Archive of Our Own

Marisol: Why are you doing this for us?
Joe: Because I knew someone like you once and there was no one there to help. Now, get moving.
     —“A Fistfull of Dollars”

★ ★ ★

“Buffy! Buffy!” She came to, Dawn shaking her shoulder. Her little sister’s blue eyes were huge in the flickering light of the candle she held. Buffy grimaced, but before she could lay into Dawn, the girl said, “There’s someone in the barn!”

Well, that got her moving like nothing else. “Go to Momma,” she ordered. Dawn nodded as Buffy stuffed her feet into her boots and pulled her jacket over her long nightshirt. When she got to the front door and reached for her rifle, Xander appeared at her shoulder.

“Miss Buffy, what’s wrong?” he asked, clearly concerned.

“Dawnie says someone’s in the barn,” she said. She hefted the rifle, opened the action, and checked the chamber. It was clear, and she quickly fed rounds into the loading port. Her smile was sharp and white in the night. “I reckon I’m gonna go see ‘em off.”

“Shouldn’t I, uh, help?” Xander licked his lips nervously. It was sweet of him, she supposed, that he wanted to help. But they both knew he was better as a handyman and general ranch hand than he was a shot. No, since Buffy’s worthless hound of a father had run away with that harlot, it had been on her to protect her family and their land.

“Need you to stay with Momma and Dawn. Protect them ‘till I get back.”

“Of course, Miss Buffy.”

Then she was out the door, boots crunching across the dry ground that separated the house and the barn. The barn where a light shone out of cracks between the planks and the upset whicker of horses was accompanied by a low, masculine voice, then the clatter of something being knocked over. Buffy crept around to the door the intruder had foolishly left open. A quick glance let her mark his position, and then she was through the door, rifle at the ready.

“Hands up!” she shouted.

The interior of the barn was dark. Whisper-thin slivers of moonlight did nothing to relieve the blackness, but she caught sight of a too-pale flicker of skin and white-bright hair as the trespasser—thief, no doubt—ponderously turned about to face her.

Buffy sighted for the center of the man-shaped shadow that loomed in her barn.

“I said hands up, thief!”

The shadow swayed. Buffy fired. The loud retort of the rifle filled up the barn setting the horses to a shrill manner of neighing. She worked the lever action and kept her gun pointed at the man. He didn’t move. She inched forward slowly as if he might rouse and strike at her in a moment. When Buffy got close enough, she kicked his shoulder making him groan, but he didn’t seem inclined to get up.

“You shot him!” Dawn’s voice was a breathless gasp. Buffy glared over her shoulder to see her sister peering around the barn door. Xander appeared behind her, a helpless grimace on his face.

“She wouldn’t listen to me!” he protested.

“Don’t be too hard on him, Buffy,” Momma said as she wrapped an arm around Dawn. “We heard the shot and had to come to see if you were alright.”

“I’m fine,” Buffy said through clenched teeth.

“Did you kill him?” Dawn asked, peering around Buffy, the morbid thing that she was.

“No, didn’t kill him,” Buffy said. Then she frowned. The straw at her feet stuck to her boots, already tacky with blood. Holding out the rifle, Momma took it from her hands and kept it aimed at the intruder. Buffy knelt, and with a grunt of effort rolled him onto his back. Cautiously, she let her hand spider-walk down his shirt and felt the wet-tackiness of blood. Blood that couldn’t have been drying if he’d just been shot. “I don’t think I even shot him. I think someone else shot him before he got here.”

“Then we best get him inside the house and see to him,” Momma said, matter of fact and sure as the sunrise.

“Momma, you can’t be serious!”

“I won’t have a fella bleeding to death on our land if we didn’t cause it.”

There was no arguing with that, or Momma in general. Buffy resigned herself to getting one arm underneath the trespasser, and Xander came to help her. Between them, they dragged the stranger into the house. Dawn got a lantern going while Xander built up the hearthfire to drive off the night’s chill.

When she laid him out on the woven rug in front of the fireplace, Buffy finally got a good look at him. In the ruddy light, he still looked pale, but blood loss would do that to a man, she supposed. That aside, his features were sharp—like they’d been chiseled from stone. There was a sharp edge to his jaw, and the sweep of his cheekbones were stark. But those hard planes and angles were softened by the fullness of his mouth and long, dark lashes. He was a pretty man, she’d give him that, even with the scar marring one dark brow and the strangely pale hair.

Then Momma was directing them in a flurry of motion; fetching water, boiling it, cleaning the stranger up and patching the bullet wound that had gone clear through his shoulder.

When she saw it, Buffy knew she had been right. He’d been shot before he’d stepped foot on their land, because when she’d fired he’d been facing her, but he’d been shot in the back.

That left her with one question: who would shoot a man in the back?

★ ★ ★

Liam could admit his faults. He had many, just ask his father. He could even freely admit he had a bit of the old Irish temper. But this? This put him past temper and into something cold and hard.

“Tell me again exactly what happened,” he said, voice deceptively soft. Andrew cringed as the rest of the men looked on.

“We was, uh, tracking him, sir, just like you ordered.” Andrew stammered his words. It made Liam want to backhand the idiot to force the words out in a more timely fashion. But no, no he had to be in control.

“No,” he bit out the word. “Tell me how you lost him. How you, one of the best trackers we have, lost a man who’d been shot and bleeding-- a trail that a blind, idiot, child could have followed?!” Liam’s voice rose to a bellow as his rage slipped out and he slammed heavy fists into Andrew’s unshaven face.

Andrew collapsed to the ground, hands raised. Liam glared at the rest of his men, and they, at least, were more reliable. Good men, solid men. Men who understood force, and that force was Liam’s to deal out at need.

“I—I tracked him as far as I could, sir! Honest!” Andrew’s voice was high and strained. “But he’s a better tacker, and you all know that! He knows how to lose a tail better’n any of us! Man’s damned near an Injun!”

A mirthless grin curved Liam’s mouth and, without warning, he kicked Andrew in the stomach, before hauling him up by his shirt front. “I don’t care what it takes! You’re going to find him! He knows where my jewels are hiding, and when we find him, I’m going to take back what’s mine. You hear me?!”

“Yes, sir!” Andrew nodded so fast Liam wondered if his head could fall clean off. It might improve his intelligence.

Liam let him go with a rough shove. Andrew stumbled away. One of the other men, a found-faced student fellow, took his arm and steadied him. Then Liam called out, “Oh Andrew?” Like a dog, Andrew turned at the sound of his name. “Don’t you fail me now. You know what happens to those who disappoint me.”

“Yes, sir,” Andrew squeaked. Then he legged it. Liam glared at the rest of his men before shouting at them to break camp and mount up. They’d track down the little English betrayer, and then Liam—well, then Liam could really let his temper go.

★ ★ ★

Pain was the defining feature of his growing awareness. It was a fight to swim up from the depths of unconsciousness, but every time he attempted it there was a hand on his chest and an imperious voice telling him, “Don’t you be getting up now and ruining all my Momma’s hard work.”

With orders like that, and the warm hand on his chest, Spike let himself be pushed back down into sleep where the pain couldn’t touch him quite so much.

How long he stayed under the waterline of his own mind, he didn’t know. What he did know was that when he finally managed to blink his eyes open, daylight was streaming in through… wherever he was. It was warm. There was a blanket over him, and—he tried to raise himself up on his elbows and bit back a scream. Fire seared all along his right shoulder making him lay back down with a whimper.

“You’re awake!” A fresh-faced girl of no more than fourteen appeared right over him.

“Suppose I am. Don’t reckon it’s in you to tell a fella where he is?” His voice was a dry rasp.

The girl’s face scrunched up. “You’re in our house, obviously. Weren’t going to leave you to bleed out in the barn. Or, well, Momma said we couldn’t. Buffy was all for it. I’m Dawn, by the way. Dawn Summers, and you was trespassin’, but I reckon you aren’t so bad a fella, seeing as how you were shot in the back. Must’ve been cowardly outlaws what’ve done for you, and you were just looking for help. Good thing Buffy missed you, and mind she’s a mite touchy about that. She’s all about being a good shot.”

“You’ll have to forgive me, Miss Dawn, but you just threw a mighty large parcel of words at a man who’s just woken from being perforated.”

“Perfo—?”

“Got more holes in me than usual.”

“Oh! Oh, I like that word. Thanks, mister!”

“Dawn!” another feminine voice came from somewhere. This voice was older and sharper. Cutting. The girl jumped away from him as if he were a hot iron. “What are you doing talking to that man?”

