The sun was up by the time they got back to the car, shimmering slightly on the snow covered ground. Machiavelli got a good look at their group for the first time- they all seemed slightly wet and overall tired, and Billy was walking with a limp. "Let Perenelle drive," he suggested to the outlaw.
Billy offered no objections. He seemed beyond the point of arguing. Looking at their muddy boots, Machiavelli looked over at Scatty and back at the American immortal. She seemed to understand. Taking the keys from the Kid's numb hands, she opened the trunk and pulled out the tarps that he kept there. Machiavelli remembered them clearly from when they'd painted the cabin. Opening the door opposite Scatty's, he helped her put the tarps down on the floor.
"We can sit in the back," Niccolo suggested to Billy at last, closing the trunk and gesturing the slighter man over.
"Okay…"
Billy was cold all over. Machiavelli held his hand the whole drive back, trying to thaw the chill that had crept in. Unfortunately for them, the Thunderbird was hardly equipped to deal with the subarctic temperatures they'd been dealing with and it only really began to heat up when they were about ten miles away from their motel.
"Going to get some sleep now?" Perenelle asked them, as they parked. Both men nodded, neither of them wanting to say anything. "Good… We'll get up later. Figure out what we're going to try next..."
Machiavelli nodded again. One hand on Billy's shoulder, he pushed the younger immortal towards the stairs leading to their level. Behind them, Scatty followed Perenelle into their room.
He was beginning to worry about the Kid when he still hadn't spoken, but as their door clicked shut, Billy spoke for the first time since they'd gotten into the car. "That was a rubbish night."
"It was…" Machiavelli searched for a positive way to spin the night, but there really hadn't been one. They'd interviewed dozens of spirits, who existed in varying states of horror, they'd spent a cold and unproductive night traipsing through the woods, and now they were all exhausted. "It wasn't the worst thing that could happen," he insisted. "Now we know she's not up there. And these are the areas we're least sure about. We have a much better chance when we look in the places that you remember."
Billy was shivering. He didn't say anything to counter or support what Machiavelli had said, but the Italian immortal wasn't looking for much of a response. "You're freezing, caro," he pointed out gently. Stepping into the outlaw's personal space, he unzipped his jacket. Billy offered no help and, with a twisting feeling in his stomach, Machiavelli proceeded to slip it off entirely.
Their eyes met briefly, each wondering what was going to happen next, perhaps. Catching the hems of both Billy's sweater and t-shirt, Machiavelli pulled them up over his head and tossed them on the ground. Billy stepped out of his boots, and stumbled a little on his bad leg. Machiavelli caught him and then hesitated. "Go ahead," Billy told him, sounding very tired and beyond caring about what was happening.
Careful where he put his hands and what he touched, Niccolo undid the other man's belt, then the button of his jeans. It felt very strange to undress another man, but also very exciting. He wished the Kid didn't look so sad though. He used the back of his hand against Billy's hip to see if the damp had sunk all the way down through his layers, but his briefs were dry, if a little cold. The tactician looked up into Billy's dark green eyes. "Go to bed."
The outlaw gave a jerking nod. "Are you coming?" he asked, limping over to his side of their full.
"Yeah… Yeah, just as soon as I get this stuff off. You- You would think we swam down the river the amount of ice on the bottom of my pants…" He chattered, having to work hard to undo the laces of his boots, his own fingers fairly numb themselves.
He was conscious of Billy watching him, but he was too cold and too tired to make much of it; he got undressed at a much quicker pace than he had used with the American immortal and climbed into bed, blinking in the semi-darkness. He had never known he could be so grateful to find himself in bed. "Don't be sad, Billy."
"I'm just a little bit sad," the American immortal confessed.
"It was a rough night," Machiavelli conceded finally. "But we knew we might not find anything…"
Billy rolled onto his back and pawed around on his bedside table. Grabbing up his wallet, he took out a folded piece of paper and dropped the rest of the billfold over the side of the bed. He unfolded it- it was the copy of the newspaper they'd found. "I know that we had to be somewhere around here at some point. But what if we don't find it?" he murmured, gazing at the article.
Machiavelli moved closer. Invading Billy's pillow, he took the article from the American immortal and held it above them. "I know this seems stupid to say after last night, but I think we'll have better luck tonight. If not finding your mother exactly, at least finding the spot where you lived. And that would be nice too, wouldn't it?" He handed it back to Billy, who dropped it onto the bedside table.
"Yeah…"
Despite Billy's morose nature, Machiavelli couldn't help grinning at him. He'd been feeling a bit downtrodden lately about the prospects of their relationship, but somehow… Billy needed him now and he would be there for him. Stretching over, he kissed the Kid on the cheek, making Billy huff in surprise and close his eyes. "Buonanotte, ti amo. Get some sleep," he added, shifting back onto his side of the bed.
They slept the entire day. In fact, it was only a call from Perenelle that woke them up as the sun was beginning to go down. "Hello?" Machiavelli asked sleepily, holding the phone the wrong way and having to turn it around.
"Rise and shine. Are you ready to make a fresh attempt?"
