The Woman in Black
Author's note: I decided to do another AU story in which the Four Horsemen are alive in the present time and more or less past their 'angry adolescence', and explore another idea on what kind of woman Kronos would get stuck with for a wife. Hope you all enjoy.
It was the year 1857, and Kronos had just rode into a new town, escaping a lynch mob some 20 miles back after an ill fated attempt at a bank robbery. It was night, he was dead tired and all he wanted was a drink of whiskey, a woman, and a bed to lay down on, and all in that order; it was fortunate for him that he had stopped right near a saloon with a hotel on its second floor, so if he played his cards right, he would be getting all three. Tying up his horse, he walked over to the doors of the saloon and he heard something that sounded promising to his ears.
Pushing the doors open, he walked in and saw up on a stage at the far end of the room, a group of women with their hair in curls, each with a big red feather in their hair and they were wearing big, colorful dresses and dark stockings and button up dress shoes while they were doing the cancan. Looking around the place he saw that there were a few men at a couple of the tables, most of them were playing cards, a couple others were watching the dancing girls, and the rest were drinking too much to see anything. As he took a couple of steps into the saloon, an all too familiar buzzing sensation went off in the far corner of his brain.
He looked around to see who it was. None of the men at the tables looked up from their cards, and the man pouring the drinks didn't pay him any mind either, nor did the man who was playing the piano next to the stage. Kronos couldn't figure out where it was coming from, and then he looked to the stage and he got his answer when he saw one of the dancing girls appear to lose her balance and she stumbled back and looked around the room. Oh, he thought to himself, this was going to be interesting.
The woman looked to be about 25, she was about as tall and built the same as the other dancing girls, though where the other women had blonde or dark hair, hers was a light red that like the other girls', was in curls that came down to the bottom of her neck, and she wore a big black feather in it. She wore a big red dress that sparkled, with a red and black skirt, and though she'd lost hold of the bottom of it, Kronos would swear if she lifted it up, there'd be a black girdle underneath it. The woman tried to get back into the step of the dance and ignore whatever had caused her to lose her place to begin with, but she didn't catch up with the others too well, though she acted like she did. Kronos watched her with a growing anticipation, and a sinister grin formed on his face. He had a good idea which one of these women he would be paying for for the night.
When the music ended, most of the dancers disappeared backstage, but the redhead stepped down from the stage and over to the bar and asked the man to pour her a drink.
"You already had one tonight," he told her.
"I know, but I'm not feeling well," she replied, "My head's hurting again."
"You and your headaches, I think half the time you make them up to drink me out of my best stuff," he replied as he poured a beer of mug and all but threw it at her.
She drank the beer and put her hand to her forehead and told the bartender that she was going up to her room for the night.
"Already?"
"You got as many customers now," she told him, "As you're going to have, they've seen me dance, if they want to see me do anymore, they can pay the ten dollars and you can send them on up."
With that, she started up the stairs leading to the second floor where the hotel rooms were kept. Kronos got up from the table and went over to the bar and after drinking two whiskeys he asked how much it cost for the girl who had just gone up the stairs for the night.
"For the whole night she's ten, for an hour she's two, give her the money when you're finished," he told Kronos.
He nodded in agreement and found out which room she occupied on the second floor. He went up the stairs and to the door the bartender had told him about, and he knocked.
"Who is it?" she asked.
"A paying customer, that's who," he answered.
"For the night?"
"Yes."
The door opened and the woman stood in the doorway, looking tired and rubbing one eye.
"Well come on in, stranger," she said.
The tone of her voice could be enough to freeze somebody to death. Kronos walked into the room and she shut the door behind him.
"So what did you have in mind for the night?" she asked.
"Depends," Kronos said, "On what I get for my money's worth."
"You paid for the whole night?" he nodded, "Then anything goes."
And if Kronos hadn't been on the dead run for 12 hours, that would sound inviting, but in all honesty he was about ready to drop from exhaustion.
While the woman waited for him to answer, she went over behind a changing screen and took off her costume, piece by piece she threw them over the screen for him to catch. First the black button up shoes, then the black stockings, the black garters, her petticoat, the dress itself, then the black girdle, the black corset, and finally her long white knickers.
"Is that it?" Kronos asked, "Or do you have anything else on behind that screen?"
