, providing a cool relief from the heat.

William suggested they stay at the front of the ferry, and so they remained outside.  A few wandering musicians strolled about the deck trying to drown out the vendors who hawked ‘freshly popped corn.’  The carnival-like atmosphere was infectious, and Buffy caught herself grinning like a fool at nothing in particular.

By the time they arrived at Coney Island, it was nearly noon, although it was not nearly as insufferably hot as it had been the previous day.  The beach itself was long and sand-covered and that was about all it had in common with California.  Set back up from the coastline were several enormous hotels with giant pavilions, surrounded by large, elaborate gardens.  The long stretch of sand was dotted with hundreds of little striped tents and populated with people wearing far too much clothing.

As they walked down the pier, William asked, “Would you rather get lunch first or…”

“Hit the beach,” she interrupted without apology.

He led them into one of the first buildings they came to, Ravenhall’s Bathing House – a squat monstrosity of a building that boasted steam rooms, a luncheon counter and the largest salt water pool on the beach.  William paid an attendant, then gave Buffy her suit and she slipped into the women’s changing room, agreeing to meet him by the front counter after she’d changed.

After wrestling the suit on, she decided that the thing wasn’t half bad – it was all bad.  It bunched in awkward places and itched everywhere.  Still, a beach was a beach, and she set her mind to enjoy it despite her hatred for the costume she had to wear.  Copying what the other women in the changing room were doing, she braided her hair down the back, securing the end with a black ribbon that a young girl was kind enough to give her.

William was already waiting for her at the counter. He was dressed in a blue and white striped sleeveless shirt that resembled an old fashioned tank top and his bottoms looked very similar to board shorts, coming down just to his knees.  It reminded her of a child’s onesie, and she couldn’t help but laugh.

“You are rockin’ that suit William.”

He flashed a nervous grin, a telltale blush creeping up his cheeks.

“It leaves rather a large area of a person exposed, doesn’t it?

“Yeah.  Flaunting your arms and calves!  The scandal of it!”  She was just getting started, but when she noticed the growing look of discomfort on his face, she stopped short and gave him a reassuring smile.

After checking their clothes with the attendant, William rented an umbrella and beach blanket.  He tucked them under one arm and offered her the other.

Since the pier area was so crowded, they walked down the shoreline to the far end, threading their way amongst beach goers and slowly making their way towards the water’s edge.  When her toes first felt the water, she was pleasantly surprised; it was much warmer than the Pacific. 

“Have you and I gone to the beach before?  I mean, when I was her, Elizabeth?  Is this my first time in the Atlantic?”

“You’ve always just been you, darling.  But no, we’ve not been to the beach before today.”

“But you’ve been to a beach before.  You can swim, right?”

“Yes, well, probably.  My parents took me to Spain on holiday when I was younger.  I think I could still manage it.”

“Oh, I could so kick your ass swimming.”

He chuckled and kicked water on her legs as they continued a winding path up the shore.

After a long walk, they found a relatively unpopulated bit of sand and William staked out their claim, driving the umbrella deeply into the sand and spreading out the blanket beneath it.

Buffy shook her head.  “Coming to the beach to hide under an umbrella.  Your people’s ways are mysterious to me.”  Still, considering the intense whiteness of his calves and arms she felt a little grateful for the shade.

“Water first?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Last one all the way under’s a rotten egg!”  She dashed off, kicking sand in her wake.

“Perhaps we could test the water?  Wade in and gauge how…”  The rest was lost beneath the sound of the surf. 

Once she’d waded in up to her hips, her suit began to soak up water, pulling at her legs and waist.  Having gone this far, she plunged under the surface, kicking her legs away from the shore.  Despite the fifteen pounds of weight the suit added, it felt very liberating to be in the ocean again.

She popped her head above the surface to see William standing just behind her in chest-high water.  He was surprisingly fast.   Looking around, she was startled how far out she was – father than any women she could see.  Though the shocked expressions of the other swimmers were sadly easy to read, William did not appear to share their concern.  He laughed and splashed a little water on her playfully.

“I won!  Your hair’s not even wet,” she crowed.

“What was the prize for winning?”  He moved toward her, grinning like a shark.

“All the lemon ice you can eat.”

“I don’t think so, Buffy.”

“I don’t think the loser of the bet gets to determine what the bet is!  Retroactively!”

He moved a step closer to her, and she felt his hands grip her hips firmly.

“William, this seems like a kind of risqué touching for respectable society,” she chided.

He tugged her closer to him.  “I’m perfectly respectable above the water line, wife of mine.”  He nudged her calf with his toe, sliding a line down her leg.  It should have been a terrifically unsexy gesture, so it was unsettling to feel a strange warmth uncurl from her stomach.

Diving down beneath the waves, she escaped his hold on her hips.  She reached out and gave one of his feet a quick yank, sending him down beneath the waves before she quickly kicked away.

It took a long while before Buffy had enough of the water.  When they finally dragged themselves out of the surf, she wrung her suit out as best she could before joining him on the blanket beneath the umbrella.  He lay on his back, watching her silently.  Now that his suit was damp, it molded tightly to his muscled chest, causing him to look less like a man in child’s playwear and more like an ad for a Victorian gym.  His wet curls glistened in the sun, begging her to smooth them but she ignored their evil pleas.

Flopping down on the blanket next to him, she said, “I had my doubts about swimming in this contraption, but I gotta hand it to you William.  This was a great idea.”

He looked so delighted that it was almost embarrassing.  His total lack of guile tugged at something deep inside her chest and she found it far more comfortable to look away at people playing in the surf.

“Were bathing suits really all that different in your time?”  He asked.

Buffy snorted in response.  “You don’t have any paper on you, do ya?”

“Paper?  I, well … no.”

Buffy turned onto her stomach and wiped her hand over a bit of sand.  “This will work.  Nature’s Etch-A-Sketch.”

“Our suits looked something like this …”   She drew the outline of a female form, complete with ponytail, then added three triangles to the sketch.

“The triangles are …?”  William stammered.

“A bikini.  What you’d call a bathing suit.  Those triangles are attached with string.”

“And you wore this?”

She nodded.

“At a public beach?  Amongst … other people?”

“I had several of them, in lots of different colors.”

“Good god in heaven.  I cannot imagine.  Did men in your time manage to get any work done with California beaches full of women in biknees?”

He’d been so boggled by the amount of skin, that his usually sharp mind had missed the nuances of the word.  She didn’t have the heart to point out his mispronunciation. 

“I was wondering – could you sketch the back view of it?”

Buffy complied with a grin.  He cocked his head before shaking it from side to side in wonder.  “Another triangle and the rest is just string?”

“Yuppers.”

He sank back onto the blanket with a sigh.  “When we arrive in California, I should think we will need to arrange for a dressmaker as a top priority.  Now that I’ve been made aware of the existence of biknees, I should insist upon accommodating your fondness for them.  I’m fantastically interested in seeing you in them, from a purely engineering standpoint of course.”

He kept his eyes closed but grinned wickedly at her general direction.

Damn, but the man was just about irresistible.

~*~

After a few hours of lounging peacefully and soaking up the sounds of the surf, Buffy’s tummy began making uncomfortable rumblings, one of which was loud enough to rouse William.  Leaving their umbrella and blanket in the sand, they wandered up towards the line of hotels and shops.

Since the hotel restaurants looked very expensive and, in full beach gear, they were in no way dressed for the scene, they made their way toward the pier, where every square bit of free sand was crowded with a food stand or performer of some kind.  The air was filled with spicy scents and competing musical sounds. 

There was a long line around one food booth in particular – a new food that was all the rage, apparently.  ‘Feltman’s Famous Hot Dogs.’

“No way!” Buffy gasped, tugging William into line behind her.

“You’re familiar with this?” 

“Very.  It’s totally California beach food.” 

“The name isn’t particularly appetizing, but I trust you, love.”

“Overpriced hot dogs, the sun, the surf.   Throw a homeless guy and a drug bust into the mix and I’d swear we were at the Santa Monica Pier.”

He smiled at her and his adoration was so bright it was almost like looking into the face of the sun. It blinded her, and made her feel the slightest bit out of control – her old slayer instincts rising up to warn her that being blind had her at a disadvantage.

After hot dogs and lemonade, they wandered back through the booths, stopping to look at the various attractions trying desperately to get their attention and money.  William seemed charmed by it all.

These loud Americans, shouting at him, trying to con him out of money, must have been so different from his bookish existence in London – yet he took it all completely in stride.    He gave teasing responses or laughed good-naturedly, no matter their level of bawdiness. 

And throughout it all, he kept her in his vision.  Not as a watcher or as someone who hovered out of worry.  He watched her as a lover, as a man who wanted to know if she was happy, glancing over to see her enjoying her day as much as he hoped she would.

After nearly two hours, they returned to their little staked out corner of the beach and decided to wade back in before the sun sank too low on the horizon.  It was late afternoon and the crowds were already thinning.

Once they were in the water again, he began to play with her like a boy in junior high.  Splashing her face and ducking under the water so she couldn’t strike back.  There was something in the air between them that crackled and popped in a way it hadn’t earlier.  He looked at her just a little more boldly, a little more hungrily.

Feeling uncomfortable, feeling like a failure, she retreated to their blanket like a big coward, laying on her tummy, her head away from the surf.  When he joined her, a long while later, he didn’t say anything.  She was grateful that he wordlessly respected the space she was creating between them.

Eventually he broke the silence, his voice pleasant and conversational. “Shall we return to the bath house?”

“Sure,” she replied.  She hopped to her feet and folded up the blanket while he dug the umbrella out of the sand.

They wove their way through the shouting children and sun-bloated beachgoers, arriving back to the bath house just as the sun was beginning to set.  William spoke to the attendant who retrieved their clothing, and they went to their respective changing rooms.

He was waiting at the attendant’s desk when she emerged.  He’d rinsed his hair out, and it was damp and curling against his neckline.  She felt grubby and sandy, and more than a little foolish that the idea of rinsing out her hair hadn’t even crossed her mind.

“We could stay for the fireworks, if you like.  Or perhaps watch them from the ferry?”

“Let’s go home … or, to the hotel, I mean,” she replied.

“That sounds perfect.  I’m quite done in by all the sun, I must confess.”

The pier was wonderfully uncrowded, as was the ferry – most of the people apparently preferred to watch the fireworks from Coney Island.  Apart from an older couple standing a few dozen yards away, Buffy and William had the deck to themselves.  Shortly after the ship cast off, the fireworks began, their rainbow reflection lighting up the surface of the water with a cozy glow.

William, standing behind her, wove his fingers through her hair with one hand, while his other hand slid about her waist, gently pulling her close to him.

He leaned down, his lip next to her ear, and murmured, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For a perfect day, love.  I shall remember it always.”

He traced his index finger down the line of her neck, before pulling her hair aside and giving a soft kiss to the side of her throat.

She felt a shiver run though her core as though he’d just done something terribly erotic.  His hand that had been holding her waist nudged her, so that she’d turn to look at him.

Tucking a hand just beneath her chin, he lifted her face.  His blue eyes reflected the fireworks behind her, and he gave her that utterly honest look that had a way of undoing her like nothing else.

He leaned down, as if he were about to kiss her, then, just before their mouths met, he stopped.  His lips were so close to hers that she could feel them brush against her mouth as he spoke.  “May I kiss you?  Please, Buffy?”

What could she say?  He didn’t have to ask to kiss her, did he?  But then again, she was giving off so many mixed signals, even she didn’t know what she felt about him from one moment to the next.  Eroticism, terror, tenderness.

Before she could decide which emotion she was feeling at that moment, she closed the infinitesimally small distance between their lips – claiming his mouth with her own.  Her fingers wove through his still damp curls that she’d been longing to toy with all day.

“Mmm,” was all she could say.

He deepened the kiss, alternately nibbling and licking along the edge of her bottom lip, before his tongue dipped into her mouth and teased her.

She sighed and pressed herself against his chest as she tasted him, drawing out their kiss while pulling him as close to her as she could manage.

Her legs felt odd – as if her knees weren’t entirely capable of supporting her.  His kisses made her weak in the knees?  She broke the embrace, embarrassed by her body’s reaction.

He watched her with an earnest expression.

“You’re a … a good kisser,” she stammered, trying desperately to bring a lighter touch to the situation.  “Where’d you learn to kiss like that?”

His expression did not change.  “You taught me.  You’re the only woman I’ve ever kissed, love.

“Well, damn.  I wonder where I learned to kiss like that then,” she muttered.

He smiled at her, tenderly.  “You used to tell me that I taught you.  Well, that Spike did.”  He waited a beat. 

“It’s lovely, really,” he continued, “if you look at it in the right light.  I don’t mind having been a self I don’t have knowledge of.  That kind of thing doesn’t have to bother a person – doesn’t have to come between us.”

Leaning down, he brushed another kiss against her lips.  “I love you, Buffy,” he breathed into her mouth.

She could say nothing in return.

-----

Author’s notes:  They just missed a roller coaster on Coney Island by a few years!   They did catch the beginnings of the hot dog craze, however.  They used to have fireworks on Coney Island on weekends, so we’re going to assume they were there on a Saturday night.  Here’s a photo of Coney Island beachgoers in 1880.  See that pier behind them?  Yeah!  Bathing suits?  Heinous! 

 

 

 

A pic from Sweeny Todd because ... do you need a because?

Chapter 21 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thanks to Lutamira, DK, Capella and Science for their beta skillz. Sometimes I went ahead and did it my way anyway, so don't blame them. Thanks to Amy for the banner too. Finally, thanks to you for letting me know what you think about things. You are the gas in my engine and the caramel in my macchiato.

I have died everyday waiting for you
Darling don't be afraid I have loved you
For a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more – Christina Perri

 

Chapter 21

 

William’s Wooing:  Day Three

Holding her in his arms at the start of the day.  Was there a time when he wouldn’t wake stunned by the wonder of her?  The curtains were parted enough to let in a finger of light which played across her hair in the most enticing way.

Her lashes remained closed, but he could see her eyes moving beneath her lids.  What did she dream of?  Him?  Spike?  Her former life?  Did she still wake with dread, finding herself in this time, with him? 

She stirred slightly, mumbling “mmm,” giving nothing away. 

Since it was summer, she wore nothing to bed but a chemise and bloomers.  Though she’d grumbled about it being too restrictive, he would beg to differ with that opinion.  The ivory silk molded perfectly to her breasts, jutting out where her nipples poked at the fabric.

He knew better than to slip out of bed until she was awake.  He would luxuriate in this moment as long as possible, soaking up the presence of his wife, with all her defenses down, wrapped in his arms.

It wasn’t until someone slammed a door down the hall that her lashes fluttered.  She stretched her toes out, running them down the length of his calf, creating a lovely tingling sensation that went straight to his groin.  He turned his hip slightly to the side so the morning tent he’d erected wasn’t so obvious to her.

“Good morning, love.”  He kissed her forehead.

“Morning, Will … oh, your arms!”

She gingerly touched his sun-reddened forearm, her fingers soothing and cool.

“Pretty nasty burn you’ve got there, beach-boy.  We should put something on it.”

She climbed over him and opened her trunk.  After rustling inside for a bit, she grasped a small object before returning to the bed, where she perched on the edge.  She held a small bottle of lotion - the same lotion she’d applied to his penis that night not so long ago when she’d found him locked inside the chastity device. 

His morning erection pounced on this information with an almost painful enthusiasm.

“Take your nightshirt off.  This lotion should at least cool you off.”  He complied, sitting on the edge of the bed and bunching the covers around his waist in an attempt to make Mount Erection virtually undetectable.  She poured a small dollop into the center of her hand and began to dab it on his shoulder.   The scent of the lotion flooded him with erotic memories of her touching his cock, the look in her eyes as she brought him to completion.  Each time her fingertips moved against his skin, his cock throbbed – a steady heartbeat of lust.  He let out a shuddering sigh.

“Wow, it’s really that sore, huh?  I wouldn’t be surprised if you peeled.  Don’t your people have sunscreen?”

He couldn’t help but laugh.  “You keep referring to everyone as ‘my people.’”

“I guess because they don’t feel much like my people.”  As she scooted over to apply lotion to his other shoulder and he closed his eyes, relishing the sensation.  When she finished with his arms, she surprised him by promptly sitting on the floor.

“Legs?” she asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your legs are probably sunburned, too.”

He tugged the covers up, exposing his calves to her.  The image of her sitting between his knees, the air scented sensually, and the smooth slide of her fingertips up his legs was almost too much to withstand.

When she was finished, she screwed the cap on and popped up to put the lotion away in her trunk.  The back of her bloomers molded to the curve of her bottom in the most enchanting manner. 

“Hungry?” she asked without turning around.

“Insatiable,” he groaned.

Her back still to him, she slipped into a petticoat and a light blue gown, then began to button up the sleeves.

Desperate to bring his erection to manageable levels before unbunching the covers, he began to list a litany of unpleasant things:  Rubbish bins, fruit cake, rice pudding, his uncle’s sermons.  That last one seemed to do the trick, and he could feel his need abating, if only slightly.  He slid his nightshirt over his tender shoulders and exited the bed to begin his own dressing regimen.

He dressed long before she was finished and said, “I shall need to acquire a shave prior to breakfast.  Would you like me to return for you or …?”

“I’ll meet you down there, William.”  She sat on the edge of the bed with a mirror and began to style her hair simply.  Her injured hand appeared to give her no problems with the task.  She graced him with a bright smile, and he felt his breath catch for a moment.  Even in the simplest gesture, she would shine through and touch some spark in his core, stoking it to a flame.

“I’ll see you down there then, love,” he murmured as he left the room. 

Though the lobby’s barber shop was hectic, it was well staffed, and the barber had nearly finished shaving William when he saw Buffy. She stood near the window at the entrance, peeking around until she spotted him.  He couldn’t help but smile widely, causing the thin, mustached barber to look around.

“My wife.” William explained his oddly timed grin.

“Understandable, sir.  Would you like a haircut as well?  Ladies appreciate a well groomed man, and it wouldn’t take but a few moments.” 

“We’ve not breakfasted yet.”  William hesitated.  “But just a few moments, you say?”

“No more than that, sir.”

The barber retrieved his scissors from his leather apron and stretched out one of William’s curls.  “Perhaps if I were to take off just an …”

“Hold it right there.”  Buffy’s voice was firm and surprisingly … close.  The murmurings and rattling of newspapers in the barbershop cut off instantly – as though he’d just gone suddenly deaf.  All pairs of very shocked eyes were on them.  On her.  The woman in the barber shop.

“Hands off the curls,” Buffy said in a tone that was very like a growl.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am.”  The barber looked at William, helplessly.

Recovering quickly, William said, “I don’t have a strong preference for a haircut one way or the other, but as I believe my wife might, I shall decline.  Thank you all the same.”

“Well, I… she…  I cannot …” The barber began.

William chuckled. “Precisely.  You’ve no idea how often I find myself saying the very same thing.”

He paid the barber ten cents and escorted his wife from the presence of the shocked barber shop denizens.

He should have felt embarrassed.  He knew it.  But he couldn’t quite manage that emotion because there was another one flooding his senses - the stunning delight of knowing that she was fond of his curls.

“Shall we arrange something regarding your hair, Buffy?” he inquired as they stepped out of the barber shop doorway.

“Um, I’m not sure how unisex that joint is, to be honest with you.  I got the distinct impression that it was an all boys club.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of something at the hair dressers.”  He gestured toward the much smaller, but more lavishly decorated shop next door.  “We have tickets to the theater tonight, and it might be pleasant to have something special done.”

She hesitated.

“Also, it’s expected to rain shortly.  I thought it might be prudent to take care of some banking business today, and we could send our clothes out for cleaning and mending before we begin our rail journey west.  We’ll be leaving in just a few days and absolutely be out of reach of these kinds of services for some time.”

“Okay,” she capitulated, stepping into the shop to make an appointment for later that morning before rejoining him and going to the dining hall for breakfast.

~*~

Rain began shortly after lunch, falling down in angry sheets and filling the stale city air with the scent of new earth.  The streets were slickened with mud and horse dung, making travel only bearable in dire necessity.

William and Buffy holed up in their room, passing the time by playing whist while the rain kept a tapping accompaniment on their window.  It reminded him of all those hours they’d spent hidden away in cabin seventeen aboard The Adriatic, hidden away in their private retreat.

When Buffy grew bored with cards, they passed the remainder of the afternoon by reading.  She rapidly became absorbed in ‘The Woman’s Journal,’ a magazine that she’d been given by the woman who’d styled her hair – described by Buffy as a ‘Sagittarius.’  William suspected the woman was actually a suffragette, as the majority of articles in the magazine were about voting rights and not star signs.

They took an early dinner before dressing for their evening out.  William took an especially long bath, realizing it was yet another luxury that would be abandoned on their long train journey west.  Each time they indulged in a small activity such as this, his mind would turn toward their future and how Buffy might take to their new accommodations.  She’d already given up so much.  She was a tree in the breeze, bowing to the winds constantly.  How much more could she bend before snapping?

The weather had worn itself out by the time they dressed for the theater.  They’d dressed slowly, each taking turns while the other was in the bathing room.  William put on his finest evening wear, which consisted of grey and black striped trousers, a white shirt with black cravat, a black vest and charcoal frock coat.

When he returned from the bath, he found her ready for their evening, splendid in a silk, moss-green gown, which was adorned with a series of intricate pleats.  She’d completed her attire with a small hat and simple white silk gloves.  As awkward as she’d been in dressing in this manner only two weeks prior, she’d adapted remarkably well.  His willow in the wind. 

“You look stunning, love,” he said.  It was a partial lie.  She looked like a goddess, and he found it difficult to inhale.  She’d worn this gown twice now, and both occasions stood out in his mind as if they were tintypes – so burned were the images upon his mind.

She gave him a bright smile.  “Thanks!  You look pretty swell yourself.  I like this grey suit on you.  Looks good with your eyes.” 

She leaned up and touched his hair, just for an instant, tugging a curl out of his carefully crafted coif.  He willed his hands not to smooth his hair down and returned her smile with one of his own.

“We ready, Freddy?”

He nodded and extended his arm to her.

The hansom cab was waiting for them; arranging transport ahead of time had at least given him something to do during their long, rain-soaked afternoon.  They arrived at the Fifth Avenue Theater, finding their way inside rather quickly due to the thin crowds.

Once they took their seats, Buffy looked excitedly around at the lush, gilded interior.  Though it was fantastically ornate, it was an extremely small theater, especially when compared to the stages of London.

 

 

“I confess, I arranged to attend this play more for the theater than the nature of the play,” William said.

“What do you mean?”

“The Fifth Avenue Theater is exquisitely ornate, but even better, it’s terrifically modern.  It has a cooling system – large fans which push air over large blocks of ice.”

“Sounds nifty.  What about the play?”

“It’s called ‘Ah Sin.’  A murder-mystery, as I understand, and it was co-written by Bret Harte and Mark Twain.”

“Hey!  That last guy I’ve heard of!”  She seemed delighted with herself.  “The first guy sounds a little familiar too.”

When the lights dimmed, their conversation was cut short, so they turned their attention to the spectacle.  Though the play was well acted, it had a predictable plot which centered around a cunning Chinaman, Ah Sin, who consistently outwitted the characters who were trying to frame one another for a murder. 

The refrain kept repeating through the cautionary tale:  Which is why I remark, and my language is plain.  That for ways that are dark, and for tricks that are vain, the heathen Chinee is peculiar.

Though William found it amusing, he noticed Buffy didn’t share his enjoyment.  She sat in a peculiar, stony silence, and a spider of fear spun a thread up his spine.

Remembering their last outing at a play, and how she’d been so ill with pneumonia afterwards, he began to grow concerned that the past might echo back to them.  The air really was terribly damp and chill.  He leaned down, whispering in her ear, “Are you alright, dear?”

“Fine,” she responded curtly, before turning her attention back to the play.

Surreptitiously, he brushed his hand against her forearm to check for a fever, but her skin was cool.  It eased his worry, but only a little.

She remained quiet, preoccupied through the duration of the play. When it ended, she did not clap.  Though she didn’t seem ill, she seemed so terribly distant that it unnerved him.  Unsure of how to approach her sudden shift of mood, he escorted her to the hansom cab and endured the short ride back to the hotel in silence.  She didn’t seem angry as much as hurt, and he couldn’t for the life of him determine what would have given her cause.

By the time they entered their room the chill between them was beginning to frighten him.  She ripped her gloves off her hands, wincing slightly as she was a little too rough with her right.

“Darling, what is it?  Have I done something?”

“God, no.  It’s not you.”  She tore her hat off her head and dropped it into her trunk.

“Was it … the play?”

“Hell, yes, it was the racist play.”

She sat down on the bed almost violently, her skirts settling in flutters around her fury.

“I’m sorry, Buffy.  I don’t know what you mean by ‘racist’.”

“The way they portrayed the Chinese man as this thieving, cunning … what was the word they used?  Heathen?  What a horrible stereotype.”

“Ah, bigoted.”

“Yes, bigoted asshats.  They didn’t even have a Chinese person play the part – just some white dude who squinted a lot.”

“Well, they couldn’t have used a Chinaman on stage, love.”

“Why not?”  She glared at him.

“Ehm.  Well, that is a valid question, isn’t it?  There’s not a fair reason for that, I suppose.  These are different times to your own, I’m afraid.” 

“Yeah, I know about different.  All afternoon I read about these charmingly sexist times – women can’t even vote!  Now this wacky racist shit just is a whole ‘nother bag of ugly, and I’m just … fed up with it.”

He retrieved his whiskey flask from his trunk and poured himself a small measure into the small travelling tumbler and began to sip. 

“Pour me one of those, okay?” she asked.

William almost choked on his drink.  Buffy rarely drank and when she did indulge, it had always been wine.

“Certainly,” he replied, finishing his drink and pouring a small measure into the tumbler for her.  She downed it in one go, shuddering and making a “gah” sound before handing the glass back to him.

He pursed his lips and paused before pouring himself another drink.  Well this was interesting.  Life with her was certainly never predictable.

He sipped his whiskey this time, savoring it slowly, hoping to forestall her thirst.  It did not work.  As soon as he finished his drink and began to tuck it away, she stopped him, placing a firm hand on his forearm.

“I’d like another one.  And can you fill it up this time?”

The second drink took her a little longer; she was clearly unaccustomed to hard liquor, making little grimaces as she swallowed.

He was quite at a loss for what to do.  She was like a sparking bolt of electric energy and would not be ready to retire for the night for some time.

“Would you like to play cards, perhaps?”  he suggested pathetically.

She sighed and took another deep sip of whiskey, shuddering and grimacing. 

“I think I’ve been whisted-out.  Could we play something else, maybe?  Crazy-eights or … poker?”  Her cheeks had taken on a bright flush, brought on by the whiskey, no doubt.  Her eyes also glittered with the bright glow brought on by drink. 

“Certainly.  I’ll play any game you like, love.”  He retrieved the deck of cards and sat next to her on the bed.


“You know how to play poker?  Five card draw?” she asked.

 “Of course,” he replied. 

 Having drained the glass, she handed it back to him.  When he made no move to refill it, she retrieved the flask from his trunk herself, and filled the tumbler to the brim.  She handed it to him, sloshing a little down the side.

"Your turn,” she said simply.  He sipped as slowly as he’d ever imbibed in his life.

“’Kay, the game I’m thinking of is basically five card draw.”  She reached out and plucked the drink from his hand, draining the glass with a “gah” and a grimace. 

“It’s just that instead of betting with money, we bet with clothes.  Probably another foreign thing to your people, but you never know.  We’re going to play strip poker.”

 ----------------

 

Dora’s Corollary:

When writing historical fiction, it is acceptable to shift certain events and characters by a few years – no more than five.  It is considered polite for the author to point out this fact in her footnotes when she does so.

  1. It is possible that Dora is the name of my golden retriever and I just pulled this whole corollary thing out of my ass.
  2. Dora’s Corollary still applies. 

“Ah Sin” did play at the Fifth Avenue Theater, but in 1877.  They often did short revivals of plays, and since I couldn’t get an accurate listing of which plays were there in 1880, I decided they’d dusted off “Ah Sin” for another run.  Also, I adore Mark Twain and though you and I would find the play racist, he was a progressive in his own time.  He made Ah Sin the hero of the play, and to a degree mocked the racist mobs that had falsely accused him.  Everything else about the play and the theater is entirely accurate. 

I will be dusting off Dora’s Corollary at least twice more before the tale is told. :)  Okay, three times!

Words!

William uses the word “Chinaman” instead of “asian” or “Chinese.”  Though today we’d consider it offensive, I’m pretty sure William’s actions and thoughts will let you know he’s no racist.  Which reminds me … “racism” wasn’t used until the 1930s, which was why William was nonplussed when he heard the term, in case you were wondering what the hell that was about.  :)

 

Chapter 22 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thanks to Capella, Science, Lutamira and DoriansKitten for betaing, Amy for the banner and to those of you who review - big hugs.
Chapter 22

“I’ll deal,” Buffy said, as she shuffled the cards.

William said nothing, watching her while sipping his whiskey at glacial speed.

“You’ll like this game. I know you will.” She reached over and gave his arm a squeeze, trying to play the coquette and feeling like she was failing miserably.

Her hand consisted of a pair of jacks, a two, a six and a ten. She quickly discarded the jacks, then threw in the ten for good measure, which would be a really boneheaded move if she were trying to win. Her goal in this game, however, was to lose - to undress herself and seduce the man across from her.

“How many cards?” she asked.

“Two,” he replied.

After the draw was sorted, they showed their respective hands, and William won with a pair of threes.

“I lose!” Buffy said, as she began unbuttoning the front of her gown.

William looked at her and swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing. “You needn’t do that, dear.”

“But that’s the game.”

He sighed and tugged on his hair. “What about your boots?” he suggested hopefully.

“I’m sure I’ll get around to that.” She flashed a grin at him, then continued to work on the row of buttons. After a few moments, she’d undone enough of the wrists and collar that she could slide the dress over her head. She draped it over the back of a chair before returning to the bed, her petticoats fluffing up as she sat.

“I fear you’re at a disadvantage, love. With my waistcoat and frock coat and cravat … well, it’s terribly unfair.” He tugged at his hair with one hand while his other kept a firm grip on the tumbler of whiskey.

“Gosh, I hope I don’t lose too many hands then.” Buffy deftly plucked the whiskey from his grasp and drained it dry. Feeling the exuberance of the newly drunk, she stood up and went to his trunk, rooting around until she unearthed his auxiliary flask. After refilling the tumbler, she returned it to him, teasing the back of his hand with her fingertips as she slid her hand up his arm. A blush splashed upon his cheeks immediately.

Her second hand was pretty awful to begin with, but just to make certain, she got rid of a queen and a ten. William bit his bottom lip worriedly and showed his pair of jacks, winning over her eight high. Since she was feeling a little ridiculous wearing shoes with her underwear, Buffy unbuttoned and discarded a boot.

For the third round, she made an effort to win a hand since she dealt herself three kings. Her efforts at undressing and seducing him couldn’t appear too obvious. When William lost to her with a pair of nines, he was so delighted that she began to feel a twinge of guilt. He removed his gray frock coat and spent a great deal of time putting it away, keeping the whiskey glass close to him the whole time.

After several more hands and two, or possibly three, refillings of the tumbler, William had done slightly worse than she had. He’d divested himself of shoes, stockings, vest and cravat. Since she’d seen how clever he was with all the time-killing card games they’d played on The Adriatic, to see him in such a losing streak was a little shocking.

She’d just lost a hand by throwing away a perfectly good pair of sevens and removed her last stocking, wiggling her toes at him just before tossing the stocking onto his shoulder. He plucked it off, biting his lip nervously.

With only bloomers and a chemise remaining, she merely had to manage two more horrible deals before she’d be completely naked. However, since she’d lost quite a few hands in a row, she’d need to let him lose one or two along the way.

“Are you getting tired, darling?” William gave a horribly fake yawn and stretched his arms upwards. “I find myself terribly fatigued.”

“You’re not getting out of this quite yet, husband.” She slapped their cards down on the bed. After a few moments of scrutinizing his cards, he asked for three. She discarded an ace and a king before dealing their cards.

He adjusted the bed cover nervously as she reached over to pluck the protected tumbler from his hand, taking a deep sip before showing her hand.

“Bupkiss,” she said. Which wasn’t entirely true. She’d had the misfortune to collect a queen on her draw.

“My highest card is an eight. I’m afraid you win again,” William said, with a relieved sigh, as he unbuttoned his dress shirt. After he shrugged out of it, he hung it on the back of the chair where he’d carefully draped the rest of his clothes. He’d been running his hand through his hair so often that it was a tangled mess of curls. He returned to their bed wearing an undershirt and trousers fastened with suspenders.

“We’re practically dressed for bed now. Aren’t you feeling sleepy, dear?” He watched her cautiously.

She shook her head. “I’m pretty much feeling the opposite of tired. I’m feeling … excited, aroused even.” And she was. Even through the false sense of euphoria brought on by booze, she felt a genuine pull towards him. He watched her cautiously, his rumpled hair and sun burned arms called for her fingers, but she kept a tight grip on her cards – for now.

“I feel I owe you an apology,” William began nervously as she dealt another round.

“Why?”

“For the disaster of the play tonight, of course. I don’t understand all of the differences you must encounter, but I know that it must be extremely difficult at times.”

“It’s not … oh, how to explain?” She sighed, throwing away the beginnings of a royal flush. The alcohol was loosening her tongue at the same time it was muddling her thoughts. “It’s not just the racism or the sexism. It’s the … differentness, William.”

“How so, love?” The earnestness in his blue-eyed gaze made her feel extremely uncomfortable, and she took another burning sip from the tumbler.

“Ah Sin? The foreigner? The joke? That’s me. That’s going to be me from now on. The one that nobody gets.”

He placed his cards down on the bedspread, face down and carefully reached up to trace his fingertips down her arm. “I’d like to think that I get you. At least, I’d like to try. I used to get you quite well.”

The look he was giving her was just about heartbreaking in its sincerity. Either that, or the booze was making her overly emotional. She suspected, hoped, it was the former, so she turned her attention back to the game.

“How many cards do you want?”

“One.” He pulled his hand from her arm and swallowed, returning his attention to his cards.

After dealing his card and her three, they showed their hands. He lost again, with a dismal five high.

“Lady Luck is treating you like a baby treats a diaper,” she said grumpily, as he stood up to remove his suspenders.

He nodded in confirmation but said nothing. Just as he was about to sit back down on the bed, she reached over to smooth out the bunched up covers. As she pulled on the bedspread, a small scattering of cards fluttered to the floor from the spot where he’d apparently tucked them between the folds of the blankets.

William looked horrified and miserable.

“Cheating?” Buffy was incensed. “You’ve been cheating at cards?”

He took a breath as if about to speak, then let it out in a whoosh. Opening his mouth as if to speak, he closed his lips, thinning them to a line and nodded.

“I can’t believe you’ve been cheating!”

He sat back down on the bed and folded his hands together, staring at the floor. “I forfeit. You win.”

“It’s not a matter of winning.” She was a boiling pot, and alcohol was her flame. “It’s a matter of cheating! And what’s worse, you’re so bad at it! You’ve been losing to me three to one!”

Then the truth of it began to shine through her booze-dimmed brain.

“You haven’t been trying to win. You were cheating to lose, weren’t you William? You didn’t have an ace up your sleeves. You had a two of clubs in the covers.”

He nodded miserably.

Sweet, honest William would turn to cheating so that she’d keep her clothes on? He’d go to those lengths to keep them from being intimate?

Her whiskeyfied emotions took another turn, and she felt a tear roll down her cheek. As her chin began to quiver, she quickly tightened her jaw so he wouldn’t see.

“Oh, love,” he began, but she leapt up before he could continue.

She reached her trunk and found her granny nightgown quickly, angrily tugging it over her head.

When she turned around he stood behind her, holding his trousers up with one hand while the other reached toward her. She batted it out of the way.

“Please, Buffy.”

“Please what?” she snapped.

“Darling, it’s just that you were acting so unlike yourself. So angry. I didn’t know what else to do. You’d lost so many hands and were undressing so rapidly – I feared that you’d regret it in the morning.”

“Regret what? Being naked in front of you?”

“Well, yes, love. And … it was selfish of me, I know, but I find it very difficult to control myself when you are in a state of undress. I feared we’d do something we’d regret.”

“What would that be, William?”

“That we’d make love,” he admitted, giving her a look of total honesty.

“You know you’re talking to me, right? The wife you’ve had sex with quite a few times.”

“But since … your change and your difficulty with remembering…” He trailed off.

“Since then,” she stepped towards him, poking him in the chest with an accusing finger, “you’ve seen me naked. On the ship you got very intimate with me when you were using the doctor’s handy ‘hysteria’ machine. And I returned the favor when you were locked in that stupid penis prison. You do remember that, don’t you?”

She stomped to bed and climbed in. As she yanked up the covers a few hidden cards flew into the air and fluttered to the ground with something that sounded to her like moral superiority

“I do remember, darling. Those moments are burned into my mind, my skin.”

“But from here on out, it’s ‘William’s Rules.’ No touching.” She glared up at him. “Sex has got to be on your timetable, not mine. You’re the man, and I’m just the female now. That’s how it works in this age, isn’t it?”

William looked as though she’d slapped him across the face.

“That’s not fair, Buffy.”

“It’s not?” Even as she said the words, she knew he was right. It wasn’t fair. If anyone had tried to dominate, it had been her, the bully manipulating him into sex. And yet she seemed to be unable to find a filter for her emotions, so she channeled all her lust into anger towards him.

She turned to face the wall. After a moment he turned off the lights, and she felt the bed dip when he climbed in behind her. She could feel him unwind and stretch out, spooning her without touching her body.

For some idiotic reason, which she suspected was primarily alcohol-related, the tears that she’d held onto so tightly began to flow freely down her cheeks.

Before the card game she’d felt lonely, wanting to connect with him on a purely physical level. But now she felt like a predatory bitch, trying to hector him into having sex against his wishes.

Through the veil of booze and tears, she could see very little besides her own guilt and misery. She was absolutely hopeless when it came to relationships. She drove them all away in the end. Poor William was damned, to be chained to her in a marriage.

She wept - not subtle tears and brave hidden whimpers, but with a gulping, shoulder shaking keening.

And his hands came, tenderly wrapping around her middle.

“Shhh, love. It’s all right.” He stroked her hair soothingly.

She didn’t deserve his care, his tender hands and kind words. She was acting like Bi-polar Betty tonight with the anger and the tears. Her drunkenness wasn’t a good enough excuse. Even sober she knew she didn’t deserve him, would ruin their relationship if her past was any indicator.

“Don’t comfort me.” Her voice was shaky and hitched as she spoke.

He thoroughly ignored her, nuzzling his nose against her neck. “I like comforting you. I suspect you like it, too.”

“I do, but you shouldn’t do it.”

“Um hmm,” he murmured in her ear. It sent deliciously fizzing sensations down her spine, like a sparkler.

Wiping her tears away with the back of her hand, she worked to get her quivering chin under control before turning to face him. As she shifted in bed, the world tilted, just a little – the alcohol toying with her equilibrium.

She screwed up her courage, and looked him in the eye. She suspected that he knew how much it cost her to face him when she caught his surprised expression.

“I’m sorry, William.”

“I love you, Buffy,” he said simply, inadvertently destroying her in the process, and her tears began anew.

He gathered her tightly in his arms, and she felt as if she was cradled safely from the world, even from her own machinations. As he often did, he reminded her of the sun: so bright to look at sometimes, so warm. Finally, like a trickling stream drying out under the sun that was William, her tears were depleted. She was spent.

“When you first came into my life, as Elizabeth, I once was quite drunk in front of you,” his baritone voice said, just above a whisper. He so rarely brought up her time as Elizabeth, that she pulled back to check his expression.

He smiled lovingly and continued. “At that point I’d not yet admitted I loved you, not even to myself. My confessions to you that night were stunning to both of us. You had the good grace to suggest I wouldn’t remember it in the morning, and I had the common sense to pretend I hadn’t. Perhaps, darling, tomorrow morning you could do the same.”

She nodded, feeling the room pitch and sway slightly. “Sounds like a good idea.”

“And since you’re going to forget this anyway…” He leaned down and tenderly brushed his lips along her jaw in a line of tiny kisses. When he reached her mouth, he deepened their kiss. His tongue licked the corners of her mouth and just as he began to nibble on her bottom lip, she pulled away.

“I have whiskey breath,” she grumbled.

“I like your whiskey breath.” He beamed a smile at her.

“So, you didn’t kiss me while I was half naked and seducing my ass off. You kiss me now, while I’ve got a runny nose and am wearing a godawful granny gown.” She shook her head, and the room tilted uncooperatively.

“I keep telling you, darling, we write our own rules.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Just remember, we’ll remember none of this in the morning.”

“Right. I’ll remember that I don’t remember it, knucklehead.”

He chuckled. “Sweet dreams, Buffy.”

She settled down in his arms, content. “’Night, love,” she replied, grateful to her core for the ‘no remembering what was said’ rule.

-------------------------------

Author's notes:

Will he do it? The next day is their last full day in NYC and his last day to bring on the woo. You will have your answer in the next thrilling installment.

Because starting next chapter, this becomes important

Back when I was plotting this story, I was beyond thrilled when I came across a guidebook written in 1879, specifically for people traveling to the Pacific coast via rail, in its nearly 500 pages of fantastically detailed glory. It’s the same book William was reading on The Adriatic. Honestly, my spastic geek status at this would surprise and disappoint you.

From this point on, I’ll be relying on it a great deal – from train time tables to menus, and I need to give it proper credit. My primary source (complete with racism!) is ‘The Pacific Tourist,’ by Henry T. Williams. I will also reference ‘Crofutt’s New Overland Tourist and Pacific Coast Guide’ by George Crofutt, (pub. 1880) who is as bigoted as Henry T. Williams yet who manages to be aggressively cheerful too! Like a creepy maiden, racist aunt!

These are available free online, if you think my time tables are wack – feel free to follow along.
Chapter 23 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Each of these women helped by beta'ing:  DoriansKitten, Minx DeLovely, Science and Lutamira.  Thanks to them for their proofing and wisdom.  Mistakes remain mine.  Amy did the banner.  You help with the inspiration with the feedback and the stuff!  Thanks all

Love knock'd one night at a gentleman's heart,

When his passions were snug asleep;

But they all jumped up with a terrible start,

All heels over head in a heap.   -McDonald Clarke-

 

Chapter 23

Buffy knelt on the bed, on all fours, while Spike pounded into her from behind.  Even without his voice in her ear, she’d have known it was him.  The slide of his cool chest against her back, the chipped black nail polish as his fingertips pressed into her arms, the chilled column of his cock driving into her from behind.

“Like this game, do you, pet?”  His words a frantic rumbling in her ear.

She shoved her rump against him, desperate to take more of him, to bring him to the center of her.  She quickened their pace – slamming against his cock with a steady thwack, thwack, thwack.

“Harder, Spike.  Rougher.”  She reached a hand behind, sinking her nails into a round globe of his buttocks.  She could feel him shiver, his cock twitching within her.

“God, you’re an animal.”  Twisting her hair in his fist, he shoved her face down into the bed and drove into her with a fresh ferocity.  He wrapped one arm around her middle, just to anchor her for the pounding.

“Love you, Buffy.”

She ignored his words, ignored all of him but those parts she needed.  She thrust her ass against him with increasing desperation.  Just as she began to feel the edges of her orgasm beginning to flutter around him, her pussy contracting in pleasure-pain … she woke.

In William’s arms.

Dear god.  Had that moment with Spike been a dream?  Or a memory?

She was lying on her side, with one leg tossed over his.  Her crotch was grinding against William’s hip, and she could tell by his unsteady, trembling breath that he wasn’t asleep.  Oh god.  Maybe she could just … pretend to still be asleep.  Or, better yet, levitate out of bed to hover down the hall and out of the hotel.

She stilled her hips and held her breath.

 

William’s Wooing:  Day Four

“Good morning, darling,” his baritone rumbled, sounding so like Spike that she could only wince in response.

His hand tangled in her hair, and he wove careful fingers through it in a manner that was fantastically soothing.  He leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Not really,” she muttered, wondering why no one had ever told her that horniness and hangovers were the recipe for humiliation.  Her stomach burbled a reminder of last night’s abuses, and she turned to face the wall.

He eased himself from their bed and went over to his trunk to dress for the day.

“Then I shall breakfast alone this morning, if you don’t mind.” 

Squeezing her eyes shut, she mentally thanked him for having the good grace to give her a little solo time.

Buffy remembered everything about the previous evening.  Last night she’d been naïve enough to worry that she’d wake up shamed, having no idea that she’d manage to do something in her sleep that would dwarf her previous debasement.

When she heard the click of the door latch behind him, she climbed out of bed shakily.  The floor felt as though she were still aboard The Adriatic, moving subtly beneath her cautious feet.  She wove a more or less direct path to her trunk, picking her rose-patterned dress, based on the simple fact that it was her least complicated dress to button.  Though her stomach threatened to spill its meager contents, it remained reluctantly cooperative.  As she dressed she began to get a better hold of her bearings; the merry-go-roundness of the room slowed, then stopped all together.

Since dressing while hungover was a fairly complicated procedure, she’d just finished buttoning her boots when William returned from his breakfast.

“I brought some toast for you,” he said, placing a neatly folded napkin on the small table by the bed.

“Thanks,” she said.  “What’s the plan today?”

“And ruin the surprise?  I couldn’t.  But we shall need hats.  You seemed to so enjoy our outing to Coney Island, and since it’s our last day in New York City, I thought another outdoor adventure might be in order.”

“Our last day, already?” 

He confirmed with a nod.  “Our train for Chicago leaves tomorrow morning.”

The news of it shouldn’t have rattled her.  It wasn’t as though she felt at home in New York City.  But it did seem as if the moment she settled into any kind of pattern or familiarity, everything upended again.

William reached over and patted her shoulder.  It was a strangely parental gesture and she couldn’t help but smile at him.  He could always sense it when she was disturbed, even when she was very careful to keep it under wraps. 

He gave her a grin of his own.  “And then you’ll be home again.  We’ll both be home – in California.”

“How long will the trip take?” she asked.

“To Chicago?  A day and a half.  Shocking, isn’t it?  Considering the distance, I’d imagined it to take a week or more.”

“And how long until California?”

“Assuming good connections and no troubles along the track, we should arrive approximately eight days after arriving in Chicago.”

“That’s no time at all.  When I played The Oregon Trail in fifth grade, it took months – and even then most of my crew died of dysentery.  I’m impressed, William.” She finished tying her hair into a simple knot.  “So … hats today?”

“Yes, and you may wish to bring a parasol.”

“Oh, hell no.  I draw the line at straw hats.”

He leaned down and deftly stripped the top sheet off their bed, folding it carefully before stuffing it into the satchel he’d brought to the beach with them a few days ago.

“You’re stealing hotel sheets?” she asked.

“Borrowing,” he corrected, adding a small guidebook to the satchel.

Buffy couldn’t help but feel a little stunned by his actions.  The shy man she thought she knew had devolved into a sheet-stealing card cheat in the last twenty-four hours.  Just when she thought she had a grip on who he was, he found a way to surprise her.

“If you’re ready, we can leave for our outing.  I think you’ll be extremely fond of our manner of conveyance.  It’s quite modern!”

“I can’t wait,” Buffy said, surprising herself by meaning it.  His enthusiasm was endearing and absolutely contagious.

After a quick trip through the lobby and a short stroll of a few city blocks, William led her into a small grocery, informing her that they’d need to gather supplies for a picnic.  They selected some meats, cheeses and rolls.  She also picked up a couple of peaches and a small cluster of grapes by way of hydration, since bottled water seemed out of the question.  After they added their purchases to the satchel, they left the shop.

They walked another block and a half, then he turned and guided her up a wide set of stairs which opened out onto a platform three stories above the city streets.

“The elevated train!”  William announced.  “Or the ‘El’ as the locals call it.  It’s fantastically modern and efficient.  It costs only ten cents to ride anywhere within the city – making it convenient for all manner of people.  I knew you would like the egalitarian nature of the thing.”

“Well, I like horses as well as the next person, but this looks like a nice change of pace.”

They didn’t wait long before the steaming engine roared into the station, sprinkling a shower of ash and soot on the poor unfortunates below.  Modern conveyance, my ass, she thought.

Jostled and slightly ash-covered, they worked their way inside, where they managed to find a seat in the middle of the car.  Immediately after they’d settled, a striking red-headed woman approached William.

“Is this seat taken?”  She gestured at the small bit of bench next to him.

“Oh, please,” William stammered as he began to stand. 

Red-head waved her hand in the air.  “No, don’t get up.  I’m sure I can fit.” 

The hussy wriggled in next to Buffy’s husband, then turned to him with a bright smile.  “Are you English, perhaps?  I thought I detected a British accent just then.”

He nodded, clearly uncomfortable.  This did nothing to discourage Red, however.

“I know, I know.  I’m too friendly, even by American standards.  But you English with your little accents and standoffish manners.  I can’t help but find it so charming.”

William blushed furiously while Buffy felt a green-eyed monster stretch to life and let out a roar inside her head.  I’m the one who makes William blush like that.  Nobody else has a right to it.  Grinding her jaw shut, she fired a glare at the intruder.

Red held a gloved hand out to William. “I’m sorry.  I should properly introduce myself, shouldn’t I?  I’m Miss Violet Shedd, of Brooklyn.  And you are?”

“Fingerbottom,” Buffy interrupted, laying on a thick English accent.  She reached across William and grabbed the woman’s hand in what she hoped was a fantastically painful grip.  “Reginald Fingerbottom.  And I am his wife … Penelope.”

“Ah,” Red said, wincing as she worked her hand free from Buffy’s grasp.

“You’re here on vacation, I suppose?”  Miss Shedd addressed her question to William, who appeared to be occupied with staring a hole into the floorboards and was in no condition to respond.

“Yes,” Buffy replied.  “We needed a break from the routine, you know.  Doing things on our estate with the hounds and the scones and the … wrangling of serfs hither and yon.  It can be fantastically tiring.”

Violet blinked at her.  “I can well imagine.”

The El rumbled along, and an uneasy silence fell around them.  Violet took a sudden interest in looking out the window while William remained transfixed by the railcar’s floor.  Buffy watched Violet like a cat looking out the window at a bird feeder.

When the train sighed to a halt at a particularly popular station, Violet stood and shook out her skirts.

“Pleasure to meet you,” the red-head mumbled, giving William a tight nod.

“Tally-ho,” Buffy said enthusiastically, watching the door close behind Violet’s retreat.

He shook his head, recovering at last.  “That may well have been the worst English accent I’ve ever heard.”

“Whatever,” she shrugged.

“And ‘tally-ho’ is not a way we say goodbye.  It’s a fox hunting term, dear, although strangely appropriate considering your attitude during the encounter.”

“It beat ‘skanky-ho,’ which would have been way more fitting.”

“You know, darling, my eyes only see you.  You needn’t be jealous.”

“Jealous?”  She scoffed.  “I wasn’t jealous.”

“Of course, Mrs. Fingerbottom.  Whatever,” he mimicked, not even having the decorum to hide his laughter.

After a few more stops, the train rumbled to a stop which appeared to be the end of the line, as the car emptied entirely.  They followed the crowd off the train.

Green-Wood Cemetery, the sign read.

“For real?  A cemetery, William?”  She grinned at him.

“It’s the second most popular tourist destination in New York, just behind Niagara Falls.  It’s quite famous; Central Park was based on its design.”

“So, that’s why you brought me here?”  She felt a twinge of disappointment.

“Not quite.”  He blushed and led her down an uncrowded path, tucking her arm in his, while he carried their picnic lunch beneath his other arm.

“Why then?”  She pried.

“Because I thought the slayer in you might appreciate such a place.  That you might feel at ease here.”

His thinking of spending a day at a cemetery was as odd as it was perfect.  She couldn’t imagine a place she’d rather be.  It felt strangely comforting to be walking amidst the tombstones … with him.

Green-Wood was a delightful garden, she had to admit.  It was thickly forested, providing shaded pathways wending their way past flower-lined ponds.  It was worlds away from the grass-covered parking lots that Sunnydale had called cemeteries.   She grinned and squeezed his arm.

He’d clearly been reading up on the cemetery.  As they strolled past a crypt-lined pond, he pointed out which ones were adorned with Tiffany glass.  They paused for a long while to admire a curious tomb that was shaped like an Egyptian pyramid.