Machiavelli looked around to Billy's side of the bed. The Kid was still snoring softly, the blankets twisted around him. "Yeah, I guess so. I'll wake Billy. Mm hm. Yeah, okay," he said, not really paying attention to what he was agreeing to. "Yeah, we'll be ready in… like twenty minutes. We'll knock on your door." They hung up.
"Billy? Billy," he said a little louder. He smacked the outlaw on the ass.
"What time is it?" the Kid said, immediately coming out of a deep sleep and looking around in a panic. "Why didn't I put anything on to go to bed?"
"It's six o'clock," Machiavelli told him, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "And, I don't know… we were both pretty tired this morning." He pulled his bag closer. "I need warmer clothes. It's only the start of the winter…"
"You can wear one of my sweaters," Billy said distractedly, pulling his pillow over his head again.
"You're not falling asleep again, are you?" Machiavelli asked suspiciously.
"Yeah…"
"Billy, wake up!" Niccolo said loudly.
"Oh… but I'm so sleepy," the outlaw groused, climbing slowly out of the bed. He crawled out from under the covers and sat beside the Italian immortal, clearly not entirely awake. Leaning against Machiavelli, he let out a soft snore.
The tactician gave him about half a minute's rest before he shook him roughly awake. The American immortal let out a piteous moan, which Niccolo ignored, knowing it was only going to get harder to wake up. "Come on, the cold will wake you up," he said, dragging the younger man to his feet. He slapped the Kid's cheeks, rather harder than he needed to until Billy squirmed away, grumbling and groaning as he gathered his clothing and dumped it all on the bed. Sorting through, he dressed at top speed, suddenly seeming to come awake.
Machiavelli sat on the couch, trying not to watch the other man dress, though there was very little else to distract him in this room. We're looking for his mother, he reminded himself sharply, turning around entirely when Billy bent over to retrieve his wallet. So cut it out.
"I'm ready," the outlaw said, at long last. He still looked exhausted. Machiavelli considered putting off this entire thing for a night, to give them more time to recuperate, but he dismissed the idea almost as soon as it entered his mind. It was already November 20th, and they'd promised they'd be back by Thanksgiving, which was in three days… and that reminded him.
"Is your birthday coming up?"
Billy looked surprised. Rubbing his nose, he nodded. "The 23rd." He took the little notebook out of his pocket. "Hey, Mac, we're going to share a birthday. You'll be twenty sevenish, depending on how you look at things."
"It's not my actual birthday," Machiavelli argued, exiting the room and closing the door behind Billy. "We should focus on you."
"Nah, I'm excited to share it with you! What kind of cake are we going to get?" They continued to banter all the way along the hall and down the stairs.
"I haven't gotten you anything, though," Machiavelli said mournfully, knocking on the door.
"Don't need to get me anything," Billy said back and the door opened. "Hi Perenelle."
"Hello, dear," she said, beckoning them in. "I was just telling Scathach, at least we'll be searching much closer to our motel, tonight. It won't take as long to get there, or back again."
"How far away is it?"
"The place we're searching is about fifteen, twenty minutes at most down the road." She looked them over. "I see you dressed warmer," she added approvingly. "I took the liberty of packing some extra socks for all of us… that way we can change when we're in the car later, so we don't have to wait."
"Did you get any sleep?" Machiavelli asked her. She looked very wan indeed.
"A bit. Interacting with the spirits can be very tiring," she told him, so quietly that he didn't think the others heard. He nodded, having suspected as much. "This will be the last night we can search and then I will need to sleep for quite a while…"
"We'll have to make it count then," he said lightly. He looked over at where Billy and Scatty were talking on the couch. "I hope we find… something, anything, really…"
Perenelle nodded, following his gaze. "Me, too."
~MB~
It must have been the frustrations of the previous night, but they spoke very little this time as they made their way along the river bank. The landscape around them was mostly farmland- indeed, most of the land had been worked over so that only here, on the edge of the land and water, grew trees of considerable size.
"You grew up next to the river?" Machiavelli asked, shivering uncontrollably as they walked along, Perenelle up ahead interrogating spirits as they came across them. Billy and he hung back, not as enthusiastic as they had been before, and this was saying something because neither of them had been at all excited last night to talk to these fearsome beings.
"Yes, we lived in a little house by a river bend," the Kid told him, stopping and stretching his leg piteously. "My mother used to tell me that in the summer I would play in the shallow waters and Josie, he always tried to follow me in. But he was younger, see? And it caused her a great amount of anxiety cause she thought he would drown. She used to tell me stories when I was falling asleep…"
"What else did she tell you?" His breath was coloring the air, rising above him. He felt like even the insides of his nostrils were beginning to freeze.
Billy shrugged hopelessly. "We moved so often," he said despairingly. "I don't know what was Indiana stories and what happened in Kansas… She said," he continued, interrupting his own complaining and furrowing his brow, "that because of the problem of it all, I took to going in the opposite direction, through the field, you know, so that Josie wouldn't think I was going to the river. And then… I would double back around."
"So you lived somewhere where the river is shallow nearby," Machiavelli mused.
"Well, we know that it wasn't near here, then." They looked over at the river. Wide and rushing, the river cut into the landscape, so that they had to be careful not to fall down the steep embankment.