"Oh," she commented innocently enough, "Just one more little thing."
"Oh this I can't wait to see," Kronos replied, "What is it?"
She stepped out from behind the screen wearing a flowing white nightgown that had been cut off at the knees.
"Like it?" she asked.
"Very much," Kronos said as he inched towards her, his hands clenching and unclenching again, "Now take it off."
She laughed and replied, "Not so fast, you have to catch me first."
Kronos lunged at her but she escaped his clutches at the last second and ran around the large bed, laughing, with him at her heels. He chased her around the bed, over the trunk, behind the dresser, over to the window where she tripped Kronos and sent him sprawling out on the balcony. Picking himself up he stepped back into the room and climbed over the furniture that stood between the two of them and he grabbed her and pinned her down on the bed, with her still laughing. Kronos flipped her over onto her stomach and started pulling open the buttons of her gown, and was completely oblivious to her reaching out to the dresser, and picking up a large brown whiskey jug, which she cracked him over the head with and he fell down.
He woke up the next morning, curled in a ball in the middle of the bed, every part of his body hurting, and he couldn't even remember where he was or how he had gotten there. Sitting up in bed, he looked around the room and saw standing by the door, a woman wearing a long purple dress, white gloves, brown shoes and a dark purple hat that covered her hair. The way she was dressed up, she looked about like a schoolmarm, and suddenly Kronos got the idea he was in the wrong room.
"Excuse me," he said as he tried to get up.
"You never did tell me your name," the woman said.
"What?"
The woman gave a sort of laugh and pulled the hat off her head, revealing her long red locks.
"You!" Kronos said as he sprang up in bed.
"Ay, me," she replied cockily, "In the flesh."
"Not since last night," Kronos smugly commented, "What in the hell are you doing in that?"
"You like it?" she asked as she turned around to show him the full view of it.
"It does alright," Kronos said.
"Easy to say when you're not the one wearing it," she told him, "I for one have about had it with these things."
What she did next would clear her of anybody ever worrying she was a schoolmarm. She pulled up her dress and the petticoat underneath that and revealed the whalebone hoop that gave the dress its shape and she removed it.
"In the daytime I might be a lady," she told him, "But nobody said I had to be a stiff one." She dropped the petticoat and dress back into place, "How's it look now?"
"Much better," Kronos said as he got up from the bed. He walked over beside her and when she wasn't looking, he pinched her. She screamed and jumped so high she could've touched the ceiling.
"Much more effective too," Kronos noted.
She turned around and glared at him and brought up her pointed shoe and kicked him in the seat and knocked him onto the floor.
"Now," she said firmly, "How about the money you owe me for last night?"
"Last night?" Kronos repeated, "Last night you conked me on the head with a jug of whiskey!"
"You paid for a night with me and that's what you got, and now you have to pay for it whether you liked it or not," she told him.
Kronos got to his feet and pulled a ten dollar note out of his pocket and gave it to her.
"You must be running this racket a long time to have it down this well," he commented.
"On the contrary," she said, "I only started working here a few days ago."
"Really?" Kronos couldn't believe it.
"Yeah, I came over on the train from Agua Dulce," she said.
"Well where am I now?" Kronos asked.
"In a hotel room."
"No, I mean where am I?"
"In Texas."
"No, no, no!" Kronos was about to the point of jumping up and down now. "What town am I in?"
"What difference does it make?" she asked, "Texas is a big state, you see one of their towns you've seen them all."
"You don't even know what town you're working in," Kronos said, "I bet you wouldn't know it even if you were looking at the sign. Can you even read?"
She looked appalled when he said that.
"I resent that!" she said, "I certainly can read!"
"Oh I don't believe you," Kronos took another note out of his pocket and gave it to her, "If you can read, tell me what that says."
"It says," she held it up, "The Government of Texas, Treasury Department, Houston, Texas, Fifty Doll…WHOA!"
Kronos about threw himself into a seizure, rushing to shut her up and the two fell to the floor in the process.
"Will you stop that? What's the matter with you?" he asked.
"That's a fifty dollar note from the Texas Republic, you…you," she finally put it together, "You're the man who blew the safe in Houston two days ago!"
"Shut up!" Kronos clamped his hand over her mouth, "You think I want the whole world knowing that when I just escaped being shot full of holes yesterday?"