The woman who strode into his vision then was… not what he expected. She was petite and dressed in dungarees and a workman’s shirt underneath a sturdy vest, but her long blonde hair was tied away from her face in sweet little braids that showed off the pretty line of her neck. There was high color in her cheeks from working outside, and her nose had a dainty little upturn to it. It was her eyes, though, that struck him. There was a glimmer of green, maybe grey, and they were all fire.

“Buffy, he’s awake! Thought you’d be happy about that!” Dawn protested. “You making a fuss about him cluttering up the floor and all.”

“Clearly he’s awake if you're jabbering away at him,” Buffy snapped. Oh, she was a right bitch, she was. Pretty, though. Then she stood over him, hands on her hips and glared down at him as if he’d just been kicking her dog. “But now that you’re awake, you can tell us what you were doing on our land, and in our barn no less!”

Rolling to his left side, he grimaced as the pain of the gunshot burned through his right shoulder. He still levered himself up to sitting. The blanket that had been over him fell away, and he inspected the bandages that seemed to be well applied. Then he heard the sharp intake of breath from Buffy and a small squeak from the girl.

“Dawn, go get Momma and Xander,” Buffy said, voice a whipcrack. He snuck a glance at Buffy as the girl dashed away—a little sister no doubt about it. Buffy, though, glared at him in spite of the rosy flush of her cheeks. Ah, so she wasn’t made of stone. Well, too bad for her, but he wasn’t about to get tangled up in some lonely prairie girl’s skirts—or breeches. “Now, you,” she ordered with a kick at his sock-feet, “Tell me what you’re after on our land.”

“Was just looking for a place to get patched up on my way to town,” he answered. It had the virtue of being the truth. “Needed shelter, and I thought my chances were better with the horses than startling you all in the house.”

“You could’ve knocked,” she retorted waspishly. Oh, God help him, she was one of those women who couldn’t damn well come off her high horse.

“Cause you’re so welcoming and kind of strangers that you shoot them?”

“Cause you was trespassin’!”

“Buffy, you haranging that poor man and him only just woken up from taking a shot in the back?” Another feminine voice joined the clamor. Christ, was this a household entirely of women? The woman who joined them was older, a matronly age, though still in good form by the way her serviceable dress sat on her. On her heels was the loquacious Miss Dawn, and then a fella Spike didn’t know.

“You must be Mrs. Summers, then?” he asked, wishing he was better dressed all of a sudden. There was something about the older woman that put him in mind of a life he’d left behind when he’d crossed the Atlantic. But no, no he wasn’t thinking about that life and the hollowness of it. He’d come to this wild country for a reason, and he meant to see it through.

“I am, young man, so you have the advantage of me,” she said with an incline of her chin as she came around to kneel behind him and check on his bindings. He winced at her touch, no matter how careful she was. “I don’t suppose you’d volunteer your name?”

Spike was in something of a quandary. He’d avoided doing just that for a reason. His name could draw all sorts of the wrong kind of attention. Well, the name he’d been going by for the last three years anyhow. There was another name, one he’d left on the shores of Southampton.

“William, ma’am,” he said, throat suddenly dry. “William Pratt.”

“Well, William Pratt, you seem to be healing as well as can be expected. We’ll have Miss Maclay come on up to make sure, but until then, we’ll move you into the spare bunk in Xander’s cabin.”

“You don’t have to do that, Mrs. Summers,” Spike protested. She really didn’t.

“Hear that, Momma? He wants to leave right away. We wouldn’t want to get in the way of that,” Buffy said to her mother as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Spike couldn’t help the grin that curved his mouth.

“But I do sure appreciate your hospitality to a fella in need,” he drawled. His gaze caught sight of Miss Buffy Summers and was gratified as her mouth grew pinched and unhappy. Oh, that suited him right down to the ground. A man convalescing needed some manner of entertainment, and winding her up would be all sorts of amusing.

★ ★ ★

Buffy was starting to wish she’d shot the stranger. Oh, excuse her, William. The bastard. Sure, he was all smiles and politeness when Momma was around, and he mostly behaved himself in front of her sister. Buffy was certain he understood that any funny business around Dawn would see him turned out on his bum shoulder faster than a jack rabbit could run. But when Buffy found herself alone with him, and how she kept ending up alone with him couldn’t be coincidence because it happened nearly every damned day, he would put on a veneer of politeness all the while needling her.

If it wasn’t her choice of clothes, it was her complexion. If it wasn’t her purposeful stride, it was her voice. Little potshots at her that, had they been from anyone else, she could have ignored. But there was something about the way he said them that got under her skin.

At least Xander was sympathetic.

“I’m with you, Miss Buffy. He’s a scoundrel, no mistake. Those pistols he had on him? Fine make, but he’s not a lawman or he would’ve gone to the army by now. Are you sure we shouldn’t tell Captain Finn?”

Buffy’s heart fluttered every time she thought of the fine army captain who had ridden into town looking to place an order of horses for the calvary. He’d lingered in town after securing a deal for fifty head from Momma, and it hadn’t taken long for him to tell Buffy it was for her. She’d had suitors before, but that had all been before Daddy had up and left them for a young heiress back East. Captain Finn, though, didn’t seem put off by her lack of father. Instead, he’d shaken his head and said she—her whole family—deserved to have a real man about.

“Thing is, we don’t have any proof he was stealing,” Buffy said with a bitter sigh. “And Momma’s insisting that we wait until he’s healed up. Hopefully Tara will give him a good bill of health soon enough, and he’ll be gone faster’n you can spit.”

“I can spit pretty fast, Miss Buffy,” Xander said, a teasing grin on his face.

“You can at that,” she said, grinning. “Come on, let’s go round up our stock. See how they’re coming along in their training.”

Then she got back to work. It was what she did best.

★ ★ ★

Spike winced as Miss Maclay prodded at the gaping hole in his shoulder. Unlike most other women, she did so with a calm kind of detachment. While he hadn’t always had a way with the ladies—only one lady, and her, he’d lost in the worst way—the man he’d become in this wild and dangerous land seemed to draw the feminine eye with greater alacrity than the man he’d been back on his native soil. Save for Miss Maclay.

“If you don’t mind my saying,” he said between grimaces and gasps as she applied a resinous poultice to the wound. “You seem entirely unperturbed as you go about your work.”

Miss Maclay’s glance flickered to his face before returning to her work. “I’m a midwife, Mr. Pratt,” she said quietly, yet firmly. “I’ve seen worse than this.”

“Ah,” was all he could say before she started to bandage him up again and he bent all his focus on not screaming. Not while Miss Buffy stood in the corner of the cabin he had to share with the idiotic and suspicious ranch hand. The bitch of a Summers woman (because the other two were lovely and easy to want to charm) only glared at him and stomped away when it became clear he wasn’t well enough to be kicked out yet. Two weeks of needling her, Spike had found his amusement with the pastime growing thin. He was running out of things to insult her about. Soon he’d be reduced to pulling on her braids like a school boy.

When Miss Maclay left, he hobbled out of the cabin holding his shoulder tenderly, and had nothing to do save watch Miss Buffy as she rounded up the herd of horses and she put each one through its paces. Mrs. Summers had told him about the army purchase. Spike had decided to keep his head down and stick close to the Summers ranch. If the army was about, catching their attention was the last thing he needed.

He watched, leaning on a wooden railing, as she rode with an easy grace and a good seat, managing the gait and executing sharp pivots worthy of a cavalry mount. But never with a whip or a crop. Miss Buffy trained all her horses with the bridle, bit, and spurr-less kicks of her heels. A gentle training method, but he knew the danger of training a horse with brutal methods. A horse had to trust the rider, and those horses certainly trusted her. He saw it in the way they followed her like she was the head of the herd, the way they lipped at her hair and made her smile and drew a high, sweet laugh from her. He watched as she turned about to affectionately scold the offending filly with a silvery laugh. The late afternoon sunlight touched her hair and made it gleam as fine as flax.

Frowning, he shook his head. There was no call to be thinking such things about that fishwife of a woman. No doubt she’d make some man very unhappy one day, with her sharp, fiery green eyes, and cutting tongue that insulted him even as her voice was sickly honeyed. Words that stirred him to snap back. Because she really had started it from the moment he’d woken up, and kept it up as she more than once talked about wishing she had shot him for true.

Spike pushed off the fence only to wince as pain radiated out from his wounded shoulder. But he grimaced through it, and stalked away before he could think any other traitorous thoughts about Miss Buffy Summers. She wasn’t the one he was here for, after all. But he had to heal before he could finish his business in town.

★ ★ ★

“Now, Miss Dawn, you’ll want to ask for two cards,” William instructed patiently as he taught Dawn how to play poker. Poker! And Momma was allowing it. Buffy sat by the fireplace ostensibly reading a book—a lovely tale of romance from England by the fine Miss Austen—but covertly watching to make sure William wasn’t doing anything untoward. So far, he had behaved himself.