After a long walk through the ponds, they made their way through the more forested area of the cemetery, where the graves were few and far between.  When they did appear, they tended to be monumental, with a small gate and garden around them.  Even better, there were relatively few people around and it felt as though they were in a private sanctuary of their own making.

Buffy was especially charmed by a grave for Do-hum-me, an Indian princess of the Iowa tribe, according to the stone.  Carved into her tombstone was a profile of the brave who loved her, head bowed in mourning.

On a small mound next to the princess was another monument which held William’s attention.  McDonald Clarke, read the inscription.

“The Mad Poet,” William said solemnly.

“Was he famous?”  Buffy asked.

“Not particularly.  He was a great inspiration to Walt Whitman, however.”

“How did he die?”

“He was never of the most stable mind, sadly.  He died as a victim of some cruel youths.”

He shook his head, then tilted a look toward her.  “But today is for brighter things, love.  Does this spot agree with you for a picnic?  Without breakfast, you must be famished.”

“Looks great,” she said, realizing that she really was feeling pretty ravenous.

William unpacked the satchel until he came to the sheet, which he unfolded with a snap before laying it out upon the grass beneath the branches of an elm. 

The last vestiges of her hangover had been burned away by the sun, and she was beginning to feel more like herself again.  She sat on the sheet and stretched her legs out with a sigh - the perfect way to spend a day.

Before William unpacked their picnic, he untucked two cloth napkins from his pocket, pilfered from the breakfast buffet no doubt; her formerly innocent husband’s proclivities towards criminal activities caught her off guard once again.  He laid out the meats and cheeses, then settled in close by her side.

Though William ate slowly, Buffy had a hard time finding the brakes.  She busily made the rolls into mini-sandwiches with the kind of dedicated determination usually reserved for Subway employees.

After tucking away her third mini-wich, she noticed William looking at her.  It was the look he reserved for when he thought she wasn’t looking – absolute honesty mixed with adoration.  As usual, it made her slightly uncomfortable, so she resorted to her go-to solution of inane chatter to distract him.

“Why aren’t you wearing your glasses today?”

“I don’t strictly require them, except for reading.”  He popped a grape into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.  “You encouraged me to stop wearing them when I knew you as Elizabeth.”

“Why did I do that?”

He smoothed out the blanket and his eyes wore a kind of smiling expression.  “Initially, you said because it was easier to kiss when I wasn’t wearing them.   Later you said that you thought I used them as a way to distance myself from others.  That I used them as a barrier, a protection.”

“I said that?”  She was incredulous.  On the rare occasions when he would talk about her as Elizabeth, she felt like a pale shadow of the more enlightened, Obi-Wan version of herself. 

She let out her breath with a whoosh and squinted out to the harbor, sunlight flashing off the water in the distance. 

He reached over, threading his fingers through hers.

“You hold a great store of wisdom, love.  You just underestimate yourself.  Need I remind you how well you handled our situation on the ship when Dru made an appearance?”

“Well sure,” she scoffed.  “When it comes to things like that I’ve got it handled.  It’s the other stuff that I tend to make a mess of.”

“What stuff?” he asked, as he plucked a grape from the cluster and held it up to her. She parted her lips, and he slid the fruit into her mouth. 

“The relationshipy stuff.”

He lifted her hand to his mouth, then kissed the back of it tenderly, his bright blue eyes watching her carefully every moment.  “You’ll get no complaints from me.”

“Was I good with the relationship stuff as her?  As Elizabeth?”

“I keep telling you, Buffy.  You’re her, my love, my wife.  I see no difference.  But if it eases your mind, yes, we had our troubles.”

“We did?”  She knew she shouldn’t have sounded quite so overjoyed at the news, but she couldn’t help herself.

He laughed and squeezed her hand.  “Indeed, we did.  The thing that matters is that we got through them.”

“For how long, though?”

He raised a brow at her.

“I mean, William, how long had we even been together?”

He looked thoughtful for a moment before responding.  “Just over six months.  Dear God, has it really only been that short a time?”

She shook her head.  He was so utterly convinced of them as a couple, yet he hadn’t really known either version of her for very long.  Maybe if ‘Elizabeth’ had been given enough time she’d have fucked this up as surely as Buffy was bound to.

Feeling uncomfortable with her sudden burst of talkativeness, she reached over to grab a peach.  As she bit into the juicy flesh, she felt a small trickle of juice run down her chin.  She reached a finger up to catch it, then slipped her fingertip into her mouth.  William watched her with a look of such hunger on his face that it startled her for a moment.

“Want some of my peach?”  She held it out to him, but he didn’t take it from her.  Instead, he leaned down and bit into the flesh of the peach slowly, watching her carefully through half closed eyelids.

Once his teeth had bitten through the fruit, she pulled it back, her breath catching in her throat.  It was another one of those moments that happened between them from time to time – when they would change on a dime, going from innocence to eroticism in an instant.  The experience was like a kind of time-traveling in its own way, and she had no idea where the portals lay that caused the shift.

“I wish you would tell me,” he said.

“Tell you what?” she asked, perplexed.

“Some of what you’re thinking.  I’d settle for half.  I see a thousand thoughts flying about behind your eyes, but you let very little slip from between your lips.”

He tilted a look at her, giving her a half-smile and looking so hopeful that she had no resistance to it.

“I was thinking about Elizabeth,” she admitted.  And it wasn’t entirely untrue.  She’d been thinking of her just before she’d been mesmerized by how fantastically sensual he looked while eating a peach.

“Well, that is fortuitous.  I was thinking of her as well.”

“You were?”  She sounded as disappointed as she felt, damn her voice.

“About how you persist in thinking that you’re different people.”  He sat up and leaned over to root around inside the satchel as he continued.  “I had intended to give this to you today, during our picnic.  I suppose now would be the time for it.”

He withdrew a black jewelry gift box from the confines of the bag.  Immediately she felt her heartbeat begin to pound away inside her throat, like a rabbit trapped in a snare, thump-thump-thump.

“Oh!  Err!”  She attempted to stand, but was thwarted by her dress and landed back on the sheet with an umph.  If she had her way, if she hadn’t been slowed down by her evil skirts, she’d be bounding off, Nike-style, halfway across the cemetery.

“Please,” he looked at her, raw and all defenses down, his lips thinned to a worried line.  She had no choice but to still her nervous attempts at fleeing.  Clenching her hands into fists and balling up the sheet, she willed herself to stay.

“I had this made for you.  I hoped that it would be something to remind you of how much I adore you.  You, Buffy.” 

He pressed the jewelry box into her hand.

“Oh William, I have a wedding ring already.  You didn’t need to …” She stalled.

“It’s not a ring, love.”  He smiled tenderly.

She opened the lid. 

Nestled down within folds of black satin, a silver necklace winked at her.  Slipping her fingers inside the box, she pulled it out and held it up to examine in the sunlight.  The necklace was made of an intricate chain and featured a small token dangling from the center:  a delicate silver stake, about a half inch in length.

“Is this a … stake?”

He beamed a smile at her.  “It is, exactly.”

A stake.

Not a cross, to protect her from evil.  A stake, to celebrate the slayer that she had been – the slayer that he knew her still to be, deep inside. 

Her eyes filled with tears in an instant, coursing out and splashing down her cheeks.  Even though she wasn’t supposed to remember her drunken antics, she knew – and she felt the fool, knowing it was the second time she’d wept within a day.

He lifted a gentle hand to her cheek, rubbing her tears away with his thumb.

“May I put it on you?”

Not trusting herself to speak, she nodded and scooted around on the blanket so that her back was to him.  He placed the necklace around her throat, his fingers soft against the back of her neck when he fastened the clasp.

He leaned down, his breath warm against her ear.  “And you should know, since you’re always comparing yourself to ‘Elizabeth,’ that you handled this magnificently just now.  Back when I gave you the ring, it was something of a disaster.”  He placed a bold kiss on top of her heard.  “You weren’t a saint, then or now, Buffy.  Neither am I.  It’s good to keep that in mind, I think.”

“I’m an ass,” she admitted, as she turned around.  “Thank you.  I didn’t even thank you.”

He chuckled.  “I don’t know.  I think ‘I’m an ass’ might soon replace ‘thank you’ in these situations.  And you’re most welcome, love.”  His eyes flashed down to where the necklace lay against her throat.  “It suits you – delicate and deadly, just like my Buffy.”

It came to her then in an instant, like waking up and finding her house on fire. 

She was his Buffy and he was her William.  She loved him.

She’d probably loved him for a while, if she’d stopped long enough to be honest with herself.  Maybe it had been imprinted on her brain, like the synapse highways she’d learned about in Psychology class.  Maybe it was just his constant wearing down of her walls with his love, his Williamness.   Or maybe she’d never know why, because maybe ultimately nobody ever knew why.

She loved him.

And now she had to decide what to do about it. 

 

 ---------------------------------

Author’s Notes:

 

Not my blog, but there are some lovely photos of Green-Wood here! If this hyperlink works this time, it's because of Passion4Spike, so thanks P4S!!

AlsoMcDonald Clark, the Mad Poet, was very real.  He was a very eccentric character who lived on the outskirts of the social circles of NYC in the mid-nineteenth century.  People described him as being “as innocent as a child,” gentile, inoffensive, always mild and always happy.  He carried a torch for a young woman, but it was unrequited love.  When a group of youths led him to believe that she cared for him too, they let him down very cruelly, leading to his breakdown and admission to an asylum.  Eventually, a policeman found him destitute and put him in a jail cell where he drowned himself with an open faucet.

This may have been going through William’s mind when he looked at that grave.  And McDonald’s story so echoed William’s original story that I had to tell you.


Chapter 24 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Lutamira, Science, DoriansKitten and Capella did the beta and many thanks to them. Mistakes? Mine still. Minx DeLovely helped a lot and wrote this lovely poem just out of the blue because she’s like that! Thanks to Amy for the banner.
All my lovers are but one.
The girl who stole glances with a furtive frown
the one who be-puddinged my uncle a dripping crown
Innocently knowing she held my hands
Her mind a passport to unfathomed lands

A mind which then betrayed her
She, the displaced warrior with her flashing eyes
saw in my oaths of love a proof of lies.
I had never deserved my radiant love
So her heart was stolen from above.

Leaving her soul within its perfect form.
Indifferent to me, she will not warm.
And yet my home is she,
Alone together we must be. -William Pratt-
(as written by the lovely Minx DeLovely)



Chapter 24

One step closer to her – that was all William wanted. One more step in the dance. He feared he’d pressed Buffy too far, too fast, however.

After giving her the necklace in the cemetery, she’d gone so silent that he was at a loss, once again, as to the cause. She smiled at him, watched him carefully, but seemed to have sunk down beneath the surface where he could only guess at her thoughts and intentions.

They journeyed back to the hotel by mid-afternoon and made final arrangements for their departure the next morning. He’d telegraphed the Pennsylvania Railroad to secure their seats, guaranteeing them the forward-facing pair, which would convert into the lower sleeping bunk. According to his guidebook the lower bunk would afford them the greatest comfort, although how privacy was accommodated in the Pullman car was something he couldn’t quite comprehend.

Buffy was as reserved at dinner as she’d been for most of the day. She wasn’t pulling away from him, precisely, for she watched him carefully as they dined and when they left the dining room, she didn’t wait for him to offer his arm, but reached out to grasp it without invitation.

When he suggested that she take an opportunity to bathe that evening, as there would be little opportunity to do so on their journey, she seemed most eager to do so. She returned to the room smelling faintly of roses. Damp tendrils of hair clung to her neck in a most tantalizing manner. He longed to trace a fingertip down that bit of damp hair, following a line to her delicate collarbone where her skin glowed a bright pink from the hot water. And where his fingertip had gone, the tip of his tongue could then follow. Would she taste like roses or peaches, he wondered, and he felt his cock harden at the thought.

“… would you like to have a turn?” She asked, green eyes flashing.

“A … turn?” He muttered stupidly.

“A bath, William.” A small smile played at the corners of her mouth.

“Oh, yes. Of course, yes.” He gathered some items at random, hoping that some of them would be appropriate to the task and made his way down the hall to the bathing room.

He bathed in relatively quick order, scrubbing his skin until it nearly shone and soaping his hair as well. After toweling off, he dressed minimally – leaving off his waistcoat and not bothering with fastening his cuffs as he’d be readying for bed momentarily.

When he returned to their room he expected to find her in her nightgown, possibly even abed. She was not, however. She was still in her rose-patterned gown, standing in the precise spot he’d left her. She turned to look at him and smiled, but maintained the strange silence that had begun when he’d given her the necklace.

He’d clearly made her uncomfortable with the gift. It had been intended to show his deep affection for her as Buffy, but he should have known that she would find his advances too invasive. Like an overeager schoolboy, he’d pushed too hard. How could he consider himself a lover, a husband when he was so clumsy when it came to her heart? Damn his foolish efforts.

What he needed was the right thing to talk about – to ease them into a much needed conversation about their relationship. While he’d been bathing, he’d come up with the perfect topic.

“I meant to thank you for your quick thinking earlier today, on the El train.”

“I was thinking on the El?” She shook her head.

“When that young woman approached me. On our return trip, I watched a similar encounter with another gentleman. I do believe she was after the man’s purse.”

“Like a pickpocket?”

“Precisely. I believe your intervention quite saved the day and frightened her off.”

She smiled, looking just a little bit smug, and brought her hand up to her neckline to allow a fingertip to toy with the silver stake dangling from her necklace. It wasn’t the action of a woman who was displeased with her gift, so why had it brought this strange silence from her?

He placed his clothes in his trunk before turning to face her.

“Buffy, I’d like to speak with you about something, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh good,” she said, relief writ large across her expression. “I wanted to talk to you, too.”

“You did?” He swallowed, and his heartbeat thudded strangely in his throat.

She nodded and took a step toward him. “You first.”

“Ah, well. Yes.” She looked at him expectantly. “It was about the necklace I’d given you. I fear that it may have not been an entirely appropriate choice, and if it has given offense for some reason, you should know that I would never…”

“What?” She cut him off. “William, I cherish this. Don’t you know that? You can’t apologize for it.”

“I just didn’t understand why you had gone so silent since I’d given it to you, love.”

Buffy bit her lip. Her white teeth pulling her plump bottom lip into her mouth made his cock thicken slightly, base creature that he was.

She stepped towards him, then reached out and wove her fingertips into the damp curls just above his ear.

“It’s me who should apologize, William. I love the gift. It’s my favorite piece of jewelry that I’ve ever gotten – yes, even above my wedding band. I’m sorry that I went so silent. I was just … processing things, I guess.”

Her unique way with words stuck him, as they always did. Just then she made her mind sound like a factory, busily manufacturing thoughts.

When she took a step closer to him, he found it difficult to breathe, to look at her, yet he maintained his gaze. She leaned up, ever so slowly, and pressed her mouth to his. Her breath sighed out against his skin as her lips brushed against his.

His arms moved about her waist of their own accord, tugging her closer to him. His skin, still warm from the bath, felt as though it was radiating heat, spiraling warmth from his body to hers.

She slid the tip of her tongue along his bottom lip, tracing it in a line before tugging it into her mouth and sucking on it gently. He felt his legs begin to tremble at that, and his cock reacted immediately, twitching and begging for attention.

Her hands threaded through his hair, tugging him closer to her. He went willingly, like water down a drain.

It was she who broke the embrace, pulling back and looking delightfully disheveled. Her cheeks were glowing, and her lips were slightly swollen from their kissing.

She panted slightly as she spoke. “There was something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Yes.” He was delighted to find his voice still functioned, but thought not to push his luck and say more than that.

She took a deep breath before letting it out in a whoosh. “It’s about … well…”

Since his arm was still about her waist, he squeezed her in what he hoped was a reassuring manner.

“It’s about sex, really,” she blurted. “And the wooing thing. See, I know you said that you wanted a chance to woo, and the thing is…”

He winced.

God, not this. So this was what had caused her to become so silent - his foolish rules regarding sex. Looking at her face, he felt such shame. He’d hoped a chance to woo her might help restore some of what he knew they could be together – but from her point of view, he could very well see it as seeming to her as emotional blackmail. That he was forcing her to give her heart before they could truly live as a married couple.

“I love you, Buffy,” he said, fool enough to dive in completely. When she tried to interrupt, he continued. “I know that I had asked for an attempt to gain your love before we commenced marital relations, darling – but you should know, you were under no obligation whatsoever to do so.”

She looked at him and cocked her head. “There were a lot of commencing and whatsoevers in that sentence, William. What is it you want to say?”

“I love you and I want you, Buffy. I asked for a chance to woo you, and you’ve given me that chance. Thank you.” He leaned down to kiss her tenderly on the cheek.

“But that’s the thing, William. With the whole ‘love you’ package. The deal is …”

“Please, darling. You needn’t say another word. In fact, I ask you not to. Any declarations of your feelings at this juncture would feel somewhat forced, would make me feel even more of a cad.”

She opened her mouth again as if to speak, then sighed out another breath. “What do you want, William?”

“You, if you’ll have me.”

She reached out and began to toy with the buttons of his shirt, slipping one and then the other free. He could only watch her fingertips working through the white fabric – imagining what they would feel like against his skin.

When she freed the last button, she slid the shirt off his shoulders and lay it on top of his open trunk. Palms open, she slid her hands up his arms until her fingertips gripped his forearms tightly; her hands were a balm – radiating from his arms to the center of his chest.

She untucked his undershirt and slipped her hands beneath the hem to run teasing patterns along his abdomen. He hissed his approval, then found enough of his mind to reach out to her, placing trembling fingers against the buttons at her throat.

He looked at her, questioningly. “May I, Buffy?”

An indulgent smile bloomed on her face. “Yes, William, you may.” He knew she thought him to be hopelessly old fashioned in these matters, yet he dared hope she was not irritated at his request.

Working as quickly as his shaking hands would allow, he slid her buttons free at both bodice and wrist, then eased her dress down. Buffy tugged her petticoat down to join the gown, then draped the pair over the back of the chair.

She was wearing a dark pink chemise and bloomers set. Since she’d dressed so quickly following her bath, it clung to damp portions of her skin in the most tantalizing manner. Her nipples pressed against the satin, and the material clung to the globe of her breasts. At the apex of her thighs he could see her curls, damp and dark, clearly visible through the thin fabric.

Buffy stepped closer to him, with an almost shy expression on her face. He leaned down and began to kiss a line from her collarbone , up her throat, to her earlobe – where he bit, very carefully, in the spot where the shell of her ear began, in that sensitive spot which always drove her wild.

“God, William!” she groaned, growing slack in his arms. “That is … holy god. How did you know how to …?” Threading her fingers through his hair, she tugged him closer. “Mmm, do that. More.”

As he carefully tended to her ear, nibbling it gently as his fingertips teased up the hem of her chemise to dip into her bellybutton in that way that made her wriggle, the uniqueness of their situation dawned on him.

Although he had made love with Buffy/Elizabeth many times, although she’d taught him every step of the dance, she had never made love with him before. The truth and power of that thought swept through him like a gale.

He felt his legs tremble at the awe of it - to see her experience them for the first time. To teach her the ways of pleasure that she’d taught him.

When he pulled back from her, he was panting and could feel his cheeks burning.

“Bend down, William. I want to try that with you.”

He had no choice but to comply. Buffy’s lips whispered gentle kisses along his throat and up to his ear. Her breath filled his ear and it felt like sunshine. When her teeth began to bite gently on his earlobe, he felt as though her mouth was attached to an invisible cord that ran directly through the center of his body to his cock. With each nibble of her teeth, his cock would bob, a puppet on a string.

“Perhaps …” he suggested, “… bed?” He’d hoped to be able to hold onto the ability to form sentences, but as usual, his wife had a talent for making him lose his way around the English language.

She sat down on their bed while he removed his bracers, trousers, shoes and socks. After he turned off the light, he went to the window and pulled back the curtain enough to dimly illuminate the room by city glow.

When he joined her on the bed, he positioned himself to sit behind her, so that she rested between his knees, with her back to him. Very gently, he began removing her hairpins. For all the erotic hopes he’d had for the night, this simple nightly tradition was a thing he’d missed dearly.

After removing a hairpin, he’d gently lay her hair down, kissing her shoulder or a bit of neck each time. She would coo or wriggle pleasantly against his groin with each removal. As he removed the last pin, he found the words he’d been looking for.

“Buffy, I should wish to consider your wishes as far as procreational matters are concerned,” he said, sounding every bit as awkward as he felt.

She turned to look at him with a disappointed expression. “I don’t think of this as recreational, William.”

“Ah, no, darling. I mean to say, when we make love, I should wish to consider your feelings about, well … making a baby, to put it bluntly.”

Dawn broke across her face. “Oh that!” She paused for a moment, but she did not look away to consider his words, as was her usual style. She looked directly at him. It was wonderful and extremely unnerving at the same time.

“We should probably just do whatever we did when we had sex before, in the time I can’t remember. What’d we do then?”

His breath caught in his throat at that. For the first time since the incident, she hadn’t referred to that time as ‘when I was Elizabeth.’ When she referred to it instead as, ‘that time I can’t remember,’ it was the first real step he’d seen that she had accepted the truth and could see herself as one being: Elizabeth and Buffy.

He swallowed and attempted to place a calm and steady demeanor upon his face.

“We took no precautions, Buffy. You said you weren’t entirely certain that slayers had the ability to bear children, but you’d said that should it happen, you wouldn’t mind that. I certainly understand, however, given our current circumstances …”

All his words and thoughts were cut off immediately when his wife placed a hand on each of his legs, then ran her fingertips up his inner thighs towards his groin.

As she leaned up, she whispered into his mouth, “Don’t overthink it, William,” before slipping her tongue past his teeth and sliding it against his in a most erotic fashion.

“I … gah,” William heard himself respond.

Since she was still encircled by his legs, he took advantage of that fact and tightened them around her thighs, causing her to lean back. When she did so, he leaned down to capture her nipple, which was pushing out the satin fabric like a button. After suckling on one, to her enthusiastic groans, he took the other in his mouth while he rubbed the damp material against her other breast.

He shuddered when her hands reached beneath his undershirt and skated along his abdomen, causing the muscles to bunch and jump in response. She tugged the hem of it upwards, and he quickly complied, removing the garment.

“You’re really very nice to look at,” she said, running her palm across his chest. Again, saying the most perplexing things and keeping him totally off guard. Lifting her hand to his face, she traced a fingertip along his eyebrow and smiled. “Even if you had a scar there, you’d still be a striking man.”

“I find myself rather speechless, Buffy. Instead of finding words, I can only feel my heart in my throat and you’re the one doing the talking. I suspect we’re doing this a bit backwards, love.”

“Don’t we always?” She had him there – she really did.

The necklace he’d given her winked at him, and he leaned down to deliver a line of kisses along her throat, feeling the thrum of her heartbeat beneath his lips. When her sighs became frantic, and she began to tug his hair, he licked a bold line between her breasts, still clinging to her damp flesh.

She tugged her chemise up and off her head, then shook her hair out before wriggling up his lap to give him a passionate kiss. When she’d finished she was panting and her green eyes seemed to illuminate the small space between them. She pulled his bottom lip into her mouth and began to suckle it while her fingernails traced teasing patterns on his pectorals.

William placed an arm behind her and maneuvered her down on the bed, so her head fell upon a pillow. Her hair was in disarray, and her breasts were rising and falling with her heavy breath, creating a most fetching spectacle. He paused. He wanted so to tell her what this meant to him, what she meant to him. He wanted to thank her for her bravery throughout all of this, her trust. But when he opened his mouth to speak of it, he made the mistake of looking at her again.

Her gaze was a lighthouse in his storm and she was smiling. She was giving him a patient expression. One that seemed full of love, at least to his besotted eyes. She tilted her head and graced him with a beguiling gaze. So despite his better self, who told him to take a moment and quote poetry to her, or thank her for her patience and wisdom through their storm or do a thousand other things besides make love with his wife, his baser self took command and answered her come hither smile instead.

He leaned down and began licking long strokes under each breast, like a jungle cat. She’d taught him how much it pleased her when he’d done that in the past. Her eyes widened and she gasped “William!” before becoming monosyllabic.

William sucked a nipple into his mouth, delighted there was no longer a satin barrier between his tongue and her sensitive flesh. He wriggled his tongue against it rapidly, until her hips began to twitch slightly in response, then he brought it deep into his mouth, alternatively suckling it and teasing the tip with his tongue.

Her breath was coming in shaking gulps, when he slid his fingertips to the drawstring of her bloomers. With one careful tug the bow came free. He urged her hips off the bed and slipped her satin garment off before quickly sliding his drawers to the floor.

The dark curls at the juncture of her thighs were damp and glistened in the faint light – he couldn’t tell if it was from her bath or arousal. Nestling between her legs, he laid his head down on her thigh and closed his eyes, inhaling her scent and capturing this moment in a mental tintype as well as his jittering mind could manage.

When he pressed the pad of his fingertips against her inner thigh, she jumped slightly. He soothed her with a bouquet of kisses to her thigh until her could feel her bunched muscles begin to grow slack. He wanted her to tense, but not yet.

When he nuzzled his nose in her curling hair, he felt her ass muscles clench. “Shhh, love. Relax. Let me …” he murmured, finding words at long last.

Her breath came whooshed out a shuddering sign and he felt her body grow lax beneath his hands. Very gently, he traced a line around her labia with his fingertip. Since words seemed to ease her, he kept up a string of soft praise. “So pretty, Buffy. God, how I’ve missed you, missed us.”

Slipping a finger between her folds, he rubbed a path around her clitoris as she shivered her approval. When he leaned in to tease the bud with the tip of his tongue, she groaned his name.

As his tongue wriggled against her clit, he slipped his finger inside her moist channel, her hips rising slightly on the invasion as she cooed her acquiescence. He continued to flick his tongue against the bundle of nerves while he slipped a second finger into her. Eagerly, her hips rose to meet him and her breath came out as a ragged sigh.

“William! I…” she looked at him frantically.

He pulled his mouth from his administrations long enough to assure her. “I’ve got you, love.”

When he began to tap his two fingers up and down within her channel, she lifted her hips off the bed frantically. He met her need by speeding up his tempo and replacing his teasing tongue with fingers, pressing against her clitoris and squeezing.

“William, I need to … Can I …?”

“Show me, Buffy.”

Placing the palm of her hand in the center of his chest, she pushed him backward gently, so he was now laying lengthwise in their bed, but with his feet at the head. His cock stood up like a ship’s mast. She climbed up the length of him, delivering teasing licks, her tongue hot on his skin.

Once she was positioned over him, on all fours like a feral cat with her prize, she kissed him with a ferocity that left him panting. She then reached down to take his cock in her hand, the touch of her almost causing him to weep in relief.

Holding his cock in one hand, she at up and positioned herself so that his sensitized tip brushed against her dark curls. He couldn’t help but whimper as he watched her lips spread further apart and take him in – a most intimate kiss. She inched downward agonizingly slowly, impaling herself on him. When she’d completely lowered herself onto him, swallowing his cock completely, she swiveled her hips deliciously. He could feel his penis twitch and tug, held tightly by her walls – the invisible string running through his center felt attached and more sensitive than ever.

With a sigh, she raised her hips slightly, pulling herself up and away from him, before sliding back down on his groin with a delicious friction that made his breath come in gulps.

Helpless to do anything else, he grasped her hips in both hands, not to guide her movements, but to hold on for the ride.

She leaned forward and placed her palms on his chest, flexing her hands and causing her fingernails to dig in just slightly, a kitten wanting to play. He let out a shuddering sigh and felt his cock twitch inside her again.

Her hair splayed about by her movements, swaying against her bouncing breasts. Her nipples played a game of hide-and-seek between her tangled tresses as she undulated against him.

His climax was building and he couldn’t help but clench her hips a little tighter as he rose to meet her in an ever quickening pace. She was just ahead of him in that race, however. As she bucked upwards, he could feel her inner muscles begin to flex around his cock just as she slid down, impaling herself to the hilt once more.

“Oh, William, I’m …” Her eyes fluttered open and she met his gaze while she ground her pubic bone against him. Her channel walls clenched around him tightly for just a moment, then twitched in a series of little seizures that sent him completely over the edge. His balls tightened and he poured himself into her with a long burst and a shout. Just when he thought he was spent, another spasm of pleasure shot through his balls and out through the tip of his cock, coming in another agonizingly wonderful drawn-out spending.

Exhausted, she fell down onto his chest, drenched in sweat and still impaled upon his penis, which twitched within her.

He wrapped his arms around her, without words.

She wriggled against him and flexed, her channel walls hugging his cock. As she leaned up to kiss his mouth tenderly, she said in a whisper, “Now that I’ve got you speechless, finally, maybe you’ll let me say what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Gracing him with a smile so bright that it burned, she said, “I love you, William. By the way.”



~*~



Colorado City, Colorado - a dingy hole-in-the-wall, later that night

Though it was late, well past midnight, the saloon maintained a brisk business with nearly two dozen men still hard at work, over whiskey or cards or both. The serving girls, las senoritas me gusta as they were known, hovered near the table in the far corner where the more experienced players had gathered.

“How many cards you want, Billy?” the dealer slurred.

“Two,” Billy replied, discarding his two of clubs and six of hearts. On the deal he picked up another Jack, giving him three of a kind.

The other two players had folded, leaving only the player directly across from him to contend with. When Fatty upped the bid by a dollar, Billy saw him, seeing no point to raise considering his rapidly dwindling pile of coins.

“Full house.” Fatty slapped the cards down with a flourish, and Billy showed his own meager three of a kind with a shrug.

“Jus’ not my night tonight,” he mumbled, taking a deep draw of mescal from the dented tin cup by his side.

There was a slight commotion just inside the door and all eyes turned toward the entrance. A woman stood in the entryway, strikingly beautiful, with raven hair and wild eyes. Her gown was as filthy as those of the Spanish whores, but he could tell it had once belonged to a real lady. She cradled a small cloth-wrapped bundle in one arm which she’d tucked protectively beneath her bosom.

“Don’t make me cross,” the beauty snapped at the large man attempting to block her entrance.

Far more interested in this scenario, this woman, than he was in his cards, Billy stood up and wove a path towards the doorway.

“Is there some kind of trouble, Ma’am?” Billy asked. He was well known for his courteousness, among other things.

When the woman’s gaze turned to him, he felt her enter his mind like a physical presence. It was as if he’d been zapped by one of Tesla’s mad inventions. He stopped in his tracks and looked at her numbly. She trilled a giggle and snuck a quick glance toward the small bundle in her arm before holding a gloved hand out to Billy.

“I’m Drusilla,” she announced, causing those within earshot to burst out with nervous laughter. Billy, however, was not laughing. He felt a kind of chill along his spine and for once in his very verbose life, he found himself with nothing to say.

She remained frozen, holding her hand up as though he were a gentleman, a real god-damned gentleman, about to take a lady for a turn on the dance floor. He reached for her hand and he pressed his lips to the back of her bedraggled glove. “Pleasure to meet you, Ma’am.”

That was all the invitation she needed to step even closer, bringing her body up tight against his. Moving her painted lips next to his ear, she sang faintly, so only he could hear, “But my darlin’ you will be always young and fair to me.”

He shook his head like a dog ridding water from his ears. “That song… My mother …” He sounded a damn fool and he know it, but how could she know it, his mother’s song?

“Poor motherless lamb, but then, aren’t we all?” She wove her head this way and that, reminding him very much of a sidewinder. Combined with the mescal and the most peculiar feeling in his head, he began to feel woozy.

“Would you like to take a walk with me, William?”

“William.” He paused, trying to shake loose of the peculiar fog that had settled around his mind. “Folks ‘round here don’t hang that handle on me, ma’am.”

“What do they call you?”

“Kid Antrim or just plain Billy. Of late they been callin’ me Billy the Kid. But they don’t call me William.”

“But you’d like it if they did, wouldn’t you, my prince?”

He still felt a strange tickling sensation in his mind. When he nodded his agreement it felt as if satiny strands of a spider’s thread had wrapped around his head and were tugging it this way and that.

“I know who you really are, William. And who you will become.” Drusilla placed her arm in his and tugged him toward the door. He had no resistance to offer her.

“Walk with me in the moonlight. We’ve silver and gold threads to find among the tumbleweeds, my William.”

And he followed at her heel, good dog that he was. Helpless to do anything else, he stepped out into the night and his becoming.


------------------------


Author’s Note:


William H. Bonney had curly brown hair, loved to dance and was left an orphan at the age of fourteen when his mother died of tuberculosis. Several acquaintances tell of him singing or humming his mother’s favorite song “Silver Threads Among the Gold” while he rode. He wasn’t killed until 1881 so he fit into William and Buffy’s timeline with no adjustments needed.

Billy the Kid carries a lot of mythological baggage. He’s vilified as a monster or honored as a wild west Robin Hood but rarely is he seen in the middle ground. Michael Wallis’ “Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride” is considered to be the most factual biography and I’ve used that as my template. Once he waltzes into my story, however, he’ll be largely a creature of my own making.

I try not to ask for feedback, but I’d be really interested in what you think about this turn of events – good, bad or ugly. I’ve been sort of bursting at the seams wanting to let Billy out of his cage! Also, real life has just become a shitshow, but I hope to be back with another chapter soon.
Chapter 25 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:

Back from an intense ten state car trip.  I had lunch in Mississippi one day and the very next day, dinner in Montana – and that means non-stop driving, my friend!  On the plus side, when (if? No spoilers!) Buffy and William get to the Midwest, I can write very convincingly about what it feels like to have Nebraska go on and on and on.  Thanks so much for your thoughts about the introduction of Billy.  I thought people might be weirded out, but you all seem right on board.  I wonder if you can guess what will happen next?  

Many thanks to Science and DoriansKitten for their beta work!  Tennyoelf made this kickass banner and I also borrowed her brain a bit!  She’s seventeen shades of fantastic!

 

How I wish you could see the potential - the potential of you and me.

It's in a book that's elegantly bound, but in a language that you can't read.

You gotta spend some time, love - you gotta spend some time with me.

And I know that you'll find, love, I will possess your heart.

                        -Death Cab for Cutie- 

 

Chapter 25 

Billy held the lady's arm tightly as he stepped out of the saloon, and a cool night breeze rustled through her skirts.  Though it was only a half moon, it glowed brightly enough to illuminate the dusty wooden planks of the walkway and the rutted road beyond it.  His thick heels clomped heavily on the uneven pine boards as he led her toward the road.

"Not much to see in Colorado City," he offered weakly.  Though usually confident among the fairer sex, he felt a strange amount of discomfort with the woman on his arm.  What was her blasted name, anyway?  She stopped suddenly and looked at him, her eyes blue flames in the moonlight.   As he returned her gaze he felt a strange sensation in the back of his mind, like plucking guitar strings. 

"Drusilla," she said, as though she'd managed to crawl inside his head and sift through his thoughts. "But you may call me Dru, if you wish."

"Dru," he repeated, childlike.  "We could amble by the stable, I ‘spose.  My cayuse could use a stretch."

"You intend to invite your horse on our walk?"  The displeasure in her tone was matched by her expression, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with the desperate urge not to displease her, as the strange guitar string sensation continued to tug on his mind.

"No, ma'am," he mumbled, as awkward as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

He had a reputation with the ladies, goddammit, and this gal had turned him into a smitten schoolboy with no more than a look.  "You talk a lot like my old boss, John Tunstall.  You from England ... Dru?"

"I am, William," she lilted.  She traced chilled fingertips up his arm, and a shiver flashed down his spine, from brain to cock, quick as lightning.

"You're mighty cold, ma'am."  He shrugged out of his fringed leather jacket and held it out to her.  She looked at him and blinked uncomprehendingly.

"It's on the dirty side," he stammered, "but I reckon it'll keep you warm."

"Warm."  A curious smile slid across her face before she slid the jacket over her thin arms.  She looked at him, her smile growing.  "Very gallant of you, my William.  I'm not used to fine treatment from such a gentleman."

She reached out to him, and he flinched involuntarily.  What the Sam Hill was the matter with him?  When she twisted her fingers in his hair and pulled him closer, he met her halfway, leaning down for a kiss.  Her lips were so soft but as cold as Granite Peak in January. 

"The stable," she mumbled against his mouth.

"Stable?" he asked stupidly, feeling like the only thing under his hat was hair.

"Let's walk to the stable, William."  She spoke slowly to him as if he were a wool-headed boy.  He cursed his ineptitude as he led her toward the dilapidated wooden structure a few yards down the road.

"But not to see your horse," she continued. "I'd like to get to know you a little better.  It's private inside, isn't it?"

Was she saying what it sounded like?  Was she offering herself to him with so little effort?

"The bit-house crowd won't likely stir ‘til noon and even then, they're not liable to muck out the horse stalls."  He opened the stable door, and it groaned in protest.  A waft of stale air and horse dung assaulted them.  Billy paused.

"Maybe we oughta rethink this.  Stable's not the freshest place for gettin' friendly, I reckon."  A lady that talked so fine wouldn't cotton to a locale as foul as this, would she?

"On the contrary.  The Christ child was born in a stable.  Seems fitting you'd be born in one as well, my William."

Every now and then she sounded crazy enough to eat the devil with horns on, but he didn't falter.  Having a screw loose might not be a drawback, by his figuring.  It would likely turn a female into a real hellcat in bed.

"Is there a loft?"  Her hand snaked up his shoulder and toyed with the hair on the nape of his neck.  His cock twitched enthusiastically in response.

"Yonder," he dipped his head toward the shoddy ‘ladder' at the end of the structure.  It was a ladder only by the loosest definition of the word, as it consisted of old boards nailed crosswise to the center support beam.

Dru flashed to the ladder and was up it before he'd made it halfway across the dark enclosure.  People don't move lightning-fast like that.  It's inhuman.  He had to be seeing things, his senses muddled by the mescal he'd been drinking earlier.  Billy shook his head as he followed her up the ladder.

Though the loft wasn't roomy, it would do for what he had in mind.  A few bales of hay from last season were piled in the corner beneath a small window which he opened with a bit of shoulder persuasion.  When he turned around, she was sitting on a hay bale, ramrod straight, but looking so regal on her throne of dried grass that he couldn't resist grinning at the sight.

The queer little bundle she'd been lugging under her arm turned out to be a dolly which she'd placed in on the floor facing her: a curious audience of one. 

"Yes," Dru said to the dolly as though the porcelain lump was a living child.  "But if you're not very quiet, no cake for you."

She might be crazier than a shithouse rat, but when she turned to gift him with a sultry smile, he moved to sit beside her all the same.  He wrapped his arm about her cold waist and pulled her close.

Finding his own mind through the strange sensations pulling at the back of his head, he asked, "What's a lady like yourself doin' in these parts?"

"Making my Prince," she replied inexplicably.  Her slim hands removed his hat almost reverently, and she placed it on the hay bale beside her before giving his hair a ruffle.

"But, I mean to say ..."

She silenced him by placing her cold lips to his mouth.  The tugging sensations in his mind were quickly drowned out by the louder urgings from his groin.  Slipping his hands boldly up her sides so that he was just brushing her bosom, he pulled her close until she was flush up against him.  He deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue into the icy cavern of her mouth.  When she gave a purr in response, he moved his thumbs against her breasts in insistent circles. 

She slid a hand under his shirt, and he gasped as she scratched her nails across his abdomen, surely drawing blood.   A wildcat, was she?  He could play that way, too, and he gave her boob a tight squeeze.  She bit his bottom lip, hard, and a faint coppery taste washed over his tongue.

Dru pulled away from his mouth, her hands and attention focused on his gun belt, which she unbuckled frantically.  Damn him for a fool if she wasn't the hottest to trot filly he'd had the pleasure to ... pleasure.

"Whoa," he soothed, reaching out to still her scrabbling fingers.  "Don't need to be out of the gate so suddenlike."

Concentration interrupted, she glared up at him and let go a feral snarl.  Hellcat.  So be it then.

He leaned back against the bale as she whipped his belt off, his revolvers dropping to the floor with a thud.  No sooner had his guns left his hips than he was filled with a familiar vulnerable feeling that he always felt when his pistols weren't strapped to his sides.  Dru didn't miss a beat, though, and tore at the buttons on the fly of his trousers, her fingernails scraping savagely against his cock through the fabric.  Gritting his teeth like he could bite the sights off a six-gun, he reached out to run his fingers through her dark, tangled locks.  She batted his hand away without a glance.

Damned peculiar, even for a female.

Dru tugged his erect cock out of his trousers with a cackle, as though she'd just withdrawn the winning prize at the carnival.  She had a way about her, something animalistic, that made a man feel like a stallion.  Not daring to touch her after his last attempt, he reckoned the wisest path would be to simply lean back and see what happened next.

When she ran her icy fingertips down the length of his cock, it was soothing and terrifying at the same time.  He half expected her nails to dig into his sensitive flesh at any moment, but he had to admit to himself that the danger only fueled his lust.  Unable to listen to the voice of reason in his big brain, he instead heeded the urges of the little one and cupped her face in his hands.

She winced.  Winced.  As if he would lay a cruel hand on her.  He had a reputation, true, but he'd never been unkind to a woman.

"Not going to hurt you, Dru," he soothed.  "I'm not that sort of fellow."  He leaned up and placed a tender kiss on her dark red, cold lips; she allowed it, her fingers continuing to tease and dance along the length of his shaft.

When she pulled away she gave him a questioning look.  "No punishments?"

He shook his head.

She gave his cock a little squeeze. "Pain purifies.  The more it hurts, the better girl I am, Angel said," she said, as inexplicable as ever.

"Folks'll tell you, I'm no angel.  More of a devil.  But I won't hurt you, Dru."  Being with her was like trying to walk straight through the center of a blizzard; he could only blindly feel his way.

She gripped his cock at that, her hand an icy, steel vice.  Santa Madre de Dios. The pleasure-pain of it caused his eyes to roll back in his head.

"If you won't hurt me, should I hurt you then, my William?  No knives but there are other things that slice and open so deliciously ..."  Her honeyed words seeped through his mind, which was buzzing with strange sensations.  His head nodded, controlled by those strange invisible guitar strings or by his lust, he couldn't tell, nor could he give a happy god-damn.

When she let go of his cock, he felt the loss of it like his own breath, and he reached for her, needy as a child.  She hiked her skirts up with both hands, and he caught only the briefest glimpse of her muff before her damned skirts covered it again as she centered herself over him.  He held her about the waist, and she guided his cock toward her sweet spot, sitting down fast as a jackrabbit and impaling herself on him completely.  Her cunny was as tight as it was cold, and he shivered, his body responding with a strange concoction of desire and revulsion.

She raised her hips, then slammed back onto his cock with such force that the floorboards groaned in protest.  Fuck if this woman wouldn't break his dick clean off.  He had to grin.  There were worse ways for a fellow to lose his penis, he reckoned.  And it was bound to be one hell of a ride.

As though responding to his thoughts, she gave a rumbling growl and twisted her hips sharply.  She flexed her inner walls, strangling his helpless cock and bringing tears to his eyes.

When he began to fumble with the buttons on her bodice, she pushed his hands aside with a growl.  Not breaking eye contact with him for a moment, she tore open the front of her dress, scattering buttons across the floorboards.  With a quicksilver swipe of her fingernail, she ripped through the center of her chemise as though it were made of tissue paper.  Her snow-white skin matched her icy temperature, and her full, ivory breasts seemed to illuminate the loft as they bounced deliciously along with her thrusting movements.

She wrenched her hips in a way that brought a bright stab of pain from his cock.  In one fluid movement she tore open the front of his shirt and scraped her fingertips across his nipples, beads of blood rising up to cross his chest in trails.  When she dipped her fingertips in his blood, he half expected her to dab it in lines down her cheeks, adorning herself in war paint, Apache style.  Instead, she brought her index finger daintily to her lips, sliding it carefully past her teeth for a taste - a girl sampling the icing on her birthday cake.

"A birthday celebration!  A party for William."  Her voice rang like a schoolyard chant, coming from his ears but also from inside his head.  He was dimly aware that he hadn't said a damned thing about birthdays, but she'd crawled inside his head without invitation yet again.

"A final birth day."  She wriggled on his cock like a fish on a line, then leaned over to lick at the blood trail she'd left on his chest.  "And my gift.  Eternal youth, William.  Forever Billy the Kid.   No wasting away like your mother.  No getting older.  No fear of death, of posses, or the noose."

"I ... how did you ...?"  .

"Do you want it, William?" she asked, raising her hips up so that only the tip of his cock remained gripped within her chilly channel.

"Yes!  God, yes."  All his pride had skinned out for parts unknown.  He could feel a runner of drool slip down his chin, but he couldn't even muster the will to wipe it from his face.  "Dru, please," he begged.

She slammed back down, hitting his pubic bone so hard that he gave out a shout.  Once she was fully impaled on his cock, she caught his cheek in one cold hand and forced him to meet her gaze.  Her blue eyes flickered with something bright, something yellow; twin moons seemed to rise in them and grow until they swallowed her face whole.  Strange bumps and ridges appeared, transforming her beautiful face to that of a monster.  Her teeth became elongated and sharp as knives - his hellcat taking physical form.  When he reached out to touch, she smacked his hand away. 

This couldn't be real.  It must be the mescal he'd had earlier.  Had to be the mescal.  Because if it wasn't, the voice of sanity screamed inside his head, he was fucking a demon.

She watched him with those strange, animal eyes, and he felt something inside him quake, his cock twitching inside her cool vice.  Despite the almost unbearable desire to look away, he refused to break her gaze.  Billy the Fucking Kid had more sand than that.

Her fingernail was still dark with his blood when she held it up to her ivory breast and dug a line in her skin, just above her nipple.  A small creek of blood welled up immediately, and a rivulet trailed down to her nipple, where it began to steadily drip drip drip onto his chest.

"Drink, my Prince."  Weaving her hands through his hair, she pulled his head to her breast.

His squeamishness drowned out by passion, he began to suckle at her nipple, as desperately hungry as a child.  When she tugged his head up slightly, so that his lips were directly on her weeping wound, he was long past resistance.  Her strangely chilled blood dripped into his mouth, and he drank willingly, gratefully.

"Good boy, good William," she murmured, pushing him back into the hay roughly while keeping his cock buried within her.  She leaned down and bit his neck, hard.  Something crunched.  As a bolt of pain shot through him, his hips bucked upwards.  Dru held on for the ride.

He could feel her lapping up his blood, drinking like a goddamned cougar at a creek, but when she squeezed her sugared walls around his dick, he found he was unable to get bothered about what she was up to where his neck was concerned.

And goddamned if she wasn't right.  A little pain brought the pleasure of it to a new place all together.  Though her mouth never left his throat, she continued slamming against him, steady as a heartbeat.  Bah-bam, bah-bam.   Her thrusting hips and his beating heart speeding up, synced perfectly, pounding out a kind of life force

She picked up her pace, pumping away at his hips like a steam engine, just as he felt his heartbeat begin to stutter, failing to quite keep up with her galloping pace.  And the whole while, she continued to suck on his throat, the throbbing pain of it inflating his lust beyond his imaginings.

Just as Billy's climax was building, he could feel the room begin to pitch and sway, as if the stable itself had joined their primitive dance of blood and sex. 

Was this what dying was like?  Was he about to take the big jump?

Her mouth still busily drinking from his throat, she twisted her hips again, viciously, and he let out a cry, his voice sounding weak and distant to his ears.  Her pussy tightened and spasmed in delicious waves, first up the length of his cock and then back down again. 

Yes.  Oh, yes.  If this was death, let it come.  Let him come.  Let him die with this, with this most heavenly fuck.  As her cold walls clamped around his cock, he burst into her with, not a shout, but a whimper.

When his orgasm finished, his cock gave a final twitch and his heart twitched too, falteringly.  Its earlier frantic rabbit-beats now coming farther and farther apart.

Like embers from a dying campfire, his vision began to darken, from the outside edges inwards.  When his heart gave a final thump, tired and emptied at last, the room went completely black.

The last thought to blow across his mind was gratitude that he hadn't undressed completely, allowing him the dignity to at least die with his boots on.

~*~

Morning light crept around the edges of the hotel curtain, waking Buffy slowly.  She and William were entwined around one another like vines.  He was on his side with his leg cradled by hers, and her nose was buried in his curls.  She had to smile at how cherubic he appeared in slumber, his mouth slightly open and his lower lip pouting out.  His morning erection, pressing insistently against her thigh, belied his angelic expression, however.

Just as she was reaching out to slide her hand down the length of his cock, a loud knock sounded at the door, jerking William awake with a start.  He sat up in bed, his eyes wide.

"Your knock-up call, Mr. Pratt," an officious voice called from behind the door.

"Thank you," William replied loudly before lowering his voice and turning to her. "Today is ...  Oh, dear god.  Our train."

He reached over to where his pocket watch lay on the bedside table and flicked it open.  "Six thirty," he said.

"What time does the train leave?" she asked.

"Ah, eight o'clock," he replied distractedly, as he bit his bottom lip.  "But we've to leave from New Jersey, which is easily an hour from here."

"So we have thirty minutes to get ready, pack, get breakfast and get a cab?  No time at all for love-making."

He nodded, but his blue eyes glazed over, her practical and prompt husband seeming downright wicked and tempting and nothing at all like the man she'd thought him to be - prior to last night.

He kissed her forehead tenderly, then slid from the warmth of their bed.   She followed his lead and went to stand beside him, in front of their trunks.

Reaching boldly into her trunk, he fished out her black satin chemise set.  When he handed it to her with a hopeful raised brow, she couldn't help but grin and nod.  While she slipped into her bloomers, he put on his own linen underthings.  Buffy handed him his chocolate brown suit, then ruffled his curls, wordlessly telling him that she preferred this suit because it complimented his hair.

Having this kind of silent ‘discussion' with him felt terribly intimate - as though it was a kind of communion between man and wife - a small little machine of two which worked seamlessly, wordlessly.  It was, quite simply, a miraculous thing, and she felt absolutely filled to the brim with gratitude for the beauty of it.

While she pinned her hair up, William dashed out for a shave and to arrange for a carriage to take them to the ferry.  By the time he returned, she had just finished packing, having crammed a band box with hair accessories. 

"That's a lovely gown," he said, stopping to look at her strangely.

"Thanks," she replied.  She'd put on a green and white striped gown that she'd not worn before.  "Is something wrong?"

"Not at all," he murmured.  "It's just that ... it's same gown that you wore at the beginning of our sea voyage."  He gave her a smile, but it looked forced, and she felt a small blade of fear skate across the back of her neck.

"A good omen then," she insisted, and he seemed reassured.

"Ready, love?" he asked.

She nodded and slipped into his arms.  They were still kissing when the porter knocked on the door a few moments later.

~*~

They arrived at the station in New Jersey with fifteen minutes to spare.  The platform was a sea of pressed passengers and weary porters.  William guided them through the process expertly, his well-worn tour book held under one arm while she kept her hand tucked under the other.

Once he'd foisted their luggage onto a porter, William led her toward the front of the train.  The locomotive was massive, black and vaguely bullet-shaped.  It was carried by an impressive row of black wheels and a confusing assortment of rods and pipes. The large spout at the front of the engine wuffed out little puffs of steam clouds intermittently.

Pennsylvania Central Railroad was painted on the exterior of the somewhat battered looking passenger car before them.

"It's a Pullman car, naturally," William said, as though that might hold some meaning for her.  She didn't have the foggiest notion of the significance of his statement, so she nodded politely as he guided her up the steps.

Fortunately, the interior was a striking contrast to its worn exterior.  The car had an open floor plan and was startlingly lavish, with a thick carpet and an aisle trimmed with gleaming brass.  The windows were wide, accented with little cloth shades.  Just above them, paintings of idyllic country scenes were featured on the wood paneling.  Their seats were upholstered in purple crushed velvet.  It seemed less like a train car and more like the kind of olde tyme parlor that you might find in the Gilded Age Main Street at Disneyland. 

She grinned and squeezed her husband's arm.  "Very posh, William," she said, giving herself a mental pat on the back for using the Britishism of ‘posh.'

They settled into their seats across from two men who wore identical walrus mustaches on their upper lips.  The gentlemen turned out to be brothers, Reuben and Levi Shotwell,  returning to Chicago from a business trip.  The Shotwell brothers nodded over their newspapers as William made polite introductions.  Since the pair would be sitting across from them for the next day and a half, she hoped they wouldn't be the talky kind of travelers, but just leave her and William alone.

Once she was seated, Buffy leaned out to the window to watch passengers saying their goodbyes and staff busily tossing cargo and luggage in various directions. 

Just as the commotion began to settle down, a strange sound filled the air, slowly at first, but rising both in pitch and volume.  Woo-wooo! The tone shifted almost musically as the volume rose to deafening decibels. 