"How much money do you have?" she asked.
"I haven't had time to figure that out yet, the bank I robbed yesterday didn't have hardly any money in it at all," he said.
He moved to the door but the woman got ahead of him and threw herself against the door. "What's the rush?"
"I'm getting out of here before another lynch mob starts," he said.
"Nobody knows you're here," she told him, "Nobody saw you come up here last night except for Sam the bartender, and he'll keep his mouth shut for a paying customer. You're safe here for now, and if they're really still looking for you, do you want to run back out into the middle of it again?"
Kronos hated to admit it but she had a point. He had been shot, stabbed and lynched several times in the last month alone, and it was getting tired. So he would stay for a while, he moved away from the door and back to the bed and laid down, he was still so tired from last night.
The woman walked up beside him and started feeling along his duster, "Where do you keep your money?"
"In my pockets," he tiredly replied.
She stuck her hands in every pocket he had and pulled out a lot of bills from the banks he'd robbed, and when she'd found them all she started counting them.
"You're new at this sort of thing, aren't you?" she asked.
"Why do you say that?" Kronos asked, most of his words muffled in the pillows.
"Because a lot of this money you stole is 25 cent certificates from the army."
"Fate has it in for me again it seems," Kronos said, "I think I can honestly say things can't get any worse than…OUCH!"
Kronos jerked his head around and saw the woman standing behind him innocently, a long hat pin in between two of her fingers.
"Don't you know it's bad luck to say a thing like that?" she asked.
"I do now."
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Melvin Koren."
"That's your name?" she asked, "What did you do as a baby that was so awful your mother named you that?"
He turned back to look at her and he finally asked, "What's your name?"
"Louise," she answered.
Kronos spent the day in that hotel room talking with Louise, and from what he could gather, she had absolutely no idea what she was or what he was or what Immortals were at all. He tried to find out if she had had an accident recently or something that would account for her being Immortal now, but she thought he was pulling her leg and just laughed. Kronos didn't know why, but there was something about her that he liked, and in fact he felt himself being drawn to her.
He tried to convince himself that she wasn't any different from the thousands of women he'd encountered in his life, but he knew that wasn't true. But at the same time he didn't know what it was that made her different. One thing he thought of was that he had met few women in his life who looked like her. Coming from the desert he'd had several women who all had dark skin and dark hair, most of them were tall and thin. As time passed he'd also encountered women of royal families who were very fair skinned and had light blonde hair, and they were also very thin but there was an immense difference between the rich, spoiled women he'd known who lived in the kingdoms, and the hard labored majority who lived in every village, in every town, in every tribe.
Living as old as he had, he'd figured he'd encountered every type of woman in the world there was. There were women who had to work to get everything they ever had, and those who didn't have to do anything and they lived in luxury and looked down on the rest of the world. He'd been acquainted with the sheltered and the unsheltered, the educated and the dumb, the ladies, and the whores. He'd known them all and there was something about this woman standing before him now that made her different from all the others he had ever known.
And yet, there was something about her that seemed familiar, but he didn't know what it was. One thing he had not had the fortune of encountering in his life were too many women with red hair, especially a light red. A while back when he'd been making his way through Europe he'd encountered both Irish and Scottish women with hair so dark a red it almost looked like blood. Those women however, hadn't been worth finding, let alone keeping. He didn't know why, but it seemed he'd often looked for a woman who looked like the one he was with now. It didn't make sense to him, he came from a long past of not expanding past his own preferences, and there had been no women who looked like Louise in the desert 2,000 years ago.
Then Kronos stopped, and it came to him. Yes, this woman looked familiar, very familiar, from a long time ago, so long in fact that he had almost forgotten.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse hadn't been a band of brothers for very long when they'd made the discovery. Early one morning when he and Methos had been trying to sleep, they were rudely awakened when Caspian came up to their tents screaming about something.
"Shut up and go back to sleep," Kronos had said, still half asleep, "You're having a bad dream."
