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.”

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.