Woooooo-woo!  It screamed insistently. 

"What the fuck?" she said to William, a little louder than expected.  Reuben and Levi visibly straightened, their eyes wide and newspapers half-dropped to their generous laps.

William blinked at her, remaining startlingly placid considering the audio assault they were experiencing.  

Woooo!  

"That's a ... oh shit," she winced, realizing at once that not only was the sound simply the whistle of a steam train, but that she'd just dropped two curse words in as many sentences.  So much for worrying about their traveling companions pestering them with conversation.  The Walrus-faced brothers were looking at her as though she'd just sprouted horns and was handing out autographed nude photos of herself.

She turned and gave William an apologetic smile.

"Train whistle," he said, simply.

"Yeah, got it.  A little late, but I got there."

The train lurched forward and she had to brace her feet on the floor to prevent herself from tumbling to the floor, or worse, in a Walrus man's lap. 

"We're off, then."  William reached down and squeezed her hand.  "To the Wild West."

"Bad times are behind us," she replied, returning his grin.  Feeling a sudden wave of superstitious dread, she touched her hand to the wood-paneled wall of the train car and knocked. Hard.

 

--------------------------------------

Notes!

There is one photo of Billy the Kid - this is a cleaned up version of it.  I will stop myself from going on and on about him save this one thing: he had dancing eyes.  Several different acquaintances commented that his eyes ‘danced’ (or were in constant motion).  I love that.  He was so quick with his guns and wit - I picture him a very bright guy with ADHD.  (There’s lot about him online if you feel like googling him!)

Fun fact:   Billy the Kid probably never saw a tumbleweed, that iconic symbol of the wild west.   Salsola tragus (Russian thistle) came to the continent from Russia around 1874 in shipments of flaxseed to South Dakota.  The weeds hadn’t made it to Billy’s stomping ground of New Mexico by the time he was shot in 1881.  The idea of tumbleweeds being new just delighted me and I thought you might find it interesting too. J 

 

 

 

 

 
 
Chapter 26 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thanks to Science, Minx, DoriansKitten and Lutamira for beta'ing this. Any mistakes are mine alone. Thanks to Amy for the banner.
I outlined the rest of the story this morning - chapter by chapter. Feels good to see the end. Thanks so much to those of you who provide feedback - you keep me going.
"Americans are great hero worshipers, and they always take their heroes from the criminal classes." -Oscar Wilde-


Chapter 26

Lusting after one’s wife all day was an absolutely exhausting activity. Though William was physically in the dining car, seated before very expertly prepared trout on the finest china, his mind was in a different place entirely. He watched as Buffy lifted a forkful of roasted chicken to her parted lips and slid the morsel of meat inside her mouth.

Though he’d been near enough to touch her during every moment of the journey, he could indulge in only the briefest brushes against her hand from time to time. On a few rare instances, when he’d escorted her down the train aisle, he’d been allowed the pleasure of holding her arm and feeling her side pressed against his. Each small touch served to fuel his flame, culminating in a veritable bonfire of want now that night had begun to claim the sky. It would take only the smallest of sparks to set him ablaze. Perhaps she’d slide a look at him, with her half-lidded moss-green eyes. Or she’d do that amazing thing with her mouth, that little half smile …

Buffy kicked him gently, instead. “Planet Earth to William?”

“Yes, love?”

“You should join me here for dinner. What were you thinking about?"

“Nothing,” he lied, badly, for he could feel his cheeks warm with a blush, damn them.

She grinned in response, with her little half smile, then dropped her eyes and began to push a bite of stuffing around her plate. Determined to trim the wick of lust, he forced his mind back to their journey.

“You’ve been unusually quiet this afternoon, love. Is everything all right?” he asked.

“Oh it’s fine,” she mumbled. “I just get a little uncomfy around the Buzzkill Brothers. They keep giving me the stink-eye. Since I don’t want to drop any more f-bombs, I figure when it comes to conversation around those two, less is more.”

He nodded, not entirely certain of what she’d said, but surmising that it had to do with their seat-mates causing her a general discomfort due to her earlier cursing. Buffy-to-English was a particular specialty of his and he couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride at his fluency in it.

“What did you think of Pittsburgh?” he asked.

“Ugh.” She made a face. “Kinda hell-mouthy. All the slag piles and the air so full of black smoke that you couldn’t see the sun. In school they give you all the Andrew Carnegie stuff, but they leave out all the parts about soul-crushing poverty and the insane amounts of pollution.”

He nodded. “It reminded me a great deal of Birmingham.”

The waiter interrupted and whisked away their plates, which were quickly replaced by slices of dessert – something called ‘Shoo Fly Pie.’ References to insects not withstanding, it was a delightful treat, reminding him very much of treacle tart. Before he’d eaten more than a few bites, Buffy had already finished, her pink tongue darting out to lick a stray crumb from her lower lip. He felt a stab of desire so sharp that he filled his mouth with a large forkful of the sugary mixture to stop from groaning aloud.

She sighed and looked at her empty plate. “I think my tongue is going to die of happiness.”

He bit his bottom lip. Did she know what she was doing to him? She couldn’t. He gave her a weak smile and ran his fingers through his hair, forcing his mind away from things that had to do with happiness and her tongue. With enough concentration, he could find a way to rise above these carnal desires.

“… bed?” she asked. Dear god, how long had she been talking? At least his mind was attuned to the word bed.

“What was that, dear?”

She tilted her head to the side, her green eyes smiling at him. “I asked if by the time we return to our seats, the porter will have converted them into a bed?”

He stared at his wine glass numbly, trying to come up with some kind of coherent response when he felt her move. From beneath the table, she touched the tip of her boot to the back of his calf, and he jumped with a start. The boot traced a seductive line up his leg as she slid further and further down in the seat to accommodate her movements. The feel of her, even through the boot’s leather, the trousers and all of it was an erotic delight and he gave a shuddering sigh.

“Yes, ah … indeed,” he said, tucking his leg beneath his chair and taking another bite of pie. Thank god for dessert. If he had to speak about their bed at that moment, he was fairly certain he’d simply combust of want. Pie of Fly being replaced on tonight’s menu with Flambe of William.

“How do they do it?”

“It?” He’d reverted to one word sentences. The next step would surely be a series of grunts.

“The beds. How do they do the seat-to-bed switcheroo?”

“Ah, it’s rather ingenious, really.” Being forced to explain the mechanics of a Pullman Car was just the thing to take his mind from his baser urges. “There are pull-outs beneath the seat which pull out to create a platform. The back seat cushions then are placed on the platform for our … bed.”

“And what about the Brothers Grimm?”

“They sleep in the compartment above us.”

“Behind the wooden painting on the ceiling? Seems a little cramped.”

“The wooden panel folds down to create a bed, and a thick curtain pulls across to enclose both compartments. The upper bunk is not terribly comfortable, or so I’ve read, which is why I paid a little more to secure the lower one for us.”

“Very thoughtful, William.” She reached across the table to squeeze his hand just as the waiter returned. William withdrew his hand nervously.

“Was everything satisfactory, sir?” The thin black man smiled as he cleared away their dessert plates.

“Yes, George, thank you,” William replied as he pressed a coin into the man’s hand. The waiter nodded his thanks before departing.

“His name is George, too?” Buffy asked with a hint of sadness. When she had first heard William address their regular porter as ‘George,’ she’d grown so quiet and sad that he’d immediately changed the conversation without explanation.

“All of them are, love. Porters on Pullman trains are all called George.”

“What? Why?”

“I’m not entirely certain. I believe it’s a reference to the inventor of the car, George Pullman. Having the same name simplifies things for the passengers.”

“And it’s demeaning as all get out! To call them all the same thing.” Her voice was a little louder than usual and rising rapidly; the diners at nearby tables cast curious glances toward them. “I’ll bet they have a special name for us too. They should.” Buffy shook her head in disgust.

William decided it might be a perfect time to exit. He rose and lifted his arm. She took it, grumbling, and allowed him to escort her from the dining car.

They wove their way through several cars before arriving back at their seats. He wasn’t entirely sure how many cars it was. His mind always grew muddled when she was so close to him – the scent of her hair, the way her slender fingers pressed into his arm when the train swayed around a curve. Surely night, and a blessed night alone with her in bed, couldn’t come quickly enough.



When they passed through cars, porters and passengers alike were in a flurry of activity. They reached their assigned seats and were pleased to find their bed was already prepared, with crisp, white linens and an ivory bedspread. Buffy dove in, stretching out full, like a cat in the sun.

“Bed,” she sighed, a large smile spreading across her face. God, she was the very picture of Venus, even in this very crowded train car, and he was no more than a devoted worshipper.

His thoughts were disrupted as their porter approached. The small black man had bright eyes which were lit from behind with an intelligence that contrasted with his meek disposition. As always, he greeted them with a wide grin.

“Excuse me, sir. I’ve placed the book that was on your seat up on that ledge there, along with the day bag that belonged to your missus. Is everything to your satisfaction?”

“Yes, very much. Thank you, George.”

At the sound of his name, Buffy popped up in bed wearing a very determined expression. Strangely enough, she reminded him of an illustration of a prairie dog that he’d seen earlier that day in his guide book.

“George, what is your name?”

George’s smile only grew. “Why, I believe you’ve just said it, ma’am. It’s George.”

“Not your train name. Your real name. The one your mom gave you.”

“You can call me George, ma’am.” He fidgeted with his cap, his smile fading a bit around the edges.

“But I’d really like to call you by your real name. If you don’t mind.”

An uncomfortable silence grew as George’s grin evaporated all together. William was on the verge of intervening when George spoke again. “Alexander Hamilton Perry,” he said, his tone solemn.

“Nice to meet you, Alexander. I’m Buffy. Buffy Anne Summers. Pratt!” She shot a guilty look at her husband, then turned her attention back towards the porter. When she held her hand up to shake Alexander’s, he backed away, startled. Even though Buffy was acting out of ignorance, this would have crossed far too many lines. Alexander ducked his head, and she let her hand fall limply to her side.

“If that will be all, ma’am? Sir?” He trained his eyes firmly on the floor.

Uncertain if he should address the man as George or Alexander, William went with a simple, “Yes, thank you.”

Buffy scrunched up her nose as she watched the porter’s retreating back. “Ah, geez. I might have messed that up, huh?”

William thought for a moment before responding. “The way you see many things are … difficult for others.”

“Difficult for you?”

“No, love. Not me, never that. But others need time to … adjust to you.”

She tried so very hard in this world that was alien to her. Seeing her sitting on the bed, in a pose a lady would never strike, with such a look of disappointment on her face - it tugged at something inside him, and he leaned down to whisper, “You may not be the woman this century wants, but you’re the one she needs, my love.”

“Oh, William,” she beamed and leaned up to kiss his cheek. And even though they were in the middle of a well lit train car surrounded by dozens of people, he couldn’t bear to pull away. Just as she was a few inches from his cheek, she caught herself and patted his cheek instead, while leaning up to whisper in his ear. “I get it. But when the curtains are closed, it’s going to be a whole lot more than cheek kisses. Just sayin’...”

He looked up, nervously checking to see if they were receiving shocked looks from their fellow travelers. They were not; however, something even more dire lay in his field of vision. The Shotwell brothers had entered the car from the far end. Buffy followed his gaze and let out a groan upon seeing the men headed their way.

She shook out her skirts and reached over to collect her day bag. “I think I’ll exit, stage left and get ready for bed in the ladies room at the end of the car. I want to put off dealing with the walrusmen as long as possible.”

William took that opportunity to go to the gentlemen's room at the other end of their train car. There was a substantial line to use the facilities since the vast majority of passengers were male, and it was quite some time before he was able to return to their seats. By the time he made his way back though the car, the lights had dimmed and the small army of ‘Georges’ were bringing cups of tea and hot chocolate to those who’d requested it.

When he peeked around the corner of their enclosure, he was happily surprised to see Buffy waiting for him. She was perched next to the window in the center of the bed, legs tucked up beneath her bottom. Her hair was fashioned into a single braid, and she wore a sly grin on her lips. Looking at her, he felt as exuberant as a boy on Christmas morning.

William climbed in beside her with a sigh, which was apparently a little louder than he’d intended, as she met it with a giggle. From just above them, one of the brothers cleared his throat.

Buffy seemed quite oblivious to the subtle hint and reached up to knock at the underside of the top bunk.

“Guys? Whenever you’re ready, it would be great if you could pull the curtain,” she called to them. The scene reminded him of children in the nursery, chatting in the dark.

The Shotwells seemed less than charmed, however, and gave no response to her request. Buffy looked at him questioningly and he answered with a reassuring smile.

“Bunkmates?” he asked, a grin spreading across his face as he joined in her unorthodox method of conversation. “You there? My wife just made a request of you.” He aggressively knocked at the bottom of their bunk for good measure.

“Yes, she did,” came the affronted response. “We shall close the curtain in due time.”

There was a brief pause before the other brother called out, quite loudly, “My brother and I simply cannot bear rude people.”

“Apparently your mother could.” William bit out. “Twice.”

When the only response was shocked silence, Buffy laughed and added, “It must skip a generation.”

“I could leave my comfortable bed and close it for you,” William suggested, his voice taking on a threatening tone. It was an unusual feeling and he found, surprisingly, he liked it quite well.

There was a ‘harumphing’ sound just before the curtains closed with a jerk.

“Oh, burn, William. I’m so proud of you! You made him harrumph” she whispered urgently in his ear, her breath warm and terribly arousing.

“In your grand tradition of inspiring ‘harrumphs’ in gentlemen, my love,” he murmured. “Your corruption of me is very nearly complete.”

“We have the rest of the night to complete your corruption, William.” She slid her hand down his chest. “Give me time.”

~*~



The last thing Billy remembered was dying, so he was more than a mite puzzled to wake up covered in horse shit.

Jerking his arms up instinctively, he moved frantically to dig his way out. The mixture of earth and manure moved aside as though it was without weight at all. When he climbed out of the earthen hole, he looked around to find himself in a horse stable – the same one he died in, he reckoned.

He brushed the manure from his clothes and hair while looking around to get his bearings. Though it was night, he could see every detail of his surroundings as if it was high noon. Hell, he could see ‘em even better than that. The individual nails in the wallboards stood out in crisp detail; the bits of straw on the floor jumped out at him in a way that made him feel slightly off balance. It was as though he’d been gifted with new eyes entirely.

When he sensed a faint movement, he whirled around. There, in the far corner of the stable, she stood. Leaning against the wall with his hat in one hand and clutching her ragged dolly beneath her breast: Dru - the bitch that killed him.

He moved towards her, impossibly fast. Though it should have been a series of steps, it felt like one fluid movement, quick and smooth as a striking snake. The action left him feeling addled-headed and he shook his head to clear it.

“You’re awake, my William,” she purred.

“You … Dru,” he said. “Last thing I recollect was you killing me.”

She smiled as sweetly as though he’d just asked her for a dance. “I didn’t take a life. I gave birth to a Prince.”

He reached up to touch his neck, where he remembered she’d been drinking from him, chewing on him, the night before. Where there should have been a ragged hole, the skin was smooth, with only the faintest mark left behind.

The hellcat sidled up to him, a grin dancing across her face. He instinctively reached for his pistols. Jesus, when had he moved so quickly? They were strapped tightly to his hips, just as they should have been and he whipped them out, pointing them at the creature standing next to him.

Rather than raise an alarm, she laughed. Laughed! Crazy bitch that she was. Absolutely unafraid, she stepped toward him and placed his hat back on his head, letting her fingers linger on his hair in what felt like a tender gesture.

“Bits of metal won’t harm me, my William. They won’t hurt you any longer either.”

“Neither will killing me, by appearances.” He gestured toward the crude grave dug into the stable floor. “You buried me?”

“Edith and I dug it. We had to. Earth for birth, love.” She reached down and patted her dolly’s head tenderly.

“I reckon the doll passed on the heavy lifting, and you got the raw end of that deal.” He felt his patience thinning as a strange kind of appetite began to snap and claw at his innards. “Burying a dead man – well that makes sense. But covering me in shit was dumber than squattin’ with spurs on.”

She jerked her head as though he’d slapped her, and he felt a tug of regret. “Miss Edith said it would be easier to dig here.” Her tone was petulant, wounded.

He shook his head. Poking and prodding the crazy creature wasn’t likely to lead to answers and this strange hunger was poking at him like a knife in his belly. Best he just cut straight to it.

“You killed me. I should be taking a dirt nap in a bone orchard. That’s what got me concerned. Why’m I standing here jawin’ with you?”

“You’re as I am now, my William.”

“Crazy as popcorn on a hot stove? I reckon I am since I just dug myself out of my grave.”

Dru moved to stand in front of him and placed one hand on his chest. Her skin no longer felt as strangely chilled as it had the night before. He realized with a start that it was because his body was now just as cold as hers. Her blue eyes met his, and she spoke to him as if she were speaking to an ill-behaved child. “You’ve been given a new life. Not as a human – you’re a vampire now.”

“What in tarnation is a vampire?”

Her grin widened at that, until it consumed her face. Her teeth elongated into sharp points, like she had a bear trap for a mouth. Her forehead grew ridges, and her eyes yellowed and seemed to spread to the sides of her face. In moments, she’d turned into the hellcat that had killed him.

“Vampire,” she said carefully around her teeth. “As are you, now. Do you feel that hunger growing inside of you?”

Yes. Oh, sweet Christ, yes, he did. As soon as she named his appetite, it woke fully. What had been clawing at his innards earlier was now thrashing about wildly, scraping a path up his throat.

“I am hungry and … thirsty. Worse than a winter-starved heifer. I’ve never felt anything like it.” As he thought about his hunger, he felt it scrabble a path out of his belly and up to his head where he felt his face began to shift and stretch. It wasn’t a painful sensation, but was all together peculiar. He reached up, cautiously, unsurprised to find that his mouth had become like hers, lined with bobcat’s teeth.

“First, we feed, William. Then I’ll explain the rest of it. The many wonders in our Kingdom.”

“Yes,” he nodded numbly, willing to follow her just about anywhere – as long as she would do something about this terrible, growing hunger.

“Only a few of them in the saloon tonight. The rest are out looking for Billy, the lost lamb. But there will be enough for your first communion. Come with me, love.”

With one arm she clutched her dolly, while she took his arm with the other. She tucked by his side as though they were attending a quadrille and led him down the rutted dirt road toward the dimly lit saloon.

~*~

Killing was easy. Though he’d taken a few men’s lives in the past, this kind of killing was nothing like that. This was as easy as lining up at a chuck wagon. Get an armful of grub and put your face in it – simple as that. And though this kind of meal wriggled and made more noise than anything on the trail ever had, well, a little fight like that could work up a fellow’s appetite.

Dru held up a dress that had belonged to the thinner of the two senoritas who lay on the floor, drained and shining white. The other three men they’d fed from remained on the floor near the bar, wearing the expressions they’d died with – a mix of horror and surprise.

Billy felt more than sated; he was satisfied in a way he could never remember feeling in life. Dru stripped and began dressing in the dead senorita’s gown. Her white breasts swayed and bobbed with her movements, and he felt a lazy finger of lust poke at his groin.

“So, if I’m hearing you straight, I get to live forever, I can outdraw a fellow in a gunfight, and bullets can’t kill me.” He unfolded his pocketknife and began to pick at his teeth. Being dead was no excuse to ignore good hygiene.

“A few things can kill you. A wooden stake through the heart, beheading, fire and sunlight.”

“Sunlight? So we can only go out at night?” He stopped and chewed over this bit of information. “I reckon that’s a bit of a drawback. Still, all in all, seems like my luck’s taken a turn for the better.”

He folded his knife and tucked it away. With a world-eating grin, he drew, pulling out his six guns so quickly that even with his enhanced eyesight, he could barely register the movement. Both guns blazed to life, twelve bullets shattering bottles and glasses stacked on the shelves behind the bar.

In life he was a badass with a reputation, but as a vampire he would be absolutely unstoppable. The whole ‘bullets can’t kill you’ thing would definitely put him at an advantage, sure as a whore knows how to sin. Sliding his pistols back into their holsters, he grinned at Dru cockily. She’d placed her hands over her ears during the unexpected gunplay and shot him a dirty look.

“Noisy little dogs,” was all she said as she continued to fasten her gown.

“So what’s next? We skin out for a location with more dinner options?”

Dru shook her head and daintily picked her way around the corpse at her feet. She stepped to the bar where she had left her queer little doll just prior to the slaughter. Picking up the ragged porcelain bundle, she mumbled something to it before turning to face Billy.

“We have a train to catch, my William. We have to kill a slayer and fulfill our date with destiny,” she said, as incomprehensible as ever.

“All of that?” he asked agreeably. “We aim to be busier than a one armed man in branding season. And how’d you hear about this then?”

“Miss Edith told me,” she said, sounding slightly affronted that he had to ask.

“Edith is the dolly. You’re taking orders from your doll-baby, ain’t you?”

If that didn’t beat all. Still, taking commands from a ragged bit of china would be far from the oddest thing that had happened that day. He looked at her for a moment then nodded and tipped his hat in her direction.

“Lead the way, Dru – you and your baby doll. You may not know skunks from housecats, but I’m willing to wager it’s going to be one hell of a ride.”

-------------------------

Author's note:

Pullman Porters!! At the risk of being an irritating History geek - how cool were they? Tho they were only allowed 3 hours of sleep per night and were paid next to nothing, they survived on tips and paved the way for the black middle class in America. They also established the first black labor union. When Rosa Parks was arrested - guess who was the first person she called? The local leader of Pullman Porters. His name was not George.
Chapter 27 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:

Thanks to you for your reviews and feedback.  You are saying stuff which might make me change a fairly big thing which I can't tell you about, but I'll tell you after it happens.  Yeah, I know that makes no sense.

Thanks to Science, Minx and DK for the beta and to Tenny for this cool banner.

Where is my Marlboro Man? Where is his shiny gun? Where is my lonely ranger? Where have all the cowboys gone? Yipee-yi, yipee-yay.    -Paula Cole

 


Chapter 27

-  Twenty-six hours later -

Buffy woke in William’s arms.  A sliver of light crept around the edge of the curtain that surrounded their bed, and she could see that he was deeply asleep.  His sharp cheekbones were covered in a fine dusting of whiskers, and her fingers itched to rub against them.

He looked so innocent in sleep.  Truth be told, he looked pretty innocent while awake, too.  Sometimes, though, when he gave her that sideways glance, something sensual leapt behind his blue eyes that caused her breath to catch.  She moved her hand up to his throat and placed her fingers against it gently, so as not to wake him.  The thrum of his heartbeat never failed to steady her.

She should have been exhausted and sleeping as deeply as William.  The previous night hadn’t gone as anyone had expected.  Just after they’d settled in for the night, and long before anything erotic could begin between the two of them, their train had come to an unexpected halt in the middle of an Ohio cow pasture.  Only thirty minutes earlier, a freight train had derailed several cars due to a stray bull. 

Since they were on an isolated bit of track, there was no side rail to bypass the accident.  They were stuck directly behind the mess for over fifteen hours, waiting as workmen noisily cleaned up the cars and cargo.  The gentle rocking motion of the train lulling them to sleep was replaced by metallic clangs and groans as workers cleared the rails.

Through all of it there was precious little sleep for anyone on the passenger train, and no love-making at all for William and Buffy.

The debris wasn’t cleared until late afternoon, about the time they should have been arriving in Chicago.  Once they were underway again, the conductor had assured those passengers traveling further west that they wouldn’t miss their connection to Omaha, but that it would involve an early morning transfer.  This meant that they’d be spending a second night on the train instead of in a Chicago hotel as they’d planned. 

She sighed heavily.  No nookie last night and no Chicago hotel sex tonight.  Olde tyme trains sucked ass.  They were nothing more than evil, sex-depriving machines.

The engine carried them around a particularly sharp corner, and William shifted subtly in his sleep, pressing his side against her.  Carefully moving her hand away from his throat, she reached over to touch a finger to a lock of hair that had fallen into his eyes.

“Mmm,” he mumbled, nuzzling his nose against her neck.

She shifted so that she faced him and her back was pressed to the wall of the car.  As the train rumbled and clacked over the rails, a pleasant vibrating feeling radiated from her back through her entire body.

He adjusted his position again, capturing her thigh between his legs and letting out a pleasant sigh.  Even through the layers of her dress and his trousers, she could feel his erection pressing urgently into her hip.

She pressed her back even tighter against the train wall to create a little space between William and herself.  Very slowly, she reached down and unfastened the buttons of his fly.  His breathing remained very steady, and she smiled smugly to herself. 

Once his fly was open, she began to very cautiously untie his drawer string.  Just as she tugged on the bow, his eyelids fluttered open.  His eyes were blue lamps in the dark, watching her wordlessly, seriously.  She leaned up and touched her lips to his, whisper soft, feeling him shudder just before he deepened the kiss.  His tongue ran along the edge of her teeth, and he sucked on her lower lip, teasing it with soft nibbling kisses.

She wriggled her hips against his, her hand still caught in their tender vice.  She slid her fingertips just inside his waistband and swept them against the tip of his erection as he groaned his response into her mouth.

He moved his lips to her ear.  “Darling, as much as I want to, as much as I crave you, I wouldn’t dream of compromising your …”

She whispered, “I’m big with the stealthiness.  You’ll see.  Besides, if you think I’m going one more night with no sex, you’re out of your mind.”

When he swallowed, she leaned over to kiss and lick the spot where his Adam’s apple had just bobbed in his throat.  She could feel a rumble of a moan against her lips, but she couldn’t hear a sound above the clacking of the rails beneath them.

Sliding her hand from where it had been pleasantly tucked within his drawers, she busily untied her own set of bloomers and wriggled out of them.  After hiking up her skirts, she tugged the covers up and over their waists.

“See?”  she whispered in his ear.  “If I try, I can be discreet, William.”  She couldn’t resist biting his earlobe, gently.

“Mmmgh,” he groaned, but it was faint enough that she was sure the walrus brothers hadn’t heard.

He licked his bottom lip hungrily as he undid her bodice buttons with shaking fingers.  Once the front of her dress was open, he tugged up her chemise so that her breasts were exposed, even though they were trapped on all sides by restricting fabric.  He gave her a sinful grin, then dipped his head down to lick and suckle at her nipples like a thirsty babe.  She bit back a whimper and tangled her fingers in his curls, tugging him closer to her.

His hips began to move rhythmically against her thigh, and the support from beneath their bed creaked rather loudly.  Instantly, he pulled back from her breasts, his expression bordering on pain.

“It’s okay, William,” she soothed quietly into his ear as she tunneled her fingers through his hair.

She reached down to his drawers to find that his cock had already escaped its confines and was pressed into the folds of her skirt.  Pulling her skirt to the side, she wrapped her fingers around his erection.  He muffled a hiss of pleasure into her neck.

Moving slowly, so as not to rustle the covers, she placed one leg over his hip.  Still holding his cock in her fist, she guided him toward her entrance, which was already slick with anticipation.  She brought her hips up until they were flush with his and slid his erection into her channel.

“We can be silent if we let the train do the work, love,” she sighed into his ear.

Comprehension dawned on his face and he leaned over to suckle on her earlobe.  “Missed this, miss you … so much.  Oh love …”  His mumblings were disjointed and marvelous.  His hands moved over her like a breeze, stirring first across her breasts, then her sides.

He bit his bottom lip, watching her closely, sheathed so tightly within her as the gentle, swaying motion of the train rocked him steadily within her.  She stroked her fingertips down his cheeks, across his stubble.  He captured her hand in his, bringing her fingers into his mouth, where he nipped and suckled them one by one.

The vibration from the tracks and the gentle rocking motion of the train combined to create a lovely buzzing sensation just where his pubic bone pressed against her clitoris.  When they crossed a bridge, the cla-clack, cla-clack of the rhythm picked up and her orgasm built very quickly, washing over her like a lightning storm in spring.  Her walls gripped his cock as her pussy sent out delicious spasms of pleasure. 

She tried to muffle a groan by tucking into his shoulder, but he quickly moved his hand to her mouth, so that he could watch her face as she came.  Just as she was coming down from her climax, he began.  His eyes, still locked on hers, widened and glazed over.  He pumped his hips against her, pressing her against the wall.  It creaked a moan.  William bit his lips tightly, but she could hear a muffled cry from his throat as he collapsed against her neck.

After a few moments, she brought her fingers up to toy with the curls that had fallen into his eyes.  “I think the brothers are none the wiser, William,” she whispered into his ear.  “We got away with it.”

He pulled back to look at her.  He bit back an impish grin and his cheeks turned red.   It was absolutely charming to watch her shy husband blush even as his cock filled her.

They lay like that for the longest time, watching one another through eyelids that kept falling shut, so heavy with sleep.  Rocked by the motion of the track beneath them and the train around them – lost inside one another.  They were wrapped tightly around one another until somewhere a few hundred miles east of Chicago.  There, with William still inside her, they finally fell asleep.

~*~

Stars above his head, wind in his hair and bucking female beneath him.  Billy was certain there was nothing on earth as fine as fucking while on top of a moving train.  So far, things couldn’t be panning out any better.  Being dead was a hell of a lot more fun than being alive had ever been.

Dru was on all fours while he took her from behind.  When she shimmied, pumping her white rump against his pummeling hips, he grabbed a fistful of her dark hair and redoubled his thrusts.  Since they’d already gone at it three times, he could be patient on this go round.  Only when she cried out in completion did he allow himself to finish – thrusting against her flanks in a gallop until he finally, blessedly, burst.

He stayed there, comfortably held in her cold vice, and ground his hips against her leisurely.  When a band of coyotes yipped in the distance, he felt such a sense of joy, so much blasted euphoria in the moment, that he lifted his head and joined them, barking out into the night air.

After a moment, he gave her ass a playful swat and pulled out so that he could stretch out beside her.  Before sex, she’d carefully laid her gown down which provided a kind of bedroll for them.

As the train rumbled around a corner, he balanced carefully, then placed his arms beneath his head and looked up.  The stars were out, and brighter than he could remember seeing.  It must have something or other to do with his new vampire eyesight.  Dru rolled over next to him, his contented hell-cat.

“We’ve had four tosses in less than an hour.  I’ve never fucked like that in my life.  This has to do with bein’ a vampire, don’t it?”

She nodded, but remained preoccupied, pointing at the stars and mumbling under her breath.

“What else can I expect?”  She seemed to understand a great deal more about his new condition than she let on, and he was eager to know all of it.  “Since I drink blood, do I still need to make water?”

She stopped concentrating on the stars for a moment and looked at him questioningly.  “Make … water?”

“Piss,” he clarified.

She shook her head and focused her attention back to the sky, wriggling her fingers and mumbling names and numbers.  “Angelus only needed to do that after he drank too much.  It would be the same for you, I think.  Though you’re so very different than him in so many ways …”

Billy was barely able to follow her, once again.  Dru had spoken of the ‘angel’ a lot before they’d had sex.  She’d even winced when he first touched her breast.  But when she spoke of ‘Angelus’, she’d talked of the pain he would inflict, and by Billy’s reckoning the fellow seemed more demon than angel.  Billy aimed to teach her that fucking was a lot more about pleasure than pain. 

“’Splain again why it is we’re goin’ to Utah, will you?”

“I’ve told you, my William.  The slayer’s there.”

“Utah, though?  Not a drop of liquor or lick of fun to be had in the whole miserable state from what I hear tell.  Just a mess of wives and babies and churches.  Why the hell would a slayer set up camp there?”

“William and I will kill a slayer, forever changing the destiny of the Hellmouth,” she repeated her favorite litany, yet again.  Whenever she was bored, or hell, just when there was a sufficient lull in the conversation, she’d mutter that cockamamie prophecy again.  Usually she’d look over to her dolly while saying it, too.  Luckily, they’d left Miss Edith in the freight car below, along with most of Billy’s clothes and the unlucky brakeman they’d dined on.

The train lurched to one side as it went around a particularly sharp corner, and he steadied her with a hand about her waist.  She looked at him, an expression of surprise flickered across her face before it was replaced with a look that held a hint of tenderness.

“We should dress.  We’ll be at the Ogden train station soon, and Miss Edith will have instructions.”

He shook his head at her mention of the damned dolly.  Whenever Dru was away from Miss Edith for long, she’d grow uneasy and find some reason or another to consult with her.  He followed her down the ladder and into the car. While Dru whispered to her little lump of stuffing, Billy went through the belongings of the dead brakeman.  It wasn’t stealing, exactly – more like harvesting.  The man had been carrying two full flasks of very good whiskey, which would be a real pity to waste.

After dressing hastily, Dru motioned him to the smaller door at the end of the car.

“We shall need to leave as soon as the train comes to a halt.  The slayer is outside of town.”

“Will we need to steal a horse?” God, he hoped so.  If he could round out the evening with a little horse thieving, the night would be damn near perfect.

“Don’t want to ride a beastie.  They don’t like me,” Dru pouted.

“They like me plenty fine.  It’s all in how you talk to ‘em.”

Dru didn’t look convinced.

“Trust me.  We’ll double up.  You’ll see.”

The train lurched to a halt with a cloud of steam and hail of screeching metal.  With the flick of her wrist, Dru unlatched the door and they slid out into the dark train yard.

Since it was the dead of night, it was easy to slip out of the train yard unnoticed.  The good citizens of Ogden were all tucked into proper beds, he reckoned, and all was quiet.  The town was laid out so peculiarly that Billy couldn’t help but chuckle.

“What is it?” Dru hissed.

“It’s just … such a queer little town.  All these very wide streets for such a dusty little place.”

“Some day, my William, these little streets will be filled with shining metal and glass.”  She spun around in the middle of the dirt road, hey eyes focused on a vision that only she could see.  “And these paths filled with shining metal boxes.  The sky, too.” She jerked her head up.  “Metal birds that carry people and sing such ugly songs.  They whine and roar …”

Her gaze was unfocused and her jaw unhinged.  An uncomfortable feeling crept over him whenever she got like this.  He touched her elbow as gently as he could and said simply, “Dru?”

She looked at him, her eyes bright and empty as those of her dolly.

“The slayer?” he asked.

“Yes!”  She clapped her hands enthusiastically and gave him a grin.  Looking down to the bundle in her arms, she touched the tip of her dolly’s nose.  “Where might we find a horse then, Miss Edith?”  After a moment of staring into the doll’s dead eyes, she looked up at Billy with no trace of her momentary madness.  “Just down the street, we’ll find a lovely bay mare inside a white barn.”  

Billy nodded and followed her lead.  Sure enough, the bay was there waiting for them, and he had her saddled in no time.  After he’d settled onto her back, he coaxed Dru up where he held her tightly in front of him.

“Just don’t move sudden-like, and the mare will be fine.  She needs to get used to us.” 

Dru took his words to heart, nodding her head almost imperceptibly.  It took a moment to even register that she was agreeing with him, and he couldn’t help but grin at how seriously she had taken his command. 

With a shake of the reins the horse moved out of the barn and, following the direction of Dru’s gaze, Billy guided her east.  From time to time Dru would slowly and carefully lift the dolly to her ear, then make a slight adjustment to their course. 

They’d been riding for over an hour and had just crossed a dried up creek bed when Dru gave him an urgent look and tilted her head toward a lonely one-room cabin tucked at the end of the gully.

 “Here?” he whispered.

She gave him another tight nod, and Billy brought the mare to a halt.  Though they were still a good distance from the cabin, he climbed off the horse and tied her to a fencepost before reaching up to ease Dru from the saddle. 

“This slayer fellow – he won’t be expectin’ us, will he?”  Billy reached down to check the chambers of his pistols – a quick ritual that never failed to reassure him.

Dru muffled a giggle.  “The slayer is a girl, William.  A sixteen-year-old named Henrietta.”

“Well, I suppose if the world made sense, men would ride sidesaddle.  Still, a young girl like that and two of us?  It don’t seem right.” 

“Henrietta is more than she appears to be.  And Miss Edith says there are no men about.  Our slayer is one of four wives but is alone tonight, except for her sleeping babe.”

Dru tilted her head to the side and surveyed the cabin thoughtfully.  Slowly, she lifted her dolly, looking at Miss Edith’s painted porcelain pout as though her lips were moving.  Listening carefully, Dru nodded, a smile gradually widening her mouth.  “Clever dear,” she said, patting her dolly’s head before turning to Billy.

“We’re to stage a little play for the slayer!  On Miss Edith’s command.”

Billy said nothing to this, preferring to fiddle with his gun while Dru elaborated.

“I’m to play Damsel in Distress while you get the role of Evil Villain.”

She was no easier to follow than usual, and Billy bit his lip, waiting for more explanation.

“You change into vampire form and wait back here, by the beastie.  I’ll wake the slayer by pounding on the door.  You pretend to attack me, which will lure the slayer out of her cabin where we can take care of her.”

“Seems pretty damned convoluted to me.  Can’t we just go in there and … slay her?”

“Can’t go in without an invitation, William,” she chided, as though that was the most obvious thing in the world.  For being the all powerful undead, there seemed to be an awful lot of rules to the situation.

There was no point arguing with her, with the two of them, really.  Billy nodded and shifted into vampire face, hanging back by the mare.  Dru ran a hand through her hair until she looked good and disheveled, then ran toward the cabin door with a very convincing scream.

Dru fell against the door, pounding her fists and yelling for all she was worth.  Billy was almost surprised the door held – the flimsy structure was, strictly speaking, far more shack than cabin.

It wasn’t but an instant before the door opened and there she stood.  The slayer.  He couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt less threatened by a being.  Henrietta was small, even for sixteen, and she nearly tripped on the edge of her nightgown as she yanked open the door. 

He was so surprised by her appearance that he’d nearly forgotten his role in their little passion play.  Recovering quickly, he made a growling sound and ran toward the cabin as fast as he could.

True to Dru’s – and the dolly’s – prediction, the slayer stepped out of the cabin and past the woman at her door, raising a wooden stake above her head, threateningly.  As soon as she passed Dru, Dru’s features shifted into her vampire form, and she whirled on the girl.

Perhaps sensing the transformation that had occurred just behind her back, Henrietta turned to see that she was now trapped between vampires.

Billy looked to Dru, her yellow eyes glowing, and relaxed his expression, shifting back into human form.  When Dru shot him a questioning look, he shook his head.  “You have a go, Dru.  Two of us against that little scrap of a girl just wouldn’t be sportin’.”

“But the prophecy says that together we will …”

Devil spare him from hearing that miserable prophecy one more time.  He cut her off.  “I won’t.  You’ll do fine.”

Dru grinned with savage intelligence.  In one moment she threw Miss Edith toward him.  He caught the bundle reluctantly and stepped backwards to give the women room to fight.  Even before Miss Edith had landed, Dru lunged toward the girl.  Henrietta dropped to a crouch and side-stepped Dru, who fell hard against the cabin wall.

The slayer ran up to the side of the small gully and began to climb up the crumbling sandstone wall.  She was a natural fighter, to seek the higher ground.  Dru was just as quick, however, and leaped up, just catching Henrietta’s ankle and yanking her to the ground with a feral snarl.  The slayer hit the earth and rolled to one side, springing to her feet in an instant.

She’s stronger than she looks, Billy thought with a hint of admiration.  Faster, too.

Dru considered her foe through narrowed eyes and lunged for the girl’s feet. The girl leapt up just before Dru touched her, and Dru landed in the dirt with empty arms.  Henrietta leapt on Dru’s back, and it gave a sickening crunch.   Immediately, the small girl crouched and pulled her arm back, ready to drive the stake into Dru, when the vampire twisted, throwing the girl to the side and towards Billy.

“Do something!”  Dru growled at him, as she sprang to her feet.  Billy shook his head, holding firm.

Dru swung her foot around, and though Henrietta jumped back, it wasn’t quite far enough and Dru’s boot hit the girl’s midsection, knocking her back a good three feet.  The slayer made a whoofing sound and placed her hands on her knees with her head bent, gasping for air.  Dru pressed her advantage, lunging for the girl.  The slayer ducked, so Dru overshot her goal and landed in a heap just behind her. 

The slayer jumped astride Dru in a flash. With her knees, she pressed both of Dru’s arms into the dirt, pinning her to the earth.  While one arm held Dru by the throat, the other coiled back, preparing to drive the stake deeply into the vampire’s chest.

Billy only had a split second, and he knew it.  Without even letting go of Miss Edith, his free arm flashed down to his pistol, and he drew on the slayer.  His aim was more a product of instinct than conscious thought, and he fired – shooting the stake clean out of the girl’s fist and taking most of her thumb along with it for good measure.

Henrietta’s expression was one of complete and utter surprise, though it barely had time to register.  Even before the sound of the gunshot had faded, Dru made the most of the moment, twisting her hips and knocking the bleeding girl off balance.  With one fluid movement Dru kicked out from under the girl and grabbed her head with both hands, snapping the slayer’s neck with a ferocious twist.

Billy felt the dolly stir within his grasp.  Miss Edith gave a shuddering movement, almost like a sigh, and it made his blood run even colder than it already was.  He lifted the dolly up for a closer look, holding it at arm’s length as if it was a rattler.

Miss Edith’s dainty porcelain lips were no longer set in their permanent dolly’s pout. Now the edges of her mouth were turned up, very slightly, pulling back her lips to show just a glimpse of tiny white teeth.  Her eyes too, looked different somehow.  Instead of a glassy stare, she looked back at him as if a living being had crawled behind her eyes.  He instinctively dropped the thing in the dirt and began to back away.

“William!”  Dru looked up.  She’d torn a jagged hole in the young girl’s neck and was drinking deeply.  She seemed giddy and almost … drunk.  “You mustn’t treat Miss Edith so.  After all she’s done for us.”

“That thing’s not right,” was all he was able to get out as he staggered backwards, nearly tripping over his own feet in his eagerness to escape.

Licking her lips like a cat after cream, Dru carefully arose from the slayer’s corpse and approached her doll.

“Miss Edith?”  Dru called, reaching out a tentative hand to where the thing lay, face down in the dirt.  She picked it up tenderly.  Turning it over, her look of concern was quickly replaced with a look of horror.  “Darling?” 

“No!” she screamed into the dolly’s face as she began to shake it from side to side.  “Please, no…”  She looked quickly at Billy and then back to her doll and began to howl like a mad thing.   “What did he do to you?  Where did you go?  Miss Edith?”

~*~

On a westbound train just outside of Chicago …

Elizabeth Pratt awoke from a very disturbing dream.  In it Warren Mears was in a Sears Tire Center screaming with rage. 

She sat up in their little compartment, pulling the covers around her, feeling more than unsettled.  Feeling like … older, wearier.  Feeling like a different person all together.

Her breath was coming in frantic puffs and she took a large gulp of air and held it, to steady herself.

She could remember last night, making love with William, and their time on the train before that.  New York City, The Adriatic, and … another dream with Warren.  One in which he’d taken away … something.  Her memory!  Ten years of her memory.

Images began to fly at her so quickly that she couldn’t breathe.  William looking into her eyes, smiling shyly on their wedding day.  Holding his hand while he wept by his mother’s side as she lay dying.  Making love with him for the first time.

She must have been making a sound, because William woke and reached a tentative hand to her shoulder.  “Buffy?  Are you all right?”

“I remember, William,” was all she was able to say through the flood of memories saturating her mind.  Seeing his eyes brought back how he looked at the Hellmouth, as Spike, when he gave his life to save them all.  Holding his hand, trying to hold onto him through the fire.

“Buffy?”  His voice shook.

“All of it.  I remember being Elizabeth,” she managed to get out before the memories took her under the tide again.

He looked at her groggily.  His mouth moved, but no words came out.

Not just being Elizabeth, she thought.  The forgotten years she’d spent as Buffy also came back.  Losing Tara and seeing the hate rise inside of Willow.  That nearly destroyed them all.  And her mother.  Oh, god.  Kneeling by her mom’s body while the center of Buffy’s life left for good.

“Oh, William …” Her cheeks were damp with tears, and her breath came in choking hitches.  She felt trapped, claustrophobic in this curtained chamber and climbed over William, frantically refastening her bodice buttons along the way.  She tore open the curtains and fell into the aisle in a heap.  William followed closely behind and helped her to her feet before asking her, simply “Elizabeth?”

She nodded. 

He seemed torn between emotions – one moment looking terribly concerned and the next appearing overjoyed. 

“Do you know how or why?”  He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts.

“I don’t know why it came back to me but I know how it started.  I have a perfect memory of a dream and Warren.”

He gave her a confused look.

“Long story.”  She reached up to the edge of the top bunk, to steady herself.  As she moved, she couldn’t help but notice how strangely her body felt – almost as though it didn’t quite belong to her.  Her muscles bunched and tensed beneath her skin in a way they hadn’t in a long, long time.

Not expecting anything to come of it, she tugged on the end of the bunk and the chain snapped as though it was made of paper.  With a very loud shout, the walrus brothers came tumbling out.  The grouchiest one landed on the bed she’d just vacated, and the fatter one fell in the center aisle with a thud loud enough to wake everyone in the car.

It confirmed her suspicions in an instant.

It wasn’t simply a matter of recovering all her lost memories.  Somehow she had become Buffy Elizabeth Summers Pratt, Vampire Slayer.  What was she going to do about that?

------------------------------


Author’s notes:

Historical accuracy and Mormons:  For fairness sake, I need to point out that most Mormon men didn’t marry a bunch of women and set them up to homestead land for them, only to abandon them and their children.  My great-great grandfather was a turd, however, and did exactly that.  My great-great grandmother, his third wife, was kind of bad-ass (she killed a bear all by herself) and deserved a better life.  In her way, Henrietta was a slayer.

Where credit is due:  In “Across the Plains,” Robert Louis Stevenson wrote about his travels west on an immigrant train in 1880.  It’s an entirely different experience than William and Buffy’s and far more ghetto.  It’s also free if you have an e-reader and I’d encourage you to read it.  He poignantly describes sitting on top of a rail car and compares the grasslands of Nebraska to an ocean.  His train top experience was far more eloquent and involved, well, way less fucking, so thanks and apologies to Bobby-Lou!


Chapter 28 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:

Many thanks to Minx, DoriansKitten, Science and Lutamira for the beta.  Sorry for the delay in chapters.  My body decided to go wonky and land me in the hospital but I’m out now.  Unfortunately, I’m learning that when the body mends, the writing brain sometimes goes to sleep.  Hope to see you soon.  Oh! And thanks to Tennyoelf for the banner!

Chapter 28

 

Buffy yanked her hand back  from the rail of the broken bunk as though the twisted metal was too hot to touch.  Luckily everyone’s attention was focused on the shouting walrusmen and not her.  Guiltily, she stepped away from the wreckage of the bed.

“Are you all right, dear?”  William gave her a deeply concerned gaze.

She nodded, miserable liar that she was.  ‘All right’ was a condition she was currently very far from.  She flexed her hand, feeling the strength of it in her bones.  There was no doubt – somehow, she was the slayer once again.

Several passengers spilled from nearby compartments, rushing over to assist or gawk while William leaned over to help extricate a Shotwell from the wreckage of their bed.  The huffing man glared at William, but accepted a hand up.

Alexander the porter had arrived as well, and was attending to the brother who had landed on the floor.  The blustering man shouted to anyone within hearing distance about general overall shoddy bunk construction, the deplorable condition of the train, and above all, the poor quality of the staff.

Once the men were on their feet and it had been determined that neither of them were injured apart from their ill-placed dignity, Alexander approached Buffy.

“You’re all right, missus, sir?”

Buffy lied with another nod.

More porters arrived on the scene and began to light the lamps as the morning sun had only just begun to make its presence known.  Passengers milled about, casting very curious glances at the brothers, but even more so toward William and Buffy.

The ever competent Alexander leaned over and said in a lowered voice, “If you’d kindly follow me, I believe you’d be more comfortable in another car while we clean up this unfortunate situation.” 

Buffy and William gratefully followed the porter toward the rear of the train, passing through several cars until they reached one with an empty seat.  Alexander deposited them in a spot near the door.

“I believe I shall be able to find accommodations on a separate car for your seatmates,” the porter said with a knowing grin.

“You’re a godsend, Geor-Alexander,” William said, pressing a ridiculously large tip into the porter’s hand. 

“My pleasure, sir.  I will return your belongings to you as soon as I’m able.”  He tipped his cap before scurrying off towards the front of the train.

They were alone at last, and William wasted no time.  He reached over and squeezed Buffy’s hand.

She looked up to see him beaming at her.   His smile was so bright that it almost hurt her eyes.  She tried to smile back, but there was something stubborn just behind her lips, and it would not budge.

“You can remember, darling.  Everything?” he repeated.

She nodded with what she hoped looked like enthusiasm.  He was so heart-breakingly excited to have her back.  How could she tell him the rest of the story?  Didn’t he deserve just a few moments of happiness before she drug him through yet another pile of stones?

“Back.  The whole Elizabeth package,” she said.

“And the Buffy package as well?  You have all your memories of the ship and the time when you could not remember?”

She tapped the side of her head.  “I’ve got it all right here.”  If he only knew how much else was tagging along for the ride.  Now that she was the slayer again, her first obligation was supposed to be to her calling.  Not to him.   Even if she didn’t seek trouble out, now that she was the slayer, she wouldn’t have to.  Trouble would find her.  It always did.

Feeling like a coward, she cast her gaze out the train window.  If she looked at his hopeful expression for even one more second she’d fall into pieces, and she desperately needed to feel in control of one small thing in her life right now.

“It must be a terrible shock.  You’ll settle in time, love.”  William patted her hand reassuringly.

He deserved so much better than this.  So did she.  Wasn’t that the whole point of her deciding to stay in this time and place?  She’d earned a chance at a normal life at long last.  This life with him was supposed to have been her reward.

How could they take it away?

If being the slayer was a gift, then it was fruitcake – returning no matter how much you wished the damned stuff would just go away.

She bit her lip and dug down deep enough to find a smile for William.  “It’ll be okay.  We’ll be fine,” she said, hoping that it would be her last lie of the day, but knowing better all the same.  She knew too well that learning to lie was lesson one for a slayer.

~*~

Dru ignored the crumpled corpse of the slayer just behind her and held her dolly as though it was the body of a broken child.  She lifted her head, keening and wailing into the night sky.  It was the sound of an animal in pain, and each screech was an icy shard along Billy’s spine.

He rushed to the cabin.  Why – he couldn’t say.  Perhaps to distance himself from Dru, perhaps in response to the muffled cries he heard coming from the still open doorway.  Whatever the reason didn’t matter, for when he tried to enter the little cabin, some kind of invisible barrier prevented him from crossing the threshold.  He could hear the source of the sound: tucked down in a corner of the room in a crudely fashioned cradle, a crying babe waved an impotent fist in the air.  There was nothing to be done for it, however.  Whether he wanted to help the infant or eat him, Billy was not crossing the threshold of the cabin.

He looked to Dru, still sobbing, huddled over Miss Edith, then glanced nervously upward.  The eastern sky was brightening very slightly, and it would be daylight in not much more than an hour.  Since they weren’t getting in the cabin, their only option was to hightail it out of there.

Last night he’d noticed some sandstone cliffs a few miles before they’d arrived at the slayer’s shack.  He’d lived rough enough to know that that type of stone was sure to have a few caves and crevices.  It might not be ideal, but any kind of small hideaway would be a far sight better than burning up under the sun.  Billy walked back to where he’d tied up the mare and led the horse over to Dru, who was still sitting in the dirt and weeping.

Knowing that words would be pointless with her in this condition, he placed his arms about her waist and lifted her to the standing position.  She was compliant enough and didn’t resist when he set her atop the mare.  After prying the dolly out of her hands, he tucked the damned thing into a saddle bag, settled in behind her, and they lit out. 

He rode hard to the base of the cliffs.  The bay was wheezing by the time they arrived, but there was no help for that.  He knew where to look and found an unoccupied cougar den with very little trouble.  It wasn’t roomy and stank to high heaven, but it would provide enough cover for the time being.  Besides, he didn’t have the time or inclination to be choosy.

Since it wouldn’t do to leave the horse tied up all day, without water or feed, he unloaded the saddle bags into the cave, then smacked the mare’s rump and set her to find her own way.  With any luck she’d make it to Ogden or a nearby homestead.  When he led Dru up to the cave, she offered no resistance.  Her weeping had given way to a soft moaning, and she sat down in a corner of the cave like an obedient child.

And they waited.   As the sun made its agonizingly slow path across the sky, they waited.  Dru ceased making any sound at all just after sunup.  By Billy’s reckoning, the only thing worse than spending the day hiding out in a cave was to spend it with a living statue.  He didn’t have another word for what Dru had become. 

Waiting and watching her was disturbing enough, but as the day wore on he felt a powerful thirst growing within him.  It gripped, first his stomach, then set deep claws into his throat and mind as the day wore on.  