"Get up," Caspian jerked Kronos to his feet and dragged him out to the river. Methos and Silas followed behind them and when they reached the river, they found an amazing discovery. From the low buzz they could tell that the woman hadn't yet become Immortal. She was young, perhaps 16 or maybe older, she was naked, her face, neck, arms and her legs had been colored by the sun but the rest of her body was still very pale, and on the top of her head was the darkest red hair any of them had ever seen. The top half of her body lay in the sand but the rest of her was still in the shallow end of the cold water. The fact that she could sleep in it said that she had come a long way, obviously to get away from something, because wherever she was from, it had to be over on the other side of the world, and Kronos knew that you didn't leave and come this far for no reason.
Kronos grabbed the girl by her hair and jerked her up, she screamed and as she opened her eyes, she became very much aware of her surroundings; but she made no move to escape, nor did she appear to be frightened in the least. It was obvious to Kronos that she had a lot to learn. He grabbed her by the neck and shook her and demanded to know who she was.
"I don't know," she said.
"Where are you from?"
"I don't know," she repeated.
"Don't lie to me!" he said as he shook her again.
"I'm not! I don't know," she said again.
Wherever she came from, she didn't appear to be hurting too much from it. Kronos noticed, as he was certain the others did too, that she was built slightly larger than the other women they'd seen. One of the first things he'd noticed was her slightly rotund stomach that stuck out like she was carrying a baby, and he also noticed that her arms while they weren't large with muscles, weren't thin either like the other women's were, they were slightly larger. The next thing he noticed was that her legs were built about as well as his own, and her feet were about as big as his as well. Except for the round face and the bright hair and what very obviously made her a woman, it almost looked as if she were built like he was.
One thing that quickly became obvious was a woman of this sort wasn't anything Caspian was familiar with as he started poking the bulge in her stomach. Without a word and only a sinister glare, she responded in turn by poking him in his stomach, harder than he had, and then she curled her fingers into a fist and slammed it into his stomach, knocking him back and the wind out of him, but before he could hit the ground, she did one more thing and kicked him in the groin, which left him howling and moaning like the animal he was.
"I think we'll find a use for her yet," Kronos said with a sinister glare in his eyes, "Silas, get her something to eat Methos, find something to cover her with. The other slaves don't walk around naked all day and this one's not going to either."
Methos took her by the arm and they started to walk away, but she stopped to kick Caspian who was still on the ground and she told him, "Get up you damned babe."
"Come on!" Methos said as he pulled her away before Caspian had a chance at her.
The girl never said much, and from what she did say, they never found out who she was or where she was from, or how she wound up where they were. Methos asked Kronos since she was a pre-Immortal, what they were going to do with her. Kronos answered that they were going to let her get a little older, and then they would make her Immortal. They never got the chance because she disappeared into the night only a few months after they had found her, and from that day on they had never found her. None of them could ever figure out how she got away without anyone knowing, but it was Kronos who was bothered by it the most, and even if he didn't let it on, the other three could tell.
Up until now, Kronos had figured he'd forgotten all about her, but now it seemed she had come back into his life, or rather he'd come back into hers.
"Why are you staring at me like that?" Louise asked, "What's wrong?"
Kronos finally remembered where he was and he walked over to her and ran his hand through her curls and said, "Your hair used to be much darker than this, what happened to it?"
She looked at him for a minute like she didn't know what he was talking about, and then she smiled at him and laughed.
"I was wondering when you'd figure it out…Kronos," she said.
As the afternoon passed by slowly with an immense heat, Louise sat up in her bed with Kronos' head resting in her lap as she stroked through his hair.
"So what happened to the others?" she asked.
"I don't know," Kronos replied, "About two thousand years ago, Methos left and I guess the others followed him. I haven't seen any of them since, I don't even know if any of them are still alive anymore. So…how long have you been Immortal?"
"Oh I'd say since…7 years after I left you."
"How?" he asked.
"How?" she repeated, "Oh, I don't know, who remembers by now?"
She got up from the bed and went back behind the changing screen. "I better get ready," she said, "It'll be getting dark soon and we have another show tonight."
Kronos got up from the bed as well. "You like working here?"
"I do alright if that's what you mean, but like I said I've only been here a few days. I get 30% of the money I make, Sam takes the rest. Thus far since I arrived I have to my name $27 and a 10 cent certificate, not much at all."
"At two dollars an hour and ten dollars a night?"
