I Have Waited For You
Chapter Three
September 1879
When William woke, he reached out across the bed, searching for Buffy’s warmth. It was automatic, something he had done nearly every morning for the last few months; he usually awoke before her. But she wasn’t there.
Groggily, he sat up, unfamiliar smells assailing his nostrils. The sharp, biting scent of a dying fire, a harsh, herbal, soapy smell on the sheets—which were different, too. Scratchier, not as soft as he was used to.
A dawning horror overcame him as he rose to full wakefulness, and he scrambled backwards, his head hitting the iron bars of the bedstead.
“No.” His words were mumbled, barely audible. “Please, God, no!”
He’d been sent back.
Shaking with the shock of waking up back in his old home, he felt the warmth of tears on his cheeks and his breath catching in his throat. He pulled the covers up over his head, tucked his legs to his chest, and began to mutter incoherently, the words almost lost in the tightness of his throat.
“Send me back, send me back, pleasepleaseplease, let me go back, oh God, I don’t want to be here.” He didn’t know how long he sat there, slipping into a state of denial over what had actually happened. He closed his eyes and lay back down, trying to pretend that he was back with Buffy.
At some point, blackness overcame him and he surrendered happily to the oblivion of sleep.
***
A scream roused him for the second time, and he shot out of bed, months of being with Buffy having trained him to know that a scream meant nothing good: demons, or monsters of some kind.
When he saw his mother, one hand pressed to her heart and the other covering her mouth, he remembered. He wasn’t with Buffy. The demon—time-shifter, he had taken to calling it in his mind—had finally caught up with him. Sent him home.
“William?” His mother’s voice trembled on the word, and she took a hesitant step forwards. “My God, it really is you!”
He found himself swept up into a tight hug, the wool of his mother’s dress rough against his face, and her favourite scent—violets—almost overpowering him. He sank into the familiar embrace, already feeling the constraints of this era pulling at him, telling him how ridiculous it was for a grown man to be taking such comfort from his mother.
But he didn’t care. His whole world had been ripped harshly away from him, and if she could make the pain stop for just one second, he would let her.
***
October 1879
Life went on. He didn’t want it to; he would have been perfectly happy with hibernating under his bed sheets for the rest of his life, but his mother would hear nothing of that.
After her first, hysterical greeting, she had gone back to being the refined older lady that he remembered, and she had taken to constantly chastising him for things that were far from his fault. Little slips into twenty-first century slang. Slouching at dinner when he should have been sitting upright. Habits he’d picked up from the future, which suited him far better than the repressed life he had been forced back into.
He hated it.
He had returned in late September, only two months having passed since his disappearance as opposed to the year and a half he’d spent in Sunnydale. He had no explanation for his mother when she asked him where he’d been, simply mouthing wordlessly and retreating to his room. She gave up asking after a while.
Every day was a struggle. Waking up was the hardest part, for in sleep he at least had his dreams—dreams of Buffy, and even of her friends. Daylight hours were spent in his library, all the books he had to hand on the supernatural spread across the desk as he searched for an answer.
By night, he roamed the graveyards and cemeteries of London, sure that if there was anything paranormal in nature, it would be there, in a place of death. He never saw anything.
The weeks wore on, his search for a way to return to the future fruitless. He heard nothing of any disappearances, no sign that the time-shifter was still around at all.
The rational part of him told him that he should give up, live out his life in the way that was expected of him—as a repressed Victorian gentleman—but his reckless side, the part of him that loved Buffy with all of his heart, told him to keep going, keep looking. Still, it seemed hopeless.
And then he saw her. A dazzling dark beauty, dressed in velvet finery. Standing at the entrance to an alleyway, her eyes were fixed on the night sky, a small smile on her lips.
When she turned to look at him, her face morphed into a vampire visage, and all of a sudden, like a wave crashing on the shore, the dots connected.
I didn’t come home, because I was following something. A vampire. He looked like you.
And he knew what he had to do.
***
November 2001
“No!” Buffy fell onto the bed in the spot where William had disappeared from, hardly able to believe what had just happened. She was numb, her eyes wide in shock but dry of tears. There was a gnawing, nagging pain in the pit of her stomach, and she curled up in a ball to try to make it go away.