They kept playing poker, and William kept patiently explaining what hand was the best to have among them. Even Xander drew a little closer, and though William grumbled, he relented when Dawn asked William to deal Xander in. Buffy shot Momma a peremptory glance, then, but Momma shook her head and kept herself occupied with her stitching.

Buffy huffed and tried to keep her attention on her book. She turned a page without having read a single word.

Then Dawn called out, “Buffy! You should join us! It’s good fun.”

“I’m reading, Dawn,” she said without looking up.

“Aw, come on, Miss Buffy,” Xander wheedled. “You can’t really like reading that sappy story again.”

“I like it!” she protested.

“What’s this?” William drawled. “Miss Buffy reading a… romance?”

“It’s Pride and Prejudice by—” Dawn began to answer

“Jane Austen,” William supplied. Buffy’s head jerked up, and her eyes felt wide in her face. William regarded her with a mirrored look of surprise, as if he hadn’t meant to say that aloud.

“You know Jane Austen?” Buffy asked, feeling dazed.

William shrugged awkwardly, and then winced, aborting the gesture. In a pained voice, he said, “She is English. A countrywoman of mine.”

“Did you know her?” Dawn’s voice was breathless. William laughed, though it was without a hint of mockery.

“No, little one, not by a long shot. We would’ve been in different circles, back home, and she’s a good fifty some years passed on.”

“Oh.” Dawn deflated.

Buffy shut the book and stood, brushing dust and debris off her dungarees, before she sat herself at the table where even her loyal friend had been drawn in by the call of cards. William tilted his head at her, brows raised in shock. Dawn’s big blue eyes darted between them like she was watching two cats about to fight.

“I ain’t getting any reading done with you all gabbing on anyhow,” she said with a lift of her chin. “Deal me in, Mister Pratt.”

“Alright then, Miss Buffy. Stake is a thousand dollars,” he said with a smug grin. Buffy frowned before Dawn giggled.

“We’re making up bets,” she explained.

“Alright, then,” Buffy said with a smile curving her mouth, “a thousand and one.”

“A woman after my own heart, you are,” William said with a grin that left smug behind and became something a little warmer. Buffy rolled her eyes and took up her cards. She’d see about that grin when she won all that imaginary money off of him.

★ ★ ★

“You serious?” Miss Buffy asked. She regarded him with a fair amount of skepticism that wasn’t entirely unwarranted. He’d taken to needling her straight off the bat, but he’d given that up for a good week and change now! It helped that she wasn’t quite so high and mighty anymore, not since they’d all taken to playing poker of an evening and making fake bets.

Problem was, that still left long stretches of daylight where he was at loose ends.

“I reckon I’m gonna lose my mind if I gotta sit around and do a fat lot of nothing for too much longer. And Miss Maclay did say that a moderate amount of work would be good for me at this point. I know I can’t shovel out stables or the like, but I can—I can curry the horses or lead ‘em about, or even help train them! Miss Buffy, you gotta give me something to do.”

“I gotta, do I?” She crossed her arms and held herself imperiously, the picture of dismissal. But her eyes danced. It felt like they were dancing, almost, stepping around each other as the tune between them was changing.

Spike took his hat off his head and placed it over his heart. “Miss Buffy, it would be a great favor to me if you’d most graciously give me something to bloody well do.”

For long moments she said nothing. Then the corner of her mouth twitched. He had her, he knew. It wasn’t long after that he was given a list of tasks that she thought he could do with his shoulder still not entirely healed.

The days began to pass by more smoothly after that as Spike lost himself in the patterns and rhythms of looking after the horses. That didn’t mean there weren’t bumps along the road. Miss Buffy was exacting in her care of the herd—they were the family’s livelihood after all—and there were a few times they locked horns over how to best train a particular animal in its gait regulation or aid its tolerance of the sound of gunshot. He might’ve even dug his heels in more than he should have. There was just something so damned… fetching about Miss Buffy when she was worked up about something. Though, there was a time or two when he couldn’t come up with a reason to naysay her, and she almost looked shocked. As if she wasn’t used to having people agree with her.

All told, what surprised him was how well they worked together, even with the arguments. The last three years of his life had been a downward spiral of despair and anger and keeping himself tightly controlled to reach his goal. Taking his time to heal up on the Summers ranch, he found an ease in his heart he hadn’t known in… far too long.

Evenings were pleasant, too. They played all manner of card games, but sometimes the whole lot of them passed the time reading by firelight. It was… nice. Sometimes he found his gaze drifting to watch Miss Buffy read, her hard working fingers delicately turning pages on a romance that made her cheeks a little more flushed than the fire could account for.

A month into his recuperation, Miss Buffy and Xander invited him along to bring a sampling of stock into town to show to the army buyer. He declined. The idea of going into town, of not being sure if he was ready for what he might find there—he couldn’t face it just yet. Especially since his shoulder wasn’t fully healed yet. If he was going to finish what he came to start, if he was going to find Drusilla at last, he had to be well enough to spirit her away quickly. He couldn’t overplay his hand just yet, especially if Liam had any idea that Spike was still alive. That was it.

It wasn’t until Miss Buffy and Xander returned just before supper, and Spike saw how Miss Buffy was slightly dreamy eyed and bashful, that a terrible realization started to settle in his guts. The unfolding, unacceptable, unwelcome realization that simply could not be true. He’d hardly been a saint since he’d come to this land. The company he’d kept, the despair he’d felt over the years—he’d done things his former self would be appalled by. And yet, watching Miss Buffy shyly tell her mother and sister about how complimentary Captain Finn had been of the horses (and herself), that twist in his guts grew worse.

All through supper, he’d tried to convince himself it was merely a friendly kind of concern. Miss Buffy was too headstrong and willful a creature to be a staid army captain’s wife. She was too good, and had built too much here on this land, to give herself over to follow her husband around.

But then, after supper when he found himself helping her clean and dry the crockery, she kept sneaking glances at him and biting her lip as if she were trying to keep herself from speaking.

By the time he’d worked his nerve up to ask her what was on her mind, the fire had burned low and she’d retreated to the room she shared with Miss Dawn. And Spike was left to find his way back to his bunk all on his lonesome. It was a long night he spent staring at the dark, heavy-beamed ceiling and reminded himself of what he’d come to this town for. He had to keep that in the front of his mind. After so long, he couldn’t falter now. What kind of inconstant man would that make him? No, no he wouldn’t change course. His body was merely a body, and he’d yearned for touch before, and given in before to his shame. But never with someone of substance, never with someone who would matter. Never with someone who could touch more than his skin.

He couldn’t; he wouldn’t. No matter how his heart had begun to bend toward Miss Buffy as though it were a light starved sapling, and she was the sun itself.

★ ★ ★

Buffy had thought that after going to see Captain Finn, she would have been more assured about her choices. The good captain would purchase the horses for the army and then return to pay her proper suit. She’d been breathlessly excited about that for a good several months before William had quite literally blundered onto their land and into her life.

Only, after returning from town with Xander, and a sweet but lukewarm meeting with Captain Finn behind her, she couldn’t stop comparing the captain and William. She’d kept sneaking glances in William’s direction that evening as if seeing him for the first time. That first night, when she’d laid him out by the fire, she’d noted that he was a pretty sort of man, but that had been promptly buried underneath her overwhelming ire at his trespassing and the discourtesy he’d done of bleeding out in her barn. Now, though, after seeing Captain Finn again and his square, bluff features, William’s more sculpted face, with its sharp cheekbones, full lips, and the arresting blue of his eyes, Buffy kept thinking about how the good captain kept coming up short.

No, that wasn’t fair. Captain Finn was a reliable man! He had a nice smile. He was tall and well formed, she supposed.

Not like William. William who had hard, lean muscles. Ones she’d seen. Because she’d been needed to bandage him up that first time, and then when Tara had been on by to change his poultices and bandages while he’d been healing up. Memories that now made heat bloom across her cheeks.

But Captain Finn had stable employment! Being an Army Captain, that was a good thing. He was trustworthy. He drew a good pay packet. He wasn’t a mystery. He spoke about his family in Iowa and their farm with fondness. He would understand her love of her land and her ranch, then. Wouldn’t he?

William—he didn’t have any employment as far as she could tell. He barely spoke about himself. Nothing of substance. She knew he was English, and that he’d come to the United States a few years ago, though the exact number wasn’t clear. He was good with horses and Dawn and Momma. The one time she’d seen him cleaning his pistols, it was clear he knew how to use them. Otherwise he didn’t brandish them about or make claims about how he could shoot the wings off a fly or some such. That, more than anything, told her that he was good with them. Braggarts never were as good as they claimed to be.