"Yes, they always stay the night, only they don't ever plan to," she explained, "I'm an unusual one you know. You noticed…all the men notice, I got something that they want that they can't get from the other girls, but they don't get it from me either."
Kronos looked back to the brown jug on the dresser. "I can see why."
"Really though it's the best way to go about it, I get the money, but they don't ever get to put a hand on me," Louise explained, "And they wake up and don't remember a thing, so they can't complain to my boss."
She stepped out from behind the screen in all her tainted glory, red dress, black feather, black stockings and all. "How do I look?"
"I like it."
"You would…" she stopped and turned to the window, "Did you hear that?"
"I didn't hear anything."
Kronos followed her to the window and they went out on the balcony and looked down and saw three men come up on horseback.
"The Texas Rangers," Kronos said.
"You think they followed you here?" Louise asked.
"Well I don't think they came to see the show," he replied.
"Okay, don't worry, I'll think of something," she said.
"You'll think of something? I'm worried," Kronos said.
An idea came to her and she started groping through Kronos' coat. "Do you have a gun with you?"
"Stop that," he slapped her hands away, "Yes I have a gun, why?"
"Give it to me, I've got an idea," she said.
"Oh hell," Kronos remarked as he handed her his pistol.
"Okay, you get in the closet, I'll lure the three of them up here, and then we'll get rid of them," she said.
"What?!"
"Just do it!"
Kronos did as he was told, he went over to the closet which was at the same end of the room as the balcony. Louise tucked the gun away in her dress and went downstairs. A few minutes later, Kronos heard her return and she was talking to somebody.
"Well, I'm sure the three of you will get your money's worth," she said as she opened the door.
The three Texas Rangers stepped into the room, and Kronos watched from the slight space between the door and the wall. Louise had the three men step into the middle of the room while she shut the door behind her and locked it. When she turned back around, she had the gun in her hand.
"Alright, stick them up or I'll blow your brains out, all of you," she ordered, "Nobody try anything funny, now all three of you, drop your gun belts right now."
They did, and it was at that moment that Kronos emerged from the closet. He picked up the whiskey jug from the dresser and cracked one of the men over the head with it. The other two turned around and lunged at him, but Louise got to one of them first. She grabbed hold of him and just kept moving towards the balcony and the two went over the edge of it and falling two stories and landing on the dirt road below.
The man's neck had broken in the fall, and so had Louise's foot. She raised the gun into the air and fired another shot which hit the third Ranger who had come over to the window to see the sight below him. He fell when the bullet hit him and he too was dead. The ruckus was drawing attention from everybody in the town and Kronos knew they had to get away and fast. He grabbed hold of the bottom of the balcony's bars to reduce the falling distance from 20 feet to about 14 and he let go and fell to the ground as well, but he fell on his back, sparing his feet the break. He got up and pulled Louise up as well and he stuck one arm around her back and the other under one thigh and carried her over to his horse. He untied the reigns and got up behind her and got them out of there before anybody could try and stop them.
"So where do we go to from here?" Louise asked when they finally stopped.
"I reckon it'd be best if we get on out of the state," Kronos said.
She nodded, "You got about $1,200 from those bank robberies. How much will it cost to build a house?"
"That," Kronos told her, "Will depend."
The two sat in silence for a minute thinking of what to do next.
"Alright," Louise said, "Suppose you blow another safe in another bank?"
"I have an idea since you're involved it won't be that simple," Kronos told her.
"I was just thinking, I've got about $100 stuffed away in a bank not too far from here. It has a lot of money in it. You could hold it up, and we'd have plenty of money then."
"And what's the catch?"
"You're going to take a hostage. I'll dress up like a grieving little widow and tell the teller at the bank that I have to withdraw my money to bury my husband, you come in, go to the vault, have the teller open it up, you make off with as much money as you can carry, you shut the teller in the vault and you drag away a stubborn widow who won't give up her money. We get out of state, you shave your beard and change your accent so you sound like a southerner, I'll wear a veil in the bank so nobody will get a good look at my face and they won't know who I am. That way if they put out wanted posters of you, they're never going to find us."