By late afternoon his patience was wearing mighty thin, and he rustled through the saddlebag, remembering the whiskey flasks he’d liberated from the unfortunate brakeman.  It wouldn’t slake his thirst, not really, but if a fellow ever needed a reason for getting drunk, his current situation would qualify.

The look on Dru’s face reminded him of his mother during those ugly last days, when the fever would come upon her and she’d have moments where she’d be as still as death itself.  He’d place a cautious hand beneath his mother’s nose, just to assure himself that she was still alive.  There was no breath in Dru, however, and he wondered if there was any Dru left in Dru.  Perhaps when her dolly left, the rest of Dru’s mind had departed as well.

Waiting for her to awaken wasn’t doing either of them a lick of good, and he knew it.  Screwing up his determination, he settled down beside her.  A faint heart never filled a flush, he reminded himself, and reached out to hold her hand.  He may look a damned fool, but in his mama’s final days, he would often just climb up into her bed and hold her.  They were mother and child – but strangely reversed.  And it settled her down in a way that no amount of laudanum ever could.

Billy wrapped an arm around Dru’s waist, tugging her up tight to him, and laid her head upon his shoulder.  He didn’t say anything – she wasn’t likely to understand a lick of what was said to her anyhow. He just held her tightly and stroked her hair.  It was a pleasant way to spend a few minutes as the sun finally began to set, laying long shadows across the ground.

Well, that was a bust, Billy thought, shaking his head at his own foolishness.  He gave Dru’s waist a squeeze and stood up, stretching his legs before placing a tentative foot outside the cave’s opening.  It was night at last.  He took a few steps, but as predicted, the bay mare had long since lit out.  Looked like he’d be walking to Odgen or, he turned back to look at Dru, he'd be walking and carrying an unliving statue.

Though Dru was still seated in the corner, there was a difference to her, and it took him a moment to register what that was.  Her face still wore the same, frozen mask, but now she was moving.  Very subtly, she was rocking, back and forth.  Even as he watched, her movements became more pronounced until she was swaying hard enough to scrape her back against the wall on the backswing. 

Billy scurried over and squatted in front of her.  “Dru?  Baby?”  Damn, bad choice of words.  He held her cold hand in his.  “Dru?  It’s me, Billy.  We need to get a move on Dru.”

She looked at him and her eyes flickered with something that looked like understanding, but she kept rocking.

“I know you’re feeling out of sorts, Dru, but we need to head back to Odgen and get some grub.  You’re gonna need to come with me now.  Do you understand?”

Dru nodded, very slowly.  Her movements were deliberate and wooden.  She moved like a trick horse answering a question.

Billy rose to his feet, tugging her arms so that she’d stand, but she resisted and remained tucked into her corner of the cave.

“Come on, Dru.  We need to get goin’.  I don’t wanna leave you here, but I will if you force me to it.”

She looked him in the eye and remained unmoved, saying simply, “Miss Edith.”  Fat tears began to roll down Dru’s cheeks and something twisted in his unbeating heart.  It was almost worse than seeing her keening and out of her mind, to see her crumbled in a corner, in the dirt, defeated and weeping.

“I’ve got her.  Here, in the saddle bag.  You can talk to her later.  For now, we need to light out.”

“She’s not there.”

Billy grit his teeth and reached into the bag, fishing out the dolly.  “She’s right here.  Now come along, Dru.”

“That’s not her.  You know that’s not her.  She left the moment I killed the slayer.” 

“Come with me, Dru.  We can figure out the dolly later.  For now come with me and eat something.”

“Not without Miss Edith.  I need to know what happened to her.”

“Well, I don’t know, Dru.  And unless this here cave is mighty good at keeping secrets, I don’t think it knows either.”  Since being kind and gentle was getting nowhere, perhaps what the gal needed was a firmer hand.  Besides, his patience dimmed as that unearthly thirst continued to claw its way up his throat.

Dru gave him a wounded look and wrapped her arms around her knees.  “He’d know,” she said petulantly.

“He?”

“The Shining Man,” she mumbled.

“Yeah, he woulda straightened this whole Miss Edith mess out, I’m certain,” Billy barked.  “We should have given him an invite.”

Dru leapt to her feet and wrapped her arms around Billy’s neck.  Moments like these he was grateful that he didn’t need to breathe.  As her cold arms wrapped around his neck, he felt a wave of relief that she had some … well, life back in her.

“That’s exactly what we should do, clever boy!”  Her lips curved into a delighted smile, and she clapped her hands maniacally.

Damn if being with her wasn’t like riding a horse that hadn’t been saddle broke yet.  Every time he’d think he had a path to something, she’d tear off in some other direction entirely.  He took a long pull from the flask, emptying it.  “So … Ogden?  We have a long walk ahead of us.”

She ignored him totally, spinning in a circle with her arms at her side and her nose pointed at the ceiling.  “Shining Man?  Please return to me.  You said you’d come when I asked.  I’m asking now.  Please, return to me.  I’ll be good.  Just please, please …”

Before Billy had time to work up a good head of disgust at her latest delusion, damned if the air directly in front of Dru didn’t begin to crackle and snap.  Small sparks of light appeared, and the only thing that came to mind was that she’d somehow conjured up a small lightning storm, the whole thing only slightly larger than Billy himself.

With another snap and a strange buzzing sound, the lightning storm took the shape of a person.  He’d never seen its like.  It was very clearly a man, dark hair, angry look on his face, but Billy could see clean through the fellow.  It was … some kind of spirit or spook she’d conjured up.  Would wonders never cease? 

“Drusilla,” the apparition snarled.

“You came!”  Dru was radiant.  “I was hoping you would.”

“You won’t be hoping that for long, you crazy bitch.  Do you know what you’ve done?”

“I killed a slayer,” Dru answered, with a hint of pride in her voice. 

“Oh, that’s not even the beginning of it.”  The Shining Man shook his head in disgust.  “Why did you do it, Dru?”

“Because she’s the enemy?”  Dru wavered.

“And how did you know where she was?  Jesus.  How thick are you?  Who led you here, Dru?”

“Miss Edith.”

“Fuck yeah, Miss Edith.  Now where do you suppose she’s gotten to?”

Dru looked at the ghostly figure and shrunk back into the corner.  “I … I don’t know.  I thought you might.  It’s why I called you.”

“Jesus Christ, fucking females.  WHY is it always the fucking females?”  The Shining Man screamed impotently at the ceiling, his translucent colors shifting to reds and oranges.

Dru collapsed into weeping, and though Billy felt a pull to ease her tears, he felt a greater desire to listen to this Shining Man fellow and try to figure out what the holy hell was going on.

“Dru, when the dolly was talking to you, did you ever stop to consider for a second that she might be playing for the other fucking team?  Did that thought just maybe cross your mind?  I don’t know, just for a second?  When you had a rare lucid flash?”

She looked at him through red-rimmed eyes.  “She gave me a prophecy.”

“Did she?”  The apparition cackled.  “Let’s hear it, Dru.  Let’s hear the prophecy.”

At that moment Billy reckoned there was precious little he wouldn’t do for a whole lot more whiskey.  The prophecy.  One more time.

“Miss Edith said that together William and I would kill a slayer, forever changing the destiny of the Hellmouth.”

The Shining Man looked over, noticing Billy at last.  After a derisive snort, he turned his ire back on Dru.  “Well, Miss Edith told the truth.  I’ll give her that much.  Told you the truth and made my job a metric fuckton more difficult.”

Dru shuddered.  “I don’t … understand.”

“Stupid and insane.  You’re a two-for, Dru.  Let me spell it out for you.  The dolly was working for the other guys.  The Powers That Be.  They wanted you to kill the slayer.”

“Why would they … what?  That’s not possible!  Miss Edith told me where to find food.  Helped me kill that boy on the ship.”

The ghostly man cackled out a laugh.  “Yeah, so you don’t think your crazy mind might have filtered the message that the dolly was trying to get across?  And what makes you think the Powers That Be are all hearts and flowers in the first place?  They let Angel eat your family, didn’t they?”

Dru nodded, but she still seemed unconvinced.  “Finding food is one thing.  But why would they lead me to kill a slayer?”

“So you’d awaken another one.”

“Another one?” Dru repeated numbly.

“Yeah.  So now when we try to open the Sunnydale Hellmouth, instead of having to battle little inexperienced Henrietta, I’ve got to deal with a grown slayer with a decade of experience.  Buffy.  You remember Buffy, don’t you, Dru?”

Dru shook her head.

“Sure you do!  She was the scrap of a gal on The Adriatic.   You attacked her husband, and she got the best of you and ran you off the ship when she was just a human.  Now that she’s got her powers back, she may be a little bit more of a problem.”

“But Miss Edith wouldn’t have …”

“It wasn’t Miss Edith, goddammit, Dru.  It was you!  When you killed the slayer, the next in line was called.  It’s just in this case, the next in line was Buffy.   I put a whammy on her, just to be safe, but it was intended for humans.  When you made her the slayer again, all my work went down the toilet.  She remembers everything, and she’s back in full slayer mode.  What’s worse?  She’s on a train headed for California as we speak.”

“And Miss Edith?”  Dru’s voice trembled.  With the arrival of this ghostly fellow she’d transformed into a kicked dog.

“Shut up about fucking Miss Edith!  Jesus!  She won’t be back.  She played you, and she’s gone.  I’ve got the White Demons in place, but having a powerful slayer on the loose isn’t what I needed.  You and Buffy - fucking cunts complicating everything. ”

Billy felt overwhelmed as he watched Dru shrink back against the sandstone wall, hugging her arms around her waist.  It was amazing how his glorious hellcat had transformed into this damaged, frightened creature.  Before he was quite conscious that he’d made a decision to say anything, he found that he was already speaking.  “Don’t put up with that, Dru.”

She looked at him, a flicker of recognition in her defeated expression.

“You have something to add, little man?”  The apparition’s mouth split into a wide grin that threatened to crack his face in half.  He turned to face Billy.

“I reckon I do.”  Billy turned to face the shimmering man, with one hand on his pistol.  He knew it would do nothing to a creature made of light and air, but it made him feel a powerful amount of better. 

Billy took a step toward Dru and thrust out his chin at the Shining Man.  “Dru took care of a slayer last night.  I reckon we could handle another one if we put our minds to it.”

“Dru’s done nothing.  She killed a baby slayer that was so new she'd only met her watcher last week!  You have no idea, boy!”

“You need to git,” Billy said through gritted teeth.  He nodded his head toward the cave entrance.

“WHAT?” the Shining Man roared.

“Get going.  Skedaddle.  You’re doing nothing here and you need to go.”

“You tell me nothing.  Who the fuck do you think you are?  You’ve been a vampire for how long?  A few days.  And you think you’re going to impart your wisdom … what are you doing?”

Billy had begun to unbutton the fly of his trousers.  At least that shut the ghost up for a minute.  Billy grinned and continued to unbutton his pants, then he leisurely reached down and pulled his pecker out.

“What the fuck are you doing?”  The Shining Man’s voice was wavering.  Yeah, Billy definitely had his attention now.

“I reckoned,” Billy pointed his cock toward the man, “if we’re going to get into a pissing contest, you and I, then the fellow with an actual pecker might have a slight advantage.  What do you think?”

The Shining Man watched Billy through narrowed eyes.

Billy grinned cockily and began to piss a stream directly through the center of the shimmering apparition, spelling out his name.  B…I…L… 

“Ya know, maybe you’re right,” Billy said.  “Maybe you shouldn’t get going.  Stick around.  When I’m done pissing on you, I can demonstrate some other fine tricks I can do with my dick.  Dru can help.  It must get mighty frustrating having a … whatever it is you’ve got.  Cloud dick?  I find my flesh pecker is damned handy.”

“You have no idea, child.  None.  Don’t come crying to me when this all turns to dust on you.  When you’re both dusted.”   With a crack that sounded almost like gunfire, the apparition faded.  Good thing too, Billy thought, as he was running out of juice before he’d begun the letter Y. 

He tucked his penis back in his pants and buttoned them, still grinning like a schoolboy.  When he felt Dru’s fingertips touch his elbow, he jumped and turned to her.

“Thank you, my William.”  Her eyes filled to the brim, but not with tears of sorrow.

He tipped his hat, an oddly formal gesture considering everything.

“My pleasure, ma’am.  That fellow was a damned cur, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“What…?”  Dru stuttered and bit her lip before she continued.  “What now, William?”

“Well, first thing, we get back to Ogden and get some dinner.  After that I reckon we need to teach that Shining Man fellow a thing or two about killing slayers.”

“We kill Buffy?”  Dru looked at him – a spark of life behind her blue eyes and it helped damp down any lingering indecision he might have felt.

“Damn right, we kill Buffy.  Two of us versus one gal?  We got this handled, Dru.”

“She’s not like the other one, William.”

“She doesn’t need to be.  We won’t be going at her directly.  When you’re facing a foe that’s bigger than you, it’s sometimes best to go around and hit ‘em from the side.  You’d recognize her if you saw her again?  More importantly, you’d recognize her husband?”

Dru nodded.

“This is going to be too easy, sweet.  We don’t even have to go to them; they’re coming to us.  We just sit in Ogden and wait.  This kind of plan practically writes itself.  Come along, dinner waits.”

Billy held out his arm, and Dru took it with a smile - just a courting couple out for a before-dinner stroll on a moonlit night.  He escorted her out of the cave, and they began the long walk back into Ogden.

 

 

 

Chapter 29 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
This story has been nominated in Round 26 of the Sunny-D Awards. Thanks so much for that. Also for whoever nominated the old story, "Yours, William" in this round. It means so much to me! Thank you also for reading and commenting! Super speedy beta was done by Minx, Science and DK and they deserve a big thanks too. Mistakes, commas and details about antelope steaks are all on me, however. Amy did the banner!
We all begin with good intent
Love was raw and young
We believed that we could change ourselves
The past could be undone
But we carry on our backs the burden
Time always reveals
In the lonely light of morning
In the wound that would not heal
It's the bitter taste of losing everything
That I've held so dear. -Sarah McLaughlin-


Chapter 29

The ostentatious train station was an odd fit for the burgeoning Nebraska town. It seemed to be a country boy who was trying on his older cousin’s big city shoes. Still, Buffy supposed it should try to make a grand impression. It was the only jumping off spot, train-wise, for all western destinations and needed to let the world know how important it was.

She pressed her back against the wall, trying to avoid the milling throngs as William busied himself talking to porters, arranging their seats and luggage. He was his smiling, polite Williamesque self as a porter motioned for him to follow and, with a quick nod to Buffy, he did so.
The churning sea of humanity quickly swallowed him from her sight.

Though the day had wrung her out like a washcloth, it wasn’t the scramble for trains and the hectic trip from Chicago to Omaha that had done her in. It was, rather, the unrelenting pressure of holding in her early morning surprise. The thought of her secret buzzed in her mind like an electric wire, accompanying the click-clack of the rails beneath her feet. Slayer, again. Slayer, again.

The amount of baggage slayerness brought, not just to her life, but to William’s was something too overwhelming to contemplate right now. If she could only get a few moments alone, to think, to figure out what to do, to get the litany of Slayer, again, to pipe down for one minute, maybe then she could move ahead. But getting alone time didn’t seem to be in her cards.

She glared up at the clock perched at the base of the dome in the center of the station. One in the morning. It seemed a very bizarre time to begin a trip, but William assured her, his beloved guide book in hand, that it was the scheduled time for trains departing from the Eastern Terminus.

All she wanted to do was tuck into her bed and let blessed darkness claim her. With any luck, they’d board soon. Lately it seemed she’d been luck’s bitch, however, so she wasn’t counting on Omaha being a particularly easy time.

Buffy was so lost in thought that she hadn’t noticed William approaching until he was nearly standing in front of her. He was wearing a broad smile, despite the weariness in the lines of his eyes, and leading two well dressed women.

“Darling! I’ve a surprise for you,” William stood to one side to allow the ladies behind him a view of Buffy. “Our porter, Samuel-not-George, heard my accent and suggested that we might enjoy traveling with fellow countrymen.”

At that, the ladies behind him laughed good-naturedly and the elder one repeated “Countrymen” as though it was an inside joke. Buffy gave William a puzzled look.

“May I present Mrs. Fiona Dunn and Miss Mary Dunn, mother and daughter from Ireland who are on their way to meet up with Mr. Dunn in San Francisco. Ladies, I’d like to introduce my wife, Elizabeth Pratt.”

The Dunns promptly curtsied, and Buffy bent her knees in her best attempt at doing the same.

“After just a few moments of speaking with these ladies, I knew that joining our fortunes would be most agreeable for all parties.” William looked at Buffy hopefully and she found a smile for him in return.

“Nice to meet you,” Buffy said, because she had to say something.

The younger woman had coppery red hair and a wide, honest smile. She stepped forward and looked at Buffy appraisingly. “I’m looking forward to it. I’d given up hope of finding anyone close to my age, let alone another female. I think traveling companions can make or break a journey, don’t you?”

“Yes, absolutely.” As wiped out as Buffy felt, she had to admit she liked the girl’s forthrightness and thought she and her mother would be a vast improvement over the walrus brothers. It was thoughtful of William to have considered such a thing.

“We’re so fortunate to have met you, Mr. Pratt. It’ll be lovely to have a gentleman looking out for us,” the elder Dunn woman said. She seemed kindly and had a soft beauty that reminded Buffy of her own mother.

“I am pleased to help, ma’am,” William returned, politely.
Their conversation was abruptly cut off by two words that Buffy had been longing to hear for hours. The distinctive sing-song call of Allllllll Aboooaaaarrrddd!

After much jostling and herding, they arrived at their assigned seats in the center of the train, though their seats were next to the door at the front of the car. Buffy was grateful to see that their beds were already made up. She shucked her shoes off and climbed onto the bed while William tucked their day bag in the storage space beneath their seats. The Dunns seemed eager for sleep as well and wasted little time climbing to their upper bunk and settling in for the night.

She scooted next to the window to make room for William. He sat down on the bed next to her and reached over to squeeze her hand.

“Lovely train, isn’t it? The guide book said that it should be even finer than the train to Chicago, but I didn’t want to ruin the surprise.”

Was it nicer? In her fog she hadn’t even noticed. “It’s terrific, William, really. And arranging seatmates was a great idea, too.”

“I’m going to just dash out to the water closet.”

“Okay.” She nodded at him.

His brows knit together. “Are you quite sure you’re all right, dear?”

His expression was so raw and honest, she felt something fierce claw at the edges of her heart and tears began to build behind her eyes. She nodded vigorously and turned to look out the window for a moment, big coward that she was.

“I don’t know what it would be like to recover one’s memories so suddenly as you have, but I can imagine it would be quite a shock. Still, love, you can talk to me about it. About anything.” He leaned over and kissed the back of her head tenderly. “You’re tired, love.
Should there be a queue, I may be some time. Please don’t wait up.”

“Okay.” She knew that soon she was going to have to start talking to him in real sentences, with real words about real things. Slayer things. But not tonight.

She felt him slip out of their bed and heard a mumbled exchange with the Dunn women before he pulled the curtain closed.

Alone at last. Buffy tucked down under the covers and faced the train wall. Her hand trailed up to her necklace, as it had done throughout the day, to trace the delicate silver stake that dangled just beneath her throat. She recalled the day he’d given it to her, the earnest look behind his blue eyes as he tried so desperately to show her that he loved her — the whole Buffy package,
complete with her slayer past.

But he couldn’t have known any more than she that it was no longer behind her. Now that she’d been called again, all that being the slayer entailed was about to wrap around both their lives.

The steam whistle cried out and the train lurched forward abruptly. She held onto the wall to steady herself. Just when she’d gotten used to this life, this husband, everything turned on its side again. Leaving on their final stage of the long journey should have been filled with joy but left her with only trepidation.

What waited for her in California? What waited for them both? Another Hellmouth? More battles?

And did she really have to answer the calling?

This time, couldn’t she just say ‘no’? Just because they asked this of her, yet again, where was it written in stone that she had to say yes?

The curtains moved aside, and William silently rejoined her in bed. Though she still faced the wall, she screwed her eyes shut tightly and willed her breathing to slow, feigning sleep.

He tucked in behind her, moving slowly so that he wouldn’t disturb her, carefully draping his arm about her waist.

She could feel his breath, warm and comforting on her neck, and hear his voice, just above a whisper. “Sleep well. Missed you so much, my Elizabeth.”

Biting her lip, she swallowed the lump of pain that had suddenly formed in her throat. She forced herself to keep breathing steadily, as a dreamer might, until she relaxed in his arms and sleep finally claimed her.

~*~

They were roused by Samuel just before seven in the morning and by eight had been herded out the door to breakfast at a small café in the middle of a desolate patch of Nebraska. William informed her that unlike the previous train, they wouldn’t have the luxury of a dining car for the duration of the trip. They were to take their meals rather hurriedly in thirty minute breaks at designated dining stops.

Since neither she nor William felt particularly hungry, they purchased some fruit and William indulged in a cup of tea. When they reboarded the train, their beds had been made up into the day position and the Dunn women were already seated and looked eager for company.

“Welcome back! Did you enjoy breakfast, then?” Mrs. Dunn asked.

William nodded. “It was quite rushed, but then, I suppose that’s the nature of these stops.”

“Indeed.” The woman fussed with a handkerchief awkwardly, then tilted her head towards Buffy. “Forgive my inquisitive nature, but I don’t know when I’ve seen a couple that had such a look of honeymooners. Have you two recently wed? I simply must know.”

Mary let out a dramatic sigh at her mother’s intrusion. “Oh, Mum. You mustn’t do any such thing.” She looked to Buffy and mouthed the words “I’m sorry!”

Buffy smiled at the pair. “Yes, William and I wed just before we boarded a ship for America.”

“How romantic! Was your wedding very grand?”

“Quite small, actually,” Buffy said. William reached over to squeeze her hand, his eyes sparkling with the knowledge that now she too could remember their wedding.

“It was perfect. It was exactly what we wanted,” William confirmed.

“And an American bride and English groom. I must ask, however did you meet? Forgive my …”

“Rather than constantly asking for forgiveness, Mother, you could simply stop asking invasive questions.” The elder woman huffed in indignation and Mary responded with laughter. “Well, it is an option, Mum.”

William looked extremely distressed at this latest question, and Buffy knew that he was a miserable liar, so she handled the woman’s query, coming surprisingly close to the truth. “William saved me from a ruffian.”

Mrs. Dunn leaned forward in her seat, her mouth a round oh of horror and excitement. “Do tell!”

“Or don’t,” Mary suggested with a grin. “It’s the only certain way to stop her constant prying. Trust me.”

“After I was accosted by a street thug, William assisted me and brought me into his home.”

“And you fell in love while on the mend? Oh, it’s exactly like Jane and Bingley in Pride and Prejudice,” Mrs. Dunn twittered.

Buffy looked over to see William looking, if possible, even more awkward, a blush stealing up to color his sharp cheekbones. More questions about their courtship were certain to follow. Since the Lord of the Manor marrying the maid would be sure to scandalize even the very affable Dunn ladies, Buffy tried desperately to think of something, anything, to steer the conversation toward a more socially acceptable course.

“And now we’re on our way to California,” Buffy said. It wasn’t wordy or smooth, but it did change the direction of the conversation.

Mary Dunn gave Buffy a sly grin. “You’re clever. I like you.”

“We’re partners in a winery in the Napa Valley.” William grinned broadly and little smile crinkles appeared beside his eyes. “It’s a wonderful location and our home is quite close to the ocean. We’re most enthused about the endeavor.” He squeezed Buffy’s hand so hard that she was fairly sure she’d be wincing if not for slayer strength.

Mrs. Dunn continued to pepper William with questions about the winery and his knowledge of California in general, so Buffy let herself slip away from the conversation. She joined Mary in looking out the train window to watch Nebraska unfold in all its monotonous glory. It was almost frightening the way the land stretched out until the curve of the earth finally stopped it. The tall grasses moved and swayed in the breeze in a primal dance. It was so different than anything she’d ever seen and she found she felt very small, infinitesimally insignificant, in the face of all that nothingness.

~*~

They ate their evening meal at another nondescript Nebraska eating station after a long day of dust, heat and ‘forgive me for asking but’ kinds of questions from Mrs. Dunn. Since the two most popular items in the menu were antelope steak and buffalo roast, Buffy opted for the third thing that looked like chicken, but turned out to be sage hen.

After their somewhat chewy meal, they reentered the car to find that Samuel had already made up their beds. Buffy went to the ladies room, accompanied by Mary who had proven to be the perfect seatmate — intelligent and not nearly as nosy as her mother.

The primary benefit of having the Dunns as companions was that Buffy didn’t have any alone time with William. Conversation remained light, relatively impersonal, and William couldn’t question her too closely or talk to her in depth about anything.

While Buffy readied for bed, she took her time, dragging out the process because she so dreaded being alone with him. All day long he’d still seemed to glow from the buzz of her recovering her memories, like a starving man who had at last been treated to filet mignon - or antelope steak, as the case may be. Whenever she glanced in his direction, he met her with a wide grin. If she waited too long between glances, she’d feel his fingertips brush her arm or tangle in her hair ‘accidentally.’ He would give her a questioning look, simple and basic, just to confirm that she was really there, all of her, and she couldn’t help but smile reassuringly in response. How could she do anything else in the face of his relentless optimism?

After braiding her hair for bed, she and Mary returned to their seats. William and Mrs. Dunn were already in bed, so Mary wished Buffy a good night and climbed up to her bunk, closing the curtains around their beds after her.
William was tucked next to the window and greeted her with a wide smile. “Oh good! You’re back!” Even for the newly enthusiastic William, his greeting was a little exuberant.

“What’s up?”

“Come and see!” He moved over to give her access to
the window and Buffy crawled over to look out.

In the distance she could see the formerly monotone line of sandy-colored grasslands had given way to bright reds, yellows and oranges. A line of fire that must have been six or seven feet high flickered and wavered in the distance.
“It’s a prairie fire. They’re often simply caused by lighting, or occasionally, humans.”

“Did you read about them in your guide book, William?” If he only weren’t so endearing, it would be so much easier on her.

He nodded and fidgeted with his hair, looking embarrassed. “Well, yes. I suppose I have an over-fondness for that book. They were just described so wonderfully and I thought the chances of our seeing one would be slim.”

Buffy watched the wall of dancing flames, marching forward, devouring all before it. “No, it’s … striking. Kind of terrible and beautiful at the same time. If that makes sense.”

“Perfect sense, love.” His arm came around her waist and he tugged her close. She leaned back against his warm chest, feeling safe — if only for that moment. They remained that way for a long time, just silently watching the fire as the train creaked and chugged through the lonely Nebraska night.

His hand smoothed her hair, tentative and tender.
Leaning down, he whispered in her ear, “Are you really all right, darling?”

Her breath caught in her throat and since she didn’t quite trust herself to speak, she nodded very vigorously.

His voice continued to rumble in her ear. “It’s just that, in all the bustle of the day, we haven’t had a moment alone to talk of all these … changes.”

“I’m fine, William, really.” She turned to face him and gave him the approximation of a smile.

“Forgive me, Buffy. I don’t know why I’m plagued by these strange doubts. I’m being a foolish, insecure husband.” He ran his fingers through his hair and kept a steady gaze upon her. “It’s silly of me to worry about losing you just when I’ve found you again.”

“No, it’s fine, William, and we do need to talk. It’s just kinda hard in such closer quarters.” She glanced at the upper bunk to show she was referring to the Dunns, when she saw it. Tied to the bottom of the upper bunk with twine, the image flickering with the dying prairie fire. Their wedding photo.

It all came back to her in an instant — the first day of their voyage. They’d only gotten married the day before and had boarded the ship with such grand plans. She’d borrowed the string from George and tied their wedding photo above their bed. William had looked at her with boundless hope for future together. If only they’d known what was ahead.

“Oh, William.” The tears she’d been holding behind the dam all day, poured forth in a torrent.

“Oh, love. Oh, no.” William wrapped his arms around her, tucking her head beneath his chin. “It was meant to be a happy surprise.”

But Buffy couldn’t stop the tears. She might have been weeping for George, a life cut short so cruelly. She might have been weeping for her own lost chance at having the life of a normal girl. But really, ultimately, she knew she was really weeping for William. After his lifetime of being alone, he finally had a love and dreams of building a life, of having children. How could she take his happiness from him?

His fingers soothed her hair and he murmured frantically in her ear. “So sorry, love. I got it wrong. Please, Buffy.”

She forced her weeping back under control, grateful that the squeaking car would have muffled her cries. William pulled back and looked at her with raised brows.
“Darling?”

“I’m okay, William,” she whispered. “It’s just … a lot, you
know?”

“Certainly, love.”

She nodded and lay back in bed, while William tugged the covers around them. Though she’d scooted over toward the window and had her back to him, William was having none of it, and gathered her in his arms.

“I love you, Buffy. I always will. We’ll just give this some time and all will be fine. You’ll see.”

Tomorrow. She’d tell him the truth about her slayerness tomorrow, no matter what. She just wanted him to have one more night of his beautiful delusion. That wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

~*~

The next day dawned, dusty and hot almost as soon as the sun rose. They had a late breakfast in Denver, which was a little more elegant than their previous eating stations. As usual, the call to board the train came before they were halfway finished eating and they had to gobble the remainder of their meals.

“Look at me, already taking on American manners,”
William teased through a mouthful of eggs.

Buffy kicked him gently in the shins as she stuffed the better part of a muffin in her mouth and they dashed out the door.

Once they were back on the train, it swung north into Wyoming. Shortly before Denver, the relentless flatness had given way to occasional hills and mountains which became even more pronounced in Wyoming. The engine began to strain on the steeper grades and Buffy could see snow on some of the taller peaks.

Just outside of Laramie the train passed through a prairie dog town, which charmed everyone on board. The creatures had inquisitive faces with round, solemn eyes and reminded Buffy of land otters. Passengers threw bits of bread and dried fruit to them. The prairie dogs were skittish, however, and barked warnings to one another before disappearing down one of their dozens of holes only to pop up again a few yards away. Mary was enthralled by their antics and spent the next few hours sketching them.

It really was, Buffy had to admit, a very pleasant way to spend the day. Whenever the nagging voice rose in her subconscious, reminding her that she absolutely had to tell William the truth about her being the slayer again, she would look into his bright blue eyes, his hopeful expression, and find her willpower had evaporated.

They were scheduled to have their evening meal in the promisingly named Rock Springs, Wyoming, but as they approached the town, Buffy began to get a strange sense about the place. It might have been the way the porters were moving about, very busily and not making eye contact with the passengers. Or it could have been the strange, black smoke she could see rising up just ahead of them. She suspected that it was something far worse than either of those indicators.

It was her slayer sense. That strange prickling on the back of her neck that she’d get every time some bad mojo was about to go down.

And she wasn’t the only one. William sensed the difference in her immediately. The very moment that she picked up on the strange vibe emanating from Rock Springs William jerked his head from his guide book and looked at her.

“What’s wrong?” His voice wasn’t soft, and he didn’t sound like an adoring husband. He sounded panicked. When she didn’t answer, he asked again. “What is it, Buffy? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know exactly. There’s something wrong in the town. Something big.”

He shook his head, clearly not understanding, as the train shuddered to a halt at the Rock Springs Station.

Their porter, Samuel, stood at the front of the car, purposefully blocking the exit. “Ladies and Gentlemen, we apologize for the inconvenience. There appears to be some kind of trouble in town and we ask for your patience. Our conductor is going to discuss the matter with the station master and then we will be able to let you off to dine. It will just be a few moments, I assure you.”

As they waited, the light tingling sensation on the back of Buffy’s neck grew until it felt as though tarantulas were marching between her shoulder blades.

Though the high fence around the station blocked most of her view, it didn’t block the thick smoke settling over the town or the sounds. She could make out a distinctive, eerie noise coming from some distance away. It took her a moment to place it, but when it came to her, it was with a discomfort that made the marching spiders on her back begin to dance.

It was the sound of a mob. There was no mistaking that distinctive mix of hate and fear and mindless violence. Though she’d only experienced a mob a few times, she would never be able to forget its voice.

The conductor stepped into the car looking quite worried. He spoke a few hurried words to Samuel before darting out to the next car on the train. “Unfortunately,” Samuel announced, “we will not be stopping at our usual dining spot tonight. There are difficulties in town that require us to make arrangements in Green River, which is about thirty minutes away. We are terribly sorry for the inconvenience.”

The moment the porter stopped talking, the sound of the crowd once again rose to fill the void. It seemed closer now, louder and angrier. She noticed several of the passengers were working frantically to close their windows and after a pointed look at William, Mrs. Dunn stood up to do the same. Their window appeared to be stuck, however and the woman gave up after a few moments of struggling.

Just behind the dull roar of angry voices, a new abrupt sound rose, catching everyone’s attention in an instant. It was a single human voice, a scream, which rose up and sliced through the wall of sound before it was suddenly silenced.

Buffy shot out of her seat and quickly reached under their seat for the day bag. William looked at her with a blank expression on his face.

“I need to go William, now. I’m sorry.”

“What?” He blinked, scrambling to comprehend. The two
Dunn women looked at her with shocked expressions.

“I can’t explain more than that. I’ll catch up with you. I can meet you where we switch trains. Ogden, right?”

Buffy attempted to nudge her way past Samuel, who stood firm. The train whistle gave a short hoot, indicating it was about to leave the station.

“No.” William leapt to his feet.

“No?!”

“Buffy, Elizabeth, please. You can’t do this.”

“I have to.”

“Then,” he stepped toward her, “I’m coming with you.”

“No, you’re not.” The train lurched forward and Buffy had to steady herself with one hand. “You can’t. It’s just for me, William. I’ll explain later.”

“Ma’am?” Samuel broke in, politely, but firmly, his arm barring access to the door. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m not to let anyone off the train just now.”

“It’s okay, Samuel. You’re not letting me.” Buffy moved the porter’s hand aside and slipped past him. She unlatched the door and turned to face William. “I’ll see you in Ogden. I promise. And … I’m sorry, William.”

She had no more time to spend. Though the train was still moving slowly, it was picking up speed rapidly and the end of the platform was only feet away.

With a deep breath, Buffy flung herself out of the door and tumbled onto the wooden platform gracelessly, skinning the hell out of her knees in the process.

She began to stand and had just gotten to her knees when a projectile, a man, flew from the train. He landed beside her and rolled towards her until he smashed into her legs, knocking her back on her ass.

William.

He pulled himself up as quickly as he was able and gasped, “I told you I was coming with you!”
His hand shot down to help her up and she took it, rising to her feet to face him. His expression was stony and there was no mistaking the tone of his voice. “Buffy.” William, her sweet, loving husband, was angrier than she’d ever heard him. “All our things are currently on a train headed for Utah. We’re now luggageless in Rock Springs in the midst of what appears to be a riot. And what is worse, you just tried to leave me. Leap off a train into this madness without me, without any explanation whatsoever. I would very much like to know just what the bloody hell is going on?”


Downtown Rock Springs in the late nineteenth century

-------------------------

A very apologetic Author's note:

After a great deal of whining because he wasn't in this chapter, I've agreed to let Billy the Kid do the end notes (against my better judgement).

Hello folks:

In my book, a fellow is only as good as his reputation, and mine has been rode like a swayback mule. I aim to set the record straight about two men in particular. The first one is Pat Garrett — the dirty coward who shot me while I was crossin’ a friend’s yard in my bare feet! The yella bastard (pardon my language) wrote all about it, changin’ all the details to make himself a hero and myself a cold-blooded killer. Called it The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid, The Noted Desperado of the Southwest. I ask you, what kind of fool gives a book a title with two dozen words when five or six will do? A Pat Garrett kind of fool. He claims a great many falsehoods in his story, and I will not burden you with the details except to say that later historians could see through his tall tales. I assure you, the number of men I killed personally (outside of a shootout situation where no one could tell who was shooting who), well that number was less than five. And two of those fellows were in self-defense. You have my word as a gentleman.

The other person I want to bring to your mind is Emilio Estevez, or as I call him, Charlie Sheen’s crazy brother. In Young Guns I & 2, he portrayed me as a fool — a giggling killer with a hair trigger. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was quite calm, good to my friends. I carried on a long correspondence with no less than the Governor of New Mexico and met with the man, for Christ’s sake (again, excuse the language). I was also a very good dancer and had quite a string of sweethearts in my time. I don’t think the manic idiot that Emilio played matches remotely to the facts.

This is plenty long, and since Puddin’ is mutterin’ that she ought not to have let me out of ‘my box,’ I reckon I better let her get to postin’ this chapter. See you in Chapter 31. 32 at the latest.

~Billy~

p.s. When Pat Garrett said I was one of the best shots he ever saw — he wasn’t lyin’ about that part.
Chapter 30 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thanks so much to Science, Lutamira, DoriansKitten and Miss Minx for their beta work! And thanks All4Spike too! And thanks to you for your thoughts and feedback! I’m leaving today for some much needed time with family in the Pacific NW – hope to be back with another chapter soon.
Well darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable
And lightness has a call that’s hard to hear. -Indigo Girls-


Chapter 30

William’s heartbeat thundered out of his chest and up to his head. As he reached down to help Buffy up, his hand shook uncontrollably. His fear felt like a living thing, spreading its roots and tendrils through his mind. Anger may have been a bloom, but fear was the plant from which it sprang.

“Buffy, talk to me,” he demanded. “Why did you leap from the train?’

His wife’s expression betrayed panic and something akin to guilt. Her eyes locked on the chaos behind his shoulder, not on his face.

“I told you … it’s hard to explain.”

“I’ve got time.”

“I don’t,” she said, looking past him to the smoke-filled town.

From the edge of his vision, he could see several people headed toward them, including the station master.

“Buffy? Please. How could you simply … leave me in that manner?”

“I would have caught up with you in Ogden,” she said, and still she didn’t meet his eye.

He placed his trembling fingers beneath her chin and tilted her head so that she looked at him. “Darling, please. A person just doesn’t leap off a moving train. It’s simply not …” sane, he thought, as his rage withered into panic.

The station master had reached them. “Are you all right?” He was an older man and had the look of a retired cowhand, faded by the weather and too many miles in a saddle. The few other gawkers that they’d attracted hung back at a respectful distance.

“Yes, we’re fine,” William responded.

“Looked to me like you fell or … were you thrown from the train?” the station master asked skeptically.

“No! Not at all,” William began without knowing how to finish. Since Buffy was collecting herself, as it turned out, he didn’t need to.

“What’s happening?” Buffy asked the older man.

The station master gave Buffy a puzzled glance.

“In town.” She spoke slowly, as if speaking to a child. “The smoke, the screaming. What’s going on?”

“A riot. The kind that would make a regular mob seem like a prayer meetin’. Been goin’ on for nearly half the day and shows no sign on slowin’ any time soon.” The old man cast a glance to William, clearly uncomfortable that the little lady was doing all of the talking.

“Why?” Buffy shook her head. “Why would anybody riot?”

“There was some trouble in the number six pit this morning, and a couple of celestials got themselves kilt.”

Buffy gave William an exasperated look. “And I thought Englishmen ruined English.” Turning back to the station master, she asked “Number six pit?”

“The number six coal pit,” he bit out, glaring at her as if she was being purposefully obtuse. “There was some trouble with the miners, and they kilt some of the celestials …”

“Chinamen,” William clarified. “It’s a term for … people from China.”

The old man narrowed his eyes at the pair of them and his face took on a wary expression, as though he was dealing with a couple that was profoundly unbalanced. William was chilled to admit that the old man might be half right.

“And that somehow turned into a riot?” Buffy asked.

“Well, yes. Some of the boys from the Knights of Labor got a bit liquored up and reckoned that a few dead celestials was only a good start. They’re lighting up Chinatown and burnin’ them out.”

“And the rest of town is just what? Fine with that?”

“It’s a mob, ma’am. A drunk mob. Did you ever try to reason with a mob?”

“What about the cops?” Buffy was met with a puzzled look. “The police. Oh, good god. What’s your word for it? The sheriff? Where’s he?”

“Doin’ his best to make sure the rest of the town don’t burn to ash.”

A particularly ugly scream tore through the air, and the station master jumped. “Come on into the depot. It’s as safe as anywhere else in Rock Springs today. Word’s gone out on earlier trains, and we should be getting some help before nightfall – from Cheyenne or Evanston.”

They followed the man into the depot; it was a plain wooden rectangle with a few benches lining the walls. A dozen people had sought safety inside, and Buffy wove her way through them with a brisk purposefulness. Since she’d gained her memories back there was such a difference to her that he often had to look twice to confirm that it was really her. She parted the small gathering as if she were a soldier, no, a commander, and they acquiesced without question.

She stopped before the front window and he moved to her side, looking out at the wide, abandoned streets of Rock Springs. It was a lonely town, the buildings as desert-brown as the dirt streets. Though the businesses were closed for the day, a few men had gathered in front of some of the establishments, rifles slung casually over a shoulder or placed within easy reach.

The smoke and sounds wafted up from the flats that rose just around the bend of Main Street. From the train it had seemed as though the fire had come from a large, central conflagration. Now that they were closer, he could tell that it was really dozens of fires, all coming from the same neighborhood.

“They killed one right in front of our house. He was tryin’ to get away, but they drug him back into Chinatown and tossed him inna burnin’ house. It’s why ma brought us here.” A girl who couldn’t have been older than eleven had joined them at the window. She had two long brown braids and a dirt-streaked dress.

Buffy turned to face her. “I’m sorry. That must have been awful.”

The girl didn’t sound traumatized, however. Instead she seemed … curious, almost excited. “None of the celestials speak proper English, but that fellow kept screaming about ‘white demons.’ What do you reckon that’s about?”

“I … I don’t know,” Buffy said. “You didn’t see anything like that, did you?”

“Like what?”

“Something that looked like a demon. Someone that didn’t seem human?”

“Not unless you mean the Chinamen,” she shrugged. “They ain’t regular humans.”

Buffy turned back toward William, and he instinctively wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close to him, not entirely certain that she wouldn’t resist. She did not and surprised him by leaning her head against his chest, tucked beneath his chin.

“This whole thing is just so bizarre. Why do they hate Chinese people so much, William? For that matter, why the hell are there a bunch of Chinese in Wyoming?”

“Immigrants from China built the railroad.”

“I remember that much. I guess I just didn’t pay too much attention to what happened after. I slacked off in history, but I’m pretty sure I would have remembered something like this.”

“Now that the railroad is complete, there is nothing for the Chinese to do, so mining companies that need cheap labor hire them. Since the celestials are desperate enough to work for a pittance, it sets white workers against them and is a situation ripe for exploitation.”

“And explosion,” Buffy said, looking out the window at the rising smoke.

They could see a young white couple just coming around the bend in Main Street, headed toward the train station. Buffy was silent for a moment, contemplative. After her previous levels of ferocious energy, it took him back. Keeping up with her was exhausting.

“It wouldn’t take much,” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

“To stop it. It wouldn’t take much. Someone just needs to stand up to the chuckleheads and say ‘Knock this off. You’re better than this.’ If people would just say something, do something, instead of hiding in a train station - that might be enough to make the difference. To stop the crazies.”

“Buffy,” William urged. He touched her shoulder, and she turned to face him. Looking at her, this stranger he’d married, he felt a cacophony of memories. She’d been so many different women since they’d met. Bessie the maid, Elizabeth the bride, Buffy the reluctant time traveler. And now this woman who, once she’d gotten her memories back, had turned into yet another incarnation – one who kept him at a distance.

“Darling, please.” His concern for her mental state blossomed brightly in his mind. “I’d like to know why you jumped from the train.” When she didn’t respond immediately, he pressed on. Perhaps this newest version of his wife needed a stronger hand. “This trouble in town, the riot, seemed to provoke your actions. Is that why you jumped?”

“It was.” She nodded, eying him as if she was deciding something before continuing. “It was a feeling. A very strong feeling. What’s the non-stupid word for it? A compulsion. Almost as if I didn’t have a choice. I felt something very, very wrong was going on, and I had to do something about it. I’ve only ever felt anything like this once before, back when I met the First Evil and …”

Just then, the people who had been rushing to the station burst through the door, and conversation was lost to the new arrivals – a young couple that looked to be just out of their teens.

“You two all right, Frank?” The station master hustled over to the door to greet the new arrivals.

Frank nodded, catching his breath while the woman sat down on a bench behind him.

“Anybody hurt that you could see?”

“No. I mean, there are dead celestials, but our folks are fine. The Johnnys don’t seem to be fighting back.” Frank coughed and ran a sooty hand over his face. “The smart ones are running. Skinning out for Bitter Creek.”

“Your place didn’t get lit up, did it?”

“No,” the young man wheezed. “Just a lot of smoke from Chinatown. It’s nearly leveled. Them that couldn’t make it to the creek are holed up at the end of town in the Joss House – blamed stupid place for ‘em to head.”

“Why?” William asked. He felt all the eyes in the room turn to him, the stranger in their midst.

“’Cause it’s a shrine house,” said a female voice from behind them. “The place where they burn them joss sticks and pray to their false god. Let’s see how much help their god will be to ‘em now. They shoulda took their chances with the creek.” The crowd chuckled at this.

William felt a mix of shame and disgust and turned away from them, towards Buffy only to find …

She wasn’t there.

He stepped to the back of the depot, to see if she’d slipped to the edge of the room, but the room was a small rectangle, with no places to hide.

Turning to a thin, worn woman seated near the back of the room, he asked, “Excuse me, ma’am, have you seen my wife?”

The woman shook her head, dismissing him.

He was very close to the track side exit and stepped out onto the platform, scanning both directions for any sign of her. There was nothing but tracks, however, and he fought his rising dread.

William hurried back into the station, his eyes sweeping the room. He hoped there was a side room he’d missed before, the station master’s office perhaps. As he made his way through the throng towards the older man, he felt a steady and insistent tugging on his suit coat. He turned to look and saw the young girl who had spoken to Buffy earlier.

“Over here, mister,” the girl said, motioning for him to follow her.

“Beg pardon?”

“This way.” Without further explanation, the girl spun around quickly, her brown braids thwacking his arm. She led him toward the windows that looked out onto the town and, pointing a grubby finger at the glass, said simply, “Your missus.”

At first William could see nothing but the dirty, smoking town – but then, in the general direction of the girl’s pointing finger, he saw her. Buffy. Her back was to them, and she was running around the bend in Main Street at an inhuman speed, but there was no mistaking her.

His legs felt weak, and he leaned against the wall. Something sharp and bitter coiled about his chest, and he found it difficult to breathe.

His beloved Buffy … Elizabeth had clearly been driven mad from all the pressure of memories, lost and regained again. The constant shifting of time and reality had been too much, and her mind hadn’t been able to bear it. He was a bloody fool for not seeing it sooner, for not guarding against it and protecting her.

Now wasn’t the time for recriminations and blame, however. His wife had gone mad and was headed into a deadly situation. He knew that the only thing that stood the gap between her and a hate-filled mob was him.

The station had gone eerily silent in the few moments it had taken him to collect himself, and he turned to face the crowd. The girl with the braids had clearly filled the others in on the whereabouts of William’s wife, and they blinked at him – interested but emotionless, the way a person might view an advertisement for a side show attraction.

“My wife. My Elizabeth has …” He trailed off. His damned voice was trembling, and he fought to find a better hold on his emotions. He took a steadying breath, working to push his chest from the branches of fear that gripped him, and tried again. “My wife is in trouble, and I need to go to her. To Chinatown. Would any of you assist me?”

But he knew their response before he asked the question, before they met it with their silent stares. He was an outsider to them, a pilgrim. They owed him no debt, certainly not one that might obligate them paying with their lives.

So he turned, lifted the latch of the door and stepped out into the dusty street. His feet seemed to run of their own volition, before he made the decision to go.

As he ran up Main Street, he could feel their gazes upon him - the men standing vigil by their stores and saloons. Their curious, assessing glances were another product of the fear that was consuming the town. When faced with this raw side of human nature, people tended to protect what was theirs and let others fend for themselves. The stranger, the foreigner, would be the first sacrifice made in a real life or death situation. In that sense, William, Buffy and the Chinamen were held in the same esteem in these people’s eyes. And Buffy was blind to that, he knew.

As he pushed his legs around the corner of Main, panting with exertion, he was finally able to get his first view of Chinatown. The horror of it nearly rooted him right in the street.

Two small, bloody bundles lay in the road just ahead of him. It took only a heartbeat for William to realize that they were human. One was curled on his side in the fetal position, his body pointed away from William. The other was facing him – his face so bloodied and swollen it was difficult to recognize as human. It struck William how small they seemed, how childlike, how utterly unthreatening.

He forced his gaze away and looked toward the smoldering husk of Chinatown. The buildings here were nearly leveled though he could see, through the smoke, the bright orange glow of flames at the western end of town.

Once he’d come around the bend in the road the voices of the rioters were much clearer. It was plain to tell that they were moving toward the end of the village, having burned up everything closer to town. Now that William was closer to them, he was chilled to find that their voices sounded almost celebratory. It spurred him on through the smoldering rubble.

The maze of streets would have been confusing on a good day; in the midst of charred ruination and the thick smoke, it was nearly impossible. William kept his raging panic at bay and concentrated remaining on a due west course, toward the brightest part of the sky, where the sun was setting.

He heard a high coughing sound coming from just behind a pile of blackened timbers. His first foolish thought was that it must be Buffy; the relief that poured through him nearly choked him. But when he moved around the pile, he saw two bloodied Chinamen huddled together. The closest man looked up at William, his face contorting into a mask of primal fear.

William turned and ran a few steps up the street before his better nature stopped him. He pivoted back to the frightened men. “Bitter Creek,” William said. “It’s the safest choice you have.”

The huddled man just watched William, his eyes wide in terror.

“Go to Bitter Creek. Do you understand me? Bitter Creek!”

At that the Chinese man nodded. Still eying William with fear, the man struggled to his feet, supporting his wounded friend as he stood.

With no choice but to leave them behind, William pressed toward where the dying sun burned through the blackened sky and the crowd’s boisterous sounds filled the air. Toward the only place he could guess she might be heading: the Joss House.

After a few more turns, the look of the disaster began to change. The homes at the western edge were not the charred piles of burnt timbers he’d passed earlier. Though most of the houses were still burning, several dwellings were still intact. It shouldn’t have been a big enough thing to give him hope, but he held onto the slim thread all the same.

He saw it the moment he rounded the end of the block. The Joss House. Tucked against the edge of a bluff the house of worship was twice the size of the tiny houses around it.

The size of the thing wasn’t what drew his attention, however; it was the crowd gathered around the place. It was the first time he’d seen white people since entering Chinatown, and there were more than two dozen of them here – all gathered around the perimeter of the building. Though their voices sounded as if it were a festive occasion, the predatory gleam in their eyes, even from this distance, made the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

And that wasn’t even the most unusual thing in this strangest of strange days. That wasn’t the sight that rooted him in his tracks. There on the porch of the Joss House, arms crossed over her chest and glaring at the surrounding crowd defiantly stood his wife, Buffy.

-----

Three things:

The Rock Springs Massacre
was a real event, however I did have to change the year (see Dora’s Corollary mentioned in an earlier chapter). At least twenty-eight people (all Chinese) died and Chinatown burned down. No one was ever punished. There is a brief but thorough wiki article on it if you want to know more.

Hatred toward the Chinese was so great that in 1882 the U.S. passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. It’s the only time in the nation’s history that immigration was forbidden based upon ethnicity. It wasn’t repealed until 1943. 

A Joss House is also real! (And I behaved like a complete fandork when I found that out!) They called them Joss Houses because a common term for incense at the time was “joss sticks.” Though there are no photos of the Joss House in Rock Springs, this is the one the survivors built after escaping along Bitter Creek and ending up in Evanston after the riot.

Maxine Hong Kingston wrote “China Men,” which was the most inspiring thing I read last year. She doesn’t touch on the Rock Springs Riot, but fully covers a lot of other atrocities and riots and is such a gorgeous writer. If you’re interested in the Chinese-American experience, I can’t recommend it enough.




Chapter 31 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thank you to those of you who keep me going. It's been a hard go lately. Reviewers? You keep gas in my engine. Thanks to Science and Minx for the beta and Amy for the banner. Jack insisted the White Stripes have a say.
"White Americans, what? Nothin' better to do?
Why don't you kick yourself out? You're an immigrant too.
Who's usin' who? What should we do?
You can't be a pimp and a prostitute too." -White Stripes-

 Chapter 31 

The men surrounded the porch, wolves circling their prey.  To William’s amazement and Buffy’s credit, she showed not an ounce of fear.  Indeed, even through the flickering torchlight he could see that she radiated a kind of power.  He supposed it was the form her madness had taken.