Captain Finn boasted of his skill of firing while on a charging horse, though always saying how much better he’d shoot on a horse she trained. It was a compliment, wasn’t it?

No, she couldn’t go down that route. William would heal up soon and then be on his way. There was nothing tying him to this land. Or her. Nothing at all.

Buffy kept her mind on her work. She was training horses for the United States Army, and if she wanted to keep providing stock and ensure that her momma had a roof over her head in her later years, and that Dawn was set up for life, then she would not jeopardize a possible good match when she had one. That would be foolish. Even her friends would tell her so! Or they would, if they knew she was entertaining such thoughts about William.

It was three days after she’d gone to town, three days of her mind shuttling between thoughts of Captain Finn and William that gradually became thoughts of William only. Thoughts of how well his long-fingered hands coiled rope, or how his voice was low and rich come evening, or how his lashes were a dusky sweep that sometimes, she thought, was nearly coy. Those were not thoughts she should be having. Dreams she could not be dreaming in her bed next to her sister that left her overheated and uncomfortable between her legs.

That was why, on a dusty and overlong afternoon when Dawn was walking up the lane after her time in Miss Willow’s home-turned-school, Buffy’s attention slipped.

“Miss Buffy!” Xander’s voice broke past her haze, and she lifted her eyes to see the commotion. There was a young filly at the center of a group of older mares. The filly was struggling, throwing her head and trying to rear up as the other horses blocked her in and nipped at her.

Mouth set in a grim line, Buffy kicked her gelding into the herd with a strident, “Get back! Get back!”

Xander followed her lead on his own horse. Between them, they could contain this. They had to, or they risked some real damage to the stock. The filly lashed out with her powerful hind legs. There was a crack and a high, pained whinny. Buffy’s heart plummeted into her stomach. If they came up short on the order because of this, because of her inattention—

“William!” she cried, “corral them!”

“Hiya!” His shout was loud and clear, but before he could circle his horse around to try to separate the filly out of the herd, the thickly packed bodies of horses parted and the filly made a break for it. The young horse stretched her neck out and her long legs devoured the ground.

There was a scream from the long, dirt pathway.

“Dawnie!” Buffy cried, her throat fraying, but she couldn’t move. The filly had broken free of the herd, but Buffy was still stuck. Still sandwiched between the heavy, powerful bodies of her horses. Xander was likewise trapped. She reached, but there was nothing she could do, nothing—

Across the distance she saw William turn in the saddle, and without missing a beat, he yanked on the reins and kicked hard. The horse under him turned in a sharp, calvary-worthy pivot, and ran. William rose up in the stirrups, chasing down the runaway horse that was barreling toward Buffy’s little sister. The little sister she was meant to protect, to guide, to—

William caught up to the filly and, in a fit of madness, he leapt off his mount and gained the back of the galloping horse. Buffy was fighting her way free of the herd that was oh so slowly calming down. Not fast enough. There were tears in her eyes and a thick terror in her throat. William slipped, slid on the breakaway horse, but then he managed to hold his seat. She was too far away, she couldn’t see what he was doing, but the horse veered off the path and onto the unfenced pasture in a cloud of dust.

Dawn was still screaming, and Xander was shouting. Momma had run out of the house, demanding answers. Buffy kicked her gelding forward and, when she caught up to Dawn, she dismounted quickly and ran her hands over her sister’s arms, took in the wide, terrified blue of her eyes, and she heaved a sigh of relief to see Dawn was alright. Dawn was alright.

Xander reached them shortly, and Buffy told him to take Dawn up to the house to Momma. He did as she told him, and Buffy was grateful for it. She didn’t want to answer questions about why that had happened. What she had let happen.

Buffy caught up the reins of William’s horse and walked them both to where he stood in the pasture, now, forehead resting against the long nose of the two-year-old horse that had finally had enough rough treatment. His eyes were closed, but his mouth was moving.

“There now, girl, you’re a good girl, was a bit of a fright you had, but you’re alright. You’re alright. Calm now, calm, there’s a good girl, good girl.” His voice was a low rumble, his hands patient and sure on the horse’s lathered neck. She was blowing like a bellows, but William was breathing deep and steady and sure. She didn’t even whicker as Buffy approached on suddenly shaky legs.

William must’ve heard the clomp of Buffy’s boots and the slow gait of the two horses she had with her. He opened his eyes, and the first thing he asked her was, “Is Miss Dawn alright?”

“Yes,” Buffy croaked, feeling as if she’d been thrown. As if she were mid-throw, still in the air and waiting to hit the ground. All of Buffy wanted to press herself against him. To ground herself in the circle of his arms and dig her fingers into the hard muscles of his back. To be solid. Then she cleared her throat at his inquiring brow. “Yes, she’s just fine. Rattled, but alright. Thanks to you.”

He smiled at her, then. A wide, toothy smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle and her heart skip a beat.

“That’s what matters, then, isn’t it?”

That was when she knew. There was never comparing Captain Finn to William. Her heart had already made a choice.

★ ★ ★

“Are you certain?” Liam held the boy by the lapels. He nodded, apparently near tears. Christ, but the boy was soft.

“Y-yes, sir,” Andrew stammered. “He-he laid a lot of false trails, but-but he made for a little town called Sunnydale. I’m sure of it, sir. I’d bet my life on it.” A delightful shiver of anticipation ran through Liam’s whole body. His fist curled tighter into Andrew’s jacket and drew him in close. Close enough to feel the shiver of breath against his cheek.

“You are betting on it, boy.” Then he shoved, sending the piss-poor tracker sprawling in the dirt. “Warren!”

“Here, sir!” The black-haired lickspittle stepped forward. A man Liam could easily lose, but who had a killer instinct that tracker lacked. (Not like Spike. Spike had a killer instinct, though Liam had seen the hesitation in the Englishman’s face a time or two. Spike who had hid his intentions too damned well, and for that alone he deserved to die. But that he thought to steal what was rightfully Liam’s? The little bastard had to be snuffed out.)

“Take this… man, and one other. Go scout out the town. See if we’ve found our lost lamb,” Liam ordered.

“And, uh, what should we do when we see him?” Warren asked, licking his lips eagerly. Liam thought about that. There were a lot of options, but Spike was dangerous. Good with his pistols, good on a horse. Good at talking folks into things.

“Don’t approach him,” Liam said. “Spot him, make sure he’s there. Clock anyone else he talks to. Get me the lay of the town, and then report back.”

“And then?” Warren prompted with a greedy gleam in his eyes.

Liam grinned and clapped Warren on the shoulder with a heavy hand. “And then, I get back what’s rightfully mine.”

★ ★ ★

The ride into town was pleasant enough with the sun shining and the summer birds flitting about, but Spike felt every nerve of him stretched taut. Mrs. Summers drove the wagon, Miss Dawn sitting beside her, the pair chatting happily. The wagon itself was acting as point for the herd of horses they were at last bringing to town to sell off to the US Army. Xander rode swing while Miss Buffy was riding flank. Spike, having proven that he was well enough to chase down a runaway horse and good with the animals besides, had been sweettalked into helping. Of course, that left him with riding drag, the dustiest and most demanding position.

Spike pulled up the bandna over the lower half of his face to keep the dust out of his mouth. He rode easily, all the animals well trained enough to not give him too much trouble. Though, as much as he was dreading going into town, as much as he dreaded what might happen there, every now and again, Miss Buffy twisted about in her saddle and smiled at him. She’d been doing that a good deal lately. Ever since she’d come back from that last ride into town.

It shouldn’t have pulled at him as it did. It shouldn’t have gratified him as much as it did.

He’d thought Miss Buffy had an understanding with Captain Finn, but she was directing warm, welcoming kinds of smiles his way that no promised woman should be giving to a fellow. Did that mean—that she felt something for him? As he felt for her?

All those things he shouldn’t feel for her. All those things that proved he was no better than the son of bitch who had ruined so much. Had tainted and destroyed so many lives. If he—William—was no better than Liam, exchanging one woman for another, what did that make him? In the end, what kind of man was he really?

By the time they got to town, he was a jumble of contradictory feelings. Feelings that he should have tried to sort out before now, but it was too late. Too late because he saw the saloon—the whole reason he’d been avoiding going into town while he’d been healing up.

Three years was a long time. Three years—Drusilla deserved a fellow who knew his own mind, didn’t she? He had to take stock and make sure that when he saw her, when he saw the woman he’d crossed an ocean and become someone else for—all to find her—that he could give her what she deserved. His whole heart.

Resolved, he helped Miss Buffy drive the horses into the paddock the army captain had set up for her. The army captain who smiled at her like every fella in a ten mile radius probably did.

“Well, Buffy, I never did see a finer herd,” he said, all boisterous.