All those weeks of William fearing this thing… Buffy had never really taken his worries seriously, and now—it had taken him. She knew that she should get up, call the others and double their efforts to find out what the demon was and how she could get William back, but it hurt to move.
And what were the chances, anyway? They’d been researching for months with no results. As the futility of the situation sank in, she finally let the tears fall.
***
“Buffy!”
She woke up to the sound of her name, and something rattling at her window. As she sat up, the events of the last few hours all came back to her at once, and her face crumpled.
“Buffy, love.” The voice was familiar… William’s, but a little rougher in accent. The vampire. “Slayer! I need to talk to you!”
Buffy shot out of bed, crossing to the window and thrusting it open, anger, and shock, and pain making her movements jerky and uncontrolled. The vampire was standing in the front yard beneath the big evergreen tree, arm raised and ready to throw another handful of stones.
She glared at him, hating the fact that he still wore William’s face, cursing herself for not staking him earlier in the night. “Go away.” Her words lacked their usual punch.
The vampire dropped the handful of pebbles and looked up at her with such tenderness in his eyes that she found hard to glance away from. He looked so much like William in that moment and with his loss still fresh in her heart, her feelings were conflicted, confused.
“Let me in, please,” he said, before running his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t think it’d be this difficult. I’ve—he’s gone, yeah? Taken by that thing.”
Buffy looked at him suspiciously, her mind racing as she tried to work out what was going on. It was all connected, somehow. The disappearances, the dark shadow, William’s nervousness over the last few weeks, and now—this vampire. Try as she might, however, she couldn’t make all the pieces fit. And there was only one thing she wanted to know. “Do you know how to get him back?”
“Yes.” He swallowed, and her eyes followed the bobbing of his Adam’s apple. “I can explain everything.”
Buffy didn’t reply, but moved away from the window and down the stairs, opening the front door to find the vampire on the doorstep, his expression anxious. When a few seconds passed by with neither of them saying anything, he raised a hand and pressed it to the invisible barrier. “I need an invitation.”
“Come in.” Her words were terse, and she wrapped her arms around herself, stepping backwards to let him cross the threshold. She led him into the kitchen, and leaned back against the counter, eyes hard. “Talk. How do I get William back?”
“You don’t.” He made a sudden move forwards, as though he wanted to catch her hand in his, or pull him against her.
“You said—!” Angry tears built in her eyes and threatened to spill over.
“Shh, love.” This time, he did reach out, brushing his thumb over her cheeks to wipe her tears away. She shuddered, but didn’t pull away, his touch achingly familiar. “Don’t cry. You know I hate to see you cry.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s me, love. I—I’m him. William.” He let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “The demon, the one you’ve been looking for? It’s a time-shifter. Brought me here in the first place… sent me—him—me back just now. Hundred and twenty odd years into the past. And I knew I had to get back to you, sweetheart. Got myself vamped.”
Buffy’s eyes had gone wide when he had started to speak, and now she was backing away, shaking her head. “No… you’re lying. I don’t believe you. This can’t be happening.”
“I have waited for you for so long, Buffy.” His voice shook on each word, and if the look in his eyes was anything to go by, he was telling the truth.
Buffy reached out a trembling hand. “William?”
“Yes.” He nodded, holding in unneeded breath as he waited for her to speak again.
“I don’t understand,” she repeated, squeezing her eyes tightly shut.
“I was from the past,” he began. “Went to bed one night—1879 it was—and when I woke up, I was here. Sunnydale, the year 2000. I didn’t know what had happened; everything was so confusing. A Victorian gentleman ending up in the twenty-first century? You can imagine.” He paused, and chanced a glance towards Buffy. Her head was tilted, but the stiff posture of her body told him that she was listening. “Anyway. I tried to get on with things, make a life for myself here. It was difficult, but I did it. Then I met you.”
At this, Buffy lifted her head and met his eyes. Smiling, he continued. “Realised that the supernatural was real… that what had happened to me must have been something demony.” He met her eyes with a grin at using a word so very obviously hers. “Fell in love with you. Never thought it would happen to me—that anyone would ever—” His voice cracked.