Before William could alert her to his presence, a voice from the crowd shouted out.  “We got no quarrel with you.  But if you don’t git yourself offa that porch, we will.”  William squinted into the darkness to find the speaker, but he was lost in the fading light. 

“Yeah, I heard you the first few dozen times, and I’m not moving.”  Buffy glared out into the crowd, and William had to wonder if it would be more or less terrifying if she could see their faces.

“If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t hurt you, lady, but I reckon you’re just as flammable as the yella bastards.  And unless you aim to find out, you need to light out.”

Buffy refolded her arms across her chest, fixing a threatening scowl in the crowd’s direction.  “You’re not touching the people behind this door.”

“Don’t plan on touching ‘em.  Intend to torch them,” a slurred voice came from the crowd.  “Since there are a dozen of us and one of you, how do you reckon you’re gonna protect all four sides at once?” 

A torch sailed through the air, end over end in a long arc.  Cinders and flame followed in a trail as it skidded along the wooden boards to land at Buffy’s feet.  A bright orange finger of flame danced along the edge of her skirt.  Though she smothered the fire quickly, the sight of it was enough to startle William into action, and he began to roughly shove his way through the crowd.

“Fire bad,” Buffy said, picking up the non-business end of the torch.  With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the sputtering flame back to the crowd, sending a few men stumbling backwards in the dirt.

When William reached the porch, it was dark enough that Buffy did not immediately recognize him.  As he approached, she leaned back on her heels in a fighter position, her face a mask of brutal determination.  Her expression, far more than their circumstances or the grim reality of the mob, squeezed something near his heart cruelly. 

It was only a heartbeat before recognition dawned across her expression; her features relaxed, and she once again appeared to be his Buffy.

“William?” she asked.

Not knowing what else to say, he simply answered, “Buffy.”

“Oh, William, you so shouldn’t have come.”

Before he could respond, the restless crowd pressed closer to the porch.  William turned to face them, his palms extended outward.  “Gentlemen, please.”

“Gentlemen?  Please!”  Buffy blurted.

“Who the hell are you?”  A bony man stood at the forefront of the mob, barely visible in the thin light.  He gripped a rifle in one fist and was drunk enough to sway on his feet.

“I am William Pratt.” His voice was firm, and he forced his hands away from their nervous habit of tugging on his hair.  “This is Elizabeth, my wife.”

He looked at her standing there in the twilight, fierce expression on her face, scorched skirt still smoldering, and felt completely lost.  What could he say to the drunken mob to convince them to depart?  Could he beg for some thin slice of mercy?  Plead that his wife had been driven mad?  She watched him, her green eyes bright with determination…and trust.  Could he do that to her?  Wasn’t she worth more than that?  To barter her safety with these mad dogs, to plead for their lives by declaring her insane.

As helpless as she might be with this strange madness, it was up to him to protect her – not only from the crowd, but from any sort of cruelty, even from him.  Even with so much at stake.

He reached out to hold her hand.  Her eyes gleamed at the gesture, and even in the chaos she managed to grace him with a smile.  Her hand was so small and warm, and it anchored something that had been fluttering madly about in his chest.

“I don’t suppose you’d consider returning to the station and trusting me to sort this out?”  William murmured.  He knew better, but he had to ask.

She shook her head.  “There are twenty-five people behind this door.  I won’t leave them.  I can’t.”

He nodded and took a deep breath as the mob’s mumbling grew louder.  Unsure of his path even as he took it, he turned to face the crowd again.

“In true dime novel fashion, I believe what we have here, gentlemen, is a stand-off.  You desire to light this building on fire.  You intend to, let’s not put a glossy coat to it, murder the helpless inhabitants hiding within.  My wife and I have as our most fervent desire to prevent that outcome.”

“Now that’s a surprise.  A whole lot of fancy talk to say that you’re above us.  That you’re better than this,” the bony man called.

 “No,” William said firmly.  “It’s not that I’m better than this.  It’s that you are.”

The crowd stilled at that.  The only sound was the pop and crackle of pine as the nearby homes continued to burn.  He squeezed her hand tightly, realizing as he did it that he was wringing courage from her steady grip.

“The men inside this building are no threat to you.  If you took some time to truly consider the situation, you’d not harm them.  Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, we behave rashly.  We all do, myself included.  But gentlemen, please, consider what kind of man it is that you want to be.  What kind of man did your mother hope you would become?  The kind of man who would murder innocents who have not raised a hand against you or the kind of man who would choose a better path?”

Darkness served to isolate the crowd, just as daylight had worked to congeal the mob.  He could only take their silence as a good sign, and he continued to look into the darkness, hoping he didn’t look as terrified as he felt. 

He watched the shadows shift, and the edges of the group began to waver.  Even in the dark, he could tell the group was thinning as, one by one, men slipped off into the darkness. 

After a lengthy silence, the few remaining men sought one another out, stepping closer to the porch.  William was stunned to see that only five men remained. 

Bony was still in the lead, however, and he placed his boot on the first porch step.  “You won’t stop us,” he slurred.

“I agree, sir.  We won’t stop you.”  William stepped between the man and Buffy.  He was now a mere arm’s length away.  “You’re the only ones who can do that.”

“Who the hell are you, Pilgrim?  To tell us what to do?”  Bony lifted his rifle butt so quickly that William barely had time to register the movement before the metal-trimmed stock cracked against his left eyebrow. 

William crumbled down the porch steps as though his legs were made of paper.  His stomach did a strange flip, and his vision clouded suddenly; he couldn’t tell if it was due to the blow to his head or the thick red liquid pouring into his eyes.

The instant he fell into the dirt, an indistinguishable blur rushed down and flew against Bony.  William saw a buzz of color and heard a snapping sound but he couldn’t for the life of him tell which came first.  Bony was suddenly lying in the dirt; his forearm was bent at an impossible angle, and he howled in pain. 

Buffy?  Someone who looked a great deal like his Elizabeth had attacked the man.  Her scorched skirts settled back down around her ankles, and she looked over her shoulder to William, assessing his condition. He tried to fix his face in the expression of a reassuring smile.  It must have worked, because she immediately turned back to face the remaining men.

“You asshats need to step off.  Right now.”  The men stepped backwards as she leveled a ferocious glare their way.

She rushed towards a man on her left, lifting her leg to an impossible height and cracking it down on his hand, which had just reached his gun belt.  A pistol went spinning into the dirt and the man crumpled to the ground with a yowl of pain.  “And reaching for your gun, John Whine?  A really dumb idea.” 

Buffy kicked the pistol beneath the porch of the Joss House.  “I’m about seven levels past pissed off right now.  If you pack up your guns and your torches and leave in the next minute I might not kick all of your sorry, racist asses.”

Even through the rapidly gathering fog, he made out dark figures picking up Bony and his friend and fading from sight without so much as a mutter. 

She spun around to face him, moving to his side at an impossible speed and dropping to her knees beside him. 

“Oh, William.”   Her green eyes were swimming with concern, and she reached tentative fingers toward the gash on his brow.  Suddenly it grew darker, very rapidly.  Blackness began to chew away at the edges of his vision, eating up the frightening scene with increasingly larger bites.

It occurred to him, just as he began to lose consciousness, that he’d likely hallucinated the entire scene – Buffy taking on and beating western outlaws with two simple kicks?  Yes, it had to be the blow to his head that had caused him to imagine such … then the last bit of light had been swallowed and he knew no more.

~*~

He swam out of unconsciousness to find himself in a darkened room.  Sputtering gas wall lamps revealed several Asian men huddled around him.  The interior of the Joss House.  While one man bandaged his forehead, another tilted a steaming cup of foul-smelling tea into his mouth.  William gagged on the vile liquid, but the Chinese man held his lips closed, and William was forced to swallow.

“Buffy?” he choked once his throat was clear.

The man holding the cup pondered what William said, then moved aside and pointed a knobby finger across the room.  He could just make her out.  Buffy.  She was talking in urgent tones to several people, some of whom were white.  The foul tea man blocked his view again and lifted a fresh cup to William’s lips.

“Buffy, good bakguai.  You good bakguai.  Drink now.”

With no option to refuse, he let the tea slide down his throat.  The bitter liquid tasted a little less shocking the second time around, and he felt a pleasant numbness spreading outwards from his throat and stomach. 

When darkness claimed him again, he went willingly.

~*~

William was jostled awake to find himself strapped onto a blanket that had been tightly bound to two long, wooden poles.  What was the Indian word for the device?  Travois.  Craning his neck he could see he was being carried, or rather dragged, through the stony dirt streets by the foul tea man.

His head throbbed mightily, and he squinted through the darkness.  He appeared to be in the center of a long line of approximately twenty people, making their way down a narrow ravine.  Their voices were hushed, urgent.

When the travois bumped against a particularly large stone, William’s head thunked against the top of the pole and all went black in his world again.

~*~

3 a.m. - In a sparsely furnished hotel room – right outside the train station in Ogden, Utah.

“Oooh, the Shining Man is going to be very, very cross,” Dru purred.

“Is that so?” Billy mumbled.  It was terribly difficult to focus on what she was saying when what she was wearing held his groin’s full attention.  His dark seductress had killed a young prostitute earlier that night, and after they’d dined Dru had slipped into the unfortunate girl’s gown.  The dress was tighter than skin on Dru and pushed her white breasts up in a most tantalizing fashion.  He reached out to slide his fingertips across her satin-covered hips, urging her down to his lap.  She complied, and his cock gave a sharp tug of happiness.

Dru slid her arms around his shoulders and leaned over to kiss his neck, her cool licks quickly turning to painful nips on his earlobe.  It hurt, but in such a good way, he could only grin.

“The Shining Man thought the white demons would slow them down, but the slayer got in their way.  Like gumdrops in gears, she is.”

“Is that so?”  Billy asked, sliding his fingertips across her tight bodice.  The pebble of her nipple taunted his tongue and fingertips, poking out the satin.

“They’ll be coming to Ogden next.  And they’ll be coming with Another.”

“More the merrier,” Billy groaned.  He leaned down and began to flick his tongue back and forth across her satin-covered nipple.

“Tomorrow.” Dru pulled away from him, holding up a finger.  A stern nun in a whore’s dress.  “When we catch the wrong William tomorrow, we’ll lead the slayer on a merry chase.  Then we’ll teach Shining Man a perfect new game, won’t we, William?”

“Yes, Dru.  Tomorrow.”  He shuddered with need as she ground her crotch against his erection.  “But for now, can we please …?”

“Why yes, my William, I’d love to have this dance.”  Dru giggled and stood.  She slid her underwear to the floor before wriggling back onto his grateful lap.

~*~

7 a.m. – Rock Springs, Wyoming – Train Depot

When William woke, it was different than his last few wakings.  For the first time, he felt refreshed, as though he’d had a genuine sleep and not simply fought his way up from unconsciousness. 

He recognized the room immediately; he was in the Rock Springs train depot.  By the way the sun’s rays slanted across the room, he could tell it was very early morning.  He turned his head slowly and winced as a blade of pain sliced through his eyes. 

She saw he’d awakened and her lips curved into a smile, but it didn’t reach her tired eyes.  “William, you’re awake.”

He tried to respond, but his throat was far too raw to comply, and he collapsed into a fit of coughing.  A worried line etched a path across her forehead.  She quickly reached for a canteen and poured a small amount of water into a tin cup.  Cautiously, she lifted his head with one hand while the other held the cup to his lips.

The sight of the cup held to his lips made him flash to a memory from the previous night.  A Chinese man had tended to him in a similar manner – or had it been a dream?  Half-expecting to find the cup filled with foul-smelling tea, he was relieved to find nothing but water and gulped it down.

Though his throat felt marginally better, bright pain continued to slice into his head, just behind his forehead and through his eyes.  He closed his lids and lay back on his makeshift bed on the floor.

Once the wave of pain subsided, he worked to recall what had happened the night before.  His memories were oddly fragmented.  It felt as though he was reading snippets from a novel, with no connecting narrative.  Since he was already fighting the sharp pain behind his eyes, pulling together the strands of last night’s events seemed a Herculean task.

The man with the foul tea.  It wasn’t his imagination.  It was a real event.  There were others there, too.  An entire room full of people.  A … Joss House full of them.  He remembered.  Some of it, anyway.

“The Chinese?”  he asked, before dissolving into a series of dry coughs.

She reached down and placed her hand over his, squeezing gently.  “They’re fine, William.  We got them out before the mob came back and torched the temple.  There are a few ‘good bakguai’s’ in Rock Springs.  They helped get everyone to Bitter Creek and then escorted us back to the train station.” 

“So I didn’t dream it.”  His voice was raspy and unfamiliar.

“You had a knock on the noggin, William.  Do you remember that?”

The gun stock, crashing against his forehead.  Yes, he remembered that.  He nodded cautiously; the slight movement sent a nauseating bolt of pain through his head.

He lifted his hand up to his left brow, but it was covered in a thick bandage.

“The barber gave you a few stitches while you were out.  It’s going to leave a scar, but you’ll be okay.”

“And you, Buffy?  Are you all right?”  He tilted his head at her, but her hands busied themselves pouring him another drink from the canteen, and she would not meet his gaze.

He remembered … something else.  It dodged just beyond the edge of what he could remember.  Just after the gun had knocked him to the ground.  Something about Buffy.  What was it?  Why did it give him such a feeling of unease every time he tried to remember it?  And why wouldn’t she meet his eyes?

“Buffy?”

She ignored him and lifted the cup to his lips.  “Here, have another sip.”

He resisted, asking instead, “Darling?”

She raised her chin at him, looking as guarded as she had last night when he found her on the porch ready for battle.  Battle.  That was it, wasn’t it?  She had battled with the men; with just a few simple kicks, she’d left several of them lying in the dirt road with broken bones.

“Buffy, what happened last night?  What did you do to those men?”

She looked at him and inhaled deeply, but said nothing.

“I remember now Buffy.  Everything.  Who … who are you?”

Her lips thinned to a line and she spoke.  Her voice sounded foreign and cold.  “The Slayer.”

“What?  How?”

“I don’t know how, William,” she sighed, sounding more like herself at least.

“When?”

“A few days ago, actually.  When I got my memories back.”

“Days?”  He could only repeat stupidly.  He felt as though he’d landed in the middle of someone else’s story, and he was trying desperately to catch up.  “This vast change happened days ago and you … kept it from me?”

“Well, I …” She trailed off miserably, tears brimming in her eyes.

“Who are you?”

“I … we …” She paled and stood.  “This isn’t the best place to talk, William.”

“No.”  His voice was laced with bitterness. “You wouldn’t have kept something like this from me.  You couldn’t.”

“I’m going to get the barber.  He’ll want to check the stitches now that you’re awake.”  Without waiting for his reply, she’d fled across the room to retrieve a short, elderly man with a wide, friendly face. 

“Name’s Stephen,” the man said as knelt on the floor next to William.  The older man gently unwrapped the bandage on William’s forehead.  “We made introductions last night, but after the Chinese dosed you with their magic tea, I don’t expect you’re much for rememberin’ makin’ my acquaintance.”

William grimaced as the bandage pulled at his tender skin.

“Sorry about that,” Stephen mumbled as he removed the last of the wrappings.  He squinted and surveyed William’s wound with a critical eye.  “Not too bad, if I say so.  You’ll have a shiner for a few days and a scar, but the ladies always go for that kind of thing.  I’m sure the missus won’t mind.”  He gave William a roguish wink and began to carefully apply a fresh bandage to William’s forehead.

“Quite a little lady you married yourself to,” Stephen said, looking at William appraisingly.  It was only then that William realized in his shock he’d neglected to say a word to the kindly man.

“Indeed, she is … something else entirely.” William wondered how much the older man had actually seen of Buffy in action.  “What did she do, exactly?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, as I was unconscious, I’m quite vague on the details of the evening,” William clarified.

Stephen laughed good-naturedly.  “I didn’t catch a lot of it myself.  When the fellas from the union hall got liquored up and started killin’ folks, some of us didn’t cotton to it very well.  We’d gathered up toward where the Chinese were hidin’ out, up in the Joss House.  We figured they might have half a chance making it out of town if we had their backs covered.  Before we could even talk to the mob, your wife jumped right down their throats, and they lit out.”

The older man looked down at William apparently expecting some kind of response, so William gave a painful nod.

“By that time, you’d been knocked out cold, so she drug you into where we was.  She was like a general in there.  Little Napoleon.  Wasn’t but three minutes of peppering me with questions, and she’d got herself a plan.  Said the mob would be back and we had to set out for Bitter Creek.  She was dead right, too.  We weren’t out of the Joss House five minutes before they torched it.  Damned fools didn’t even bother to check if we was still inside.  Made it that much easier to set the Chinee fellas on their way.”

“She didn’t fight anyone?  Hurt anyone?”

“I didn’t see that gal raise a finger to anyone.  What the hell is the matter with you?  Your wife is a god-damned hero.  Pardon my French.”  The barber stood and gave William a wary glance.

“Stephen,” Buffy interrupted.  “I hate to ask, but … William’s clothes are a little, eh, well, bloody.  We left his suitcase on the train, and he hasn’t got anything to change into.   I was wondering if you know where he could …?”

But Buffy didn’t even need to finish.  “By my reckoning, you’re the god-damned Hero of Rock Springs.  Pardon my French.  According to the Chinee you’re far more than a ‘good bakguai.’  You’re the goodest bakguai that ever was.  Hell yes, we can find some gear for your husband.  Pardon my French.”

“Thank you,” Buffy said, and she flashed a veneer of a smile at the old man, who began to walk toward the depot’s door.

“Wait,” William said, causing both Stephen and Buffy to turn towards him slowly.  “I’d like to come with you.”  Suddenly, he felt overwhelmed with the need to get away for a moment, to clear his pain-filled head and stand on his own two feet.  He sat up and tried to appear casual as he kept his head above a tidal wave of pain and nausea.

“Should he …?”  Buffy trailed off.

“Might as well,” the barber shrugged.  “Be good for him to walk around a bit.  Sooner he’s up and around, the sooner you can catch a train out of these parts.”

William stood shakily.  Unsure if his legs would hold his weight, he steadied himself with a hand on the wall.  After a moment, he took a tentative step forward, then another, trailing behind the old man who continued his path toward the door.

“See you in a minute, William.”  He heard Buffy’s voice at his back.  “We can … talk then.”  Torn between wanting to nod and shake his head, he did neither, and merely followed Stephen out the door and into the still smoking remains of Rock Springs.

The thought of getting out of his filthy clothes and taking care of the mundane details was strangely soothing to him.  It reminded him of how he felt after his mother had died.  He’d been lost in pain and found that the best response was to focus on taking care of the details of daily living.  It wouldn’t be a way to bridge the chasm that had suddenly yawned in the midst of his marriage; it would merely be a way to function, to get through the immediate, and he took it gratefully.

Stephen led him down the block and into a men’s clothing store.  For being a frontier shop, it was startlingly well stocked.  The barber looked at the pale, jumpy clerk behind the counter and greeted him with a nod.

“This here is William,” Stephen grunted.  “He helped sort out some of the trouble from yesterday.  You’re gonna get him outfitted.  Top of the line, no charge.  Comprende?”

The nervous clerk apparently understood quite well and gestured for William to follow him into a curtained changing room in the rear.  Wordlessly, the boy sized William, only to return in a moment with an armload of clothing.

William slowly unbuttoned his ruined shirt. His blood-soaked collar stuck and tugged where it had dried on his skin, and he gingerly worked to loosen it.  He heard timid footsteps approach the curtain, and the clerk slid a metal basin of water beneath the curtain.  After William pulled the water into the small room, the clerk’s hand appeared holding two washcloths.

“Thank you,” William said as he took the folded cloth, but the clerk did not respond.  Damn strange town.

He dabbed the cloth in the water, cleaning his neck and chest as thoroughly as he was able.  The amount of blood soaked into his stiffened suit was shocking.  He knew that head wounds tended to be difficult to staunch, but between the blood and the soot and grime, his entire suit was ruined. 

Since even small movements caused his head to throb, dressing took far more time than usual.  The boy had supplied him with a complete western style ensemble.  By the time he’d finished, he was feeling more than a little light-headed.  His legs had been supporting his weight for over thirty minutes, and they were beginning to tremble in protest.

He made his way out of the dressing room and headed toward the front of the store.

“Sir?” the clerk finally spoke.  He gestured toward the large mirror mounted on the wall, and William complied.

Standing before the mirror, it took William a moment to recognize himself.  The expression ‘the clothes make the man’ had never seemed more apt, as they seemed to have made him into a different creature entirely.  The proper English gentleman had quite departed.  In his place, William saw a frontiersman, not terribly unlike the outlaws they’d faced last night.  He wore a blue western-cut shirt; low slung, chocolate slacks with a black leather belt; and thick soled black leather boots.  The sales clerk handed William a dark brown leather duster and William shrugged into it.  The duster’s hem unfolded against his shaking calves and it felt oddly comforting. 

When he looked up to his face, he saw the lined face of a very weary man.  He looked terribly pale.  The bandage over his left eye was only marginally lighter than his skin; the white cloth of the gauze only served to bring out the contrast in his rapidly purpling eye. 

He’d asked her who she was, but he very well might ask who the bloody hell he was.

The mirror-image of him wobbled, and William realized that he was more unsteady on his feet than he’d thought.  He turned and nodded at the clerk.  “Thank you.”

“Certainly, sir.  Sorry for your … trouble.”

The barber waited for him by the door.  He gave William a quick once over and shook his head.  “You’re whiter than titties on an albino nun.  Pardon my French.  I best get you back to your missus before you melt.”

The older man opened the door, and William followed him the few steps up the street to the depot.

In their short absence, the room had transformed with the arrival of the eastbound train.  Word of the riot had apparently reached larger cities in the vicinity, and they’d responded vigorously.  The small station was absolutely bursting with activity.  A group of approximately thirty soldiers were assembling on the track side of the building, while inside the depot several politicians and reporters held conversations with Rock Spring’s citizens.

William looked around for Buffy, holding onto the wall for support.  His legs, which had begun to tremble in the clothing shop, were now quaking violently, and he didn’t trust them to hold his weight for much longer.

Even though the building was loaded beyond capacity, it wasn’t a large structure and finding her should have taken but a moment.  Keeping a steadying hand on the wall, he orbited the interior of the depot, searching for her.   She couldn’t have snuck out again, could she?  She wouldn’t do that. 

Who was she?

“Mister?”  A familiar hand reached up to tug on his pants leg.  He looked down and saw exactly who he was expecting to see: the pig-tailed girl from the day before.  “Your missus?  She tends to rabbit off, don’t she?”

“Do you know where she is?”

Pig-tails nodded.  “A big fella got off the train and started talkin’ to your missus.  She didn’t much care for him, by the look of it and drug him off into the station master’s office.”

William swallowed down a lump of fear and made his way back to the small office in the rear of the building, leaning on the wall for support.  Would this day ever end?  It seemed as if today had lasted a week, and it wasn’t even yet nine a.m. 

The office window was small enough that he’d overlooked it during his search for her.  As he approached the door, he peered through the small rectangle of glass.  Buffy’s back was to him, but her voice was raised in agitation.  The noisy din from the depot’s new arrivals made it impossible to hear what she was saying, however.   The man that faced her was striking enough that William stopped and took a moment to examine him.

The stranger was dressed in a manner that William hadn’t seen since leaving London.  He was clothed entirely in the Aesthetic style:  a purple brocaded waistcoat, striped trousers and a paisley frock coat.  He was as out of place as a sapphire in a crow’s nest.  In addition, the size of the man was somewhat startling.  It wasn’t that he was tall, though he was easily six foot three; it was that he was simply proportionately larger than average men, but without an ounce of fat.  The man’s long brown hair framed his very serene face.  His sad, brown eyes were trained on Buffy, and his full lips were pursed thoughtfully.  Though Buffy sounded angry, the man remained quite placid, nodding and listening to her.

William opened the door without hesitation, without knocking.  When Buffy turned to see who’d entered the room, she let out a gasp of surprise. 

The stranger worked to assess William, quickly.  “Do you need something, sir?”  He had an Irish brogue, but one that held the vowels of a well-educated man.

“Yes,” William said, folding his arms across his chest in what he desperately hoped was an authoritative sort of gesture.  “I would be needing my wife.”

“Your … wife?”  The man blinked at William, incredulous, before turning to look at Buffy.  “His wife?”

“Like I said,” Buffy folded her arms across her chest defiantly.  “It’s complicated.”

William felt the room sway and leaned his back against the wall.

“Allow me to introduce myself.  I’m William Pratt.”  He hoped he appeared commanding, but he was willing to settle for sounding like a man who wasn’t on the verge of fainting.  “And, as appears you’ve already made introductions to my wife, I’d like to know who you are.”

“Forgive my manners, please.”  The tall man executed an obligatory bow, which William hadn’t seen since landing in America.  “Oscar Wilde, at your service.”

“Oscar Wilde?  Winner of the Newdigate Prize?”

The man looked surprised and smiled shyly.  “The very same.  Though I’m quite unaccustomed to the experience of people having heard of me in America, I must confess.  Especially in the frontier.”

“I … well, yes …” William stammered.  “I’d read that you had a lecture series in the colonies.”

Buffy continued to gape at William and he pressed on while he was still blessed with consciousness.  “As remarkable as it is to make your acquaintance in this setting, Mr. Wilde, the thing I’m curious about  is – how is it that you know my wife?

“Oh, I …”  Oscar pursed his full lips.

“Could this day suck more?”  Buffy lifted her eyes to the ceiling.  “William, I just now met him.   He came up from Ogden because he heard about what happened last night.”

“Oscar Wilde interrupted his lecture series because he heard about the riot?”  William asked.

“Well, sort of.  He heard about … what I did.   He came here to introduce himself to me.”

“I completely fail to follow.”  William shook his aching head.  “Why would the night’s events require an introduction?  Who is he to you, Buffy?”

“Oh.  He’s my … oh, hell.”  She sighed and met his eyes.  “William, Oscar is my Watcher.

 

-------------

Oscar Wilde?  Seriously?  And here I invoke Dora’s Corollary for the final time.  Oscar Wilde did tour America, but in 1881.  I bumped his timeline, gently (along with the publication of his first book). 

The last word on that riot.   The Rock Springs newspaper defended the massacre, as did other Wyoming papers. The New York Times, on the other hand, said of the town, "the appropriate fate for a community of this kind would be that of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Though 28 were confirmed dead, the true number is estimated closer to 50.  Along with newspaper reporters and soldiers, the Governor arrived the following morning, which worked to calm the situation.   There were no reports of ‘good bakguai’ – in fact there were stories of women and children helping to kill Chinese in the streets.  I like to hope that, as in so many of these situations, a courageous few stood against the crazy.

After fleeing along Bitter Creek and ending up 100 miles away in Evanston, the Chinese workers were promised safety in California.  They trustingly boarded a train only to find they’d been tricked and were  back in Rock Springs – trapped, burned out and still indebted to the mine. 

Damn you, history!

Chapter 32 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Fans of 'lots of notes'?  You, in the back?  This is your lucky day.  To everyone else:  'err, sorry!'
Thanks tons to Ragpants, who responded to something I said on the EF tagbox and found a metric ton of links for historic Ogden - answering questions about the train station, hotel rooms and how available liquor might be.  Thanks to Science and Minx, not just the beta but for pushing me.  When I changed Oscar to a lame character named Fingal, asking 'What kind of cheesy, over-the-top author would have Billy the Kid AND Oscar Wilde?" they reminded me I was JUST that kind of cheesy author. Amy did the banner.
Mmm what you say?  That you only meant well?

Well, of course you did

Mmm what you say? That it's all for the best?

Because it is.

Mmm what you say? That it's just what we need

And you decided this.

Mmm what you say? What do you say?   -Imogene Heap-


Chapter 32 

William leaned against the wall, his skin as pale as death, dark duster wrapped around his still frame. He looked so much like Spike that it was hard for Buffy to breathe.

“What’s a Watcher?” William asked, tilting his head at Oscar.

The Irishman looked at her and raised his brows, clearly unsure of his place in this husband-wife dynamic.

“Remember when I explained about Slayers working for a council based in London?” Buffy asked.

William nodded, but he still didn’t look at her.

“A Watcher is a guy who works for the council. It’s his job to train the Slayer, to oversee her work. Each Slayer gets one, and Mr. Wilde, apparently, is mine.”

“Oscar, please,” the Irishman interjected.

After a moments awkward silence, Oscar spoke again. “Perhaps we could find a better location for our conversation. Might either of you be interested in breakfast? Surely there is a dining establishment nearby.”

William nodded. “There’s a café just across the street.”

“Let’s go,” Buffy said.

William pushed away from the wall he’d been leaning against. It was only then that she noticed how badly he was trembling, and she reached over to take his arm.

“I’m fine. Thank you for your concern,” he said, easing away from her with stiff formality.

Oh, god. Was it really as bad as all that?

They threaded a path through the jostling crowd. Every time someone bumped against her husband, she tensed, prepared to catch his body as he crumbled to the ground; each time, even though he teetered, he remained upright and propelled himself forward.

‘Rock Springs – Food’ was designed to serve quick meals to the trainloads that passed through town. It was a large structure with a row of windows lining the front; bright orange tablecloths adorned the rows of crudely fashioned tables. Since the most recent arrivals to town were still milling about the depot, the three of them practically had the place to themselves.

“I’m Clara,” the waitress proclaimed as she led them to their table. William collapsed into his chair like a bag of wet sand. The three of them were so sleep deprived, they all agreed to the daily special without bothering to ask what it was. Buffy focused on folding and refolding her napkin and tried not to stare at William, who wobbled unsteadily in his chair.

Clara returned momentarily, stomping over to the table as though she held a serious grudge against the floor. Her arms were laden with chipped porcelain plates which groaned under the weight of eggs, sausage, ham, bacon and some other kind of unidentifiable meat. It was ultimate protein overkill, but probably the perfect thing for William.

“This looks splendid, Clara. Veritably, a feast for kings.” Oscar beamed. The girl wilted a little under his approval. “I suppose it would be too much to hope for that you might have a pot of Earl Grey about?”

Clara stared into the distance thoughtfully, deciphering the meaning of his words. “Not sure if I know that fella. Stinky Stan’s got a brother named Earl, but their last name isn’t Grey. It’s Schlegal.”

“Tea,” Oscar clarified, looking mournful. “You wouldn’t happen to have tea, would you?”

“We might! I’ll see what I can rustle up.”

Clara clomped towards the rear of the building, leaving them to eat in silence. Buffy was relieved to see that at least William’s appetite was hearty, and by the time they’d finished, his color seemed more natural and his hands no longer trembled so badly.

He still didn’t look at her, though.

When Clara returned, she bore a coffee pot and several cups.

“Real English tea,” she announced, setting the coffee pot down with a flourish.

“I am … quite without words. Thank you, Clara,” Oscar said, and the girl bustled off to greet the press of new customers who had just come in from the depot.

“Percolated tea. I believe this shall be a first for me.” Oscar eyed the coffee pot as though it were a crime scene, then began to cautiously pour. The liquid was thick and syrupy. “I’m not sure if I should try to drink it or hold a wake in its honor.”

Once he’d poured tea for the little group, he raised his chipped cup. William smiled at the gesture, raising his in return.

“Cheers,” William said.

Oscar sipped, then shuddered. “I don’t believe the East India Tea Company has anything to fear from Stinky Stan. Still, nothing like a bit of home, and Clara is a dear for trying. Mrs. Pratt? If I may be so bold, I’d suggest six or seven spoonfuls of sugar might make it more agreeable.”

“Thanks. Please, don’t call me Mrs. Pratt, though. You can just call me Buffy. Or Elizabeth, if you want.”

“Of course. And, as I said, please call me Oscar.”

“So, I have to ask, Oscar, how you ended up here. You were just out in the middle of nowhere looking for a slayer?”

“I was attending to a newly called slayer. Henrietta Shumway – a young, very young, Mormon wife who lived in Utah.”

“And she died?”

Oscar nodded, but did not speak. A squall of emotions crossed his face, and he stared at his tea for a few long moments.

“I’d only just met the girl before she was taken. It appears that two vampires have recently arrived in Ogden. I believe she was their first victim. I found her when I …” He coughed, trying and failing to mask a quaver in his voice. “I had gone to her cabin, but she had expired by the time I arrived. The only thing to be done at that point was to assure her child was taken care of.”

Buffy dug her teaspoon into the sugar bowl and added another heaping spoonful into her tea.

Oscar continued. “When I heard of the riot in Rock Springs and the rumors of the girl, the ‘good bakguai,’ who defeated enemies with only her fists, I thought perhaps I’d found the next slayer and came up to investigate.”

“How is it that a poet such as yourself would come to train slayers?” When William spoke, Buffy was so surprised that she sloshed a little tea onto the orange tablecloth.

Oscar smiled widely at William. “I had booked a lecture tour in the colonies, but found the funding for it to be well beyond my means. An old classmate from Oxford came to me with a proposal. He claimed to be a member of a council who were willing to fund my entire trip, as long as I would agree to a small favor for them.”

“The favor was to be a watcher?” Buffy guessed.

“Yes and no. They’d never had a Slayer in America before, you see, and weren’t expecting one to be called while I was here. They were more concerned about the unusual amounts of activity from various potential hellmouths in the area. I was to investigate these areas while I was on my lecture tour. Naturally, I thought their tales of slayers, vampires and hellmouths to be quite fanciful, but I thought it would provide an interesting experience to write about at the very least.”

Oscar sipped his tea and grimaced. “Man can believe the impossible, but can never believe the improbable, I suppose. And I was quite desperate enough for money to sign on.”

“Which potential hellmouths were you looking into?” Buffy asked.

“There are several, well, for lack of a better word, promising locations. Cleveland, Ohio; the Ozark Mountains; southern California; and Provo, Utah. When the Council found the newest Slayer had been called in Utah, they assumed that was the one which would open. I was instructed to introduce myself to the Slayer and train her to the best of my abilities, until a proper Watcher could arrive.”

Clara reappeared. Sensing the rather somber mood at the table, she cleared their plates as quickly as she could.

“I only arrived in Utah ten days prior,” Oscar continued, once Clara had departed. “I’m new to all of this as well. As I said, I assumed it was the imaginings of bored men. To find that it was true has been the biggest adjustment of my lifetime, but I suspect you both know what that’s about.”

He turned to William. “When did you discover your wife was a Slayer?”

“About ninety minutes ago,” William said.

“Dear lord.”

“Quite,” William agreed.

“What’s next?” Buffy said, unsubtly working to change the topic. Both men turned to look at her. “I mean, getting a train to Ogden would be a good idea, wouldn’t it? Our luggage, hopefully, is there. And William and I are expected in California.”

Oscar shot her a questioning glance.

“Napa Valley, California,” she clarified, firmly. “We’re going to our winery, our future. Not L.A. Not to any of the potential hellmouths. Just so you’re clear on that.”

Oscar lifted his hands. “If you’re looking for a strong-arm representative of the council, you’re looking at the wrong man. I assure you, I’m the last sort of person to bend you to my will. I’m not even certain what my will is in this matter. I’m as new to this as you are. I suspect I may be even newer.”

“William? Does that sound okay to you?” She felt as though she was pleading with him. “Continuing onto California?”

His ice blue eyes met her gaze, at last. “I should very much like to leave Rock Springs.” Which wasn’t exactly what she’d hoped to hear, but it would have to do.

“Allow me,” Oscar offered. “The depot is extremely hectic, and it would be simpler for me to arrange things. I must warn you, some of the accommodations might be quite primitive. You’re amenable to this?”

Buffy nodded. “Anything to get out of town.”

Oscar agreed with a nod and stood, leaving William and Buffy to wait in uncomfortable silence.

~*~

Buffy stood on the hot railway platform craning her head to look at the long line of railroad cars curving past her line of vision. “They should have room for us, anyway.”

Oscar raised his brows skeptically. “I think you might be surprised at the amount of humanity that can be compacted into a car on an immigrant train. Are you both quite certain you don't wish to wait for a proper train tomorrow?”

“This will be fine, Mr. Wilde.” William mumbled.

“Oscar, please,” the watcher said. He stepped forward and handed their tickets to the conductor who eyed them curiously, then shrugged.

“You’ll have to leg it down a few cars to find a men’s car,” the conductor said. “The lady can fit into this here family car. Should be room. You’ll have to get your own luggage.” He slid open the door to the car. Buffy was immediately overwhelmed with the stench of too-warm humanity.

“The trip should take approximately six hours,” Oscar reassured. He reached over to pat her arm, catching himself midway through the gesture and looking embarrassed.

“Hold up!” a familiar voice interrupted. Buffy looked over to the station doors to see the grizzled barber working his way toward them, clutching a parcel in his grip.

“Hoped I’d catch you afore you left town,” Stephen flashed a gap-toothed smile and thrust a package into Buffy’s hands.

She pulled open the filthy cloth to find several dark chunks of an unknown substance. Not entirely certain what it was, she went with a generic “Thank you.”

“Jerky. Cured it myself. Thought you ‘n William might need something for the trip. And I wanted to wish you bon voyage.”

“Stephen! You spoke actual French!” She leaned over and hugged the old man, tightly. She could feel his discomfort immediately, however, and eased her hug into an awkward handshake. “Thank you, for everything.”

“Wasn’t much,” he mumbled, as he reached to shake William’s hand. “Take care a that head, William. Sorry them bastards done you that way. Pardon my French.”

A ghost of a smile crossed William’s lips. “Thank you, Stephen.”

The old man nodded and shuffled toward the door. He was quickly swallowed by the crowd.

“Well, then,” Oscar declared before being interrupted by a hoot from the steam engine. “Now that we’ve bid adieu to our multi-lingual friend, nothing prevents us from boarding the train.”

Buffy looked at William, hoping for a smile or a nod. Some sign of warmth. He turned and Oscar followed; the men walked down the track toward their car.

With a sigh, Buffy boarded the ‘family car’.

The accommodations were like the other cars she’d traveled on, in that it was rectangular and had four wheels attached at the bottom. All similarities ended there, however. The floor and walls were made of unfinished planks, and rough wooden benches were scattered around the interior. She could see boards and straw-filled mats stacked up against a far wall, which she supposed they made up themselves when night came. It reminded her of a kind of Human Ark.

In the far corner a pot-bellied stove was bolted to the floor. If engineers gathered together to design a death trap, they’d be hard pressed to come up with something worse.

There were at least fifteen women and easily three times that number in children – and they all looked at the new arrival with curiosity. Buffy gave an awkward smile and a wave, settling herself on an unoccupied bench and trying to look inconspicuous.

The train gave a final hoot and lugged away from the Rock Springs station.

~*~

They arrived in Ogden at six o’clock. The station was little more than a collection of nondescript wooden buildings which were packed to capacity. A hectic sea of humanity, baggage and even some livestock strained against the thin, wood-planked walls.

She was shoved out onto the platform by the surging tide leaving the car. Though she’d hoped to find William and Oscar, the crowd was having none of it, and she was pushed to the front of the station before she could break away from the effluvium.

It wasn’t long before she spotted Oscar, a head taller than the rest of the crowd. He gave her a wave of acknowledgment, and the men quickly made their way to her side.

“How was your trip?” She looked directly at William.

He nodded. “Fine.” His voice was polite, detached. She’d hoped that distance and a short time apart would help normalize things between them, but it was not to be. She was so screwed.

“Before we find a hotel, we should get our luggage. Well, try to, anyway,” she said.

Oscar made a ‘lead the way’ gesture with his hands, and she wove through the crowd to the ticket counter.

After a brief wait in line, she stood before a bald clerk. He looked to be in a bad mood, so she went straight to it, hoping that she sounded authoritative. “I would like to claim luggage for William and Elizabeth Pratt.”

The clerk motioned for them to follow him, and they trailed after the man until they came to a small stack of luggage against a wall in the back. Buffy spotted their trunks quickly; they were stacked together in a tidy little pile on the side. A small envelope had ‘Elizabeth Pratt’ neatly lettered upon it and was attached to Buffy’s trunk with twine

Before she had a chance to say anything to the clerk, William went over and lifted his trunk from the pile. She couldn’t help but wince, seeing him lift so much weight; the white flag of a bandage on his head reminded her how much he’d bled the previous night. She knew better than to say anything, however.

It appeared to bother Oscar as well, and he hurried to William’s side, collecting Buffy’s trunk before William had a chance.

“Would you please have them sent to the Uintah Hotel? Name of Pratt.” William deposited some coins into the clerk’s hand.

“Certainly, sir.” Baldy beamed a smile. His customer service skills grew considerably at the flash of coin.

Buffy reached over to her trunk and slid the envelope from beneath the twine. She opened it and began to read as they made their way out of the train station.

Elizabeth:

I placed your luggage in the care of the station in hopes that you’d come along. We only had an hour to change trains and I wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do, but just letting it go seemed even more foolish.

I hope you and William are well and so wish that we’d had the opportunity to get to know one another better. Perhaps when you’re out in California you can look us up. Dunn’s Emporium, on Bay Street.

Whatever it was that caused you to leap from the train in such a fashion – well, I do worry you’re all right. Please send word and let me know.

Your friend,

Mary Dunn

p.s. I must confess something to you. After you leapt from the train, well you can only imagine how scandalized Mother was. I told her that your jumping off was clearly due to her incessant questions. That a person can only take so much prying before they simply cannot take it any longer. I’m not sure if she believes herself to blame, but she’s been much less vocal – so I thank you for that!

M.D.

~*~

The hotel was adequate. A bed, a bath, a roof over their heads. White walls, crudely painted mountain scenes. Buffy kept her mind focused on the task at hand. Healing the wound she’d caused in William.

They’d declined Oscar’s offer to dine. William had declined, actually. She’d gone along smilingly. See how easy I am to get along with, William?

God, she was pathetic.

Her hands were still damp from her bath, and she fumbled the key in the lock. Beneath her gown of white and green stripes, she wore the ivory set of underthings he’d bought her so long ago. When their love was a forbidden delight. She wondered if he’d remember that moment. She wondered if he’d see her undressed again, tonight or any night.

She unlocked the door.

William stood before the washstand in the corner, his back to her. When she entered, his eyes flicked over to her image in the mirror, but he didn’t slow his actions. Methodically, he continued to unwrap the bandage around his head.

She attempted to remain casual, forcing her eyes from his reflection as she placed her clothes in her open trunk before settling down on their bed. He placed the soiled bandages in the garbage. Then, instead of rebandaging his wound, he turned to face her.

His scar was not quiet. It was loud and demanded absolute attention, an angry, sideways ‘y’ that crawled across his brow like an accusation.

“Buffy,” he said, his voice soft and low. “I’d like to talk with you.”

“Okay.”

William rubbed his hand along his stubbled jawline. He hadn’t shaved in two days and it showed.

“Why?” he asked on a sigh.

“Why what, William?”

“Why? The only why that another could ask in this situation. Why would you lie to me? I can’t come close to understanding it.”

“I didn't lie. Not exactly. I'd planned on telling you.”

“When?

“Soon. It was just … difficult, William. To find a way to begin that conversation.”

“Difficult? You landing in my life from more than one hundred years in the future – that was difficult. My uncle's manipulations, the scorn of society? Those were great difficulties. Buffy, we faced monsters, mobs, even death. When a demon rose against us and murdered George, we met that difficulty, too. And we faced it together.”

“This is different.”

“It's not.”

He lifted his hand to his head, tugging on his hair in his nervous habit; the stitches along his eyebrow pulled and tugged with the movement.

“I gave you all of myself, without reservation,” he said. “From the moment you first landed in my house to now. Mrs. McLaughlin full of her suspicions, and during our voyage – so many convinced you were mad, but I stood by your side. I knew better. Knew you better, I thought.”

A thick tear slid down his cheek. He didn’t have pride enough to wipe it away.

“Even when you couldn’t remember who we were, I held on, knowing you’d return one day. And you did.” He smiled bitterly.

He was close enough that she could reach out and touch him, and so she did. Her fingertips slid along his rough cheek. The warmth of his skin felt like a balm to her hand.

She felt his jaw clench in response to her touch and he pulled back to lean against the wall. “Buffy, in the past, even when you were in my employ, I have worked to treat you as an equal. Would you agree?

She nodded miserably.

“Have you done the same to me?”

She stopped to truly consider his words – she owed him that much at the very least. Had she treated him as a partner or had she made decisions for him? Like a parent would make for a child. Or, she realized with a chill, like Angel had made for her so very long ago. Tears began to flow down her cheeks at her realization of how she'd treated him.

“No outside force could have destroyed us, my love. I was a fool to not consider our undoing would come from within. From you, tearing apart our foundations.”

She finally found her voice. “I did it … for you. To spare you heartbreak. We had so many plans, and I couldn't stand to take those dreams away from you. I didn’t keep the truth from you selfishly, William.”

“I know that, darling. What I don’t know is … if that fact makes us more or less damned.”

“William, please.” She reached and placed her hand on his damp cheek.

Tenderly, he removed her hand. Even in his anger, he was his Williamesque self, patient and kind.

He turned his back to her and opened the door, stepping into the hall.

“Where are you going?” Her voice was high and needy. She despised herself for it.

“Out.”

“No. We're not done here. You can't just walk out on this conversation.” Her sorrow was being rapidly replaced with righteous anger and she put her hand on his shoulder, tugging him around, so that he'd have to face her.

Something sparked inside his blue eyes at her gesture. There was a raw look in his eyes and it was as close to anger as she'd ever seen him. “Are you going to decide another thing with my best interests at heart? Will you stop me, Slayer?”

It was his using her title – Slayer – that crumbled her last defense. She dropped her hand to her side and stepped back into the room.

“I’m going to get very, very drunk,” William said. “Please don’t wait up.”

Though the latch clicked politely behind him, it felt like a door slamming in her face.

*~*

The saloon was dirty and impossibly hard to find. The clientèle seemed to be the worst kind of riff-raff. The floor was made of dirt, and their version of ‘whiskey’ would probably eat a hole in the glass, if William hadn’t been so busy emptying it. In short, it was exactly what he’d been looking for.

He lifted the dirty glass to his lips, yet again, savoring the burn as the alcohol warmed his throat.

He was still sober enough to sense a subtle shift in the atmosphere in the saloon, however, and he turned to look when he saw a large man duck under the doorway. The rabble all turned to gawk at the garishly dressed figure. He had long brown hair and wore a lime-green frock coat adorned with a large sunflower in the buttonhole. Oscar. He scanned the room and found William immediately, settling himself on the empty stool at William’s right.

“Barkeep? May I inquire which brands of Irish Whiskey might you have in stock? I have very simple tastes – the best of everything,” Oscar said, a pleasant smile on his too full lips.

The bartender responded by glaring at the pair of them.

“Perhaps I’ll just have a glass of this … amber colored liquid my friend is enjoying then.”

The bartender grunted and sloshed some whiskey into a filthy glass. With the bartender’s suspicious eyes still on him, Oscar held the glass aloft and said, “Cleanliness is next to godliness. Here’s to being a great distance from both.”

“Another, please,” William said. He might as well take advantage of having the bartender’s attention.

Feeling the pleasant buzz of lowered inhibitions, William turned to Oscar. “You write splendidly, you know.”

“I fear a great majority of critics would take issue with you,” Oscar demurred.

“’Ravenna’ was a true work of art. And … ah, the name escapes me. The one that made the rounds in the poetry journals. About destroying the thing we love. Splendid, that was.”

Oscar swirled his whiskey thoughtfully.

“Did my wife send you?” William asked.

“Yes, alas. I am far more transparent than this drinking glass, unfortunately.”

William drained his and called the bartender over for another. The men drank in companionable silence for a few moments before Oscar spoke. “She loves you a great deal, you know.”

The alcohol continued to embolden William. “You know this, how? Because she told you? It’s not what she says, Oscar. It’s what she doesn’t say. That’s our poison.”

“She loves you,” Oscar repeated. “In my experience a lady wouldn’t risk getting kicked out of saloons unless she cared a great deal for you.”

William winced. “How many?”

“I’m not entirely certain. Several, to be sure.” Oscar drained his glass, then signaled for the bartender to pour him another. Once the man stepped away, Oscar continued. “I suspect that getting physically ejected from a bar was not her most difficult task this night. I think the far harder hurdle for your lady was bringing herself to ask for my help. That was her real sacrifice.”

“That is Buffy, exactly. You’re a quick study.” William clinked his glass against Oscar’s and drank deeply.

The atmosphere of the room changed again. This was not the subtle shift when Oscar had first entered, however. This change was sudden and held a drastic force – as though a strong wind had just blown through the saloon. William turned toward the door.

A young man stood in the doorway. He had wild, unkempt hair beneath his black hat and he stepped through the entrance with a confident swagger. His companion followed directly behind him, a dark-haired woman in a tight crimson gown.

William froze, his glass halfway to his lips. For a heartbeat William couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

Dru.

The creature from The Adriatic, the thing that had killed George. Her eyes sparked savagely as she strode purposefully towards them with a world-eating smile on her lips. The man who accompanied her had a grin just as wide; the look in his eyes was equally feral.

“Oscar, run!” William hadn’t intended to scream, but the image of George’s mangled body filled his mind’s eye and panic flooded him.

Oscar stood and stepped toward the approaching pair. He was only able take the one step, however, before Dru grabbed him by the throat. She stopped the much larger man as though he was made of cotton.

When she turned to look at Oscar, she shifted, remaking her face into that of a monster. She smiled, her fangs glistening in the lamplight.

William leapt up, but an arm wrapped around his neck immediately.

“You’re coming with us.” William turned to see the cowboy that had come in with Dru. His face had also transformed into that of a monster. His yellow eyes danced as he grinned at William.

Bam! A strange popping sound filled the air and it took William a moment to identify what it was: a gun shot. He looked over to see the bartender standing a few feet away, a smoking pistol aimed at the chest of the demonic cowboy.

The creature only grinned wider as he gazed down at his chest, which now featured a large crater in the center.

“A duel!” the cowboy-monster cackled joyfully. “Oh, Dru. You can’t say no to a duel.”

“We haven’t time, William. And this place is too crowded for our party. Come along.” She spun around and walked toward the exit, dragging a struggling Oscar behind.

The creature reached out with one hand and twisted the bartenders head around cruelly – snapping his neck in an instant. The bartender’s face was a mask of surprise and disappointment as his body fell to the floor.

“Git along, little doggie,” the monster chortled in William’s ear. He tightened his grip around William’s throat and pulled him through the saloon door.

Dru waited by a pair of horses. She’d forced Oscar into a kneeling position and gripped his face in her hands. Leaning over until her mouth was only inches from his, she spoke in slow, even tones. “Tell the Slayer to come home. The place where she ended, once upon a time. The place where he ended as well. Tell her to come home to the hellmouth to collect what’s left of her William.”

With no more effort than it would take to brush away a fly, she flicked her wrist and flung Oscar against the front of the saloon, where he collapsed in the dirt.

Dru mounted her horse in an instant with legs astride in the fashion of a man and her skirts bunched up in the middle. “Give it here,” she commanded. The cowboy lifted William to Dru as if he were a doll. She placed one hand on the reins and wrapped the other tightly around William’s throat.

A crowd was gathering fast, and the pair had no time to waste. The cowboy-creature jumped onto his horse and gave Dru a nod.

“H’yaw,” the creature shouted, urging his horse into a gallop.

Dru followed the creature, spurring her horse to a run. She placed her lips next to William’s ear and whispered, “Did you miss me, William? I missed you.”

-------------------

Author's Notes:

Trust. You've trusted me with a great deal of your time and it feels like it's fair to tell you how much of this story is left. I've got the whole thing outlined, but sometimes I find a chapter will go longer than I anticipated. I had the Rock Springs Riot down for one chapter and it was two and a half. As it is currently framed out, this will go until chapter 36. It may go a little bit longer, depending on how some rather complex scenes are going to come together. I framed this out last summer and the ending hasn't changed. But ... it was a bit more epic than I thought it would be and I am not sure I'll ever tackle something so big again. Thank you for reading and reviewing. Your help shape the story. (You liked Mary Dunn and Stephen so I brought them in to say a quick hi.). It just helps in so many ways and I never take your feedback for granted. Science warns that I will get hate mail at the end of this one. I encourage you to bring it!

Prostitutes in Ogden needed to get the attention of potential customers from their second and third story windows. They would do so by dropping dried beans down on men who were walking by. I couldn't fit that in the story, but thought it was interesting enough to tell you.