“That’s kind of you to say, Captain,” she replied.

“Captain? Why didn’t I say you could call me Riley?”

“You did say that.”

Spike grinned behind his bandana as he and Xander closed up the gate behind the last of the horses. Mrs. Summers and Miss Dawn were already off to town, probably to do some shopping at the general store.

“Here now, Buffy,” the captain began.

“Hey, Buffy!” Xander called, drawing Army attention their way. “Me and William here were gonna go wet our whistles. You want to come along?”

“Oh I—” she began.

“Willaim?” the captain said, pushing off the fence and coming around to peer at Spike. “This the fella what you found up on your land? Wounded?”

“Yes, and he’s been earning his keep, helping the fifty head here,” Buffy said. “The fifty head I think I’m due payment for.” She held out her hand. Captain Finn tipped up the brim of his hat, and Spike was tempted to tug his down. Damn, damn, damn, the last thing he needed was to have some Army Captain make him for an outlaw.

“Captain Finn?” Miss Buffy’s voice was firm on the man’s name.

Captain Finn rocked back on his heels and turned about, smiling. “I was thinking a drink would go down a treat. How’s about we conclude our business at the saloon then?” She hesitated. Finn caught it, and then gestured at Spike and Xander. “Your… men can come along, of course. I’ll stand the first round. Won’t come out of your payment, I assure you, miss.”

That was how Spike found himself dragged along, keeping his hat down low and his bandana oddly high around his chin. Something that might be an affectation. Xander walked along with a spring in his step, waving to people he knew and Spike had been told about. Miss Willow the school teacher. Mr. Giles, who ran the general store with his wife Anya. Miss Maclay he knew well, of course.

There was a sick pit of dread in his stomach with every step. Every step he took closer to the one place he’d been avoiding. The place he’d been searching for for three long years.

Captain Finn swung open the doors and ushered them through. Spike hesitated, but then Miss Buffy glanced at him over her shoulder and smiled. She smiled, and he followed her. The dread dissipated from him as Miss Buffy sat between himself and Xander, blocking out Captain Finn as sure as anything. She was still smiling, still beaming, as their drinks came, as they drank. As Captain Finn handed over the tender of purchase, she shone.

“Look at that!” she crowed, showing off the paper to Xander and Spike. “With this, we can expand operations and raise even more horses!”

“You think we can do that on our own, Miss Buffy, just you and me?” Xander asked guilelessly. Spike could’ve kissed the man for a line such as that, especially for how Miss Buffy’s normally fiery but almost coy eyes glanced Spike’s way.

“Oh, I reckon we might have to take on another hand or two,” she drawled. Captain Finn’s face fell as he finally caught up to what was happening. Those bluff, Army features hardened as the captain took another long look at Spike’s face. There was an itch between Spike’s shoulder blades. He ignored it, waiting breathlessly on Miss Buffy. “William, I don’t suppose you might—”

“Willam!” Another voice cried. A voice he also knew well. A voice he hadn’t heard in three years but would never mistake. His stomach knotted up all over again as he raised his head and saw her. The woman he’d fallen for and been about to marry in defiance of class and convention. The woman Liam O’Connor had made a target and a tragedy. The woman William had become Spike for. Had promised that no matter how low and dirty he had to sink, he’d do it for Dru. To save her.

And now, here she was before him, and he wished she wasn’t. He wished he’d been wrong. He wished he’d never found her. And he hated himself for it.

“Oh my William!” she cried as she traipsed down the stairs and flung herself into his arms. “You found me!”

He stared into Buffy’s surprised, horrified face. Her mouth a tremulous and terrible ‘o’ of realization. “Buffy, I—”

“Don’t,” she spat. In a flurry, she pushed back her chair and fled out the door. Gone, she was gone. Dru was in his arms again, and Buffy was gone.

Spike wanted to howl.

★ ★ ★

Buffy was sobbing. Great, big, heavy tears ran down her face along with disgusting snot coming out of her nose. She’d never gotten the hang of crying prettily as some women could. When she cried, she cried with her whole self. Now she was crying all those ugly tears all over Willow’s shoulder.

“Oh, Buffy,” Willow said in a watery warble of sympathy.

“I-I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding,” Tara added.

“We could always shoot him if it isn’t,” Anya suggested brightly.

Buffy considered it for a moment.

“Anya! Shooting a man’s no way to fix a problem,” Willow scolded.

“I’d ask you to not,” Tara said softly. “I’ve already treated one bullet wound in that man. I’d be a mite put out if you ruined my hard work.”

“Anya, dear,” Mr. Giles said, popping his head into the back room of the general store. “Do you ladies need, um, anything? Tea?”

“No, Rupert, but maybe we could give Buffy some extra ammunition? She might need it!” Anya beamed at her husband. Mr. Giles chuckled awkwardly, until Anya’s smile didn’t waver.

“Oh, you’re not joking. I suppose we could, of course. I’ll just—” He cut himself off and pointed back out toward the shop, where he went back to serving patrons.

“I am glad I married such a trainable man,” Anya said sagely. Then she clapped her hands authoritatively. “Now, you need to take William to task. He hid some facts from you, and you should get answers out of him.”

Buffy’s stomach twisted at the mere thought of it. Answers. She wanted them, and she also very much did not. What would she learn? That William had only come to town to find his long-lost lover? A woman who was one of Madam Darla’s girls at that? Of course, how could Buffy possibly compare to a woman who knew how to please a man? The thought made her stomach knot up even worse.

“I thought,” she said in a thready voice, “I thought we might’ve had something, is all. The way he looked at me. Was like butterflies and sunshine all at once. Made me feel… like I was glowin’.”

She could only stare at her hands folded in her lap. Callused, hard hands. Hands that had known work and a hard life. Not fine, soft hands. That woman who’d thrown herself at William—she looked like she had fine, soft hands. Buffy covered her face and burst into tears again. Her friends murmured sweet reassurances, and then Anya called out, “Rupert! Get the cocoa!”

★ ★ ★

It had all gone entirely to pot so quickly, Spike didn’t know what to do. He’d extricated himself from Dru just in time for Xander to crack him across the jaw, on the heels of which the saloon Madam by the name of Darla pointed a shotgun at him and threatened him out onto the dirt street where Captain Finn had gotten one meaty hand around his neck and shoved him against a wall.

“I knew you were familiar,” the captain said. “You’re William the Bloody, ain’t you? One of Liam O’Connor’s gang. They call you Spike, on account of you talk about shoving railroad spikes into people’s brain pans. Well, I reckon it’s time you saw your rightful place.”

So here he was, in the town’s jail cell. No doubt word would get back to Miss Buffy. To Buffy and Miss Dawn and Mrs. Summers. They’d know what kind of man he was now, the man he’d been for the last three years. It probably should have bothered him more, but he didn’t know that would hurt more than the shocked betrayal in Miss Buffy’s beautiful grey-green eyes.

Head in his hands, he didn’t bother moving when he heard the door to the sheriff's office open. Some small part of him hoped it would be Buffy. That she would want to look him in the eye, spit in his face, rightfully harangue him for being a duplicitous bastard. Even seeing her anger would still be seeing her. He could try to explain, he could—

“Well, well, Spike, seems like you’ve gotten yourself into some trouble,” a voice drawled. An oily, ingratiating voice he well knew. “Shame, but I don’t think the boss is inclined to spring you.”

Slowly, Spike raised his head and glared at Warren Mears. The shitstain who loved to lick Liam’s boots and fancied himself a mad, bad lad. Spike rose to his feet and took a single step toward the bars. Warren took an instinctive step back, but then stopped himself. There were two others with him. One was a small, thin blonde fellow who seemed as anxious as a small lady’s dog. The other was a short, round man, but there was an above average flicker of intelligence in his face.

Warren laughed nervously. “Oh, you think you’re still dangerous all locked up?” he taunted. “You’re not. Because when Liam shows up and gets what’s his, you’re gonna have a ringside seat for it. You’re gonna see him tear this town apart. And then—”

“William, is it true? Are you—?” Dawn’s high, sweet voice came from the open doorway, her eyes all big and blue and shiny. Warren turned with slow, deliberate menace.

“Get out of here, Dawnie!” Spike snapped. The girl didn’t move.

“Well, well, who’ve we got here?” Warren drawled. He stalked toward Dawn. Sweet, fiery Dawn who was all of only fourteen. Who was so damned young. Younger than Dru when Liam had—

“Dawn!” Run!” he shouted and slammed his hands against the metal bars of the jail cell. The ring of the metal jolted the girl into motion and she rabbitted in a whirl of long brown hair.

Warren regarded Spike over his shoulder with a greasy smile. “Well, ain’t she a ripe little one. I reckon there’ll be something for everyone when Liam brings all the boys to town.”