The scary part where Kronos was concerned was it sounded like it could work. Though they both agreed it would draw some questioning if she went into a store and bought a funeral dress and a black veil and then was seen being dragged away by a bank robber in the same day. So exploring the town under the cover of darkness, they found a dress shop, busted the door open, Louise found the black dress she'd need and Kronos took the money that had been left in the store overnight. Bright and early the next morning, a veiled woman in tears went to the bank to close out an account. Ten minutes later the doors were busted down with dynamite and a man with a gun ordered the safe to be opened. Emptying out three shelves worth of money, he locked the teller in the vault and then had an argument with the widow in black over the money she had. When she wouldn't give it up, the man dragged her out of the bank with a gun to her chest, ordering her onto his horse as they made their getaway.
Waiting until night to make their move, Kronos and Louise, both with a slight change in their appearances made, stuffed their $14,000 into a bag and hopped aboard a train heading to California. In their rush not to get found out, they had forgotten that while some people wouldn't remember what Melvin Koren looked like, everybody would definitely remember a redhead cancan dancer in a sparkling red dress, so for the entire train ride Louise covered the only clothes she had with Kronos' duster coat and covered her red hair with his hat.
"So what do we do when we get off?" Louise asked, "First we find a place to build a house, and once that's finished, what do we do?"
"We'll figure something out," Kronos replied, half asleep by this time, "Who knows? Depending on how boring the place is, maybe we'll get married."
1995
Caspian had come home early that afternoon and found Methos running around the house like a chicken with its head cut off, picking things up and tossing them in the closet or behind the couch.
"I know I'm going to hate myself for asking this," he said, "But what're you doing?"
"There's no time to talk," Methos replied, "There's a tornado heading this way and hiding in the basement won't help."
"A tornado?"
"That's right, I got a call this morning, Kronos is coming to visit and he's bringing his wife for us to meet."
"Oh Lord," Caspian remarked.
"Exactly," Methos said, "Now, he already told me a couple of things to expect while they're here, I passed the warning on to Silas, I'm hoping that this visit doesn't turn into World War III but I'm not holding my breath."
"The thing I can't figure out is how is it he's been married to her for so long and we're just now going to meet her?" Caspian asked.
"I don't know," Methos responded, "I don't know anything about her except that she's like us, which is a huge relief to me. How old though, I don't know but she must be up there because she knows who we all are, I don't think we'll be having to shed too much light during this visit."
Methos heard a car pull up out front and he looked out the window. "They're here," he groaned, "God help us all."
Outside, Kronos got out of the car and went over to the other side and opened the door and out stepped Louise who at the present moment was mostly covered by a big black fur coat.
"Really," she said, "You didn't have to do that."
"Well come on," he said, "Let's get this over with."
"Your enthusiasm is overwhelming," she dryly commented as they walked up the steps.
They reached the front door and they were greeted by Methos and Caspian stood far away from all of them as a spectator to the whole thing. For Methos and Kronos who hadn't seen each other in a good number of years, it was great to be in each other's company again.
"Well I see you haven't changed any," Kronos said, "You're still pale as a sheet and thin as an ostrich."
"You haven't changed either," Methos commented.
"Don't lie to your brother, it's a sin!" Louise told him.
"Methos," Kronos turned around and grabbed Louise and pulled her in between the two brothers, "This is Louise."
Methos offered her his hand but saw she had none to offer herself. She raised her arms revealing her hands were tucked away in a matching black muff, pulling out her right hand Methos saw it was also covered in a black glove.
"Nice to meet you, your brother's told me a lot of things about you," she said.
"Wish I could say the same," Methos replied, "I'd like you to meet."
"Don't tell me, I know, I know," Louise said as she walked over to Caspian, "A thing like this I don't forget, this is Caspian, so where's Silas?"
"He'll be back soon," Methos answered, "Why don't you take your coat off and make yourself at home?"
"Gladly," she replied as she put her muff on the dining room table and undid the fur coat. As she put it up on a hook on the coat rack, Methos and Caspian both saw that underneath the coat she wore a black tank top, blue jeans, black boots and elbow length black gloves, which she made no attempt to take off. Methos couldn't help but wonder why a person would feel a need to wear 10 pounds of fur and black gloves on a day when the sun was out and the temperature was 85 degrees and Kronos had made it very obvious she didn't give one damn about looking classy, and Methos couldn't figure out, though it was already starting to eat at him, what she was hiding.
"Well then," she said, "Where are we going to be staying during this visit?"