Oscar Wilde. Below is a photo of him which captures his "Wilde Wild West" days. Isn't he gorgeous? He had fangirls in America who would wear bright colors and ginormous flowered hats. Oscar was quite the adventurer. He was lowered into a mine in Colorado on a bucket and read to miners until four in the morning. In San Francisco, when a bunch of his Irish countrymen thought they would get the 'dandy' wasted, he ended up drinking everyone under the table. For Oscar background, I used the biography by Richard Ellmann and 'The Masks of Oscar Wilde' by Joseph Pearce. All his words are by me except for two real quotes which I snuck in.

Last thing about Oscar (for this chapter!) His little sister died when she was nine, which devastated the family. When he was away at college, his two half sisters were involved in a horrible accident. While at a ball, one girl stood too close to a lamp and her crinoline caught fire. When her sister tried to smother the flames, she was badly burned as well. They both eventually died from their burns. Historical fiction never talks about stuff like this, probably because it's horribly depressing. I'd have ruined 'Pride and Prejudice' by having Mr. Darcy obsess about the working class and wondering how flammable ball guests were.

Holy crap. I'm shutting up already!

Chapter 33 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
I was supposed to wait and post this on Monday, but I have the patience of a 5-year-old on Christmas morning.  Thanks to Science, Minx and DK for the beta and thanks to you for your feedback.  I'm curious about your thoughts at the end of this one.  No banner this time because every time I post it, the paragraphs go wonky.  (The interwebs are a wacky mystery to my mind!)

“We really have everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.” – Oscar Wilde (the real one)

Chapter 33

One week later – Elko, Nevada

The first orange streaks of sunrise played their fingers across the eastern sky.  Buffy watched through the window, her face expressionless.  When the white walls of her hotel room were coated with a peachy glow, she pulled the covers aside and slipped out of bed.

She stripped her nightgown off and pulled on the pair of trousers that she’d hung on the back of the chair.  This far west, the sight of a woman wearing pants might not have been typical, but it wasn't unheard of either.  Riding a horse was enough of a pain in the ass without throwing skirts into the mix too.

But that's not the real reason you insisted on trousers, is it? You stopped being skirt girl so that when you faced Dru, faced them, nothing would impede the slayer.

She pulled on a green shirt and buttoned it mindlessly, stretching her neck until it cracked.  Quietly, she eased her door open and stepped down to the adjacent room, delivering two quick taps to the door.

After a moment, Oscar responded, his voice thick with sleep. “Twenty minutes?”

“I'll be with the horses.” She returned to her room and tucked her small leather valise under her arm. She crept down the stairs as quietly as she was able, and let herself out into the cool morning air. As she padded to the stable, her feet kicked up puffs of dust in her wake.

The first two mornings she’d had to saddle a horse, she didn’t think she’d ever get it right, but it had quickly become routine and routines were a good thing.  They were comforting little rituals which kept your hands too busy to focus on your head and heart. 

A small grey mare greeted Buffy with a whinny, but she ignored Gertie and grabbed Florence’s saddle blanket from the shelf instead.  Oscar could be very fussy when saddling Florence.  With any luck, she could have both horses ready to go before he got to the stable.

As far as the watcher-slayer dynamic went, she had to admit that she and Oscar had settled into a somewhat backwards way of interacting.  He deferred to her lead in pretty much everything.  The council would have been mortified, and that was a small comfort to her. 

Buffy adjusted the blanket on the back of the chestnut mare, then went to the shelf and hoisted the saddle.  She settled it onto Florence’s back and fastened the collection of buckles in the correct order.

She heard Oscar approaching from behind, but she didn't turn around.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Morning,” she replied as she tightened the horse’s cinch.

“I assumed you would forego breakfast, again, and brought you something,” Oscar said.

She turned to see him holding a small cloth covered bundle.  He wore a salmon colored frock coat and a peach colored vest.

She ignored him and went over to collect Gertie’s blanket and saddle.  Oscar interrupted her with a hand on her shoulder. “We don't need to have the 'eating' talk again, do we?”

“Let me saddle Gertie first.”

She made quick work of fastening the various buckles and cinches while Oscar fussed around with his saddle bags.  She’d been right to beat him to the punch and saddle his horse for him.

When she turned around, Oscar was giving her a very patient look; he held a small loaf of bread out to her.  She accepted it and grudgingly took a bite.

“You look tired,” he said.

“And they say you're a smooth talker.”

“How much sleep did you get last night?”

“The same. We don't have to have the 'sleeping' talk again, do we, Oscar?”

He gave a little laugh and reached into his pocket.  He pulled out a neatly folded handkerchief, which he unwrapped to unveil bits of dried apple.  After he placed the fruit in his palm, he held it out to Florence who chomped enthusiastically.  Oscar smiled, very self-satisfied.

Guiltily, she gave Gertie a belated greeting, patting her nose.  As much as she gave lip service to Oscar being an annoyance, the truth was that she would be lost without him. In the week since William had been taken, she’d been a hollowed-out shell of a human being.  Oscar was the one humanizing aspect of her life. He made sure she ate.  He could tell instinctively which restaurants would have the best meals.  He kept her tethered to this world.

For a moment, Buffy had a brief flash of Giles, that steady hand on her shoulder. What she would give to be able to reach through time and show Giles this moment of her and Oscar. What would he think?

She stuffed her cheek with the remainder of the loaf, and Oscar watched in horror.

“Do Americans not know the importance of mastication?”

“Good god, Oscar.  We’re not going to talk about that.  How did the English get the reputation for being prudes, anyway?”

Oscar gave her a dumbfounded expression.  “Before I met you, I thought women were mysterious creatures.  You, Buffy, put them all to shame.”

With one hand on the saddle horn, and a foot tucked into the stirrup, she pulled herself onto Gertie.  Her muscles didn’t protest as they had the first few days that she’d been ‘saddle broke.’ 

“East again?” Oscar asked, once he'd settled himself on the back of Florence.

“West. I think they're moving faster than I'd given them credit for.”

“Lead on, Bakguai.”  He’d taken to calling her that as often as he used her name.  He thought he was clever and subtle, but she knew why he did it.  He was reminding her she’d been a hero.  He was telling her she could do it again.

She flicked the reigns, guiding Gertie out of the stable.  They trotted down the street, away from the rising sun – the small, trousered woman and the large man wearing the bright colors of sunrise.

~*~

Buffy and Oscar came upon a small farm an hour after setting out.  She nearly didn't bother stopping. It seemed too close to town for the vampires to have risked it. Besides, the sweet little house looked too picture-perfect to disturb.

But as she scanned the silent yard, a strange feeling skated along her neckline, and she pulled Gertie to a halt. Dust settled around the horses hooves in a cloud.

There were no barking dogs or mooing cattle.  No clinking sounds from the barn or children’s voices.  Just unnatural silence.

Oscar gave her a puzzled look, but she ignored him. With one hand, she passed her reins to Oscar while she used the other to guide herself off Gertie’s back.

The front porch smelled of sunshine and lilacs as she hopped up the steps and approached the door.  A chain was looped around the porch rail, as though a dog had been tethered to the porch. 

So where is the dog?

She raised her fist to the door and knocked.  When no one responded, she knocked again – a little louder the second time around. 

With a deep breath, she ducked her head down to peer through a small window, shielding the glare with one hand.   The room seemed absolutely normal - a small living room with plain furnishings, a braided rug before the fireplace, a tidy row of books on a shelf.  Nothing seemed the least bit odd except for the unnatural stillness.

Buffy looked at Oscar, waiting patiently on his horse.  She held up her index finger in a 'just give me a minute' gesture.  Grateful once again for trousers, she leapt off the side of the porch and headed toward the back of the house.

Since there was no point in knocking, she went straight to the rear window.  Peering in, she saw a typical farm kitchen. Wide wooden table, water pump and freshly swept plank floor. She was just about to turn away when her eye caught something quite ordinary peeping out from beneath the table.  A shoe.  Except, it wasn’t placed on the floor in a natural way.  This shoe was parallel to the floor and slightly elevated – as though it was currently being worn.

Her heart thudded against her eardrums and adrenaline swamped her system.  She spun around and tore the door open, feeling a flash of surprise that it had been unlocked all along.

She ducked her head under the table – hoping she wasn’t about to find the body that she already knew was there. 

The farmer’s young wife lay still.  Her eyes were still open, staring lifelessly at the underside of the family table.  Buffy dropped to her knees immediately and swept her hand over the young woman’s face, closing her cold lids. In life, she’d probably had a sweet, honest face but the brutality of death had transformed her utterly. Her skin was an unearthly shade of pale; the wound on her neck was a savage bloom.

“You might take a moment to inform me what it is you're doing,” Oscar said, as he thudded into the room. “Not to presume that you'd bother to ...” When he saw what…who she was kneeling before, he stopped abruptly. “Dear god.”

Buffy blinked and pushed her emotions down into her core.  Feelings weren't useful, not now – and the only way she could get through now would be to concentrate on useful things, on doing the task at hand.

Oscar slumped against the counter.  His face took on a greenish tint, and he panted so rapidly that she feared he’d hyperventilate. 

This wasn’t the first time they’d been to a site that the vampires had visited, but this was the only time where they’d seen the bodies – where they’d arrived before the authorities. 

Buffy stepped over and touched Oscar’s arm in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture.  “She won't be the only one.  You wait here, and I'll look in the bedrooms.”  She didn’t wait for him to respond.

 

It didn’t take long.  They were behind the second door she tried.  Two young boys, no more than seven years old, drained white and tucked up into a double bed.  Someone - some thing - had artfully arranged toys around their little blond heads.

 

Buffy couldn’t bear it.  Closed her eyes.  Fell out into the hall, gasping.

 

Don’t feel.  Push it back.  Push it away.

 

The little cold boys, with their frozen stares.

 

And you wonder - which ones did your William drain?  Whose life ebbed away thanks to William the Bloody?

 

She shoved herself away from the hallway and swept back into the kitchen.  Oscar was nowhere in sight.

 

Buffy kicked the door aside and stepped out into the yard.  It only took a moment to find him.  He was hunched over, vomiting next to the chicken coop.   She could, at least, let him have the grace of privacy, and she scurried to the front post where he’d tied up their horses.

 

When long moments later, Oscar walked over to her, she gave him a nod.  “Did you find the father?”

 

“He was in the pantry.  He’d put up a struggle, by the look of it.”

"There are … were … children.  Two boys.”

 

Oscar’s expression was utter bafflement.  As if he’d landed in a land in which everyone suddenly and inexplicably began speaking a foreign language.

 

“We need to get back to Elko.  We have to tell people.  Tell the Sheriff.”

 

Oscar nodded numbly, his brain still scrambling to play catch up.  He mounted his horse, and Buffy followed suit.  They urged their mounts to a gallop.

 

When they arrived back in town, Buffy stayed at the hitching post with Florence and Gertie while Oscar stepped into the Sherriff’s office.   By the time Oscar rejoined her, she was feeling antsy enough to burst.

 

“We have to try harder," she said.

“We’re trying pretty hard, Bakguai.”

 

“But it’s not good enough.   We still haven’t caught them.”

 

Oscar said nothing as he patted Florence’s flank.  She wondered if he was reassuring the horse or if it was the other way around.

 

“We need to send another telegram to the Council, too,” Buffy said.

 

“What could we say that we haven’t already said?”

“We need to tell them about the white demons.  You didn’t put anything about that in the last telegram, did you?”

 

Oscar shook his head.

 

“We should have mentioned it.  The Chinese in Rock Springs kept talking about white demons, and we should find out why.”

“Why would you think the demons relate to catching Dru and William?”

 

Buffy winced at the mention of his name; Oscar instantly looked apologetic.

 

“Any demonic activity is likely tied to the opening of the hellmouth.  The way we’re going, we might not catch up to them before California.  If we end up on top of the hellmouth with these things, I’d like to know what they are."

Oscar nodded in agreement.

 

"And tell them to send a reply to Reno, not Elko," she added.

"I don’t wish to correct you, Bakguai, but I believe that's several hundred miles away, near the California border.  It would take a week by horse."

"We'll take a train.  If it can't take our horses, we'll have to sell them."

Oscar gave Florence a worried glance.

"So far we've been just a little too late everywhere they've been.  It's time to be two jumps ahead of them instead of one jump behind."

~*~


One week later – Reno, Nevada

The boy in the telegraph office handed Oscar the sheet of paper nervously.  “Yes.  Addressed to Mr. Oscar Wilde.  Here it is.”

 

“And a well-weathered missive it is,” Oscar said.  The telegram had been folded and refolded multiple times and sported a large coffee stain on the back side.

 

“Western Union employees are told to maintain the strictest confidence, sir.  I assure you.”

 

“I’m sure you’re told a great many things.  The question is a matter of doing, not telling.  Still, the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.  Wouldn’t you agree?”

 

The boy nodded unsteadily, clearly confused about what it was he was agreeing to.

 

Buffy tugged on Oscar’s arm.  “Do you always understand everything you say?”

 

“Yes, but I must listen attentively.”  Oscar tipped his hat to the lad before leading her onto the porch for a bit of privacy.


She snatched the telegram from Oscar and began to read.

 

TO: OSCAR WILDE, RENO NEV WU OFC

FROM:  WILFRED PENDERAST, WATCHERS COUNCIL, LONDON ENG


NO RELEVANT INFORMATION REGARDING WHITE DEMONS STOP HELLMOUTHS ARE SUSTAINED BY SUPERNATURAL MEANS BUT OPENED BY HUMAN ATTROCITIES STOP WATCHER GERARD BUNBURY IS IN TRANSIT STOP DESIST PURSUIT UNTIL HIS ARRIVAL APROX THREE WEEKS STOP

Buffy sighed.  "That was worse than a text message.  And what’s with caps lock?”


Oscar gave her a baffled expression.

"Can you be my English translator, Oscar?”

 

“I would dearly love to be.  Unfortunately, I’m only fluent in one of the required languages.”  He took the telegram and scanned it quickly.

"To put it briefly, they don't know anything about the white demons.  The hellmouth is opened by humans, apparently.  And they want us to stop trying to catch Dru and wait for the official Watcher to arrive."

"Yeah, like that's going to happen.  They’re as much help as ever.  Come on.  Let's get going.  We still have to check out that valley southeast of town."

~*~

Another long day of nothing.  After being forced into having a bit of soup by an insistent Oscar, Buffy slipped into her room and fell back onto her bed – exhausted.  Her room was first rate, with thanks again going to the Irishman.  He had an unerring eye when it came to knowing where the softest beds were.

 

She pulled a sheet over her, not even bothering to remove her clothes.

 

An insistent tapping in the dead of night woke her.  She jumped out of bed – instantly fully awake.  When she yanked open the door, an apologetic looking Oscar greeted her with a half-smile.

 

“What?”

 

“It may be absolutely nothing, Buffy.”

 

“Talk.”  She gestured for him to come in, and she shut the door behind him.


"I heard something just now, and I thought it might be worth pursuing.  I was at a drinking establishment, you see, and a regular came in with a tale that struck me as being worthy of our interest.”

 

“Oscar?  Can you please give it to me in a speedier version of English?  One with less words?”

 

“Yes.  Quite.  Well, this fellow had been camping out in one of abandoned mining camps on the Truckee River, and he spotted an odd trio headed up river.”

“Odd?”

 

“Two men and a woman.  The woman was a beauty – dark hair, wearing a gown and riding astride.”


"Did he describe the men at all?  Did he say anything about … William?"

"I pressured him for details, but between his drunken state and his speculations regarding the woman’s potential charms - he wasn't able to tell me very much, regretfully."

"You know where this is, right?"  She shoved her feet into her boots and gathered her hair to make a quick ponytail.

"The old mining camps, yes.  It should be as simple as following the Truckee River west, towards California."

 

“Great.  You wait here while I check this out.” 

She reached the door handle and stopped abruptly.  Turning, she faced Oscar, then reached her arms around him in a tight hug.  Since he was so tall, she only managed to squeeze his midsection tightly.

 

"Thank you, Oscar.  For everything."

His brows shot up and he chuckled.  "That was a very admirable effort, dear.  Charming, really."

"Effort at what?"


"At getting rid of me.  I’m sorry, but you cannot attempt to say goodbye just yet."

"I'm not attempting it, Oscar.  I'm doing it.  You're not coming with me.  It would be stupid to have both of us go."

"But I excel at stupid things, darling.  And I always do them from the noblest of motives.”

 

He placed a hand on her shoulder.  For the first time since she’d known him, he gave her a look that she could only describe as watcherly.  “Buffy, I’ve come this far, and I expect to see this through.  I know there are dangers.  I’ve always known.  But it’s my choice.  And we really don’t have time to waste in an argument in which I’m determined to be both tedious and convincing.”

 

“Fine,” she said, turning her back to Oscar so he wouldn’t see the tears filling her eyes.  “But if you get yourself killed, I’m going to make you so sorry.”

 

“Naturally, Bakguai.  Lead on.”

~*~

The moon was fat, and the sky was cloudless.  Buffy slid her hand into her pocket and pulled out William’s old watch.  Three am.  They had better find this trio soon.  Once the rising sun sent the vampires into hiding they’d be much harder to find.

 

It helped if she thought of who she was chasing as ‘the trio’ or ‘Dru and company.’  When she thought of him as William she felt unbalanced, and it was hard to breathe.

 

Gertie was having her own difficulties breathing.  They’d been riding hard for two hours, and she was clearly winded.  Buffy patted the horse’s neck.  “Good girl.  Hang in there,” she soothed.

 

Just outside of Reno, the river bank had been crowded with farm houses and old mining camps, but now that they were so far up river, dwellings were becoming scarce.  Though a few of the little houses were still lived in, the majority had been abandoned years ago – when the silver craze finished sweeping through the county.  As the river darted along the California border, the ground grew rougher and they’d run out of dwellings a few miles back.

 

She could see Oscar glancing over to her every few minutes, looking to see if she was ready to turn around.  She kept her face forward and urged Gertie on with another pat.

 

They came down a small gully and into a large clearing next to a bend in the river.  Perched above back atop a small hill was a little cabin.  There was no sign of life, no telltale trio of horses tied to the porch rail as she might expect.  There was something about it that stopped her, however, and she held a cautious hand up to Oscar and slid off Gertie’s back.

 

He nudged Florence over to where Buffy stood at the edge of the clearing and dismounted as well.

 

“Wait here,” she said, handing him Gertie’s reins.

 

She reached inside her saddle bag and pulled out a stake, then walked cautiously toward the darkened cabin.  The brush along the riverbank had grown thick and clawed at her as she worked her way along the river’s edge.  The river gurgled over the stones, splashing onto her boots.

 

The porch was in shadow, so it wasn’t until she reached the first step that she saw the body lying just before the front door.

 

Too late – again.  You’ll never catch them.

 

Her eyes quickly adjusted to the dim light on the porch, and she noticed that someone had tethered the poor creature, the way you’d tie up a dog.  One end was looped through the porch rail, and the other end was fastened around the victim’s throat.

 

She reached down and placed her hand on the back of the chained body.

 

It was still warm.

She carefully placed her hands under the man and shifted his weight.  He let out a soft groan as the collar dug into his throat.  She turned him, positioning his face toward the moonlight.

 

William.

A light beard now covered his shockingly thin cheeks.  His face was crisscrossed with wounds, and one eye was swollen completely shut.  He’d been beaten almost beyond recognition, but it was William. 

 

And he was alive.

--------------------------

Author’s notes:

 

TO: CONSTANT READER

FROM:  PUDDIN, WHO THINKS TELEGRAMS SHOULD HAVE ! AND ?


OMG WTF I THINK OPERATION SHITSHOW IS ABOUT TO START STOP  HOW DID DRUS TURNING OF WILLIAM FLOP STOP WHAT SURPRISE WILL SHE AND BILLY DROP STOP HOW CAREFULLY MUST OSCAR STEP STOP POOR BUFFY IS ABOUT TO POP STOP FOR ACTION THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE HARD TO TOP STOP NOW I REALLY NEED TO STOP STOP

 

 

Chapter 34 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thank you to Lutamira for the beta.  I changed dozens of things after she was finished though so I get any blame for bad stuff.  Thanks to Tennyoelf for the banner.  Thanks to you for your feedback!

In the middle of a gunfight – in the center of a restaurant

They say come with your arms raised high

Well, they’re never gonna get me – like a bullet through a flock of doves

To wage a war against your faith in me

Your life will never be the same

On your mother’s eyes, say a prayer. Say a prayer. – My Chemical Romance-


 

Chapter 34

Two weeks ago – Just outside of Bountiful, Utah – The night William was taken

Dru’s horse had the burden of two riders, but Billy didn't need to slow his pace. She was riding hell for leather and had been since they tore out of Ogden. By the time they reached Bountiful, they'd been riding all night and had pushed their horses to the breaking point. Billy pulled to a halt beneath the wide branches of a cottonwood tree and Dru reined her mount in beside him. Her captive was seated in front of her, secured by her arm wrapped tightly around his throat.

“It’ll be daylight soon, Dru. I can smell it in the air. Don’t we gotta feed?”

“The slayer will be so very cross. Won't like our game of hide and seek.”

“I’ve outrun a fair share of posses in my day. We done doubled back and doubled back again. Even with a tracker on her side, she won’t be on our trail.”

Billy tilted his head toward the small cabin that lay on the far side of the cottonwood. It was a ramshackle dwelling, little more than a shed, really. But the vegetable garden on the side proclaimed that it was occupied.

“Let’s eat whoever's inside and bed down there,” Billy suggested. He was hungry enough to drain his damned horse at this point, and he had to concentrate to keep from shifting into his feeding face.

Dru looked at the shack for a moment. She smiled and touched a hand to her captive’s head, tangling her fingers in his curls. Billy looked away and gritted his teeth at the gesture.

“But I don’t think you’re going to be a good boy and wait while mummy gets dinner, are you, William?” Dru purred.

Billy flashed a glance to her, but found her gaze on the other man instead.

He was her William, for fuck's sake. Billy was. Not this fancy-man. Not this lily, this pilgrim.

Billy leapt from his horse and lashed his horse's reins to a tree branch. Dru tossed the other William to the ground. His body gave a satisfying thud when it hit the earth and Billy couldn’t resist grinning. Dru slid from her horse and knelt next to her prisoner. The fellow tried to sit up, scrabbling his boots against the ground. Dru thrust him back into the dirt, planting her fist firmly in the center of his chest. A butterfly pinned to a board.

“What’s that you say, William?” Dru asked.

Billy felt something twist in his chest.

“Did you say you’re going to be a bad boy and try to escape?” The captive remained silent while his feet continued to kick and beat against the earth. “Mummy will just have to turn you now then. I’ve been so patient, you know. Waiting for my drink since the ship …”

With a wide grin, Dru shifted into her feeding face, then roughly wrenched the man’s head to one side, exposing his neck. Her fingers fisted in the man's curls, stilling him in an instant. She leaned down, fangs bared.

“Hold on.” Billy walked toward the pair.

Dru pressed her teeth into the man’s throat.

“I said hold on just a goddamn minute.” Billy grabbed a handful of Dru’s hair and jerked up. The other William's throat wound was superficial, and blood trickled from it lazily. Billy salivated at the coppery scent.

“Feedin’ off him, that’s one thing. But you’re not gonna turn him. You can’t make him one of us.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because.”

“Are you jealous?” Dru shifted back into her human face and blinked at Billy, her eyes purple lamps in the moonlight. She was the precise picture of a taunting schoolgirl, her lips curved into a teasing smile.

“Not jealous, but it would be confusing to have two of us. I aim to be the only goddamn William.”

Dru traced a finger down the other man's throat, but she kept her violet eyes on Billy.

“I mean it, Dru. Change him or don’t – your call. Just know that if you do, I’m high tailin’ it out of here.”

“You're making things difficult. It's not fair to move the pieces on the game board, William.”

That's right. Who’s the goddamned William now?

Billy glared at the intruder who still struggled beneath Dru’s fist. “Let’s just kill him. That simplifies things up right quick.”

“The slayer would have no reason to follow us to the hellmouth if we did that, my dark prince. Unless we change him, he'll just be a bad doggie - forever trying to run away.”

“There are other ways to make a fella behave. If you beat anything hard enough, it's bound to come along like a good little whelp.”

“Turning him would be easier.”

“It might be easier, but if you do it I'll leave you, no foolin'. It'll just be you and him against the slayer.”

Dru blinked at him, and he could tell she was beginning to waver.

“C'mon, darlin'. My way's a hell of a lot more fun than turnin' him. Let me show you.”

Billy dragged William to his feet with a cheerful grin, and his eager fists set to work rearranging the contours of the intruder's face.

~*~

Two weeks later – On a cabin porch by the Truckee River – California-Nevada border

William blinked his good eye - the one that wasn’t swollen shut. His torn and swollen lips formed a word. “…uffy?”

A dozen urges flooded Buffy's mind at once. Hold him, tear the chains from his body, kiss his bruised lips, eviscerate Dru, grab ahold of him and run like hell. Swamped, all she could do was say, “William.”

“Go away,” he groaned.

“William?” He was delusional. He probably thought she was a hallucination. After all the abuse, it was no wonder. “It’s okay, William. I’m not a dream. I’m real.”

“Know you’re real! It’s why you have to go. Run! Bloody Dru. She’s close.” He turned his head, wincing as he moved. His leash pulled the dog collar taut, and it dug into his throat.

Buffy jerked her head up to check on Oscar. The clearing was fully visible in the bright moonlight, and she felt relief on seeing the familiar outlines of Florence, Gertie and …

Where was Oscar?

The horses stared back at her, their reins dangling loose.

“Oh, god.”

She leapt up just a hair too late. A cold arm tightened around her throat.

“So busy being a wife, you forgot to be the slayer.” Dru's voice was so close to her ear that Buffy could feel the vampire's chilled lips moving.

Buffy struggled, flailing her arms backwards, but she found no purchase. A damp cloth clamped down over her face tightly, covering her nose and mouth. When she inhaled, she was overwhelmed with a strangely familiar scent. Lighter fluid. Like the smell of summer backyard barbeques. What a peculiar thing to smell while she was … and then, just like someone flicked a switch, her world went dark.

~*~

Buffy hadn’t been out long. When she woke pain flooded her head with a vengeance and she didn't dare move. The sensation was bright and sharp, like knives in her temples. Her eye sockets throbbed a savage rhythm and her eyelids were thick and uncooperative.

Though she couldn't look around, she could hear just fine. Two people were arguing and they were quite close by.

“…slayer's spoiled our fun, we won't need her doggie any longer. We'll have to drain both her boys now - a matched set,” said Dru.

“I don't mind how we kill the big fella, but we should have a show with William first.” It had to be the cowboy speaking. “C’mon, Dru. It’s been an itch I haven’t been able to scratch for weeks.”

“It does sound like it could be fun.”

“It will be! Hell of a show. And it won’t take but five minutes. Besides, we been ridin’ with him for weeks. You don’t just eat a fella you been ridin’ with like they was a can of beans. You need a little something extra, for Pete's sake!”

Dru sighed, a patient mother indulging a child. “Very well, my prince. Have your little show with the doggie. But quickly now. The nasty sun won't wait for your games and we need to drain the watcher as well.”

Buffy forced her heavy lids upward, and her head screamed in protest. When she tried to focus, the world swam, doubled. She squinted, attempting to make sense of their predicament.

She was secured tightly to one of the porch support beams; chains had been wrapped around her three or four times. Her arms were tied behind her back, but with rope, by the feel of it.

“I was afraid you were going to miss the show,” Dru cackled from somewhere to Buffy's right. “We’re unable to perform a matinee and it would be dreadful if you missed seeing your William off.”

Dru stood behind Oscar, who had been forced into a kneeling position and wore a noose around his neck. She held the rope tightly, forcing his head toward the clearing in front of the cabin. Oscar had a nasty gash on his temple and blood had soaked his collar. When he tried to turn his head toward Buffy, Dru yanked back on the rope and he made a choking sound.

“Wasn’t nice to follow us slayer. We’d asked you to call on us at the hellmouth. 'Tis very rude to change appointments unannounced.”

“William,” Buffy rasped. Her throat was still recovering from whatever it was Dru had dosed her with.

Dru's only response was to grin down at the clearing. Buffy followed her gaze.

Two men stood close together at the far end of the meadow, next to a pile of chopped wood. William was slumped against a tree, his chin down and his face hidden in shadow, but he was easy to spot. He still wore his Rock Springs duster and made a distinctive silhouette.

The cowboy stood in front of William. He wasn’t a large man – about the same size as her husband. Since his back was to her, she could only see his black hat and fringed leather jacket. His hands were busy fastening something around William’s hips.

“These are my girls - Paulita and Sallie,” the cowboy said, as he strapped the gun belt around William. “There’s one bullet in each, so it don’t matter if you’re right or left handed.”

When the cowboy finished attaching the pistols, he reached over and yanked William's chin up. “It's a hell of an honor to be wearin' my girls. I never let another man touch 'em before today.”

As soon as he removed his hand, William's head dropped back to his chest. The cowboy turned and began to stroll across the wide clearing. He glanced up at the small gathering on the porch and touched the brim of his hat.

“A real by-god duel!” The cowboy gave a whoop of joy and Buffy felt her blood turn to ice.

A duel? The cowboy was staging a twisted version of a showdown. A kind of High Moon. And William didn’t have a hope of surviving the encounter. He could barely stand. Armed with bullets against a vampire, he had no chance at all.

Desperate, Buffy tried to pull against her chains, but she was bound too firmly to find any leverage. She could only twist ineffectually against the post.

All we've been through was for nothing? William survived their tortures only to die like this?

When the cowboy reached the far side of the clearing he turned to face William and slipped into game face. Even from a distance, she could see his yellow eyes glitter in anticipation.

“I ain’t even got a weapon. All I got – is me.” Vampire-cowboy bounced on his heels, once, twice. Relishing the moment. Drawing it out.

William didn't move. He remained next to the woodpile, slumped against the pine, his face in shadow. Buffy twisted her hands against her bonds. She pulled until the rope cut deeply into her skin – but the knots didn't budge.

“Since you’re feelin’ a mite poorly, we won’t fuss about pacing off. How about you wait there and I’ll come to you?”

The creature began to saunter toward William, his gait long and unhurried.

William did nothing. He didn’t look up, didn't try to gauge the progress of his opponent. She could only tell he was still conscious because he remained upright, with a little help from the tree.

“You’re supposed to pull a gun on me, goddammit!” the cowboy snarled.

Why must his ending come like this? In this macabre mockery of a shootout? Didn’t William, of all people, deserve a better death?

The cowboy's lazy saunter morphed into a brisk walk, eating up the ground that remained between William and himself. He was less than thirty feet away and closing fast.

“Draw, you yella bastard!” the cowboy shouted.

Even if Buffy could free herself, at this point she'd never get there in time.

Do something William. Shoot him or run. But don’t die like this. Not without a fight.

Still slumped against the tree, William lifted his head. He slowly reached down for the gun strapped to his hip. His movements were so painfully deliberate that Buffy held her breath.

“That’s more like it!” The cowboy paused, a mere fifteen feet away. A grin slashed across his face. “Now, let me have it, William. Except … wait a minute! You already seen what happens when a fella shoots me. Even right in the chest, it ain't gonna make a hell of a lot of difference.”

At long last, William spoke. “I’m not aiming for your chest.”

Blam!

The gun flashed and the cowboy fell to his knees. His hands flew to his face.

“You shot my fucking EYE! You weren't supposed to do that! Jesus Christ! It stings! You no good, fucking son of a whore!” the cowboy screamed.

“Kindly do not make disparaging remarks about my mother.”

Blam!

When the second gun sounded, the cowboy fell backward. His head hit the ground with a resounding thud. He clutched his other eye and rolled in the dirt, screaming in pain.

“You prick! You … goddamned, cockchafing bastard! I'm blind! Oh, you are gonna pay for this, you sorry mongrel.” Blood poured from his wounded eyes, making gruesome tear trails down his cheeks.

William pushed away from the pine. He swayed wildly, but remained upright and staggered a few steps toward the wood pile.

Instantly, the cowboy leapt to his feet, lunging toward William's tree. When he wrapped his hands around the pine trunk instead of William’s throat, he roared a howl of primal rage.

William reached down for the ax that was embedded into the woodpile's splitting log. He tugged it out of the flat surface with a chck. The cowboy whirled around at the sound, his face a mask of feral fury. He dove toward the noise.

William feinted back and to his right, a boxer's move. As he stepped backwards, he raised the ax high above his head. The cowboy got another armload of air as he whooshed past; William swung the ax. It swept through the air, finishing it's arc right at the cowboy's neck, neatly separating his head from his body with a solid thunk.

There was a moment when it was all suspended in time: the cowboy's severed head, William falling to the ground with the momentum of the ax, the sound of Dru's enraged scream. Then the moment was gone. The cowboy dissolved into a shower of dust, and William lay in the dirt.

“Noooo!” Dru dropped Oscar's noose and racked her fingernails down her cheeks, leaving bloody trails.

“Not my dark prince! Not my William!” She stumbled off the porch, clawing her way through the deep underbrush toward the clearing.

Oscar didn’t waste a second. He rushed to untie Buffy's hands the moment Dru left the porch, loosening the knots quickly. The instant Buffy's hands were free, she began to work on a particularly rusty looking link in the metal chain. Whether it was due to slayer strength, pure adrenaline or shoddy workmanship, the metal snapped quickly and the chains fell in loops around her feet.

Buffy took a step, and the drug she'd been given earlier made her world tilt. She shook her head and forced her feet down the slope to the clearing, holding onto the brush as she went. Oscar scrambled after her.

“First Miss Edith and now my dark prince! Why? I want to know why!” Dru howled at the sky.

Once Dru made the edge of the clearing, she staggered toward the woodpile. Toward where William was shakily picking himself off the ground. She stopped just as she reached the woodpile. Her feet stirred in the dust that had, just moments ago, been her cowboy. She looked at the ground in horror.

Buffy knew that she was out of time. She was sixty feet from the vampire and Dru was an arm's length from William. Should Dru attack him, Buffy would be unable to save him. Even worse, she knew there was no way she could engage in battle in her condition – she could barely walk.

“Yo, bitch-face,” Buffy yelled.

Dru whirled around. She seemed dumbfounded to see Buffy, chain free.

“William took your cowboy out all by himself. Now that a Slayer and a Legendary Master Watcher are added to the mix, dusting you is gonna be easy. We won't even work up a sweat."

Dru blinked. She looked at William, then pivoted back to Buffy.

Fight or flight? What would it be?

“It's go time,” Buffy shouted as she charged toward Dru and hoping that she wasn't weaving too badly. With only a split second to decide, Dru's sense of self-preservation won out. She spun around and ran toward the treeline.

“It's not over,” Dru called over her shoulder as she reached the edge of the clearing. After a few seconds the sound of hoofbeats echoed through the trees.

“And yet I can't bluff at poker to save my life,” Buffy said. She nodded toward the cabin. “Dru's just crazy enough to come back. We'll be safer inside.”

Buffy rushed to William's side and put an arm around his waist. His shirt was dirty and was dotted with patches of dried blood. When she pressed her palm to his side she was shocked to feel his rib bones protruding, and she had to swallow back her emotions.

Oscar supported William's other side, and together they wove through the brush to the cabin. The door was locked, so Buffy opened it with an unceremonious kick.

Once they stumbled across the threshold, they led William to an empty bed frame in the corner. Buffy helped ease him onto the bed and sat down beside him. Since his head was bowed, she couldn't gauge his expression; his breath was shallow and panting. Tentatively, she raised a hand to his cheek. His jaw bristled with his new beard. It felt foreign and unnatural beneath her fingertips.

“William?”

He raised his head and looked at her with his good eye. Now that she was so close, the brutality of his wounds was easier to see, and it tore at her heart. Tears welled in her eyes, but she forced them back. It wasn't what he needed right now.

“What can I do, William? Can I … I don't know. Get you something?”

He shook his head, then reached shaking fingers up to his throat, to the blood-stained dog collar that was wrapped tightly around his neck. Instinctively, she reached out to help him, then paused and pulled her hands back to her lap.

This might be the kind of thing that a man needs to do for himself.

He fumbled twice before finding the buckle. He yanked it open roughly, and tugged the collar free, flinging it into the corner with surprising force. The raw wound beneath the collar shone, a bloody ring.

“We'll get some water from the river as soon as it's daybreak. Clean you up.” She gave him a watery smile.

William nodded. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eye. Resting or unconscious, it was hard to tell, but she wouldn't disturb him for the world. She closed her own eyes as well. William looked so thin, so broken; it was too painful to look at him.

Tears began to splash down her cheeks and she felt a large, warm hand cover hers. Oscar.

“Come along, Bakguai,” he urged softly.

Oscar pulled her to her feet and led her over to the cabin door. When he put a soothing arm around her shoulder, she lost it. She tucked her face into the crook of his arm and allowed herself the comfort of unabashed, albeit silent, weeping.

Some of her tears were for the fear she felt – at what part she may have played in his being taken and what the future might hold for them. Some of her tears were for what the vampires had done to him – taken his innocence and left behind a bruised face and starved body. And some of her tears were for the profound relief she felt that, despite how broken he might appear, he was still alive, still human.

After a long time, when morning lightened the sky, her tears began to subside. Oscar handed her a handkerchief and she blew her nose as quietly as possible.

“Master Legendary Watcher, is it? It seems I've been given quite a promotion.” He was trying to put her mind on something else, and it was absolutely endearing.

“I needed to intimidate Dru. I didn't think 'Published Poet' sounded very badass, Oscar.”

“I quite agree.”

“Master Legendary Watcher has pizazz, you know?”

“Absolutely brimming with … pizazz. Upon returning to London, I intend to alter my calling card accordingly.”

“I nearly threw in an 'Admiral' or 'Jedi' to the mix, but didn't want to go over the top.”

Oscar chucked. “Ah, Buffy. Hyperbole is absolutely the greatest thing in the entire universe.”

He was silent for a moment, then reached out and gave her shoulder a pat. “He'll be all right in the end. You'll see. There's an unseen pillar of strength beneath the surface of your William.”

Buffy nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Since it was now fully daylight, she walked over to the tiny kitchen area of the cabin and looked around. A brief search unearthed a pail that that looked more or less water-tight, so she grabbed it and stepped outside. Slightly unsteadily, she made her way to the river and filled the bucket to the brim.

When she returned to the cabin, Oscar was just stepping off the porch. “If you don't require my assistance, I'm going to find our horses. Surely, they'll not have gotten far.”

Buffy nodded and slipped back into the cabin. Another brief search rewarded her with a dented tin cup and some relatively clean washcloths. She returned to where William lay, slumped against the wall. After filling the tin cup with water, she knelt in front of him and nudged his swollen bottom lip with the rim of the cup. William's eye fluttered open. He parted his lips and gulped the water down, wincing as he swallowed.

“Thank you,” he grated. He tried to force the edges of his mouth up in a smile, but it died on his lips.

She filled the cup again and he drained it, then emptied it yet again. Buffy's vision did the doubling thing and she shook her head.

“Ether,” William said. “Dru used ether on you. She killed a … ehm, there was a doctor earlier. Your head should clear in a few hours.”

It was the most Buffy had heard him speak and she felt the tight fist of fear that had been squeezing her heart begin to relax a little. She soaked one of the cloths in water and lifted it to his face.

“I thought it might be good to clean up some of these cuts.”

“Yes. I seem err … I'm sorry, Buffy. I'm afraid I'm quite filthy.”

“Hush, William. You were a big damn hero out there. You were amazing.”

“Don't feel like much of a hero. Or look it.”

She placed her fingertips against his cheek and leaned over, tenderly touching her mouth to his bruised lips. It was only the ghost of a kiss, but she felt him tremble. Mindful of his fragile state, she pulled back quickly.

“I'll be super-careful, William. You'll see. Unless? You don't want me to?”

“I want you. To.” William closed his eye. “Thank you.”

She dabbed the cuts on his forehead first, then began to clean up his eye that was swollen shut. There was a great deal of dried blood around the wound and even more was embedded in his beard. Once his face was relatively blood free, she set to work cleaning his neck. It was red and raw from the leather collar, and when she touched the cloth to it, he flinched.

“Sorry.”

“No, it's all right.”

He clenched his jaw as she worked to free up some of the blood and grime. Just as she finished, Oscar entered the room and she turned to greet him.

“Did you find Gertie and Flo?”

“I did. I found another pair of horses as well. I assume they belonged to the vampires.”

William nodded.

Oscar clapped his hands together. “Well then, there's nothing stopping us from getting back to Reno, I suppose. It's time we got our hero back to town – to his reward of a warm bath, a good meal and a soft bed.”

“I just hope 'the hero' manages not to fall off his horse along the way.” William gave a weak grin.

It was absolutely amazing - to see how he tried, as weary and beaten as he was. Just like how he stood up against his uncle, against society, when he was determined to marry the maid. Or when he alone defended her sanity to all on board the ship. Or his determination as he set out to woo her in New York City. Or the look on his face as he reasoned with the rioters in Rock Springs.

No matter how insurmountable the task, William tried.

Buffy felt an incredible lightness in her chest. The panic-beast that had gripped her heart so tightly for the past two weeks had, at long last, released his grip for good. She took a deep breath and leaned over to help William to his feet.

He tried, William the Lion-Hearted. And things might actually turn out okay after all.

Then, not being a complete idiot, she reached out and knocked hard on the cabin's pine wall.

 -----

Author's note: I very nearly gave Billy a reprieve, ala Spike in season 2. In the end, I couldn't. It was William's turn to shine and I couldn't take that from him. It's kind of funny that though Oscar and Buffy think William is a hero, they don't know the half of it.  Nobody but us knows that William just out-dueled Billy the Freaking Kid.

Previously, I had estimated this would go to chapter 36. It will be a bit longer now that I'm down to it, but it will definitely be under 40 chapters. There are plot points I must include and after all this time, I really don't want to rush it or crop things out to keep it to this arbitrary 36 chapter limit. Hope you liked this chapter. I've had this shootout in my head for such a long time and was really excited about sharing it with you.

Chapter 35 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Sorry for the delay.  It took me five tries to get this chapter down at last.  I was going to be too embarrased to tell you that, but then I figured, what the hell?  Turns out that after that duel that I'd been looking forward to writing, everything else seemed kinda zzzzzz.  Big thanks to Lutamira, DoriansKitten and Science for their beta work and setting me straight.  Ta to Amy for the banner.  As always, thanks to you for taking the time to share your thoughts and for sticking with me so far. 

Samson, went to bed, not much hair left on his head.

He ate a slice of Wonder Bread and went right back to bed.  –Regina Spektor-

Chapter 35

Buffy led William into their hotel room.  He stepped gingerly, his boot leaving dirt trails on the bright blue carpet.  She gestured toward the wingback chair next to the window.

“Want to sit down?” she asked.

William shook his head and coughed.  He swayed on his feet, but she noticed he was careful not to use a steadying hand on the wallpaper.  He was covered in grime and dried blood.  Knowing William, he felt too dirty to touch anything in the room, and for certain he was too exhausted to keep standing for much longer.

Buffy touched his arm, tentatively.  “Maybe you’d like a bath before sleeping?”

“Very much.”

“Oscar’s stopped to get your truck from storage.  How about we start your bath now and by the time you’re ready, he’ll have some clean things for you?”

He nodded and tried to shrug out of his duster.  It didn’t cooperate, so she slid over to his side and helped to ease the coat from his shoulders.  After she laid the garment across the trunk at the foot of their bed, she gathered together a few bathing items, along with a pair of scissors.  When she reached out to hold his arm, he didn’t resist.  As they walked down the hallway, her pace was slow and measured –  the way a person would walk with a very old man.

Posh hotels were a side-effect of traveling with Oscar, and the bathing room was no exception; it was as luxurious as everything else in the hotel.  The room was lined with bright white tiles.  The claw-footed tub was over-sized and fitted with gleaming silver taps.

William collapsed onto the wooden chair near the window; his legs trembled forcefully, and he kept his gaze on the floor.  Buffy reached over to the tub and twisted the taps.  The room quickly began to fill with a steam cloud.

Sensing that William wanted to do as much for himself as possible, Buffy clasped her hands in front of her as he reached over and began to untie his boots.  His fumbling fingers made more of a job of it than necessary, but she remained still.  Once his boots were off, he stripped his socks from his feet. 

“I’ll be fine,” William assured.  “You needn’t attend me.”

“It’s just … ah … your stitches.”

“Stitches?”

She touched her left eyebrow.  “The stitches from Rock Springs?  It’s past time to remove them.”

He nodded his understanding and burst into a series of coughs. 

Buffy grabbed a washcloth and dampened it in the bathwater before kneeling in front of him.  She cleansed the area around his scar – the lazy sideways ‘y’ that exactly mirrored the one Spike wore.  Used to wear.  Best not to think about that, or the possible implications of it. 

She steadied her hand and slid the scissors in to cut the first suture.  Snip.  When that was clipped, she went down the line in short order – a series of ten snips.  Once she’d unbound the stitches, she tugged the threads free with the tip of her scissors.  The seams were long past ready and released their hold quite easily. 

When she was finished, she touched her fingertips to his front of his shirt.  He flinched.

“You’re going to need help with this shirt, too, I think,” she said, hoping that she sounded like she meant business.

It must have worked, for William offered no protest.  She unbuttoned his shirt and resisted the urges that flooded her.  She longed to press her palms against his chest, to feel the wonder of his heart thrumming away.  Her fingertips craved to touch his skin, to confirm that beneath his too-thin chest, he was breathing in and out.  She simply wanted to anchor herself in his reassuring warmth. 

But that wasn’t what he wanted now, not what he needed.  So she concentrated on his buttons.

“These clothes are only fit for burning,” he mumbled.

“Well, you won’t get any argument from me.  We can have a bonfire with them later.  And we’ll have you back in tweed in no time, William.”

Was a light touch what he needed?  A firm hand?  She had no idea. 

With his new beard and his gaze on the floor, she could only guess at his expression. 

“Here, sit up,” she said, coming around the back of the chair to help slide his shirt off.  When she saw his back, she couldn’t help but gasp.   Since he’d been wearing his duster, she had no idea of the extent of his wounds.

From neckline to shirttail, his entire back was coated in dried blood.  Some of the abrasions beneath had cemented the material to his back.  He didn’t move a muscle, made no response to her.  He just sat there with his head bowed. 

She willed her voice to remain steady, matter-of-fact.  “I’m afraid that taking off the shirt will reopen some wounds, but there’s no help for it.  I’ll be as gentle as I can be.”

Buffy began at his shoulder, peeling the shirt from his skin.  As she pried it away, the cloth pulled at the wounds.  Some of the cuts reopened and began to weep.

Once the shirt was off, the nature of his wounds appeared.  His back was covered in a series of odd patterns.  They struck her as primitive, like something tribal, and they were as deliberate as they were nonsensical.  Some creature had carved upon William, filling his back with these marks. Some were older and beginning to heal, but others were fresh and still weeping blood.  With over a dozen designs on his back, it must have been something he’d endured nightly.

Buffy bit her lips tightly, willing her tears back.  She moved to the sink and dampened a washcloth in cold water.  Since the tub was nearly full, she twisted the taps off, then returned to stand behind William.  Very gently, she began to dab at his cuts.

It took a few moments before the reopened wounds stopped bleeding.  She knew that the warm water would likely reopen them again anyway.  Her primary task now was to loosen some of the grime and dried blood from the older wounds.  After a few trips to the sink, his back was as clean as she could manage.

Throughout the process, William had remained mute, head bowed.  The only way she knew he was conscious was because he remained upright in the chair.  Not knowing what else to do, she touched her fingertips to his back as tenderly as she was able, ghosting over his wounds.  He shuddered.

She leaned over and pressed a kiss to a spot just behind his ear. 

“They’ll heal, William.  You’ll heal.  You’ll see.”

He sighed – a deep rattling thing.

“Buffy?”

She moved around to kneel in front of him.  With his drooped head, it was the only chance she had at looking him in the eye.

“I feel quite … disgusting, to be honest.  I don’t feel entirely … comfortable with you seeing me like this.”

Buffy gave him a thoughtful look and took a deep breath.  “If you really, really want me to go – I’ll go.  But I’d really like to stay, William.  Partly because, well, I think you could use my help pretty big-time.  But honestly, most of it is just because … I missed you.” 

She shocked herself with her own honesty in this.  In between worrying about William, she’d spent the last few weeks castigating herself over how she’d treated him.  How she’d kept the truth from him and torn at the fabric of their marriage.  In truth, she knew that he was acting strangely distant because of what he’d endured at the hands of Dru and her cowboy, but she couldn’t help but wonder if much of his distance was due to the fight they’d had before he was taken.

“And,” she added,  “you don’t look disgusting to me.  Not a bit.”

He lifted his head to look at her for the first time since they’d been in the shack, hours ago.  A storm now brewed in his formerly sky blue eyes.  He looked haunted.

“Buffy, I want to bathe alone.  Please.”

What could she say to ‘please’?  Could she take even more away from him?

She nodded, feeling more powerless than she could remember feeling.

“I’ll just come back with your clothes when Oscar brings them.”

Buffy stood up and leaned over, kissing his the top of his head tenderly.  Unable to find a way to stay, too inept to find a way to him, she left. 

She didn’t start weeping until she’d almost reached their room.

~*~

Two days later

William knew he was sleeping a ridiculous amount of time.  He seemed to sleep around the clock.  If it had been healing sleep, that might have been a point in its favor.  This sleep was anything but restful, however.  This sleep was filled with detailed dreams which rattled him to his very core.

Until this afternoon, all of his dreams had been about the same thing:  Dru and the cowboy.  The nights when she used his skin as a canvas and her fingernails as brushes, murmuring ‘Shallow cuts, shallow cuts.  Let the blood flow.’ The long days spent chained to a porch while failing to block out the sounds of weeping and pleading on the other side of closed doors.  Worst of all, replaying the scattered moments when he'd see the terrified faces of the monsters victims, begging for their lives.

When William finally had a different kind of dream, he was relieved at first.  It took a few moments until he realized it was the dream he’d had on board The Adriatic - half a lifetime ago, when she’d undergone her change from Elizabeth to Buffy.

William sat by Buffy’s side on a hill overlooking Hampstead Heath, a blanket and picnic spread before them. The noon sun warmed his face, and as a slight breeze stirred the air.  As before, he reached out to tuck a stray strand of her hair behind her ear.

She smiled shyly at him, plucked a grape from the cluster packed in their picnic basket and placed it gently against his lips.  As she slid the fruit into his mouth, she allowed her fingertip to linger.  Boldly, he pressed the tip of his tongue against her finger pad, and she bit her lip, her green eyes sparkling at him wickedly before withdrawing her finger.  She traced her hand down the length of his arm before she entwined her fingers with his.

The wind picked up, bringing with it the scent of newly turned earth.  The breeze whispered through her hair and rustled her skirts as she stood; he rose with her.  She squinted at the horizon, just below the row of trees, her expression taking on a look of sadness.

“Time is coming for me, William,” she said.

He squeezed her fingers tightly, keeping her anchored to him through force of will.

“Time moves like a river, and I’m never the same me in the stream.”  She looked at him mournfully.

"Stay here with me then, darling.”

“Can’t, William.  You know that.  This is only borrowed, a memory.  Time is throwing us forward, like it or not.  William, Spike, Buffy, Elizabeth – who we are isn’t up to us.  It’s up to time.”  Her expression was growing more serious by the second, and he looked to the horizon, to see what it was she was looking at.

There was a line of palm trees in the distance.  They were a new addition to the dream.  Big Ben was still there however, looking oddly out of place in the middle of California.  The moment he laid eyes upon it, the giant clock’s hands struck twelve, and it began to bong out the time.  He quickly shifted his gaze back to Buffy to find an unnerving sight.  Each time the bell rang, her image would shimmer and divide.  It was as if she were a reflection on the water, splitting with each ripple of time.

By the time the clock chimed twelve, her image had solidified into two distinct versions of his wife – Buffy, wearing her green and white striped gown and the Slayer, trousered and ponytailed. 

“I’m sorry, William,” they intoned together, eerily.

“Sorry?” he stammered, unable to depart from his script.

Buffy gestured toward the hill where the clock had been.  The hill was now covered with a swarming mass of what looked to be humans.  They were oddly white, however, from head to toe.  Their movements were insect-like in nature, massing into clusters before moving apart again.  They were making a steady progress toward where he and Buffy picnicked at the top of the hill.

“And now you’ve got your slayer to fight the white demons.  So why do Buffy and William keep getting pulled in?” 

Buffy looked at her twin grimly.  The ponytailed Slayer nodded and stepped toward her twin, and they both turned to face him.