Quick as a snake, Spike struck. He reached through the bars and caught Warren by his throat. His fingers dug into pale, spineless flesh and squeezed. A sick hurck was all Warren could utter.

“You listen to me, you bootlicking piece of shit. You come back to this town, you even think about hurting that girl, and I will gut you. I will bleed you slow. I will drive railroad spikes through your hands and feet and leave you for the buzzards, you hear me?” Spike bit out his words in a nasty whisper into Warren’s ear. Warren struggled, clawed to be free, but Spike was stronger than most reckoned on. With a glare at the two gormless twats standing there, Spike said, “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll run now.”

Then he released Warren, who gasped and staggered away from the bars of Spike’s cell. Stumbling, calling out threats and promises, Warren and his lackeys left. Off to tell Liam no doubt. Off to make sure that the whole gang came right here.

Spike didn’t have time to wallow in his misery anymore. Now, if he could only get someone to believe him.

★ ★ ★

Buffy wasn’t sure if the day could get any more maddening. She’d started so sure of things: the sale of her horses, her heart’s choice, the course of her whole life. It had all gone sideways so quickly, and now she had Dawn trembling in her arms crying about criminals threatening William. Who was himself an outlaw known as Spike.

There was a pounding behind her eyes as she stared at the man she thought she could love. He wasn’t the hangdog man she thought she’d find. Instead, he was intent, convincing her of something so outlandish she could hardly countenance it.

“So, let me lay it out, so’s I understand it,” she said slowly. “You were gonna marry that girl, Drusilla, only Liam O’Connor stole her away, and you decided to sell all you had, come to these United States, and in the course of looking for her, you figure that the only way to suss out where she is is to join his own gang? And he never recognized you?”

“No, I—I didn’t look like this. I was… softer. And the lye—”

“A way to disguise your hair,” she finished. “Then you did figure out where your long lost love was, only you get made making your getaway and shot. This whole time, his gang has been hunting you down and they found you. Finding you, they’ve found your girl—”

“She’s not my girl!” he protested. Then he grimaced. “I mean, she was years ago, but not… I was going to propose, but I don’t know if she—she’s not well.”

“Don’t want to hear it, Spike,” she spat. Buffy breathed in heavily through her nose. “Liam O’Connor, his gang. They don’t leave much of a town left when they come through.”

“No,” he said, voice low and serious. “No they don’t.”

She felt the weight of his voice in her bones. Dawnie. Dawnie had said that—that vile excuse of a man had said something wrong about her. That William had told her to run, so she’d run. Buffy’s fingers dug into her crossed arms.

“Well,” she said, chin high, “good thing the army is here.”

Then she turned on her heel and strode out of the jail. Captain Finn would call in the calvary. Literally. He would.

He didn’t. He shook his head and gave her a sorrowful look. A pitying look. He shook his head and said he had orders. That even if Spike (she couldn’t think of him as William, not anymore) was telling the truth, the main detachment of the army was too far away to help.

They were on their own. And Captain Finn rode out of town that afternoon.

Buffy felt a hollow in her chest.

It was with a heavy tread she mounted the steps to the sheriff’s office again. The sheriff, a portly fellow with a lovely wife and three daughters, was a sickly shade of pale at Buffy’s return. William was still in his cell, hands wrapped around the bars. His bright blue eyes tracked her avidly as she made her away across the office.

“The army isn’t coming,” she said, feeling far away from her own body.

“Your captain isn’t quite so reliable then, is he?” William—Spike—drawled nastily. Buffy had the overwhelming urge to slap that handsome face. Only the bars of his cell stopped her.

“You know O’Connor’s tactics,” she said.

“I do,” he answered.

“Sheriff Monroe,” Buffy said, turning on her heel. “I know it’s unorthodox, but—”

“We’ll need every gun we can get, Miss Summers, I don’t doubt it. I talked to a few folks. They saw three shifty fellas coming in here while I was out,” Sheriff Monroe said, face dour. Then his gaze shifted past Buffy and landed on Spike. “You gonna run out on us, boy?”

“No, sir,” he said, voice fervent. “I reckon I’m done running from that bastard.”

“Good answer.”

The sheriff set Spike free. Buffy left the office as quickly as she could, only for Spike to follow her. She whirled about, glaring at him.

He held his hands up in surrender. “I just… I wanted to thank you, Miss Buffy. I know I did wrong, I know—”

“I don’t care,” she said. And she didn’t. “What you did or didn’t know, we didn’t make a single promise to each other, to anyone. But I made a promise to look after Dawn, my family. And if dealing with you is the price of protecting them, I’ll pay it. But I want one thing to be clear, Spike. If you live through this, I never want to see you ever again. You get off my land, out of my town, and out of my life. You hear me?”

His mouth worked silently, the apple of his throat bobbing. An aching kind of expression strained his sharp features, sending an unwelcome pang through her.

“I hear you, Miss Buffy,” he whispered.

She drew her arms around herself again and steeled herself. She had to stand on her own two feet. Ever since her daddy had run out, she’d done that. She’d held her family together, held the land and the business together. Held herself together.

“Good,” she said, and stalked away. As she stomped her boots in the dirt, she tossed over her shoulder a vicious, “You should go see your girl.”

She didn’t turn around to see how the blow landed. It didn’t matter. She’d be quit of him soon enough.

★ ★ ★

They didn’t know how much time they had before O’Connor’s gang came whooping and hollering through, so they made every second count. While the sheriff and his two deputies were decent enough, Spike found himself in the centre of the planning owing to his experience with the gang—his experience in helping them do just what they were about to try to do to this town. It turned a sick feeling in his guts, but he pushed it down to make sure the townsfolk were armed and ready.

Miss Buffy was there, too. Her being a crack shot with a rifle earned her a crow’s nest of a position. Spike had argued that her sister should be up there with her—it was the safest place for little Dawnie to be with someone who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot a man. That line of reasoning hadn’t won out until Spike had told Miss Buffy in low, heated tones how Warren Mears wasn’t a man over burdened with scruples about young women who were still more girls than anything else. She’d blanched, Miss Buffy, but had finally agreed to let her sister help learn to load guns.

As for the others, Spike watched as Miss Maclay laid in stores of bandages and ointments and such. He watched as Xander attempted to hit the broad side of anything with an antiquated set of pistols someone had scrounged up. Miss Willow was working on her aim with a rifle, while Mr. Giles and his odd wife (Swedish, apparently) proved to have a nearly shocking stockpile of weaponry. Mrs. GIles, Anya, was proving to be good at teaching the women where to best aim and hurt a man. Spike left them to it.

It was Miss Darla who had found him, though, not the other way around. He’d been avoiding the saloon as best as he was able. It felt dishonest, disloyal, but he didn’t know what else to do. What could he do? Take Drusilla away from this? Leave her to the brothel madam’s care? He didn’t know. Of course, someone else took that choice away from him.

“So you’re Drusilla’s William,” she said by way of hello. The madam had delicate features, but a proud chin and eyes that held iron in them. A hard woman, underneath the frills and lace.

“Might’ve been, once,” he allowed. Without a word, Miss Darla poured him a jigger of whisky and set it on the tacky, wooden bar. He raised an eyebrow, but knocked it back without thanks.

“She talked of you,” Miss Darla said quietly. “Said that she was sad, that she’d left you wondering. She hoped you’d move on. That it had never been for a girl like her to hope for a fella like you. High and fine, she’d called you.”

Spike snorted darkly. “Cosseted and soft,” he growled. “Couldn’t save her, when it counted. Didn’t even know.”

“She didn’t blame you, none, hell I don’t either. Liam O’Connor is a frightful piece of work, and my own cross to bear.” She poured herself a drink and drank it down without a grimace. “I was a different woman, in Boston. Elegant, refined. I thought, at last, here was a man to take me away from it all. And he did, only to drag me through shit. End came when he come back across the ocean with our poor girl up there.” Spike watched her, transfixed and unable to stop the torrent of words, all the pieces of the missing three years falling into place without fanfare or the trumpets of revelation. No, it was something smaller and more terrible than that. It was a sorrow and a pain he’d never seen or borne, but it was etched in the madam’s face clear as day.

“I did my best, but a city was no place for her. Wandering off, getting into trouble. I cut him a deal, seeing as he had no use for either of us. A deal that set us up here, and I paid him back every damned cent through the post. Thought I was being canny, sending all the payments through Boston, but—”

“—I found you,” Spike finished softly. His eyes fluttered closed as the tension and anger at himself ratcheted up. Dru, this town—Buffy and her family—they all could’ve been safe if it hadn’t been for him. If he hadn’t unearthed the connection and figured out where those payments were really coming from.

