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.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thank you to capella42 for beta'ing this chapter. Thanks to Xaphania for the banner
Chapter 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!
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!