Just behind them, he could see down the hill, at the steady march of massing white demons surging up the incline.  “The odds don’t look so good for me in this fight.  For any of us,” the Slayer said.

Buffy looked at William, smiling before intoning solemnly, “Goodbye, my William.”

“Elizabeth, no,” he cried.  He reached out to stop them, grasping Buffy with his right hand and the Slayer with his left.  The instant he touched them, however, both versions of her looked at him, shimmered and then vanished in a burst of flame and smoke, leaving him with a small fistful of ashes in each hand.

He woke to the sound of someone knocking on the door.  He felt an immense amount of relief and terror.

Was it an omen?  What could it mean?

Someone knocked on the door again, quite loudly.  Still deeply disturbed by the images in his dream, William had to fumble with the covers for a time before he could stumble across the room to answer the door.

It was Oscar, looking impatient and over-heated.

“William, are you ready?”

“Ready?”

“Our trip to the barbers.  Surely, you remember.”

“Oh, yes.  Naturally.”

He shrugged on his frock coat and followed Oscar out the door, willing the shadows of his dream to the far recesses of his mind.

~*~

When he returned to the hotel, he felt quite like a new man, his face freshly shaven and his curls newly shorn.  Oscar had stopped at a local restaurant and urged William ahead, and so he went.

He opened the door to find Buffy busy by the bedside table.  She greeted him with a smile, then continued unfolding pillowcases upon the table, making a kind of tablecloth.  She was wearing her rose patterned gown and her hair was not ponytailed in her usual style of late, but down around her shoulders.  She was an absolute vision, and he immediately set to work studying the contents of his trunk.

After a very long and awkward silence, Oscar entered the room with several covered plates.  Buffy took them from him and placed them on the table she’d prepared.

“Tonight’s entrée is rainbow trout in a snappy little almondine sauce, asparagus and a peach cobbler.  I also took the liberty of picking up this lovely bottle of chardonnay.  Well, two bottles, actually.”  Oscar placed both bottles on the shelf near the door.

“We’d hate to take yours,” Buffy protested.

“Oh, not to worry, Bakguai.  I have one in my room or … perhaps two.”  Oscar gave her an embarrassed grin.  “I shall be away for the evening.  I’ve been invited to a game of whist in a local gambling hall, and I quite intend to fleece the locals.  Someone has to pay for our extravagant lifestyle.” 

Oscar waggled his eyebrows at them wickedly.  After giving a final, very extravagant bow, he left the room.

“Hungry?”  Buffy asked.

“Quite.”

“You shaved,” she said.  “You look more … like you.”  Then she bit her lip, as if wishing she could snatch her words back.  “I mean you looked like you before, but, you know, hairier.”  She sighed and sat down before her meal.

“You’ve changed out of trousers,” he said, as he seated himself across from her.

She darted a look at him, and the smile on her lips seemed forced, unsure.

“Not that anything’s wrong with trousers.  They suit you,” William stammered.

Her smile brightened.  “Out west it doesn’t seem to be such a major deal.  Can you imagine if I’d worn them in London?”

He speared a bite of asparagus.  “If Uncle Thomas were to see you in trousers?  His face would turn an entirely new shade of purple.”

She beamed at him and began laughing.   The sound of her laughter -  god, he hadn’t heard it in so long.  It sounded like sunshine.

“You should have seen Oscar in the clothing store when I was trying them on.  He kept insisting on something more daring.  He wouldn’t shut up about knee britches!”  She tilted her head at him and grinned widely.

“Well, naturally.  I would have expected him to pressure you regarding fabrics as well.  Perhaps insisting on something in satin?”

“You called it.”  She raised her wine glass to him in a mock toast and he raised his glass, tilting it towards hers and touching the edge.  Clink.

This was ‘them.’  As they used to exist before he’d been taken, before she’d undergone her change.  Could it really come back as easily as this?

“How long have you been wearing trousers?” he asked.

“About two weeks now.”

Ah.  Since the night he’d been taken.  Of course.  And damn him for being a fool for bringing that up.  He busied his hands by putting sauce on his trout.  Just like a tornado ripping through the room, the moment he’d mentioned ‘the incident,’ the atmosphere of the room changed entirely.

“I had thought I’d need to free up my legs from dresses – so that I could fight better,” Buffy persisted in the damned topic.  “But as it turned out, I didn’t need to fight.  You took care of that pretty much on your own.”

She raised her wine glass in another toast.  He didn’t have the heart to celebrate his ‘heroism’ or anything about the experience at all.  When he didn’t raise his glass in return, her smile melted and she lowered her glass and began to push the fish around her plate.

Damn.  Not toasting seemed to be the wrong thing to do as well.

After a few moments of awkward silence, they both focused their concentration upon their meal.  When he found that the first bottle of wine was empty, he pried the cork out of the second.  He topped off Buffy’s glass, then poured himself another.

They finished their meals in short order, and he stacked the plates up. 

“I’ll just take these down to the front desk,” he said.

“William?”  She gave him a look of sorrow and exasperation.  “I want to talk to you.  We can’t go on like this.  You don’t touch me.  You don’t talk to me.  Just now you let your guard down for just a second – but the minute Dru is brought up, you brick up your wall again.”

“I don’t know what to say, Buffy.”

“Say … damn it.  Say anything, William!”

“I’m trying.”

She stepped toward him, her eyes shining with tears.  “I love you, William.  I know I messed up big-time, by not telling you I was the slayer again, and I’m sorry for it.  I swear to you, I won’t do it again.  We’re partners – no secrets, no decision making for the other.”

She reached out to hold his hand.  Her fingers were trembling so badly, it was all he could do to not hold her in his arms, soothe her, tangle his fingers in her hair.

“But that goes for both of us, William.  You can’t keep this distance from me.  We won’t make it if you do.  If you don’t want to talk to me about what happened with Dru, you don’t have to – but can we just talk about anything else then?  Can’t we just … be together?”

He tugged on his hair and coughed.  “I just…  I don’t feel quite prepared to…  I’m … sorry, Buffy.  I don’t know my way in this.”

He pulled his hand out of her grasp. 

“I’m going to arrange for a bath.  Please don’t wait up for me.”

“William, you’ve bathed twice today already.  Can we just … hang out?  Please?”

He faltered and she took that moment to step towards him.

“I won’t push and pry, I promise.  I just want to be with you.”

She placed her hand on his shoulder and gave him such an earnest look that he couldn’t find the strength to turn her away.

“Back in my other life, I died once,” she said.

“You … died?”

“Well, yeah.  Long story.  But when I came back, everybody thought they knew what was best for me.  Everybody was pushing me to get over it, to heal, to dive into living again.  They were just trying to help, but all their efforts only made things worse.  The one person – the only person – who was content to just be with me, was you.”

“As Spike?  As a monster?”

“The William inside of you was always there, but yeah, as a monster – you were there for me like no other.  And you taught me that sometimes you have to be content to just … be.  Can we do that?  Be?  Together?”

She took his arm in hers and grinned up at him.

“Care to join me for a stroll Mr. Pratt?”

“Uh … where?  Where would you like to go?”

She took the lead, taking four steps to her left and tugging him down to sit upon their bed.  She quickly knelt down and unfastened his shoes and then her own before sliding past him and lying down.

“C’mere,” she said with a grin.

He lay down beside her, feeling as stiff and awkward as he looked, no doubt.  She lifted his arm, then cuddled in next to him, her arm wrapped around his mid-section.

“I’ve got a question for you, William.”

He winced and braced himself.  He really should have known she wouldn’t be able to resist asking about his ordeal.

“What’s a tallywag?”

“What?” William coughed.

“A tallywag.  Oscar says it when he curses sometimes and thinks I’m out of range.  You’ve said it before too.  Is it some kind of tea?  Like an Earl Grey thing?”

“Good god, no.  It’s … well, erhm, it’s a slang term for a man’s whirligigs.  You know, his bawbels.”

“Well, that clears things up in no way at all.”

“It is a crude term for a man’s … you know, bollocks.”

“Oh!  Finally a word I know!  His balls!”  She gave a hoot of laughter and repeated “whirligigs.”

He wondered if in the entire world, a woman had ever sounded so delighted upon figuring out another term for testicles.  He couldn’t help but laugh.

Buffy hugged him around the middle, and the sensation was entirely wonderful.  He knew exactly what she was doing.  She was absolutely transparent in her motives, but how could he possibly mind?  She was reminding him of who he was, who they were – together.  It wasn’t what he’d thought he wanted, but it was exactly what he needed. 

“The way your people speak.  It never ceases to amaze me.  Give me another one.”

“Another one?  Another … crude term for sexual organs?”

“Yeah!” she said, sounding terrifically enthused.

“Ah, well … let’s see.  How about kettledrums?”

“That’s easy,” she scoffed.  “Boobs!”

“Correct,” he admitted.  He could feel the heat upon his cheeks and felt grateful that she couldn’t see his blush.  She was his wife and knew him intimately, yet it was ingrained in him to feel these topics were off-limits.  Those were the rules.  The way she led him up to the edge of these kinds of topics had always been so delightful.  How surprising that it still seemed to be so.

“I’ve got one,” she offered.   He’d been so lost in thought that a silence had stretched between them.  Her efforts to maintain the moment was absolutely endearing.

“What have you got?”

“Nebuchandnezzar!”

“Ah, very good.  That one is only used by the very old or the very religious.”

“I should get double points for knowing it then,” she replied.

“Very well, double points given.  But …”  William reached down absent-mindedly and tangled his fingers in her hair.  “How about arbor vitae?”

“No idea!  I think using Spanish is cheating.”

“It’s Latin, love.”

“Same difference.  Still cheating.  Give me another.”

She laid the palm of her hand over his heart, and it felt so comforting, so soothing, it was almost as if his chest had somehow been given a dose of laudanum.   

“Nug,” he replied.

“Hmm, can you use it in a sentence?”

“Exchanging dirty words with you has been surprisingly pleasant, my nug.”

Buffy was silent for a while, then she nuzzled her nose against his neck, leaning up to speak in his ear.  “Does it mean … wife?”

“Sort of.”  He tilted his head to gaze at her.  Her hair spread across his chest and her green eyes gleamed at him in the dim light – a most wonderous sight which he’d thought he’d never see again.

William leaned over and kissed her forehead, tenderly.  “It’s a term of endearment.  It would be like saying ‘my sweetheart’ or ‘my love’.”

She sighed, contentedly and tucked her head back beneath his chin.  “That’s my favorite one then.  Though it only just barely beat out whirligigs.”

He felt so at peace, so terrifically relaxed, in a way he’d not felt in longer than he could remember.  His wife in his arms, her head pressed close to his heart like a healing balm – he felt a sense of peace, of contentment.  

His hand, still tangled in her hair, finally stilled as exhaustion claimed him.  And for the first time in a very long time, his sleep was dreamless.

----------

Author’s note:

William’s original dream of white demons happened at the beginning of chapter 10 – fyi.

It is too damn hot!  You can cool off Victorian style with homemade lemon ice!  You probably have the stuff lying around your house!

Elizabeth’s Lemon Ice

1 lemon’s peel, finely diced

1 cup of water

½ cup of sugar

½ cup of lemon juice

½ cup of ginger ale.

In a saucepan, stir together the diced lemon peel, 1 cup of water and sugar.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and simmer for 5 mins.  Remove from heat and allow to cool.

In a pitcher or bowl, stir together the lemon syrup you just made with the lemon juice and ginger ale.  Pour into an ice cream maker and freeze according to instructions OR just put it in the freezer in something tall (like a pitcher).  Freeze for an hour and a half, stirring every half hour to make it airier. 

 

Chapter 36 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Thanks to Minx, Science and Lutamira for the beta and to Ragpants for being my location scout. Thx to Amy for the banner. Thank you for the feedback which helps me to know what to clarify. You'll find a little clarification in this very chapter. This really won't go beyond 40 chapters!

 

 Chapter 36

On a farm, just outside of Modesto, California, three a.m.

The musty scent of rain filled the air.  Somewhere behind the darkened farmhouse, water sluiced off the roof and onto a sheet of metal with a pling-pling-pling.  On the front porch, a creature sat in a rocking chair.  She remained absolutely still.  If not for her yellow eyes gleaming in the moonlight, she would have appeared as if carved from wood.

Two corpses lay in the doorway, an untidy pile.  Dru hadn’t even needed to ask for an invitation from the pair.  All she’d needed was to give them a pathetic look.  One look at her rain-drenched condition, and they’d stepped across the threshold without a question.  Foolish cattle.  They deserved to be dined on.

Though Dru’s appetite for blood was sated, another hunger had been growing, gnawing on her for days, since they’d dusted her dark prince.  She longed for something else.  For someone.

Without her William, she was terribly lonely.  Rudderless.  Life tasted bitter without someone to share it with.  She remembered those torturous hours in the crate aboard The Adriatic.  Too much time on her hands meant too much thinking, too much remembering.  Too much time for the voices – of her sister, her mother, Miss Edith – to come back around to say so many confusing things inside her head

(Just tell the sons of bitches to take a long ride if they bother you, Dru.  You’re in charge, after all.)

“William?!”  Dru blinked and immediately shifted into her human face.

(Yup.)

“You’re not … dusted?  You’re real?”

(Real enough to you – and that’s what matters, don’t it?)

Dru smiled, contentedly.  Of all the people who had set up camp inside her head, her cowboy seemed to be the most promising, the kindest.

(Now look at you, grinnin’ like a jaybird.  You wasn’t meant to play a lone hand, Dru.)

“I wasn’t, my prince.  That nasty sunshine and her boy – they took you from me.”

(I reckon they did.  Question is, what do you aim to do about it?)

“Kill the slayer.  Kill him.  The William who dusted you.”

(By your lonesome?  That might be biting off a notch more’n you can chew.  Take them on by yourself, you’re only aiming to get yourself dusted.)

Dru said nothing.  Her smile melted, and her eyes stared blankly ahead.

(What about that Shining Man?)

Dru felt a wave of revulsion at the mention of him.

(Power in numbers, Dru.  He’s plannin’ some kind of shindig down there at the hellmouth.  I reckon if you make tracks there and join up with him you two could lay a nice little ambush for the slayer and her pet.)

“I don’t care for the way he talks to me, though, my William.  I don’t like him.”

(I know, querida.  He’s mean enough to steal flies from a blind spider.  Truth is, though, you need him.  And he needs you.)

“The Shining Man needs me?”

(Too god-damned right he does.  You got a power he don’t have.)

“What’s that?”

(You’re real.  That Shining Man – he’s got no real presence in the world.  He can influence those white demons of his, but he couldn’t drive a railroad spike into a snowbank if he wanted to.  You’re different.  You got a real body and the power to make more just like you.  That’s a hell of a thing, if you think on it.)

“But what if he gets cross with me?”

(He won’t get to play trail boss this time around.  You’ve got power, and you’ve got me on your side.  This time around, he won’t turn you into a boot-licker.  You’ll be Warren’s equal.)

“The Shining Man is … ‘Warren’?”  Dru couldn’t help but giggle.

(Ah, only the beginning of the secrets I’ve got, darlin’.  Let me fill you in …)

And Dru began to rock in the chair, laughing.  To anyone walking past the darkened house she would appear as a gibbering mad thing.   Stupid cattle.  They had no idea. 

Her conversation lasted until the eastern sky began to lighten.  Then, gently kicking her meal from the front stoop, she moved the bodies aside and found a nice, dark place to sleep with a contented smile on her lips.

~*~

Oscar, William and Buffy stood in front of the large building, sprawling across a block of Sacramento’s K Street.  The Capital Hotel read the script on the awning.

Oscar gave William a knowing grin.  “Ah, those charming Americans.  Since this hotel is located at California’s capitol, I expected a different spelling.”

William chuckled.  “Perhaps the proprietors are referring to the quality of the establishment.  It’s likely a capital place to stay.”

“Since the entire first floor is filled with lounges and bars, I suppose it is,” Oscar said.

“Oh geez, what’s the difference?”  Buffy asked.  “Capital?  Capitol?  You’re just repeating the same word.”

“Well,” Oscar said, “with an ‘o’ the word would indicate a seat of government, which this town most certainly is.  The other spelling is intended for …”

Buffy cut him off with a wave of her hand.  “Grammar nazi.”

Oscar raised his brows and looked over her head at William, mouthing the word ‘nazi?’

William shook his head.

“Let’s just check in,” Buffy said.  “Think positive.  Maybe the clerk will spell something without that extra ‘u’ that you English like to shove into words.  You can give him a full grammar cop beat-down.”

Registering went smoothly, without any spelling or grammar altercations.  A shy, red-headed bellboy led them to their rooms on the third floor.  While Oscar busied himself and fussed over wrinkles in his suits, Buffy and William made themselves comfortable in their room. 

As always, Oscar had led them to a hotel boasting some of the most luxurious rooms in town.  The bright blue carpet contrasted nicely with the crisp blue and white striped cotton quilt which covered the wide bed.  Blue and green floral wallpaper decorated the walls and a cozy window seat graced the bay window.

Alone at last, William felt a familiar awkwardness settle between him and Buffy.  Though it had been four days since his rescue from the vampires, he still felt an odd discomfort.  Even when he was alone, he felt a strange disquiet, but the feeling was most intense when he was in the company of his wife.  He busied himself by looking out of the window with what he hoped was a fascinated expression on his face.

Buffy plonked onto the mattress with such a force that the bedsprings groaned.

“You know, we can’t put this off for much longer,” she said.

“Put … wh-what off, exactly?”

“Our decision.”

“Which …?  I’m sorry, which decision would that be, exactly?”

“What we’re going to do.  Go on to Napa Valley and have a life or … deal with this slayer stuff.  I hate to push you, but dragging our feet isn’t fair to Oscar.  He’s missing out on his whole speaking tour thing, and if we plan to go on with our lives at the winery, we need to say so.”

“Yes, well, what would you like to do about that?”

“Talk about it,” she said, sounding incredibly weary.

“Certainly.  What would you like to say?”

“I’d like to know what you want to do.  I’d like you to talk to me, William.  Really talk to me instead of this … whatever it is we’ve been doing.”

He coughed, but words eluded him.

“It’s impossible to make a decision together since you and I haven’t been able to have a real conversation.  You know?”

“Yes, rather,” he said, not knowing what else to say.

The silence spun out between them until William couldn’t bear it any longer.

“Perhaps we could speak of this a bit later?  I feel quite weary from the train journey.  I believe I’ll just freshen up with a bath.”

When he shot her a glance, she kept her resigned gaze trained upon the carpet.

He let himself out of the room feeling every bit as defeated as she looked.  Feeling like a coward.

Having made his way down the hall, he clicked the latch and slipped into the luxurious bathing room, locking the door behind him.  Bright green tiles covered the floor and cheery yellow paint lined the walls.  The linen cupboard was stocked with thick white towels. 

The centerpiece of the room was a large claw-footed bathtub.  William reached over and twisted on the taps before sitting down on the small wooden chair in the corner.  As he unlaced his boots, the room filled with steam.  Once his shoes and socks were off, he shrugged out of his frock coat and began unbuttoning his waist coat. 

When someone tried the door handle, he jumped and very nearly ripped off a button.

“It’s occupied,” he called through the door.

“I know that.”  Buffy’s voice was unmistakable.

“I’m, erm … I’ll return to the room in a moment.  Is it urgent?”

“Yeah, I think so.  Let me in.”

He reached over and turned off the tap.

“I’ll return to our room then,” he said.

“No.”

No?

“Just … let me in.”

He stared at the door and said nothing.

“William, we’ve played this scene before.  We can have a conversation through the door, which might be kinda awkward for the other guests.  Or you can just let me in. 

He unlocked the door and swung it open, swirling the steamy air through the room.

She floated to his side, then turned around – shut and locked the door.

“Did you need something?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied.  “I thought of something that might help our communication skills.”

She smiled at him and offered no further elaboration.  She reached over and twisted the tap on.  Dipping her hand down to the partially filled tub, she tested the water.

“That’s really hot.  You didn’t used to like your baths so boiling.”

He could say nothing to that, and he felt a blush creeping up his cheeks, remembering their past erotic baths both in London and at the Liverpool hotel.

She moved to stand in front of him and began unbuttoning his waist coat.  His defensive hands came up to still hers.

“I don’t require assistance, Buffy.  I’ve been bathing myself since the incident.”

“I know that.”  Buffy nodded.  “Sometimes three or four times a day.”

Once she’d unfastened his waist coat, she slid it from his shoulders and placed it on the chair.  When she began to unbutton his shirt, he stepped back, out of her reach.

“I would prefer to do this for myself, Buffy.”

“Know that, too.”  She stepped toward him, placing her hand beneath his chin and tilting his head to look at her.  “Things are better between us, but we’re still not back to normal.  I’ve been really patient, William.  For days we’ve tried things your way, but now I’d like to try things my way.  Please?”

He could have handled an argument.  He could have stood against her anger.  But her  honest, raw look and her simple request of ‘please’ had him helpless.

She continued to unbutton his shirt, and he remained mute, his hands paralyzed by his sides.

“Now, trousers.”

He blinked at her.

“Oh, no you don’t.  You don’t get to go Victorian on me now, husband.”

Buffy leaned up and kissed his mouth so incredibly gently that for a few moments, he forgot to breathe.  How long had she been able to kiss like that?  Had he simply forgotten it during his ordeal?

She deepened the kiss and nuzzled her nose against his.  It was both sweetly innocent and terribly intimate at the same time.  He sighed into her mouth, defenseless to her.

“Mmm,” she purred, and her hands set to work on unbuttoning his trousers.  His protests had long been forgotten.  In no time at all, she’d worked the buttons free and his pants, then his underwear, pooled at his feet.

She placed her palm in the center of his chest.  The gesture made his heart gallop.  He watched her, cautiously.

“It’s okay that you’re a little thinner than you used to be, though Mrs. MacLaughlin would be pretty pissed at me for that.  You know she’d end up blaming me, somehow.  I’m going to have a wonderful time fattening you up, William.”

With a smile, she began unfastening the bodice of her dress.  When she reached the third button, she faltered, just for a moment.  She slanted a gaze at him, her green eyes asking the question before she gave words to it.

“Could you … help, William?”

He could.  Oh, god, he could.

His fingertips touched the edge of the button, tentatively.  Then he slid it through the opening.  With that task done, he methodically worked on the next button.  While his concentration was upon undressing her, she danced her fingertips along the edge of his jawline.  It was such a familiar touch and at the same time so sensual - to be so close to her again after so many days and nights of being certain he’d never see her again.  His breathing had become erratic, tremulous, and he willed it to slow.

Once he’d unfastened her bodice, she stepped out of her dress and laid it on the back of her chair.  She was wearing the ivory chemise set; it was one of his first gifts to her.  It clung to her curves tantalizingly. 

Since the tub was full, she gave the taps a twist, then graced him with a knowing smile and stepped into his arms.

“I think this tub is big enough for two, don’t you?”

He coughed and nodded.

Buffy shimmied out of her underthings in record time – an odd slayer benefit, he supposed.  She slipped her hand into his, then stepped into the hot bathwater.  He followed her.

She seated herself at one end of the tub.  The waterline just covered her breasts.  Her nipples played a maddening game of peek-a-boo as the water splashed against her body.  Since he could feel his cock harden, he sat down at the far end of the tub with no small amount of urgency.

William was reminded of a sculpture he’d seen long ago at the British Museum – of Ondine, the water nymph.  Even the other-worldly creature couldn’t hold a candle to Buffy - her skin shining with water droplets, her dampened hair clinging to the swell of her breasts.

His water goddess reached beneath the water and parted his legs with a small but insistent hand.  Once she’d made a space for herself, she turned around and scooted towards him until she was cradled between his legs, her back against his chest.  Like a numb fool, he could only sit there while she leaned her head against his chest.  After a moment, she reached under the water and lifted his arms, pulling them around her.

Dear god, this was pleasant.

“I’ve missed you, William.”

“I’ve … missed you, too.  Terribly.”

“Then we should totally knock off the missing.  Don’t you think?”

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“William, will you talk to me?  Please?”

“I try, Buffy.  I really do.  I just … what if I’m never able to talk about the ordeal?”

“It would be okay if you’re not able to talk about it, William.  Thing is, I’m not sure that ‘not talking about it’ is helping you.”  She paused, as if steeling herself for something big.  “Listen, if they did things to you … sexual things …”

“No, that’s not it at all.”  

She said nothing.  She simply lay in his arms, her head cradled against his chest.  Normally, she worked so hard to fill in these kinds of moments that the silence unnerved him, forced him to a level of honesty that he felt entirely unprepared for.

“It has to do with what I saw them do.  Seeing them kill people, kill children – while I did nothing to stop them.  I just remained an impotent observer.  I feel culpable in it.”

“You know better than that, William.  You against two of them?  There was nothing you could have done.  You know that.” 

“It’s not just that though, Buffy.  I’ve changed.  The things I’ve seen alter a person. The truth is that it’s difficult to talk to you because I’m afraid that I’m not the man I was.  I’m not the man you knew.”

“Well, you know all about that, don’t you?”

“I’m sorry.   I don’t follow.”

Gently, she lifted one of his fingertips up to her necklace, tracing the stake necklace he’d purchased for her in New York City.  “You know what it’s like to love a person who isn’t who they used to be.  You wed Elizabeth, honeymooned with Buffy and are now in a marriage with the slayer.  I think you pretty much wrote the book on loving someone who goes through changes.” 

He wanted desperately to think of something to say, but when he opened his mouth to speak, he fell into a coughing fit, instead.  When he settled down, she wrapped her arms around his – cocooning them. 

“William, I’m the woman I am now, and you’re the man you are now.  Neither of us are the same people who wed one another, and I don’t think either of us would have wanted it that way.  We didn’t agree to remain frozen in time.”

“Yes, love.”

“But you can’t keep up this distance.  It will destroy us.  You cannot hide things from me ‘for my own good.’  I already learned that lesson for us – too painfully.  I want you William – changed or not.  I love you.  And I think you still love me too, don’t you?”

His wife wasn’t going to let him evade this.  And dammit, she deserved better than what he was giving her.  She deserved his courage.  Maybe bravery was more than fighting monsters and facing mobs.  Maybe a part of courage had to do with being frighteningly honest with the person you loved the most.  The person who gave you your reason.  Even though you felt dirty and scarred and unworthy.

“I love you, Buffy.  I always will – no matter, well, no matter who you are.”

“And I love you, changed man or not.  And from now on, we stop protecting each other.  We stop making decisions for the other.  No more hiding, no more protecting.”

He felt dampness on his cheeks that had nothing to do with the bathwater.  Did part of being courageous and showing your wife your true self include becoming weepy in the bath?  He was terribly afraid that it might be so.

She turned around to face him, their bodies rubbing together and making a delicious sound.  When she pressed her wonderfully slippery breasts against his chest, he couldn’t help but let out a moan.  Very slowly, she began to kiss and lick a line up his throat.  He swallowed, and she began to suckle tantalizingly where his adam’s apple had just bobbed.

He tangled his fingers in her wet hair, and she let out a cooing sigh.  His cock responded to the sound with an enthusiastic twitch.  Dear god, this woman was a wonder.

Buffy’s kisses led a trail to his ear.  Her voice was low, comforting.  “All the ‘me’s that I’ve been will always love the ‘you’s that you’ve been – and ever will be.  Just let me love you, darling.”

She rose up and centered her hips over his.  Very slowly, sensually, she traced a finger along the base of his painfully erect cock.  When she lowered herself down on him, his eyes rolled back in his head.  Her warm walls were gripping his cock so tightly, and it was such a pleasure that he found it difficult to breathe.  Sliding back home to the center of her seemed as basic, as irresistible, as gravity.

“Oh, Buffy,” he cried.  Tears began to pour from his eyes in earnest now.  Not silently and dignified, but full-on, unmanly weeping.  She rose up, lifting her hips while she leaned over and began to kiss the tears away from his cheeks.

“I’m sorry, love.  My emotions seem to …”  he faltered.

“No explaining.  No hiding.” 

She rose up in the water, then slid back down onto his length slowly, wriggling her hips slightly as she impaled herself.  Her fingertips played in his hair, tugging his curls.

He leaned up hungrily, and she met his mouth, her tongue sliding against his in an intimate dance before she suckled and nibbled his bottom lip.

When her hips rose again, it was with enough force to splash water on the floor, he noticed dimly.  His heartbeat was thundering in his ears.  Her inner walls tightened against his cock in a staccato beat, and he knew he’d not be able to resist much longer.  His balls tightened delightfully, and he felt his orgasm beginning to build.  When she swiveled her hips as she ground her pelvis against him, he could hold back no longer.  He spurted within her with a groan.  She lifted off him, just a few inches, then ground herself down on him once again, wringing another long spasm from him.

She held him tightly, flexing her inner muscles – they rippled along the length of his cock, wringing a few more delicious bursts from him.  After a prolonged squeeze, a most intimate embrace, she relaxed and rested her head on his shoulder.

Her fingertips ghosted over his shoulders, over the fading carvings on his back.  Though he braced himself for pain, her touch was soothing, healing.  He let his breath out in a shuddering sigh.

Surrounded by her warmth, her love, William didn’t know what to say.  The moment felt almost sacred, and he feared his clumsy words might defile it.

After a bit, he grew soft within her, and she leaned up to kiss the edge of his mouth.  He turned into the kiss, deepening it, tasting her, savoring his miracle of a wife.

She broke the kiss and placed her lips next to his ear.  “So, I think we’ve pretty well established that you’re not ‘impotent’ – in sex or in all the other ways you might have seen yourself.”

He grinned at her.  “Are you sure, love?  I wouldn’t be averse to proving that a little more.”

“How about we continue in our bedroom?  If we keep things up this way, it may start raining in the lobby.  Besides, there are some maneuvers I want to try with that very soft mattress.  And the chair, too, come to think of it.  Maybe, when we’re done we can do that ‘talking’ thing.”

 

Chapter 37 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Hey readers! Thanks for your support and feedback. We're closing in on the end now! Thanks to Miss Minx and Miss DK for the beta (but mistakes are mine) And thanks to Amy, as always, for the banner. (Commas in the previous sentence were for Science, who loves them.)


Chapter 37

The restaurant was nearly bursting with a breakfast crowd, but Buffy spotted Oscar instantly.  He was wearing a blue and pink pin-striped frock coat which sported a green carnation in the lapel.  The other diners were primarily cowboys and kept a wary eye to the Englishman, as though his fashion sense might be contagious and possibly even airborne.

Her arm tucked within William’s, they made their way to join their dining companion.  Oscar didn’t look up.  His concentration was fully focused on a letter and his expression was grave, almost mournful.

“That’s not from the Council of Watchers, is it?” Buffy asked once they reached the table.

“This?  No!  Not at all.”  Oscar looked up with a start, then he folded the missive and tucked it into his breast pocket; a shadow of sorrow splayed across his face.

“Oscar, this dining establishment seems as fine as any in London,” William said, in an obvious effort to ease conversation toward something more comfortable.

“It does look rather promising, doesn’t it?”  Oscar said.  “It’s like I always say, ‘anyone willing to live within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.’ I’ve already ordered a pot of tea.  Earl Grey.  The young man seemed quite at ease with the concept.”  Oscar looked pleased, his earlier dark mood fading a bit around the edges.

“Your people hold tea in the same esteem that normal people hold for their children, or Christmas.”  Buffy said.

She felt the slight pressure of William’s fingertips, dancing along the small of her back and she couldn’t help but smile.

“Ah, the lovebirds are flying again.”  Oscar raised his eyebrows and tilted his head toward Elizabeth.

She grinned in response as William pulled the chair out for her.  Once she and William had been seated, a fresh-faced, blond waiter appeared at Oscar’s side.  “Good morning, sir, ma’am.  My name is Dorian Frasier and I shall be attending you for breakfast.  Would the lady and gentlemen be prepared to order?”

Oscar asked, “Full English breakfast for all?”

“I guess.  As long as it doesn’t have ‘mashed bangers’ or ‘blood and liver crumpets’ or any of that other nasty stuff you guys consider food,” Buffy groused.

“I believe an ‘English Breakfast’ would be quite similar to Mrs. MacLaughlin’s Sunday morning fare,” William murmured.  Despite their multiple rounds of love-making last night, the feel of his breath on her neck as he leaned over made something flutter inside her chest.

“Full English breakfast for all, then,” Buffy said, and the waiter departed with a bow.

 “So, Oscar.  You looked kinda bummed while reading that letter.  What’s the deal?  Who’s it from?”

Oscar glanced up at William and gave him a patient smile.  “Ah, Americans.”

“Oh yeah.  I know,” Buffy said.  “We yanks are a horribly nosy bunch.  However do you tolerate my cavewoman ways?  Still.  Who’s it from?”

“It is from an acquaintance of mine from Ireland who is currently also on a tour of America.  A young lady named Florence Balcombe.”

“Oh, do you plan on meeting up with her?”

“Not exactly.  That would be somewhat awkward, you see.  I courted her for a time, but it seems she has chosen to wed another.”

“Oh,” Buffy replied, feeling small and a little invasive.  “This whole watcher gig didn’t mess things up for you and Florence, did it?"

“Not at all.”  Oscar waved his hand.  “She’s quite well suited to the gentleman whom she favored.  He’s an acquaintance of mine, actually.  A student from Oxford.  We were in the same philosophical society.  A fellow Irishman named Bram Stoker.”

Buffy’s mouth fell open.  “You have got to be shitting me!”

A bark of laughter burst out of William, while Oscar choked on his water.

“I assure you,  I am not … shitting, you nor anyone.  Why do you react so?”

“I’ve heard of him.  He wrote a book, which I sort of read.  Well, I saw the Gary Oldman movie, so close enough.”

“I don’t believe he’s written a book, Buffy.”

“Oh, he will.  You’ll see.  It’s going to be huge.”

Oscar looked terribly confused. 

“Did you write to your ex-girlfriend about anything we’ve been up to?  About vampires maybe?”

“Well …”  Oscar traced his finger along his water goblet nervously.  “I may have written to her about some of the matters we’ve been dealing with, yes.  I know the council strictly forbids the act of divulging matters they’re engaged in, but I was planning a book of my own, you see, and wished to see what Florence thought of the endeavor.  I believe I can trust her to the strictest confidence.”

The waiter chose that moment to return, halting their conversation.  He bore a tray with teapot, cups, lemon slices, sugar and a creamer.

With its hand-painted pink roses and blue trim, the teapot was a dead ringer for the one at William’s mother’s house.  The teacups were the same too.  They were small and looked fragile enough to break if you sneezed in their direction.  Both Englishmen looked the waiter with something approaching adoration as he began to pour.

“Excellent, just superb my young man,” Oscar said.

After the pouring out, the waiter disappeared and Buffy patiently waited for the men to have a first sip and get over their impending tea-gasm.

Oscar sipped.  “Ahh.”

“As good as home?” William asked.

“I daresay, better.  It seems to me to be a blend.  Earl Grey, definitely, but I detect the slightest trace of Jasmine.  Would you agree?”

William gave a thoughtful taste before nodding in agreement.

“So, what’s your book about, Oscar?  I mean, I knew you wrote poems, but I can’t imagine you writing a book about vampires.”

“It’s not about vampires.  Well, not precisely.  I became fascinated by the sort of person that would never age, similar to a vampire, you see.  What problems would a man like that endure?  How would he treat others if he was given eternal youth?  I decided that time and beauty would be a rather corrupting influence on the fellow – but that there needed to be a device that would show the man’s true nature. A painting.  A portrait, to be precise.”

“Portrait?” William asked.

“After a fashion.  Though my character would remain eternally youthful, his portrait would show his true self.  It would age.  It would show the corruption of his cruel behavior to others.”

 “It sounds totally creepifying.  You must do it!”  Buffy enthused.

Oscar laughed and poured another cup of tea.

“I’m serious as a heart attack, Oscar.  You have to write this book.”

Holding his hands up in surrender, but wearing a very wide smile, Oscar capitulated.  “Very well, you win.  I shall write this book.  Good lord, William, but your wife is formidable!”

“You have no idea.  Still, I have to agree with her.  It sounds like a most promising tale.  Any idea what you’ll call it?”

“Only a vague one.  Truth be told, I haven’t even decided upon a name for my main character.  I seem to be a bit stuck where that is concerned.”

“How about ‘Earl Grey’?” Buffy suggested.  “The way you English lose your minds over tea, it would be an instant best-seller.”

Oscar laughed heartily.  “An interesting choice, Buffy.  But I think ‘Earl Grey’ might create confusion amongst my potential readers.”

The waiter chose that moment to return to their table, bearing plates laden with grilled tomatoes, sausage, ham, bacon and an assortment of breakfast breads.  It looked almost too good to eat – as though it was a spread for a photo shoot.

“This looks absolutely splendid.  Excellent food and attentive service, as well,” Oscar chuffed.

“Thank you, sir.  Please let me know if you require anything else.”  The waiter gave a brisk bow before retreating to the kitchen.

“Dorian’s nice,” Buffy said around a mouthful of bacon.

“Yes, our waiter seems a fine fellow,” William agreed.

“No, I mean as a name for Oscar’s story.  If he doesn’t like ‘Earl Grey,’ why not ‘Dorian Grey’?”

Oscar laughed.  “I surrender to your persistence, Bakguai.  ‘Dorian Grey’ it shall be.  ‘The Portrait of Dorian Grey.’  Holds promise, that does.”

“To your best-seller,” William said, raising his teacup in a toast.

“And to that title,” Buffy added, “which beats the hell out of ‘Stinky Stan’s Painting’.”

Their teacups clinked in a toast, causing some of the already suspicious cowboys to cast mistrustful glances toward the trio.

For the next few minutes, Buffy concentrated on her very substantial breakfast.  Once they’d finished their meals, Dorian returned to refill the teapot and take away their plates.  With the table cleared, Oscar reached into his satchel which he’d tucked under his chair.  He fished out a newspaper and placed it on the table midway between William and Buffy.

“Today’s paper.  I thought you might be interested,” Oscar said casually, but he flashed a look toward Buffy that held a layer of ‘something else’.

“What’s up, Oscar?  Something icky in the paper?  Something vampirey?”

“Rather, something hellmouthy.”  Oscar’s expression fell in an instant, and he looked terribly disappointed.  “Hellmouthy?  My god, Buffy’s corruption of my language has already begun.”

“Chin up, old man.  Roger a codger and all that rot,” Buffy said.  “What’s the deal with the newspaper and the Hellmouth?”

“There are some rather lurid accounts of racial unrest in Los Angeles.  It’s proximity to the Hellmouth and the similarity to the events in Rock Springs caused me no small amount of alarm.”

Buffy shot a glance at William, who remained stoic, but beneath the table, he reached out to hold her hand.

“The very topic we’d planned to talk about with you,” William said.  “The Hellmouth and our plans regarding it.”

Oscar leaned forward, interested.

“Oscar, we’ve been thinking about our future.”

“Yes?”

“The thing is,” Buffy picked up when William began to falter, “we’ve been thinking that this whole slayer gig really isn’t for us.  We’re going to give it a pass.”

“A pass?” Oscar looked to William for clarification.

“We’ve decided, together, that Buffy isn’t going to be the slayer.  She’s going to … decline.”

“Oh, dear,” Oscar said, frowning.

Buffy bit her lip and prepared for the onslaught.  For guilt and recriminations that he was sure to rain down upon their heads, in true watcher fashion.

“You can’t talk us out of it, Oscar.  We’ve seriously made up our minds about this.  I’m not going to be the slayer.”

“Oh, you’ll get no argument from me, Buffy.  I try to avoid all arguments outright.  They’re always vulgar and often convincing.  Besides, I wouldn’t presume to know what’s best for you.  I’m not young enough to know everything.  You and William’s destiny is yours to choose.”

“Why the ‘oh, dear’ then?” Buffy asked.

“Because I worry for you.  I feel it only fair to warn you that the Council of Watchers may be somewhat persistent about the matter.”

“Bring ‘em on,” Buffy muttered, and Oscar gave a bark of laughter.

“This rather changes things, doesn’t it?  I shall be able to resume my speaking tour and you two shall be able to get on at your winery.”

“That makes you happy?” Buffy asked.

“Indeed.  For all parties concerned.”

“I was worried that you were going to try to talk me out of it.”

“I’m afraid not.  I must make a terrible watcher,” Oscar said, and he grinned ruefully.  “By my thinking a man – or woman – ought to be free to live a life of their own choosing.  The council will likely talk to you of your duty.  They may even call you selfish.”

Buffy looked at him, feeling far more guilty than selfish.

“Remember Buffy, selfishness isn’t living as you wish to live.  It is asking others to live as you wish them to live.”

“When will you leave?”  William asked.  “Not that we’re in the least bit of a hurry to be without your company.  It’s been a most delightful experience.”

“I should like to leave as soon as possible, but I believe there is something of a wait for eastbound trains.  No more than three or four days, I should imagine.  I’ll need to send a wire to my booking agent, naturally.  My tour was interrupted while I was in Utah, so by the time I arrive back in the Midwest, he should have something arranged.”

“I’ll miss you, Oscar.  You’ve been great – as a friend and a watcher.”

“And I shall miss you too, my Bakguai.  Terribly.  It’s been a rather life changing experience, at least on my end.  At the very least, I shall never look at language the same way again, thanks to your charming ways.”

“I’m never sure if you’re complimenting me or insulting me, Obiwan.  Sometimes I think it’s both.”

Oscar chuckled, but didn’t deny it. 

William erupted into a series of coughs, and Buffy put a hand on his arm.  “You okay, honey?”  Her husband nodded in response.

Oscar said, “It does my heart good to see the pair of you.  When the storm came, you managed to rise above it, stronger, more united than ever.”

“It can happen for you too, Oscar,” Buffy said.  “I know that losing Florence has got to hit hard, but someone else is bound to come along.”

When Oscar smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkled.  “Ah yes.  Well I should consider myself fortunate indeed if I were to find a love as strong as yours.  A person who is worth gambling it all for.”

Buffy frowned.  “Be careful.”

“Careful?”

“It’s like that old saying, ‘Watch out about what you want, because you might end up with it.’  Or something like that.”

“Hmm, ‘Be careful what you wish for, you’re liable to get it’.  I like that, Buffy.  May I steal it?”

“Steal away!  Never thought I’d see the day that you quote me.  Sort of.  My corruption of you is now complete.”

They stood to leave and William insisted on paying for breakfast.  After he settled up the bill, they made their way out into the bright California sun.  The boardwalk was treeless and, though it was morning, the air was already thick with heat.

“Perhaps we could take a stroll along the Sacramento River after we visit the ticket office at the train station,” Oscar suggested.  “There are some lovely shaded areas along the river and I’ve got quite a few questions for you two.”

“What kind of questions?”  Buffy asked, nervously.

“Well, since you’ve already travelled through the wilds of the American Midwest, I should like to ask for advice on places to stay and where to dine.”

“I’ve actually got a splendid guidebook which I would be honored to give you,” William said, a look of delight in his blue eyes.

Buffy laughed.  “William giving up his beloved guidebook?  Oscar, you have no idea!  He loves that thing like … you people love to correct grammar!”

Oscar grinned and tipped his hat at William.  “Consider me humbled, then.  Thank you, William.  Let me just stop by my room at the hotel and drop off my satchel.  I also need to collect a hat.  Shall I meet you in the lobby?”

“Certainly,” William said.

Oscar nodded and strode off toward the hotel, leaving Buffy and William to continue at their ambling pace.

As soon as Oscar was out of earshot, Buffy asked, “Do you think he knew we were lying?”

“I don’t think so, love.”

“But you know we’re terrible liars – the both of us.”

William nodded.  “He must have wanted to believe in us desperately.  It confirms that we’re doing the right thing, that we should free him to continue his lecture tour.  Should Oscar join us at the Hellmouth and things were to go wrong, it would be a terrible disservice to our friendship.”

“And you still feel as sure about this as you felt last night?”

He squeezed her hand tightly.  “As sure as I am that I love you.  It’s what we want independently, but ever more importantly, it’s what we decided – together.”

She sighed, heavily.  “It’s just, if we’re going to make a decision like this, it impacts everything.  We need to see the Hellmouth with our own eyes, make our own decision.  No watchers, no interpreters, nobody giving us a spin.  Just us.”

“Yes, love.  Nothing has changed since last night.  And I need to see it for those reasons as well as those reasons of my own.  I want to see the place where you lived, where I lived, and died, as Spike.  We wouldn’t be able to rest in our life in Napa Valley until we’d settled this business at the Hellmouth on our own terms.”

“And Oscar?”  she asked.

“And Oscar goes on to live his fabulously witty life, I should imagine.  Perhaps he’ll take another tour of America in a few years and we can fill him in on what we did – and why.  But for now, keeping him in the dark is the best path for all concerned.”

“We’ll have to stay here in Sacramento until he leaves, you know.  He’d insist upon seeing us off and a train to Los Angeles would be kinda hard to explain.  Are you up for another four or five days at our hotel?”

“Our hotel room?”  William gave her a sensual look, his eyes half-lidded and his tongue curled behind his teeth in a way that made something in her core spiral deliciously.  It was an absolutely shocking sight at mid-morning on a Sacramento sidewalk and she stopped dead in her tracks.

“William!”

“I didn’t say anything salacious, love,” he protested.  But behind his eyes was an impish gleam that she hadn’t seen in a very long time.

She let out her breath and tucked in closely by his side.  They may be heading for the Hellmouth  in a matter of days, but feeling his warmth and walking arm in arm with him, she felt completely content with the world and her place in it.  And another few days in the hotel room with him sounded like heaven.

 

Author’s Note:

Florence Balcombe was known as one of the great beauties of her age.  She was also Oscar’s first love.  When she threw him over to marry Bram Stoker, he was wrecked for a few years and wrote a lot of poems to her.  Bram ended up being a pretty good friend to Oscar, however, and was one of the few to visit Oscar in France when he got out of prison.

I’ll miss Oscar.  He was a great man, ruined by a few poor choices.  I like to think in this alternate reality, he had a happier ending.

Do you remember Uncle Thomas from “Yours, William”?  He was a member of the very real group “Society for the Prevention of Vice” which worked to keep (anyone but upper class) students ignorant of biology and human anatomy.  Well, the real life Oscar Wilde formed a group in response:  The Society for the Prevention of Virtue.  His mom even joined.

 

Chapter 38 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
Finally! The penultimate chapter of the story! Sorry there was a bit of a delay on this one. Writers block landed on me like a big ugly house and it took some doing to get it off. Writing’s hard, bro! On the upside? It’s a pretty long chapter.

Humble thanks are owed. Thanks to my Minx, Lutamira and Science – who beta’ed and made the chapter have less suck. Thanks to you, constant reader, for sticking with me on this long tale and for your feedback. And finally thanks so much for the Sunny-D awards that I just won for both this story and for “Yours, William.” I was very touched and knowing that you like the stories make the researchy stuff and the days of pushing through writers block all worthwhile. I feel so lucky to have this supportive community!

One by one the monsters trample.  Through woods and dirt they feed.

What kind of world and plight for our children must we leave? – Lonely Forest

 

Chapter 38

As they trudged down the dimly lit hotel corridor, William cursed himself for his choice of lodging.  The faded orange wallpaper seemed weary, barely able to cling to the walls.  William carried his own trunk, while the elderly porter struggled along behind with Buffy’s.  When they reached room fifty-four, the older man dropped his burden with a dusty thud; he unceremoniously tossed the key to William before turning around and wheezing back toward the lobby.

After fumbling the key into the lock, William twisted the handle, allowing them entrance.  It was as cramped and sparsely furnished as he feared.  A layer of gloom coated everything in the room, like fine dust in a mausoleum.

“I’m sorry, Buffy.  I’m afraid I don’t have Oscar’s talent for choosing hotels.”

“Oh, this’ll be fine, William.”  She stepped out to the hall and dragged her trunk over the threshold before he could attempt to retrieve it for her.  “This place is kinda shabby, but it seems clean enough.  Besides, I’m tired enough to sleep standing up.”

Buffy sat down on the bed, and it groaned in protest.  He struck a match and lit both lamps, which pushed back the shadows and brought much needed warmth to the dismal room.

“And now we’re here at last,” she said.  “Are you glad we waited to see Oscar off?”

“I am,” he said, settling next to her on the bed.  “And five days of staying in one location was wonderful, I must confess.”

“After this final Hellmouth road trip, we can put our traveling days behind us for good.  We’ll have a whole lot of staying put once we get to Napa.”

“That sounds perfect, love.”

She sighed, and a familiar worried crease appeared between her eyebrows.  “It’s pretty obvious that whatever ‘white demon’ trouble that’s set to hit the Hellmouth hasn’t happened yet. Something’s building, though.  Did you notice the creepy vibe once we got into town?”

He coughed and considered her meaning for a moment before nodding.  “I did at that.”

“And did you see how packed the train station was?  Everyone jonesing to leave town?” 

Buffy shuddered.  “Reminded me of how everyone was making a major exodus out of Sunnydale just before the town imploded.”

Whenever she spoke of the Hellmouth, she tended to grow sad and silent.  He could understand how the topic affected her mood, certainly.  But he had to do what he could to keep her spirits bright.  He grasped her hand in his, lacing their fingers together. After a few moments, she looked at him.

“Are you still sure you want to go there?” he asked.  “To the Hellmouth.  There’s nothing saying you can’t change your mind, my love.”

She nodded.  “My mind’s not changed.  Is … is yours?”

“I’m as certain as ever that this is the right path for us.”

“Okay, then,” was all she said, and she chewed on her bottom lip.

They both carried the weight of what they faced tomorrow at the Hellmouth, combined with the end of a very long journey, which had stretched across an ocean and a continent.  What he most wanted in the world was simply to hold her in his arms, stroke her hair, and give them a moment to anchor themselves in one another.

“It’s been an exhausting day, Buffy.  Would you like to get ready for bed?”

She gave a nod and plodded over to her trunk. While she changed into her nightgown, he stripped down to his drawers and lay face-down on the bed, prepared for their nightly ritual.

He felt the mattress dip slightly when she sat on it, then the sound of the cap being unscrewed.    She poured a pool of the medicinal oil in the small of his back, and dipped her fingertips into the pond she’d made.

First she touched her palms to his shoulders, light touches which ghosted across his skin and made him shiver.  Then she pressed her palms into his flesh, working the oil into his skin with tight circular motions.  As her small hands kneaded his flesh, the oil’s scent reached him.   Its subtle fragrance filled his head with cloves and arousal. 

“The marks are fading,” she murmured.  “They might not even scar.”

He nodded.  Her fingertips slid down his sides, and he held back a shudder, amazed that her slightest touch could still reduce him to a trembling jelly.    As her hands massaged the healing oil into the marks, he considered, once again, his miracle of a wife.  How the touch of her small hand held the power to heal his wounds.  The medicinal properties in the oil couldn’t hold a candle to his Buffy.  That she could bring him such contentment in the center of the storm never ceased to amaze him, and he smiled into his pillow.

“Mmm,” she breathed into his ear.  Her hair tickled the back of his neck, and he released an involuntary sigh.  She must have taken it down at some point.  He bit his bottom lip.  She had to know how much her hair unbound affected him.

When he didn’t respond, she stilled her hands on his back.  After a moment her fingers began to drum a gentle pattern on his spine.

“You know, William, I’ve been thinking.”

“What a coincidence.  Because I’ve been thinking, too.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking that I’m not really very tired after all.”  Her fingers ceased their drumming, waiting for his response.  When he gave none, she continued.  “So, what have you been thinking about?”

He turned over to see her grinning coyly at him.  Her hair was mussed, and her face was slightly flushed.  When her pink tongue darted out to wet her lips, taunting him, he gave her his best serious expression. 

“I’ve been worried about your breasts.”

“My … breasts?  Why?  Is something wrong with them?”

He nodded solemnly.

She narrowed her eyes and pulled away, leaning back on the bed.

“I fear that they might have marks on them.  Invisible to the human eye, actually. But, just to be safe, I believe I should apply some of the medicinal oil to them.”

“Oh, really?” 

“Yes.  For your own health, you see.”  He grinned, unashamed.

“When I met you, you were a gentleman who would have never dared to talk about breasts.  And you wouldn’t have dreamed of telling your wife a lie in order to get your hands on them.”

“When you met me, I was so terrified of sex that the only thing I managed to do with my ‘gentleman’s parts’ was to lock them in a cage.”

She laughed, and her pretty green eyes shone brightly in the lamplight. 

“You only managed to corrupt Oscar’s language, but me?  You’ve transformed me most completely.”