“And you know him, don’t you? You know that if he thinks someone’s after something that’s his, he won’t stop until it’s back under his thumb.”

“Buggering Christ.”

Miss Darla’s lips curved in a mirthless grin. “That’s one way to put it.” She tapped her fingers along the bar. “You could spirit her away, you know. Take her on somewhere safe. I’d say I’d never been meant to be a mother, but I’ll admit—the girl brings out a streak of protectiveness in me.”

“He’d never let her rest,” Spike said softly.

“No,” Miss Darla agreed. “He wouldn’t.”

There it stood, the truth of the matter. Liam O’Connor wouldn’t stop until the woman—women—he’d ruined were his again. For however long he wanted them until he tired of them again. And then, Spike knew what would happen. He’d seen it enough, had watched and done nothing. He’d thought being a tracker, a scout, would remove him from the worst of what the gang did. Truth was, it had tarred him with the same brush no matter how he’d tried to bend it around in his mind. He’d turned himself into a monster for Drusilla, and there was no way around that.

“Can I see her?” he asked quietly. Miss Darla jerked her chin toward the stairs. He thought to balk, but it wasn’t as if Miss Buffy would have him back now. Still, he hesitated.

Miss Darla noticed, and said, “I’ll bring her down.”

When Drusilla was in front of him again, her big blue eyes wide and oddly vacant, always looking off in the distance, Spike felt the old pain in his breast all over again. The bitter and agonizing realization that Drusilla had been hurt so badly, she’d retreated into her own mind. Sitting at a table, Spike reached forward and took her delicate hands in his rough ones and pressed lightly there. The only place he had ever dared touch her, before—before so much.

Slowly, her head turned, and recognition lit briefly in her face. “Oh, William, what’ve you done with yourself?”

“Too much, Dru,” he said thickly. “You… you doing alright here? With Miss Darla?”

“Oh, yes, mummy takes care of me so well. I’m a good girl, and only talk to who I want to talk to.”

“That’s good. Don’t want you doing anything you wouldn’t want.”

Jesus wept, he thought. Jesus should weep for wrong such as this, because he was about to. It was then he knew that even if he did ride out of this town with Dru, it would be another kind of cruelty. How could he care for her? What would become of her? He’d try, oh God, he’d try. Out of a sense of duty and a love that had once driven him across oceans and countries; he’d try. But what would that be for her? Always running? Never quite understanding? Not entirely in this world, always fey and strange. He couldn’t countenance her being locked away in Bedlam, either. At least here she had open skies and fresh air and no one making her do a damned thing.

“There’s gonna be a ruckus, soon,” he told her. She tilted her head as if curious. “You just stay hidden away, alright? You hide until the noise goes away.”

She learned forward then, her mouth close to his own. For a moment, he feared she’d try to kiss him—and he wasn’t about to navigate the horror of a tortured woman doing such a thing—then she spoke. “Hiding won’t make the monsters go away, William. I learned that.”

Then she danced to her feet with a girlish clap and a twirl of her long, white skirts. White, like a debutante or a bride. “You should find your mettle, William, and know your heart would have never been content to be under smog and smoke. Mine wasn’t.”

Before he could say anything, she floated away. Back up the stairs to her room. Miss Darla dismissed him with a flick of her hand as she brought out a shotgun and started cleaning it.

He had a town to try to save. For once, he could do something right.

★ ★ ★

It was the waiting that was going to drive her crazy. The whole town felt like it was holding its collective breath. The weather wasn’t helping any. This time of year should've been cooling down, but there was a heaviness to the air that was damn near fit to press them all flat. Dust and dirt didn’t stir except from horsehooves or bootscuffs, but it seemed to coat everything, making the town unbearably still and gritty.

Buffy longed for a bath, but there wasn’t time for her to get clean. The last thing she needed was to be caught out. And she had to protect Dawn. It still made her shiver with dread to think about what Spike had told her—about that fella who had sized up Dawnie. Buffy wanted to scream and shriek at the horror of it all, but that never helped anything. And it would also scare Dawn. No, Buffy needed her sister to keep her head on her shoulders if they were all going to make it through this. Even Momma had picked up a shotgun and was going to fire along the line of women who were going to set up in the second stories and fire down at the varmints when they came through town.

Everyone, though, needed to eat and drink, and that was how she found herself back in the saloon. She hated it there, feeling all manner of jumpy thinking about when that woman had sauntered down those stairs and revealed the ugly truth to Buffy’s eyes. So she ate as quickly as she could and escaped back into the stifling heat of the night.

Walking around back, Buffy went to check on her horses. She was going to keep three tied up and ready. Xander had clear instructions from her, that if it was all going to go badly, he was to get Momma and Dawn and make a break for it.

Xander had asked about her. Buffy hadn’t answered.

Still, it would be best to check on the animals. When she got there, there was someone waiting.  Buffy had a brief flicker of hope it would be someone—a name she didn’t dare quite think—only to find the odd, white-clad woman Spike had come to town looking for. The woman, Drusilla, was leaning on the dapple grey mare that Dawn preferred, her eyes closed as she rose and fell with the easy breathing of the horse. There was something innocent about the picture—just a woman and a horse and a moment of peace.

But it was her horse.

“I’ll thank you not to disturb my animals,” Buffy said evenly. Drusilla’s eyes shot open and for a moment Buffy thought she saw a terrible knowing in those moon-wide eyes. Then the expression melted off her face, and Drusilla swayed closer to Buffy.

“Are you sure it belongs to you?” she asked in a sing-song voice.

“I paid for her,” Buffy said shortly. “And I should send the madam out for you. She’s fond of you, though I don’t know why.”

Drusilla’s expression turned sorrowful, then. “I hope you never do,” she said and then tapped Buffy’s nose with one long finger and smiled like a child. “Do you want to switch places with me? You could sway to the sound of screams and break like glass. But no, that wouldn’t be you. You would fight and bite and never stop, would you not? You would slice through flesh and bone. That is what he became, a weapon, but men are not meant to be weapons. They are meant to be flesh and bone, but you’re still a cutting, cutting girl, aren’t you?”

“You’re mad,” Buffy said. A shiver of fear wound up her spine and coiled around her throat. A madwoman. Spike—William—the woman he loved had been driven mad by the son-of-a-bitch riding for town with hell in his heart. And Buffy, for the first time, felt a spark of pity for this poor girl in front of her. It hadn’t been her choice. None of it had been.

Drusilla giggled. “Yes, yes, dancing with the faeries is better. Hop in the circle, hop out.” Then her gaze seemed to clear as clouds did the moon. “I remember who he was. I don’t know who he is now. Neither of us are the same, and some things cannot be kept.”

“I don’t understand,” Buffy said. Except, she thought she did. But the whole notion was too outlandish to give much credence to. What did it matter if Spike wasn’t going to follow through and marry the woman? Didn’t that prove his faithlessness? (Or, did it prove the goodness that was still in his heart? To not trap a woman who was not in this world? To let go of a dream for the sake of the dream itself?)

“Yes,” Drusilla said as though she were the one of sound mind and Buffy was the mad one. “You do.”

Buffy turned around and resolved to check on the horses. Later.

★ ★ ★

Liam breathed in deep. Faint streaks of orange and rose were breaking through the patchy grey of early morning. The air carried a faint scent of human habitation—animals and privies and grease—and it had never smelled quite so… anticipatory.

Finally, after years of cursing himself for a fool, for letting Darla and Dru slip away (a sentimental moment he’d never repeat), for letting that little English traitor worm his way into the gang, he was going to be revenged! He was going to have his jewels, his women, and his price of flesh.

“You three did well,” he said, not taking his eyes off the small clutch of buildings that called itself a town.

“Oh, this will be a fine day, sir,” Warren purred. “Got a girl in mind for myself.”

Liam chuckled low. “Don’t worry, I’m sure there’s plenty of girls to go around, but the madam and the dark-haired Englishwoman are mine, you hear?” There was a chorus of low, dark chuckles, and a murmur of ‘yes, sir’s at his twin declarations. Liam smiled thinly. Yes, the day, the women, everything would be his. And maybe he’d leave Spike alive long enough to watch a real man at work. Then he’d string him up to die slow.

“Alright, men, let’s go!” he ordered and drew one pistol, cocking it. Then he held onto the reins with his other hand and kicked his horse into a trot. The gang rode at his back, but he quickly directed his lieutenants to take charge of things. He held back, knowing full well it was folly to be at the front of a charge. He was no fool, Army man.

His correctness of action was proved when the first round of shots were fired and a few men went down and some horses reared up in agony. It didn’t matter, he had plenty of men. He would win this day, no matter what.