Buffy didn’t know what to say, what to think. She had the missing pieces to the puzzle, now, and everything was slotting into place. “And then people started disappearing, and you realised it was the same thing that had gotten you.” She bit her lip. “That’s why you were so scared.”
William nodded. “Dunno why, just had this feeling that it’d come after me again. Was right.”
“This is difficult to get my head round,” Buffy said. “This only happened tonight, for me.”
“I know, love. I was gonna wait, give you some time… but I couldn’t stand it. I’ve already waited for so many years. Got here too early, even.”
“You’re a vampire,” she whispered, as if that fact had only just occurred to her.
“Yeah,” William replied. “Only way I could think of to get back to you.”
“How?” She asked. “Not the vamping… I know how that works. But… don’t vampires wake up with the urge to hunt? To kill?” Her last words were barely audible. “You don’t have a soul.”
“I don’t. But I have something else.” He took her hands in his, and brought them to his mouth, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “Love.”
Buffy broke away from him and started to pace. “No. No, I can’t. You want me to believe that you just woke up all fangy and thought Hey, I loved Buffy once upon a time, so I’m not gonna eat people? You’re a vampire. You can’t love.”
“I can! I do. I love you, Buffy.” He approached her, feeling his heart begin to break at the thought that she might reject him, after so many years of waiting. “Still. So much.”
They stared at each other in silence, William hoping that he’d done enough to convince her that what he said was true, and Buffy not knowing what to do. Everything in her was yearning to take him in her arms, kiss him, hug him and to just be thankful that he was there. But she was at war with the Slayer in her, the warrior who had always been taught that vampire equalled badness.
How could it ever work? They’d never be able to go out in the sunlight, never be able to do normal, coupley things like go on holiday together. Get married. Have children.
“Stop it,” he said, trying not to let the panic he felt cloud his voice. “I know you, Summers. You’re coming up with all sorts of reasons in that noggin of yours for why this wouldn’t work. Stop it, you hear me? Listen to your heart, and what it’s tellin’ you.”
“It’s telling me to forget about everything else, and just kiss you.”
William smirked. “Sounds like a plan to me.”
“But I can’t,” Buffy shouted. “I’m the Slayer! You know that better than anyone.”
“Exactly!” He was getting agitated, fear over losing her making his voice rise. “You’re the one, Buffy. A hundred plus years and there’s only been one thing I’ve ever been sure of: getting back to you. Please don’t shut me out.” His throat was thick with tears. “Please. Please.”
She shook her head, opening and closing her mouth soundlessly, her eyes stinging with unshed tears. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she wondered if her next move would change everything, or if it would change nothing at all. He was still her William. The last few minutes had shown her that.
Biting her lip, she let out a choked sob and collapsed into his arms, squeezing him so tightly that if he were an ordinary man, he’d be struggling to breathe. She buried her head in his shoulder, finally allowing the tears to fall when she felt his arms slip around her, his hands burrowing into her hair.
“I’m here,” he whispered, lips meeting hers. “Finally done waiting. I’m here.”
-END-
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This is it, the final chapter. There's a longer A/N at the end.
Thank you again to Sotia for beta-reading, and thank you to the reviewers!
Thank you again to Sotia for beta-reading, and thank you to the reviewers!
Chapter End Notes:
First, I hope that the ending wasn't too fluffy for you. ;)
Second... the idea behind the time-shifter came from the Doctor Who episode Blink -- the weeping angels. They kill people by sending them into the past, and let them 'live to death'. Credit to RTD & Stephen Moffat for that.
Finally, I know that I left some loose ends--what William did in the intervening years, what happened to Drusilla, did they defeat the time-shifter etc. but I didn't want the fic to be about that--it was about Buffy and William, and their relationship.
Thanks for reading! =)
Second... the idea behind the time-shifter came from the Doctor Who episode Blink -- the weeping angels. They kill people by sending them into the past, and let them 'live to death'. Credit to RTD & Stephen Moffat for that.
Finally, I know that I left some loose ends--what William did in the intervening years, what happened to Drusilla, did they defeat the time-shifter etc. but I didn't want the fic to be about that--it was about Buffy and William, and their relationship.
Thanks for reading! =)