She flashed a worried look at look at him.  Though she had to know he was teasing, he couldn’t resist letting her know, just one more time, what it all really meant to him. He reached over and took her hand and lifted it to his lips.  Very tenderly, he kissed her fingertips, one by one, before placing a tender kiss in the palm of her hand.

“And I ask for your forgiveness for my overly sentimental nature but I must say it, Buffy.  I feel grateful for you every single day.  You saved me from my life, from myself.  I love you, even more now than when I first uttered the words – though I’d have thought that impossible.”

She blinked at him, her expression indecipherable.    

There.  Now he’d done it.  He’d utterly killed the mood with his maudlin declaration.  Damn him for being a babbling fool.  By the heat in his cheeks, he knew he was blushing again.  He looked at the floor for a moment, trying to compose himself, when he felt her small but insistent hand on his jaw, pulling his gaze to her.

Before she could speak, he jumped in.  “I know I sound a fool, but, sometimes it overwhelms me, love.  It’s just that … it’s important you know now, after all we’ve been through and knowing what we face, what you are to me.”

She leaned up and kissed his cheek tenderly.  “I know your ways by now, William.  And you should know that … well, it goes both ways.”

“Hmm?  I don’t know what you mean.”  She was always so hesitant in these matters.  Surely he couldn’t be blamed for trying to coax the words from her.  She graced him with an understanding grin.

“You’ve changed everything about me, as well.  And I love you too, you goof.”

“A profound improvement over ‘I love you, you ass clown,’ I suppose.”

Buffy lay back on the mattress and gave an exaggerated yawn, stretching her arms above her head.  The cloth of her nightgown pulled taut against the curve of her breasts in a most appealing manner.  Her hair spread out behind her in a halo, calling to his fingers.  The slightest hint of a smile played at the corners of her mouth. 

He could only stare, admiring the view, as one would a grand master’s painting in a gallery. 

After watching him a moment through half-lidded eyes, she sighed.   “Well, fine.  I suppose if I have to unbutton this nightgown all by myself …”

When she brought her hands up to her neckline, he’d already gotten there and pushed her hands away.  Bowing his head, he tucked under her chin and delivered a line of kisses to her neck.  She let out a soft “mmm,” and he could feel her throat vibrate beneath his lips deliciously. 

“Wouldn’t dream of you straining yourself, love,” he breathed into her ear.  His fingers unfastened the top button on her gown, and he quickly kissed the bit of skin he’d exposed.  Then he undid another and another after that, kissing a trail between her breasts.

Once all the buttons were free, he leaned back and found the little brown bottle, nearly forgotten amidst the rumpled covers.  He unscrewed the cap and poured a small amount in his palm before rubbing his hands together to warm the oil.

“Now, to see to your breasts,” he said.  “I’m afraid this may require an extended treatment.”

She closed her eyes and wriggled happily as he began his careful evaluation.

~*~

Meanwhile, a few miles away, on a small farm on the outskirts of Sunnydale

Dru sat on the floor of the farm house kitchen.  She held the young girl tenderly in her arms, the picture of a mother and child.  The thrumming of the young one’s pulse grew thready, the beats coming fainter and further apart until her weary heart stopped all together.  The girl’s world ended, not with a thud, but with a whimper.

(When this one wakes from her dirt nap, that’ll make twenty.  Hell of an army you’ve built in no time a’tall.)

“Yes, my Dark Prince,” Dru said.  She looked past the bodies of the girls parents, lying under the kitchen table, and smiled toward the direction of the cowboy’s voice.

(Dru, you’re about to have company.  The first of three guests.)

“Oooh, it’s not the three spirits that Charles Dickens wrote about, is it?  Can’t be.  It’s not Christmastime.”

(Less pleasant than the spooks, I suspect.  Keep a sharp eye.)

Her William always took such good care of her.  And he knew absolutely everything.

After a moment, a beam of light brightened a patch of night near the back door.  Dust motes illuminated as though from within, and the Shining Man flickered into existence.  She and her William were no longer alone.

“How are things coming along, Dru?”

“Fine, Warren.”

“I told you, I don’t like it when you call me that.”

(Her dark prince whispered in her ear.)

“Yes, robot-boy,” she giggled.  “As you wish.”

The Shining Man blanched, his image going from opaque to translucent, before he snapped back into frame.

“You’ll be ready for tomorrow night?”  Warren asked.

“I’ll be ready.  Just be certain your demons are prepared for the party.”

“Are you … telling me what to do?”  Beneath Warren’s calm tone lay a carefully controlled rage, the sheen of oil on the surface of a dark pond.

(Too goddamned right you’re on the shoot, querida.  Remember what I told you about how he treats his partners.)

Dru stood up, and the young girl’s corpse rolled off her lap and thudded against the stove.  After shaking out her skirts, Dru walked over to where the Shining Man glittered near the doorway.

“I’m not weaker than you, Warren.  I’m not Katrina, and I’m not Jonathan.  I’m Drusilla, Commander of a newly born Vampire Army, and I am not to be trifled with.”

(That’s my gal!)

Warren said nothing, but he didn’t look away from her.

“I don’t want this to be another Rock Springs.  Your white demons didn’t do so well there.”

“Rock Springs was a warm up, and I had no time to prepare.  My team is more than ready.  When we add you and your army to the mix, the slayer and her boy won’t stand a chance.”

(He’s right there, Dru.  The slayer and the wrong William have done gone up the flume before they started.)

“And who is your team, Warren?”  She had to ask, because, well, now that she had him beneath her boot heel, it was just too hard to resist.  Being a woman in control was really quite exhilarating.

“It’s why I came to see you tonight, Dru.  My two most loyal lieutenants are on their way to meet you.  Should be here any minute.   Together, they have the government and religion locked up in town and can marshal the good citizens of Sunny-D.   I didn’t want you turning them into vampires.  They’ll be more valuable to us in their current role.”

(Both of them rattlesnakes, just like Warren.  Don’t worry, darlin’.   I’m coverin’ your backside.)

Dru moved toward the kitchen’s back door.  She nearly stepped through the ray of light that made up the Shining Man on her way, but the moment her foot touched him she felt a wave of revulsion, so she walked around him instead.  She didn’t need to shift to vampire face to see the two figures who approached the farmhouse.  They’d already stepped past the shadows at the front gate and were only a few yards from the back door.  Dru watched their approach expectantly.

When the men reached the doorway, Dru looked them over carefully.  Both were dressed quite formally, one in business attire and the other in clergy garb. 

The businessman removed his hat and bowed deeply.  “You must be Drusilla.  I believe we have a mutual acquaintance?”  He looked past Dru’s shoulder to where the Shining Man gave off a faint glow.

Dru nodded.  The man had a nervous energy which set her teeth on edge.  It buzzed and twitched all over his skin, like insects burrowing out a log.

“Pleased to meet you.  Delighted, actually.”  He laughed, a nervous titter.

“And you are?”  Dru asked.

“Oh dear, where are my manners?  ‘Even the poorest man can afford manners,’ you know.  I’m the mayor of this little burgh.  Richard Wilkins, at your service.  And this is my compatriot, the reverend Fred Phelps.”

The thin man with the pastor’s collar cracked a smile.  It held all the charm of a cadaver’s grin.  He nodded his head toward Dru. 

“We were told you could help us with the vermin problem near the mine.”  The reverend’s voice was thin and reedy and when he spoke his nostrils flared as though he’d just gotten a whiff of something foul.

(For now, I reckon you got to partner up with ‘em, Dru.  But after the big show is over, there’s nothin’ that says you got to stick with ‘em, or let ‘em live, for that matter.  Dunno that the God-botherer would be very good eatin’, though.  He looks sour enough to scare a buzzard off a gut wagon.)

Dru giggled at her dark prince.  When she noticed the curious glances being given to her by the two men, she dropped a curtsy and smiled.

“Yes, I can help.  With the vermin and their protectors.  Can help open the doorway, too.  Shall we make party plans, gentlemen?”  Dru pointed a grin in their direction.

Both men nodded eagerly and followed her back into the farmhouse kitchen.

*~*

Buffy stuffed a final few items into her leather satchel, then looked around the room one last time.  William’s trunk was sealed and stowed at the foot of their bed.  Buffy had just one final item to add to hers before locking it up.  Their wedding photo. It was a little worse for wear from the journey and the corners were bent, but she’d carefully wrapped it with a few sheets of neatly folded stationery all the same.

William coughed and shuffled his feet, waiting in the hallway.

She placed the photo on the top of her clothes, then pulled the lid shut and locked it, leaving the key on top.  Next to the key she placed a small piece of paper, upon which was neatly written: “Please forward to: Mary Dunn, Dunn’s Emporium, Bay Street, San Francisco, California.”

She swallowed, and stepped backward, toward the door.

Leaving forwarding instructions was an unnecessary gesture.  She knew it.  Nothing would go wrong, and they’d be returning to their room later tonight.  Leaving Mary’s address was really just a kind of insurance.  Whenever you took the time for that kind of precaution, it turned out to be unnecessary.  It was like wearing your car seatbelt for a three block trip to the ice cream place. 

“Darling?”  William called from the hall.  “Should we leave now?”

“Sure thing,” she said.  She fastened the latch on her satchel and put on the brightest smile she could muster before joining William in the hall.  “We’ve got a big day ahead of us.”

“Quite.”

It was still early morning when they made their way onto Alvarado Street.  William had inquired about transportation to Sunnydale at the front desk when they’d checked in.  Unfortunately, the small town had no rail lines yet, so they needed to hire a carriage from a rental shop.  Since there was only one rental agency in the neighborhood and it was only a few short blocks away, they knew precisely where to go.

Scott’s Carriages and Livery” wasn’t terribly large, but it seemed to have a wide variety.  They entered the shop to find a disinterested man behind the counter.  He was absorbed in the task of picking at his fingernails with a dirty knife and didn’t bother to look up.

William approached the counter, and when the man still didn’t acknowledge them, William coughed.

“Excuse me.  We’d like to hire a carriage for the day.”

“Yeah.  What type of rig you want?”  The counterman seemed irked at the interruption.

“Just something for the two of us.” 

“A phaeton might work, if you’re not goin’ far.  Where you headed?”

“Just going north of Los Angeles for an afternoon in the country.  A phaeton will be fine.”

When the filthy man heard their direction, his interest in the transaction was at last piqued.  He leaned across the counter and squinted at William.  “You sure you wanna head north?  Didn’t you hear?  There’s trouble up that way.”

“What kind of trouble?”  William asked.

“Folks been goin’ missin’.  Nearly two dozen just in the last week.”

“Any idea what’s causing it?” Buffy asked. 

The rental man ignored her and addressed William instead.  “Dunno what’s causin’ it, but it’s more’n likely the damned chinamen.  Most of the disappearances are happenin’ up where they’re gathered, around the played out silver mine east of town.”

William didn’t respond, but it didn’t deter the foul little man.  “We burned ‘em out of Los Angeles nine years ago.  Took about five hundred of us, but we swept Chinatown up good.  They’re like cockroaches, though.  They come back.  Just like the swarm of ‘em up at Sunnydale.” 

An oily smile slid across the man’s face.  “I hear tell some good citizens aim to take care of the bugs, maybe even as soon as tonight.  If you’re headin’ that way to join the clean up party, I can let you have a rig for half price.”

William opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out.  After a few beats of standing there with his jaw agape, he found his voice again. “We’ll … pay the full price, thank you.”

“Humph,” the foul man uttered.  Suddenly disinterested in William, he returned to his questionable hygiene regimen, while he muttered off his standard litany.  “The phaeton is five dollars for the day, but have it back by six o’clock.  If you don’t, you’ll pay your own stable fees for the night and owe me another five tomorrow morning.  I’ll need a fifty dollar deposit as well.”

“Fifty dollars?” Buffy blurted.  “That’s outrageous.”

“It’s the price.” The rental man shrugged.

“Fine,” Buffy grumbled.

“If you’d like to wait outside, I can handle the details, darling,” William said.

Buffy nodded and flashed him a grateful smile.  Slipping out of the shop, she stepped over to the stable and watched the horses who seemed as disinterested in her presence as the foul little man had been.

Her wait was brief.  After a few moments, William pulled up in a vehicle that could only be described as ‘racy,’ even if it was pulled by a horse.  It was all black and had four oversized wheels.  The upholstered leather seat was just wide enough for the two of them and a fringed canopy decorated the top.  A single black horse pulled the rig.  If the nineteenth century had the equivalent of a convertible sports car, this would be it.

“It’s nice,” she said.

“It is rather more … daring than I would have expected, but it should suit our purposes well enough.  May I take your bag?” William asked.

Buffy handed her weapons satchel to him, and William leaned down to stuff it in the small compartment under the seat.  Before he could begin his instinctive help-the-lady-into-the-carriage routine, Buffy had already hopped up into the box.

“You know the way?” she asked.

He nodded.  “It’s a simple matter of following the primary road north.  We should be there in about two hours.  Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

He tssked the horse out into the road and they began their journey north.

~*~

The roads grew increasingly deserted the further north they traveled.  It wasn’t that there were few travelers on the road – there were none at all.  Any time she thought she saw a couple of figures walking along the road in the distance, they vanished by the time the carriage would have reached them.  Either they scuttled off to hide in the brush, or they’d never really been there to begin with.  Both options were equally eerie.

As they neared Sunnydale her old slayer sense began to kick in, crawling along her spine, reminding her that danger was near.  The atmosphere seemed to be taking a toll on William as well.  His expression was serious and the line of his mouth firm, as he focused on guiding the horse down the well-worn road.  Neither of them spoke.  Instead, they stayed tethered to one another with touch.  Every fifteen minutes or so, she would brush against his arm or he would reach out to squeeze her hand.

I’m here.  We’re in this together.

It was nearly noon when they reached the city limits.  Just as they were approaching a neatly lettered sign proclaiming “Welcome to Sunny Dale,” a large merchant wagon careened around the corner, forcing William off the road.  The phaeton’s large front wheel smacked into the sign, knocking it over and splitting it down the middle.

“Whoa!”  William pulled hard on the reins and the rig shuddered to a halt, one wheel resting on the shattered sign.  He shot Buffy an embarrassed look and tugged on his hair nervously.

“It’s no big, William.  They’d misspelled ‘Sunnydale’ anyway.”

“Do you know where we are, love?  Which direction should I take?”

She squinted at the scene before them.  “Not really.  I mean, I know it’s Sunny-D, but it’s really hard to recognize.  The town I knew was laid out on a flat grid.  With these little hills and valleys I can’t get a sense of things.   The buildings are completely different too.  Could we just head into town and see what I remember?”

“Certainly.”

William nudged the horse off the broken halves of the sign and back to the center of the road, cautiously nosing the carriage into town.

Of all the western towns she’d seen, Sunnydale reminded her the most of Rock Springs.  It had the same kind of unpleasant energy.  Unlike the dusty road to town, people were out and about on the streets, but moving furtively, eying them suspiciously.  She scooted a little closer to William.

Even in the heart of town, the businesses were oddly empty.  There were dozens of horses and buggies tied up at city hall, however, and an even larger gathering at the community church. 

William looked at her questioningly.

“Let’s keep going,” she said.  “I’d rather just get to the Hellmouth.  Get this over with.”

“So, keep going straight?” he asked.

“I think so.”

They plodded on for a few more blocks.  When she saw the abandoned Catholic mission at a distance, she felt a surge of recognition.  She grabbed his knee and he pulled the carriage to a halt.

“I know exactly where the mission is.  It’s part of the college campus.  Well, it will be, in the future.”

If the college was ahead of her, and town center was behind her, her old high school, and the Hellmouth beneath it had to be east of them.

“Yeah, I can get us there.  Hang a right as soon as you come to an intersection.”

William took the first available cross street, and they continued along the road as the houses gave way to scattered farm houses.  Even though the land seemed prime for planting, no crops grew in the fields.  The fenceposts lining the road were dotted with crows, who announced the carriage’s passing with scattered caws.

As the carriage jostled along eastward, the strange buzzing she felt as she approached  Sunnydale picked up, like a burst of static on a Geiger counter.  The earlier sensation of prickles along her back grew more pronounced, as if a metal spider were patrolling along her spine. 

Just ahead of them, the road forked.  The right fork led down a slope to a cluster of farms.  The left went toward a hill and was marked with a sign:  Sunnydale Silver Mine.   

This was the place, she knew.  Somehow, she even knew the precise location of the Hellmouth – well, where the Hellmouth might be, one day.  Not down in the mine, as one might expect, but on top of the small hill.  They must have bulldozed it when the high school came along. 

The hill was covered in scrub pine and as they grew closer she could make out several clusters of shacks ringing its base. Before they reached the first cluster of shacks, she reached over and squeezed William’s hand.  He pulled up the phaeton to a halt.

“This is it, darling?” he asked.

She nodded and climbed down from the carriage.  William tied the horse to a fencepost while Buffy, almost as an afterthought, reached under the seat and retrieved her satchel of weapons.  She slipped her hand in his, and together they walked up to the first group of shanties.

As they neared the base, she was surprised by the quantity of shacks. From the road, the scrub pine had concealed their numbers.  Now that they were closer, she could see that the hill was quite thick with them.  It reminded her of a hobo town from her own era.  They weren’t homes, but shelters in the most primitive sense.  Bits of wood and old metal hobbled together with rope and mud and rusted nails – unfit for human habitation.

And the dwellings were as silent as the grave. 

Buffy stopped in front of the first hovel they came to and looked at William.  “I guess we might as well introduce ourselves.”

Balling her hand into a fist, she knocked on the sheet of rusty metal that made up the shack’s roof.  She was careful not to strike the metal very hard; it looked like a strong wind might take the thing down. 

“Hello?” she called.  “Anybody home?"

There was rustling from within and whispering.  After a moment one of the walls opened a crack and several Chinese men crept out.  They were dressed in loose muslin pants and simple shirts, and wore the traditional single braid.  Looking at William and Buffy with undisguised terror, they bowed deeply, then trained their eyes on the ground.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” William soothed, but they didn’t look up and their expressions didn’t change.

“English?” Buffy asked.  “Does anyone here speak English?”

The men spoke among themselves in whispers.  Buffy heard them say “englee” and was shocked to hear the word “bakguai,” several times.  The tallest one peeked at Buffy quickly, before quickly training his gaze back on the ground.  He held up an index finger. 

“Englee.  Moment,” he said.  He scuttled off down the path that wove through the shacks.  While the remaining men continued to talk among themselves, they watched William and Buffy fearfully.

William leaned over.  “Did you hear, darling?  They keep saying that word – bakguai.  Do you suppose it’s possible that they’ve heard of you?”

She shook her head.  “It seems kind of far-fetched.  It was Oscar’s nickname for me because the Chinese in Rock Springs called me ‘good bakguai.’  But that’s like a thousand miles from here.”

They heard a rustling and turned to see the tall man returning with a teen boy in tow.  The boy was rail thin and his shirt hung on him like ship’s sail.  He glanced up, quickly apprising the pair of them.  His eyes held a keen intelligence, and though he didn’t regard them with the same abject terror as his countrymen, he was clearly cautious.

Buffy greeted him with her friendliest smile, but the boy maintained a stoic expression.  He immediately dropped his gaze and bowed.

“Do you speak English?” Buffy asked.

The boy nodded.

“I’m Buffy and this is my husband, William.  Who are you?”

“Tom,” the boy replied softly.

“What’s your real name?  Your Chinese name?”

He lifted his chin to look at her, startled.  “Tang Ao.”

Buffy held out her hand and the boy tilted his head at her, his cautious expression melting a little.  He seemed unsure about shaking her hand, however, so Buffy dropped it to her side.

“We’re not here to hurt you, Tang.  We’re actually here to help.  Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“We harm no one.  Want peace only.  The whites want us gone from the town, from the mine.”

“And where do they want you to go?”

Tang looked at her, and held his hands out, palms upward.

“Is there some place that would let you … just live?”

The boy shook his head.  “Same story each place we go.  Here we must stay.  Here we have shelter.  Here we have gardens and homes.  In this place we find Heaven’s Door.”

“How many of you are there?”

The boy replied reluctantly, as though he was giving away a military secret.  To his mind, he might have been.  “One hundred and fifty.”

“You seem afraid, Tang.  Are you expecting trouble?”

He nodded, allowing his guard to slip a little further.

“When?”

“Tonight.  The bakguai plan to attack tonight.”

“Wait … the bakguai?  I thought I was the bakguai.”

She looked over to William, who seemed equally puzzled.

“What does bakguai mean?” William asked.

The boy looked back at the ground.  When he spoke it was with great hesitation. “It is our word for ‘white people’.”

“But what does it mean, literally translated?”

The boy gave William a puzzled look.

William kept his voice low and soothing.  “Tang, what does the word ‘bakguai’ really mean?”

“It means ‘white demon.’”

Buffy felt the air whoosh out her chest and her heart caught in her throat, comprehending the implication in an instant.  “The ‘white demons’ are ordinary, white-bread Americans?  We are so screwed.”

 ----

End Notes Because Some of You Like Them:

 

At the risk of TMI … some of you may remember that I was in a hurry to finish up “Yours, William” because I had a (much dreaded) 2,000 mile move from my home in Washington state to Missouri.  Well, now I am rushing to finish this story because there’s a very good chance that I’ll be moving back to Washington by the end of August!  This makes me happy!  And exhausted!  And I will try very hard to get that last chapter to you before Operation Moving Shitshow begins.

So, what up with that?  Every time I finish a story, I have to make a 2,000 mile move?  Pretty messed up, if you ask me.

Actual History? All riots mentioned (L.A. and Rock Springs) were real events.  There were other organized riots as well.  It's hard to overstate what the Chinese faced.  According to John Higham in 'Strangers in the Land,' "The 'ethnic cleansing of the Chinese from the American West was one of the darkest chapter's in our nation's history.  Between 1970 and 1880 there were an estimated 200 Chinese lynchings in the region."


Chapter 39 by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:

Finally, the end. It’s such a kick to finally write those words. I can safely say that I doubt I’ll ever write another one this long. Thanks, loyal reader, for sticking around, giving me your feedback and generally being awesome. Thanks also to All4Spike for her help on this chapter. And to my wonderful betas for this last bit: Minx, Lutamira and DK. Mistakes belong to me.  Thanks to Amy for the banner.

I built lots of playlists to help me write. I compiled a final one which has the songs I played most often, which is listed as My Elizabeth on Spotify, but I can't manage to link to it, sorry!

There is an epilogue and a pretty long footnote, fyi.

Against the grain of dystopic claims

Not the thoughts your actions entertain

And you have proved to be

A real human being and a real hero – College


Chapter 39

When he looked at Buffy, William felt fear uncurl from the center of his stomach; it was a cold thing, with long tentacles. In all they’d faced, he’d never seen her look quite like this. Head down, one arm gripping his shoulder for support. Even worse than the expression of horror on her face, she appeared … weak.

“Buffy? Darling?”

A breeze tangled her hair, but she made no move to pull it away from her eyes. Her gaze remained downcast.

“Buffy? Surely finding out the ‘white demons’ are really humans is good news, of a sort. It’s better than supernatural enemies, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s really not.” Without further elaboration, she walked over to sit upon a large boulder that jutted from the hillside. The Chinese men, Tang included, watched them, their eyes bright with interest.

William moved to stand awkwardly by her side. He placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Talk to me, love. Tell me what’s going on. I rather need to know.”

“It’s bad news for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that I can’t kill humans. I mean, sure physically I’m able to kill them, but I don’t want to and the slayer’s not supposed to.” She worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “William, it’s even worse than that.”

“How so?”

“We’ve been set up – all of us. This is the event the council warned us about.”

“The council? When did they warn us?”

“The Council of Watchers. Well, you wouldn’t remember it, William. They warned Oscar and I in a telegram.”

William could only shake his head, absolutely lost.

“When you were missing. When Dru and her cowboy took you. They said they were taking you to the opening of the Hellmouth, so Oscar telegrammed the council. Asked them how Hellmouths were opened.”

She looked at him, her face pale and drawn. “They said that demonic activity couldn’t open it. That only human evil would do. Something big. An atrocity.”

“And you think the atrocity is going to be…?”

Buffy responded by looking over his shoulder, to the four worried men watching them.

“Everything’s ready. It’s on the brink. And all these people are ripe for the slaughter,” Buffy mumbled, staring past him, her face white as curdled milk. “I don’t know how to fight what’s coming at them. Vampires, I could handle. Demons, no problem. But dozens of pissed off pioneer-types? I’m out of my depth, William.”

William tugged on his hair and settled down beside her on the rock. Not knowing what else to do, he reached out to hold her hand. He felt a surge of relief when she greeted the gesture with a tight, slightly painful, squeeze.

“But we’re not completely lost, are we, love? For starters, we both agree that we must do something,” he said. “If we can’t take them on directly, what are our other options?”

“You got me. Try reasoning with them? Because reasoning with a mob – that’s something that’s worked for me exactly never.” She paused, her worried gaze still on the ground. Something moved behind her eyes, the spark of an idea, and she gripped his hand even tighter. “For me. Reasoning with mobs has never worked for me. But it’s worked for you.”

“For me?” he repeated numbly.

“In Rock Springs! When we were facing the mob, they were loaded with torches and guns and ready to kill. You talked over half of them into leaving without a punch - with just your words.” She tucked her windblown hair behind her ear and looked at him steadily.

“Well, I think you overestimate my … that is to say, I hardly think that I …” he coughed. Before he could form a proper rebuttal to her notion, he looked into her hopeful eyes. Her earlier weakness was fading, if only slightly, and the confident woman was beginning to reemerge. One look at her, and his objections caught in his throat and entirely different words formed in their place.

“Yes. A capital idea, Buffy.” He swallowed. In Rock Springs he hadn’t had a moment to think about talking down a mob before he’d gone ahead and tried it. He found that having the luxury to contemplate the action made his head swim and his stomach clench quite painfully. However, since fainting dead away didn’t seem like much of a confidence builder, he took a deep breath and found a smile for her instead.

“To town.” William pushed away from the stone and walked toward the carriage with what he hoped was a confident stride. “Gentlemen.” He nodded as he passed the confused Chinese men, who gave uncertain bows in return.

“We’re going to talk to the … bakguai,” Buffy explained to Tang as she passed. “We’ll be back soon. Hopefully with good news.”

When William reached the phaeton, he assisted Buffy into her seat; she had the good grace to accept with a smile. He untied the rig, climbed into the vehicle and with a tsk and a shake of the reins; they were on their way back to Sunnydale.

They returned to town without conversation, each lost in their own thoughts. When they’d passed through town earlier, the crowds were all within the same block, either at city hall or the church. City hall was now largely abandoned, so William pulled the carriage nearer to the church which, judging by the number of horses and buggies tied up in front, was still brimming with occupants.

Buffy leapt down from the carriage while he tied the horse to the rail. Joining their arms together, they walked up to the entrance of the church and slipped inside. Since the building was crowded to the bursting point, there was no choice but to remain standing in the tightly packed rear of the church.

The wooden structure was nothing like the churches in England. No stained glass nor gilded art for this place. Its floors were bare and walls unadorned. The only remotely decorative item in the church was an enormous rough-hewn cross which had been crudely nailed to the wall behind the stage at the front.

Everyone in the congregation was paying close attention to the preacher, who boomed at them from the raised platform. When he strode across the stage, his lanky limbs swinging widely, he reminded William of a market trader shilling his dodgy wares in Covent Garden.

“In the time of MOSES, when the children of Israel were in the wilderness and were led astray with the golden calf, did God say ‘Oh, that’s all right. I don’t mind heathen gods in your midst.’? DID he?”

“No,” several voices in the crowd responded in unison.

“When GOD commanded ABRAHAM kill his only son, did Abraham slink away, too timid to darken his hands with BLOOD?”

“No.”

“Now take your bibles, and read along with me from God’s holy word,” the preacher called. He drew out words for emphasis, adding an extra syllable. ‘Bible’ became ‘buy-a-bull.’ ‘God’ became ‘Gah-odd.’

“And the Lord spake, in First Samuel chapter thirteen, verse three. ‘Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass’.”

“What did the people say to this?” the man gave his rapt congregants a questioning glare. “Did they say, ‘No lord, we don’t want to get our hands dirty?’ No, they did not. Did they say, “Lord, you can’t really mean that’? No, they did not. They OBEYED their lord, and they slew the heathens.”

“Exodus tells us, “I, the lord thy God am a jealous God.’ Do you WANT to anger GOD?” The preacher cast an accusing glare toward the back of the church.

“No!” The crowd replied, much louder this time.

“And what happens to those who allow INFIDELS and HEATHENS to remain in their midst? The very verse in Exodus goes on to tell you, plain as day. It says he shall ‘visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that HATE me.”

The preacher shook his head in disgust before pointing an accusing finger toward the back of the church. “Do you hate GOD?”

“No,” the crowd chanted, working themselves into a proper level of agitation.

“Do you WANT god to have to punish your children, your children’s children, because you stubbornly refused his commands to rid this community of those who worship false gods? Who mock our true GOD with their HEATHEN ways?”

“No,” the crowd roared. A fervent few at the front sprang to their feet.

“And yet among you, there remain those who insist they know better than God almighty. Who cling to finding another way, a way without bloodshed. Do YOU dare to put yourself above God? Above his commands?”

“NO.”

“And what of those wolves in sheep’s clothing who work amongst his flock? Those who work to turn you AGAINST his commands are surely no better than the HEATHENS on the hill!”

At that, the preacher swung his gaze toward where the Pratts stood. The old man’s face was flushed and he was panting heavily. If William didn’t know better, he’d swear the man was in the very flush of sexual arousal. William placed a protective arm around Buffy and met the old man’s gaze, unintimidated.

“If OUTSIDERS come into our midst and think to speak AGAINST God’s holy word, against God himself, will we sit idly by?”

“NO!” A few heads tuned to see the cause of the leader’s glare, their eyes sparkling with interest.

A sanctimonious smile snaked across the preacher’s face. Still keeping his eyes locked on them, he nodded, folding his hands piously on his chest. A moment of silence spun out while the peculiar stare-down continued.

It was a horrible opening, but it was likely the only one that William was going to get. He had to try, at least. Instead of feeling butterflies in his stomach, he felt like a murder of crows were inside his belly, flapping and struggling to escape. He opened up his mouth, desperately trying to think of the reasonable thing to say, when …

“GET OUT.” The pastor screamed as he pointed a bony finger at William and Buffy. It was so bizarre, so completely unexpected that Buffy immediately burst into laughter.

“GET OUT OF GOD’S HOUSE!” As he continued to scream, the old man stepped toward them. The congregation had all turned to face them at this point, their former curious stares giving way to malevolent ones.

“Buffy, I believe we need to depart.” William worked hard to keep the panic from his voice.

Without hesitation she whirled around, and they burst through the doorway just a few feet away. William slammed the door shut and they scurried down the church steps. The bright sun and wide street suddenly seemed welcoming and friendly. Instinctively, they turned, waiting for the crowd that might spill out after them, but the door didn’t budge.

Buffy let out a shaky breath. “Holy shit!”

“I quite fear that the crowd would have done anything he’d asked of them, including tear us apart,” William said.

“That was way too ‘Children of the Corn’ for me.”

They reached the carriage and William coughed and reached up to stroke the mare’s nose, more to settle his nerves than to reassure the horse who was quite oblivious.

“Any idea what we should do now?” she asked.

William gestured toward City Hall, a few hundred yards down the street. “Perhaps if we tried reasoning with a smaller group. Someone official. I’m certain that once we discuss our concerns with the town fathers, they would be eager to take precautions.”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath. Sunnydale has a long history of deadbeat dads where that’s concerned.”

City hall was a rather ambitious building for a town of such modest size. Made of dark red brick and two stories high, it stood in sharp contrast to the rest of town which considered of mostly wooden, single story structures.

As they turned onto the boardwalk leading up to the building, Buffy gave a slight start and she shuddered.

“What is it?”

“Not sure,” she said. Her eyes flickered along the windows of the building. “Something is here though. Something big, bad.”

“Shall we leave, dear?” He stopped dead in his tracks and gave her a questioning look.

“It’s better to know your enemy,” she replied. “Besides, it looks like whatever it is – is coming to us.”

He followed her gaze to see several men spilling out of the doorway. They were large and wearing six-guns on their hips, which wasn’t an odd sight in the west. What was unusual about it was that these men all had their hands resting on their gun belts, ready to draw.

The last man out of the door was an affable looking, brown-haired man wearing a neat western suit with a bolo tie. Though he was the only unarmed man in the group, he was clearly the leader, as the half dozen larger men immediately flanked him as he started down the boardwalk toward William and Buffy. He greeted them with a pleasant smile.

“You,” was all Buffy said. Her voice was low and furious.

Upon hearing her strange declaration, the man remained unperturbed. If anything, his grin widened. He stopped a few feet from them and extended his right hand.

“I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure. Mayor Richard Wilkins, at your service.”

“More than a hundred years ago?” Buffy glared at the man. “You were here from the start? I knew you were old but …”

The mayor gave a shrug and turned from her. “And you must be William. We heard you’d be visiting our little town.”

“You heard?” William echoed numbly. “How could you have possibly heard?”

The mayor giggled and looked back at Buffy. “I have a great many friends. I believe some of them may even be mutual acquaintances of ours.”

“This is pointless,” Buffy said. “Let’s go, William. There’s even less hope trying to reason with this guy than there was with the insanos in the church.”

She turned and moved toward the street at surprising speed. Before William could join her, the mayor gripped his hand. His touch was cold and firm – steel encased in flesh.

“Forgive my brusqueness, but sometimes a direct request is most effective. You must know that if you stay, you’re quite damned.” The mayor’s tone was pleasant, conversational.

As he tightened his grip on William’s hand, his congenial smile remained firmly in place. “The only purpose you’ll serve is that your blood will open the Hellmouth a few moments quicker. Take a friendly word of advice and leave. Go. Get out of town.”

William wrenched his hand from the man’s grip and followed his wife down the boardwalk.

“You’re going to lose,” the mayor called after them. “It’s not a question of winning, only of how long you’ll last. It’s not just the townspeople, you know. We are legion. Dru and her army join us as well. You remember Dru, don’t you?”

Before he reached the carriage, Buffy was seated and holding the reins. Looking angry and confused, she was moving them side to side, apparently trying to encourage the horse to back out into the street. The confused mare blinked at William wearily. Gripping the harness, he guided the horse away from the rail, then climbed in beside Buffy. She handed the reins to him, her expression dark.

“Dru? And she’s bringing friends?” Buffy shook her head. “As if things needed to get worse.”

He tried to think of something encouraging to say regarding Dru, but came up with nothing, Perhaps the best thing would be to change the subject entirely.

“You knew that man?” he asked.

“Yeah. He was mayor back when I was a teenager and a really bad man. I just had no idea he’d been here for that long.”

“Please tell me that when you knew him before you … how do you say? Kicked his ass.”

A smile flickered across her face and he felt a twinge of pride at being able to coax it from her lips, even in the midst of all this.

“I did, William. My friends and I blew him the hell up along with Sunnydale High – right where the Chinese are now.”

“The Hellmouth?”

“Yeah.”

They reached the end of the street and he pulled back on the reins; the carriage shuddered to a halt. To their right lay the path out of town, to their left, the mine.

“So. which way do we turn, William?”

A moment spun out; he remained, unmoving, at the intersection. The mare turned her head to the side, curious about the hold up, then shook her harness impatiently.

“This is, perhaps, a most unusual time to tell you this, yet again, but … I love you, Buffy.”

She nodded at him, not needing to respond with words, tears filling her eyes.

He continued. “One of the many reasons that I love you is because I know what you want to do, but you have the grace to ask me all the same. And because I know it matters so much to you, I’ll tell you again, I couldn’t agree with you more.”

He pulled on the reins and guided the carriage to the left. They traveled down the road wordlessly until the hill and the rickety shacks that constituted Chinatown came into view.

“It’s not hopeless, you know,” he said.

“It’s not?”

“If we can’t talk the aggressors into backing down, perhaps we could reason with the Chinese men. Talk them into …”

“Running away?”

“Precisely.”

It wasn’t the best plan, and certainly nothing that Admiral Lord Nelson would have approved of – but if it worked, if it saved lives, wasn’t that the main thing?

“Sure, William. Let’s try that. It beats anything I can come up with.” Buffy gave him a watery smile. The lack of confidence in her voice was far from inspiring.

As he tied the horse to the fence post, the sky began to darken quite dramatically. It was much more profound and eerie than a simple cloudy day. He was reminded of the time when he was a lad on holiday in Spain and his father had taken him out during a solar eclipse. Except, as a boy the eclipse didn’t bring such a sense of foreboding.

And that wasn’t all; accompanying the strange darkness was a strange kind of vertigo, as if the world had somehow tilted itself, ever so slightly. Just enough to keep a person off balance, it felt like something unpleasant and cold slid across the back of his neck. As Buffy approached the first cluster of shacks, he strayed behind and surreptitiously checked his pocket watch. It read four in the afternoon.

Buffy gave the sky a worried glance, then strode to the first little shack. “Hello? We’re back, guys. Tang?”

She rapped hard on the metal once roof, but there was no response.

“Knock, knock.” She bent back the sheet of metal that served as a door and peeked inside. After a moment she stepped back and shook her head at William.

“They’ve gone?” William stepped over to the next house in the line; it too was empty.

An overwhelming sense of relief swept through him. Even without intervention, the men somehow knew to leave this place before the battle began - a miracle by his reckoning. With the men gone, there could be no slaughter, no Hellmouth opening and no need for them to remain in this awful, damned place.

He turned to Buffy, expecting to see her face lit with relief. Instead, she was looking at the top of the hill, her mouth a grim line. Her expression doused the flame of hope that William had been fanning.

“They went up. To the ‘Heaven’s Gate’ thing that Tang talked about. They went up to wait for the bad guys right on top of the Hellmouth. Like dinner, sitting on a plate.”

She readjusted the strap of her weapon satchel, and started up the path that led to the top of the hill. William followed behind, determined not to be alarmed by the increasingly darkening sky and what that might mean.

By the time he’d reached the hilltop, William was winded, his breath coming in ragged pants. Since the hill plateaued, if left room at the top for the seventy or so men who crowded together there. In the center it seemed to have a slight indentation, like the crater of a defunct volcano, only on a very small scale.

The men gathered there greeted William and Buffy with expression of undisguised fear.

“Tang?” Buffy shouted over the sea of ponytailed men. Clever girl to let them know she was on their side. When there was no response, she called his name again.

“Tang Ao?” A small man at Buffy’s elbow asked with a bow.

“Yes. Tang Ao! Do you know where he is?”

The man gestured toward the densely packed center of the group and stepped aside.

Buffy shouldered her way through the crowd and William followed closely behind.

In the center a small cluster of men gathered around a large, upright stone. Though William was dimly aware that Tang was one of the men at the base of the stone, he was transfixed by the large boulder and what lay before it.

The rock was composed of the typical grey stone that seemed typical of the region. This stone, however, had been carved with odd markings. Three long slashes had been cut into the face: two upright and a crossbeam connecting them. It resembled a primitive gate, with two sides and a roof. Heaven’s Gate. The carvings were old and weathered and had a slight – there was no other word for it – gleam about them. A slight blue glow, which he supposed might be a trick of the strangely darkening sky.

Just beneath the large stone lay a kind of basin. Grey rock that was shaped into a very large bowl, capable, he supposed, of holding fifty gallons or more. Strange markings decorated the bottom of the bowl. It wasn’t Chinese writing – he could tell that much. The writing was old and somehow seemed primitive.

Tang had noticed their arrival and stepped toward them. A group of three older men that he’d been speaking with trailed along behind Tang. The men gave he and Buffy baneful glares.

“What’s going on? Why’d you leave your houses?” Buffy cut straight to business, as was her way.

“Is time.” Tang pointed upwards, toward where the sun should have been evident.

“Time for what?” William asked.

“The gate opens,” Tang said. “Heaven’s Gate. We come when the gate opens.”

“Tang, I know you guys believe this gate-thing is good, but – trust me – it’s not what you think it is.”

Tang’s only response was to blink at her, passively.

William took a step toward the young man. “I know this sounds unlikely, Tang, and I know you have little reason to believe me – but this hilltop is unsafe.”

“Not safe?”

“Yes! The least safe place you could possibly be, to be honest. Come with us. Away from here.”

“You wish all of us to leave our place? Follow you?”

Buffy nodded enthusiastically.

One of the old men standing beside Tang spoke to him and Tang responded rapidly for a few moments. They held a short conversation, with the older men clearly asking Tang a series of questions and Tang giving terse answers in response. William nervously looked over his shoulder, aware of how quickly time was running out.

Turning back towards William at last, Tang bowed and said, “No.”

“You mustn’t! Please, let me explain …” But the young man had already turned his back.

In her frustration, Buffy reached out to touch Tang’s shoulder. He flinched, then spun around and flashed a challenging glare.

“We will not move from this place. Here we stand. Bakguai need to go. You,” he pointed at both William and Buffy, “move from this place. Go. Go away.” He turned his back to them and continued his conversation with the older men.

Buffy wove through the throng and William followed in her wake. She stopped at the edge of the hill where she stared out at the line of madrona trees that lay scattered just beyond Chinatown.

“We can’t blame them,” William said as he eased up behind her. “We’re strangers. They wouldn’t be inclined to listen to us.”

“Why is it that the only damn thing everyone agrees on is that they all want us to get out of town?”

He tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Perhaps that’s precisely the reason why we need to stay. To find another way.”

A tear spilled down her cheek. “You know, under your polite shell, you’re really kind of bad-ass. How’d that happen?”

“I think you already know.” He kissed her forehead tenderly.

When he reluctantly pulled away, he felt the discomforting feeling of being stared at. A few dozen Chinese men had clustered near them and were giving them, as Buffy would say, ‘the stink eye.’ Tang stood at the forefront with folded arms.

“You go now.” Tang’s tone was firm, even angry.

Buffy looked down the hill, then stumbled backward a step. “We can’t.”

“Go,” Tang repeated.

Buffy spun to face the younger man. “No. I mean we really can’t. Look.” She gestured toward the road.

Even through the strangely darkened sky, he could see them. Townspeople. They were massing up the road, filling the lanes and spilling out toward the fences. There had to be three to four hundred of them and they were all teeming toward the hill.

When the men on the hilltop spotted them, they responded, not with a cry of alarm, but with a hushed whisper, a frantic buzzing which swept over the hilltop like a breeze. The men stared down the slope, transfixed by the oncoming crowd, their expressions an odd mix of horror and fascination.

While the men were frantically chattering amongst themselves, Buffy pulled William to the side.

“My slayer sense just jumped off the charts William. It’s not just people that are arriving. The vamps are showing up. About two dozen of them, I think.”

William looked down the hill. He couldn’t see much further than the writhing mass of humanity that was rapidly forming a ring around the base of the hill.

Buffy had yanked open her weapon satchel and was tossing weapons to the ground in frustration. “God dammit. These weapons are useless. Even if I killed every one of Dru’s vamps, it wouldn’t matter. A few hundred humans are going to charge the hill and I can’t stop them. There’s going to be a slaughter, either way and you can damn well bet that the vamps won’t care if the blood is from China or Sunnydale. Either way, there’ll be more than enough of the stuff to open the Hellmouth.”

“So, even if we could win, we’d lose.”

“The way it’s set up, yeah. No matter which side ‘wins,’ there isn’t a way to stop the opening.”

She handed him a stake and took one herself. When they looked over the edge of the hill they could see that it was completely surrounded by townspeople several layers deep. Now that they were close, William was surprised to see so many women and children among their numbers. They were armed as well, even the little ones. Not with guns, as he’d come to expect in the west, but with sharp things: knives, hatchets, spears. Items designed to spill blood.

At the forefront stood the mayor, who was engaged in animated conversation with the preacher. Mayor Wilkins seemed to sense them, glanced up the hill and gave them a jaunty wave and a grin.

As William watched the masses swarm around the base of the hill, he felt overwhelmed with an odd feeling of familiarity. Looking down at the figures swarming around the base of the hill, it came to him in a flash.

The dream.

He’d endured the same dream – nightmare, really – since she’d had her memory taken, half a world away on board The Adriatic. He’d seen the two of them, standing on a hilltop, while white figures swarmed toward them. He and Buffy facing their destiny. Their doom.

With sudden clarity he realized it hadn’t been a dream at all. It had been a glimpse into their ending.

“Heaven’s Gate,” Tang called from behind him. “It will protect us.”

“No,” Buffy replied mournfully. “It won’t. This thing isn’t your salvation, Tang. It’s your damnation. I just wish I could explain it to you.”

As it turned out, no explanation was necessary. They followed Tang toward the center stone just as the crowd began to surge away from the thing. The old men that Tang had been speaking with earlier scrambled past them as well, one of the men whimpering quietly to himself as he passed. When William looked around for Tang, he wasn’t to be found; lost in the increasingly frantic crowd.

Once they drew closer to the stone, it was easy to see why the men had scattered. Where the ‘gate’ had been giving off a dull glow earlier, it now shone with a bright blue light. The slashes in the stone’s surface had connected and a glowing doorway appeared. It snapped and sparked with dark energy.

Something was powering the doorway. Whether it was feeding off hate or fear, it was impossible to tell and ultimately, it didn’t really matter. Whatever it was repulsed him, made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. Resisting every instinct within him to flee, he continued to step toward the pulsing stone, Buffy at his side.

A voice cried out in Chinese, then another joined it. The sounds were quickly followed by a low rumbling of voices. Buffy looked at him in panic. They both what the sounds likely meant. The mob below had begun to ascend the hill.

“So do we do nothing? Do we fight them?” Buffy asked.

“No. We … find a way to fight where the battle is not.”

“I’m not sure I know how to do that. At the end of epic battles, you and I always tended to end up … well, dying. If death is my gift, it’s the gift that keeps giving. Why does it always seem to come down to blood?”

A thought came to him, a flash of inspiration and he blurted it out before he could consider it for long. “If this thing, this doorway, is designed to feed off the blood of a massacre, what would happen if we fed it something else?”

“Like what?”

“What would happen if we fed it sacrificial blood, freely given. If instead of feeding off of hate, we offered it … love?”

“If we offered it us?”

He nodded, solemnly.

“It’s almost like when I jumped through the portal to save Dawn. Except then, it might have been the fall that killed me. Here – we just don’t know what’s on the other side.”

“From your experience, what might be?” He had to ask.

“It could be another dimension or another time within this dimension. It might be nothingness. To be honest, William, it might be hell. But no matter what it is, I have to believe that our feeding it the opposite of what it’s supposed to eat is going to mess it up big time.”

He wanted to hold her, kiss her one last time, tell her what the whole thing had meant to him and how she’d transformed his being. But the sounds of the coming mob were growing closer and there was far too much to say to know how to begin.

She looked at him, tears running freely down her face. “I guess there’s one way to find out. You with me in this? Our last big adventure?”

Tenderly, he swept her tears away with his thumbs and nodded at her, smiling. “Always. In sickness and in health and at Hellmouths. I am yours.”

And, simple as that, with hands clasped tightly, they stepped through the doorway.


-The End-



No blinding light

Or tunnels to gates of white

Just our hands clasped so tight

Waiting for the hint of a spark …

Death Cab for Cutie



Author’s note: On to the epilogue.







Epilogue by Puddinhead
Author's Notes:
I posted this the same day as my final chapter. Don't forget to read 39 first!
Thanks to Minx, Lutamira and DK for the epilogue. Without them - there wouldn't be one! I know that in this world of ours, we tend to only say nice things in feedback. If you have something not nice to say to me after that ending, that's ok too. I'd really like to hear your honest thoughts.

Thanks!
Epilogue
“Hold on, there,” Dru’s Dark Prince crooned in her ear. Dru halted her progression up the hill.

“Got me a funny feeling about this, darlin’. No need to rush ahead.”

Dru listened, waited, watched. The humans continued up the hill, her army of vampires on their heels, just far enough in the distance to remain out of sight.

The ground shifted, groaned, and the lovely blue light that had illuminated the hilltop suddenly flashed bright, then began to sputter, like a dying candle.

“God dammit!” her cowboy shouted. “Those mother-whoring bastards!”

“William?” Dru asked.

“Something has come along, Dru-girl. Something that we didn’t expect and I reckon the best thing to do now is skedaddle.”

The ground beneath her feet rumbled a warning. Dru turned and scrambled down the hill, pushing past her climbing fledglings.

The earth shifted and shook, harder this time, sending stones and dirt down the hill. Dru looked over her shoulder to see that the climbing mob had stopped halfway up the hill. Weapons lowered, they turned to exchange puzzled looks with one another.

‘Where? Where should I go?” Dru asked her Dark Prince.

“Go to ground, sweetheart. Run to the mines. The tunnels’ll be fallin’ in on each other to be sure, but you can always dig your way out. Dirt’s better than burnin’.”

Dru scrambled to her left and ran down the path toward the mine entrance. It was no simple task, between the large stones that bounced across her path and the steady stream of humanity that was now pouring down the hill.

Behind her, she heard someone scream. It was a thin, reedy sound and she turned to look. One of her fledglings had the preacher by his throat. The thin man’s legs beat out a steady rhythm against the hard-packed earth as the young vampire drank deeply.

“The sun, Dru. Keep a-going. Daylight, as they say, is burnin’.”

The earth groaned, and emitted another prolonged shudder. Two humans were blocking her way; she shoved them to the ground and rounded the corner, seeing, at long last, the entrance to the Sunnydale Mine.

On the far side of the mine entrance she could see a river of a different sort; the Chinese men were fleeing toward the fields. The earth shook, even harder this time, knocking Dru to the ground. She watched a large boulder bounce down the hill and smash through a fence. Its splinters flew past her face.

She climbed to her feet and dashed inside the mine entrance just as the sun’s rays began to spill across the fields.

“Further, darlin’. Go on now. I won’t leave you.”

She scrambled backwards into the tunnel just as the ground gave the largest jolt yet. As the earthen tunnels collapsed around her, she couldn’t help but wonder what had gone wrong? What kind of thing had the power to undo all their carefully laid plans?

Then the walls fell in on her and all went dark.

~*~

Sunnydale High School, 1997

A small historical marker sits just to the left of the main entrance.

‘Sunnydale Silver Mine/Chinatown Disaster’

This is the site of the former Sunnydale Silver Mine, which was operational from 1872-1878. After the close of the mine, the area became known as Sunnydale’s Chinatown. The area was destroyed by an earthquake on August 25, 1880. Since there was a prolonged amount of seismic activity prior to the collapse of the tunnel system, there were only four recorded deaths.
Folklore quickly spread regarding the event. Chinatown witnesses told of being saved by a man and woman, who were called the great ‘ying xiongs’ – the Chinese word for ‘hero.’ Local legend told that by stepping through Heaven’s Gate, they moved the sun in the sky, turned monsters to dust and caused the ground to swallow up the evil surrounding the mine.
Chinatown was destroyed in the event and in 1978 ground was broken on Sunnydale High School.


“That’s weird,” the petite blonde mumbled. “Don’t remember seeing this here before.”

Then the bell rang and she dashed off, late for class again. She forgot about the marker entirely before she even reached the door.


---------

Final author’s note:

You may be asking ‘what happened to William and Buffy?’ I don’t blame you – it’s a good question and I’ll get to it in a sec.

This was a story about journeys – and not just the ones they took over sea and land. It was about the journey our girl took from Elizabeth to Buffy to Slayer. It was about William’s continuing journey into being the man that he’d hidden away for most of his life. It was also about the journey they took as a couple – seeing that a fully human William could be the perfect partner for a slayer. (It was even about Dru’s path and seeing that with a nurturing lover, like Billy, her madness took a different turn than it would have under a monster like Angelus or Warren.) And at long last, it was about the journey our couple took back to where they began. Because Buffy and William have always been heroes at their core, willing to sacrifice their lives for others.

Those journeys and this tale are done.

Where did they end up? I honestly don't know. It could be anywhere, really. But my guess is that they’ve ended up sometime in the 1990s, right back in Sunnydale. That scar on William’s eyebrow make him the spitting image of Spike, which provides for lots of interesting opportunities. And that worrisome cough he’s developed over the last half dozen chapters – well, if it means what I think it does, he’d need some modern medicine to set him right. The Powers That Be can’t be douche bags all the time, can they? They might even be doing our couple a favor.

That tale isn’t one I can tell right now. I don’t have a story for it, frankly. If I ever do one day, I’ll be back. In the meanwhile, I’m going to spend some time reworking “Yours” and possibly even work on a few Billy the Kid tales that won’t leave my head. I can’t really post those on a Spuffy forum tho! When I do have another Spuffy tale, I’ll be back.

In the meantime, thanks for everything and I hope to see you soon.
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