And with his eyes focused forward, and all his trustworthy men out in front of him, no one saw two small, slight figures slip away. Slip away and ride hard for, perhaps, a life that was not quite so incliminal to a man’s ability to hold his head up.

★ ★ ★

The world had become a cacophony of gunfire, men screaming and dying, and horses running wild. Buffy didn’t let it touch her—she couldn’t. She kept her movements steady, sure. Aim, fire, action, aim, fire, action. Over and over until one rifle ran out of ammunition, and Dawn handed her another fully loaded. She wasn’t sure how many she felled. Here and there in the smoke, she saw her friends. She saw Xander fire madly into the fray, trying to cover Mr. Giles and his wife in their shop. Something drove him back, and then Tara scuttled around back with Miss Willow watching her back. Buffy could only hope her friends were looking after each other.

More than once, she saw Spike in the middle of the worst of it, dashing through fire and smoke with his pistols raised and cutting down men he’d ridden with. Then he came to the fella he’d described to her, the one who’d eyed up Dawn. Buffy drew a bead on him, but with the wild running horses, it was hard to get a good shot. Then she heard a hard crack of gunfire, and the next she saw, the dark haired man was bleeding his life out in the dirt. Spike, she didn’t see at all.

Eventually, though, the scoundrels were routed, those who could flee doing so while they left their fellows to the mercies of an angry town. Sheriff Monroe and his deputies did most of the rounding up. Buffy pressed Dawn’s face into her shoulder as she walked her sister toward the general store, which was where the less injured folks were gathering. Buffy let out a sigh of relief to see Xander there, along with her mother. Dawn went straight to Miss Willow and babbled out her relief and excitement.

“Buffy.” She started at her own name, only to find Momma standing next to her. “Are you alright, sweetheart?”

“I’m fine, Momma, not even a scratch. None of those men made it up to us.”

“Good, us ladies on the ground were doing our best.”

“And you surely did, Momma.”

There seemed like nothing else they could say. Buffy set her rifle down and wrapped her arms around herself and leaned into her mother’s embrace. It felt soothing, safe. Then there was a heavy tread behind her, and she turned to find a wild-eyed Spike standing there. He’d lost his hat somewhere in all the fighting, and his lyed hair was all mussed.

“Liam,” he breathed. “Liam ain’t accounted for.”

Buffy’s heart went into her throat. She broke free of her mother’s arms and ran close on Spike’s heels toward the saloon. There was a loud bark of a shotgun. Buffy’s lungs burned on the dusty air as Spike bit out a curse and coughed.

Then they burst through the saloon doors to find the madam tumbled to the ground.

“Go!” Buffy shouted at Spike as she went to check on Miss Darla. Buffy took in the nasty gash on her head, but the woman wasn’t senseless, just knocked about. “Easy, easy,” she said.

“He’s gonna take her,” Miss Darla moaned. “Take her if he can’t get nothing else.”

A fate Buffy wouldn’t wish on anyone. Then she heard a scuffle from upstairs, a gun shot, then a scream, and she saw Liam O’Connor pulling a struggling, crying Dru behind him. Buffy’s eyes watered. No, no, he wouldn’t—but he would. The fool man would. Even if he didn’t love Drusilla anymore in that way, he had a good heart. He wouldn’t have let her be taken all over again.

Buffy glanced at the shotgun not far from her. Maybe there was still a round left?

“I said no!” Drusilla screamed. Liam rounded on her, hand raised high, and then there was another shot. A short, sharp little shot. Liam O’Connor staggered back down the stairs, surprise etched on his face. Then he fell, tumbling to the floor as a dark red stain spread across his chest.

Buffy didn’t understand, until she saw the glint of a derringer in Drusilla’s hand. Then a limping, wincing Spike was there and he gently took the gun out of his former love’s hands and held her as if she were a child.

Miss Darla frowned at the pair, and Buffy—Buffy fled a scene she wasn’t sure she could bear to watch.

★ ★ ★

Spike sat his restive horse at the far end of the lane to the Summers property. He should go. He should get on out of town like Miss Buffy had asked. He thought he’d had his answer when she’d been gone, after he’d gotten the little derriger off of Dru and bundled her back to Miss Darla’s waiting arms. But he couldn’t bring himself to quit this town, not yet. Until he’d said his piece. Until he told her what was in his heart. If, after that, she still told him to shove off, he would. He would.

Before he could get to the house, he found her putting a horse through its paces. The one that had bolted that day. Buffy had a hard set to her jaw, and was driving the horse hard.

Spike felt oddly jealous of the creature.

He dismounted and waited for her to notice him. When she did, she ignored him until the sun began to set. Miss Dawn came out to give him some water and chatter at him, and then Mrs. Summers did the same. He was polite, but focused. The ladies let him have a scrap of pride while he waited for Buffy to consent to speak to him.

She did, at long last, peering down from her mount like a queen. Before he could say anything, for he was struck by the sight of her, all dusty and sweaty and still a-glow, she spoke harsh and whip-cracking fast. “I thought about it, and as much as I think about it, I’m not sure I can put it together. You needled me and spoke cruel, but then what? Did you reckon that you catch more flies with honey? Did you just butter me up to get me to do what you wanted?”

This wasn’t how he wanted this to go, but it was the opening he had. And all his careful words and phrases fled his brains, and he spoke his heart. His foolish, yearning heart.

“At first, yes! But somewhere along the way, between you being righteous and pigheaded and so damned good. A good daughter, a good sister, a damned good shot, and a brilliant horsewoman—I fell in love with you. I wasn't looking for it or wanted it, but I did, Buffy. I loved Dru, I truly did, but that woman in town, she's not the woman I knew. If there's anything left of her, Darla's taking better care of her than I ever could and with half the agony. I fell in love with you. With your stubbornness and your flashing eyes, and the way you can load a rifle, and how your heart is big enough to save a whole town and a girl driven mad by a brute of a man and not expect a thing in return. I've never met anyone like you, Buffy Summers. You make me want to be a better man, to crawl out of the hell I found myself in, and I'd be more the fool than usual to let you go without fighting for you. Even if it's you I gotta fight.”

He stood there, blowing like a horse that had been ridden hard. She stared at him, the green-grey of her eyes inscrutable. God, would it kill her to give a man a hint?

Then she dismounted, sliding down her horse like water flowing over the land. Making it greener, better, giving it life. She came to the fence and searched his face. He didn’t try to hide anything, not anymore. Hiding, it had only brought him strife. And Buffy, she’d never be satisfied with anything other than the full truth, no matter how painful. Could he love her more? This woman who ran into danger and pain because she couldn’t stand half-measures? She was a titan.

Her fingers reached up and recoiled for a moment. But the line of her jaw hardened, and she traced the tips of her fingers over his face, then down to the bullet graze along his right arm. He winced at her light touch. He ached for her to touch him again.

“I can’t be with an outlaw,” she said softly. Spike hung his head, his whole heart breaking in his chest. He turned to go, to leave her as he should, but her hand shot out and caught his wrist. “But a good man could find himself in demand around here.”

“In town, or here?”

“Xander’s laid up for a spell. Could use some help with the stock.”

“That so?”

A shy, almost sly smile curved her mouth. Heat flickered in her gaze. “Could take you on. On probation. If that’s agreeable to you, Mister Pratt.”

“Suits me fine, Miss Buffy. Suits me just fine.”

That night, after supper with the family and back in the ranch hand's cabin, he knew it would take time. But he could take his time, and, even better, so could she.

★ ★ ★

“Heard about what happened, Miss Buffy,” Captain Finn told her. He’d come back with a squadron. After the dust had settled. She tried not to feel ornery about that and failed.

“We handled it,” she said firmly. He nodded. Then he peered out as her ranch hand was leading a yearling around on a long rope.

“All the outlaws are gone, then?” he asked, frowning.

Buffy followed his gaze to where William was, for once, smartly keeping his head down and hidden behind the brim of his hat. He’d kept bringing her wildflowers he picked, and reading her snippets out of her own favorite books of an evening before he took his leave for the ranch hand’s cabin. Every night it took everything in her to not slip out and join him in his bed. But she wasn’t going to make it easy on him. Though he’d sweetly asked her to the barn raising dance a week hence, and she’d accepted. Dawn was over the moon about it, and even Momma was cautiously approving.

Smiling, Buffy raised her chin and said, “All gone, only good folks left here abouts.”

After the captain left, Buffy wandered into the training paddock and startled William by throwing her arms around his neck. His dark brows rose with startlement, but he grinned down at her.

“What’s this for, then, love?” he asked, voice a low rumble.

“For being the best trespasser I ever did meet,” she teased.

And then, as the sunset set the sky alight, casting shadows through the long sway of golden grass, Buffy stood on tiptoe and brought her mouth to his.