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.