"It's narrowing though," Niccolo pointed out. "And there was a field… but that doesn't help much. There's fields all over the place…"
"And the landscape's probably changed in the last hundred years or so," Billy pointed out gloomily.
This was beginning to seem impossible. The outlaw had a point. Even the river might be different now than it was in the past. The banks would have been eroded over the years and beaver dams or manmade interventions could have changed its course entirely.
They'd searched all of Greenfield relatively quickly, without much result. Moving over a town and refusing to give up, they began to search the river banks of Philadelphia, Indiana, the irony not being lost on them that they'd come hundreds of miles to search a town that was named the exact same thing as the one they'd been living in.
Billy was getting quieter and quieter as the night progressed. Machiavelli was beginning to really worry about him. They hadn't made the amount of progress he'd been hoping they would. He was freezing, and, judging by Billy's limp, the Kid was suffering equally. It hadn't helped, he mused, that the Kid had stepped in a badger hole, nearly twisting his ankle.
Opening his mouth, he started to ask the outlaw how his leg was feeling, but a shout from farther ahead interrupted him entirely.
"Billy!"
Looking up, Billy broke into a sprint and behind him, Machiavelli followed closely. They'd let some distance gather between them and the female immortals; closing it, they found Perenelle and Scatty grouped next to several men in what seemed to be civil war uniforms. "What's up?" he asked Perenelle, panting. "What's wrong? Do they know where-?"
"No," she said immediately, and Machiavelli felt his heart sink. He knew from the look on Billy's face that, like him, he'd thought they'd found something this time. She stepped away from the ghostly group and Machiavelli followed closely after Billy, leaving Scatty alone with the three men. "But these men, they think they knew your father."
"My father?" Billy repeated blankly. "But I don't know my father. How could-?"
"I asked them if they knew of a Catherine McCarty from around their time because they're in civil war uniforms," she explained in a low, quick voice. "And they said they'd had a friend named Michael McCarty, whose wife was named Catherine."
"But I'm not even sure his name was Michael," Billy argued, looking dazed. "I never met him. He died when I was a baby."
"Oh, but Billy," she dragged him back over to where the soldiers were waiting for them. "Ask them a question. See what they know."
The Kid reluctantly stepped forward, his expression still largely nonplussed. The three men were conversing among themselves, glancing back at him; when he moved towards them, they stopped talking and waited, backs straight and arms down by their sides. "Hello?" he said nervously. "You think you knew my- my father?"
"We knew Michael," the oldest of the three said, speaking for all of them. He had a heavy Irish brogue. "He was our mate."
"But what makes you think he was my father?"
"How many Michael McCarty's do you think were wandering around with a wife, Catherine?" the man to Billy's right said, rather brusquely.
"Michael and Catherine are hardly unique Irish names," Billy snapped back, the stress of the past couple of days apparently raising his ire. Far from getting angry though, the three men laughed.
"Aye, that's true, but we know a bit more. Michael, he left a wee little lad behind. Just a year old or so, wasn't he? Carried a picture of the mother and the son in a locket he wore around his neck and he showed near everyone, he did."
Machiavelli was listening intently, struggling to translate the soldier's words into discernible English at the same pace the man was talking. "And what was his son's name?" he asked, breaking in.
"Called the lad Henry, din't he?" Consulting each other, they nodded.
Niccolo felt like his stomach had dropped down a couple of inches in pure surprise. Stepping up next to Billy, he put his hand on the Kid's shoulder, squeezing it hard. "Where is your friend? Couldn't we see him?"
"Fraid not," the first man said. "Followed his little woman, he did, when she moved away from here. Said they were going to Kansas next, he'd heard her talking. She was getting sick- what did she have Lieutenant Kilrain?" he asked his friend.
"Consumption," the last of them said softly. He shook his head gravely. "Too bad, it was. Michael used to read her letters aloud. Felt like we knew her. You look like Michael, you know."
Billy still seemed to be in shock. With some effort, he cleared his throat. He looked over at Niccolo helplessly. "So, you think you know my father, but you don't know where he is?"
"I told you, we think he's in Kansas. His wife was getting sick. She moved with her new husband. New baby. And Henry. He went too."
Billy was still mouthing wordlessly. Machiavelli stepped forward. "We should go now, William," he said softly. Looking over at the three soldiers, he thanked them. They nodded, their eyes on Billy. The sun was coming up over them all. Beams of light were beginning to slant down through the trees and it was getting harder to see the soldiers. Machiavelli looked at Perenelle and Scatty for help.
Scatty stepped forward. "Yeah, come on, kid." She took his other hand and pulled him back towards the direction they'd come from. "Let's get back to the hotel. It's been another long night."
Seeming to realize they were moving for the first time, Billy lurched forward. Scatty let go of his arm, rushing ahead to join Perenelle who was slowly picking her way through the brambles. Machiavelli saw the Shadow take Perenelle's arm. The Frenchwoman looked very tired now.
At the edge of the clearing, Billy came to a halt and looked behind them. Machiavelli turned too. The three soldiers had already disappeared. Giving a funny little nod, Billy let the Italian immortal continue leading him.
