by L. Inman
Elisabeth woke before the sun had properly risen, after a nebulous half-hour's bout of twitching and turning, half-alert to avoid hitting the other occupant of the bed with her thrashing. That was the problem with sharing a bed: and the odd clarity of that thought woke her with a blink. She found herself staring into Rupert's sleeping face. She couldn't help a faint recoil at the proximity of him, but after the first shock she subsided onto her back and breathed evenly, blinking up at the ceiling.
She slipped out of the bed quietly, so as not to wake him, and padded downstairs to make tea. In the days she had been here, she had learned where almost everything was, so it was not difficult to find a cup and a teabag while she waited for the water to heat.
Rupert, she realized afresh when she opened the fridge, had done some serious grocery shopping the other day. She got the milk out for her tea, shut the fridge door, and glanced around at the new things peeping out on the counter and atop the fridge. Yes, he had replenished nearly everything and bought extra things as well: Elisabeth's eyes fell on a bag of potato chips tucked next to the microwave. He had been long overdue for a shopping trip, and she wondered how much her presence had prolonged the wait for the proper opportunity. Elisabeth checked the impulse to beat herself over the head with her intrusion, but couldn't quite squelch the wistful sense of being a stranger to Rupert's solitary rhythms. You will develop rhythms of your own, she told herself. Give it time.
She curled up in the armchair with her tea; and the sun rose as the level in her cup sank. By the time Rupert stirred upstairs, woke, and shuffled down tousle-haired, she had nearly finished it off altogether. "There's water on the stove if you want to reheat it," she told him. He nodded, squinting, rubbed scratchily at his face, and disappeared in the direction of the bathroom.
By the time he was out and dressed, Elisabeth had washed her cup and gone upstairs to retrieve clothing and bath things from her pack. She went down, found that he was making coffee, clean and shaven but not much more alert than he had been at first. She felt a sudden shyness, all the more disconcerting because of the rapidity with which they had grown intimate.
She scuttled past him into the bathroom, and opted for a quick shower rather than a languorous bath. Within fifteen minutes she was combing her wet hair before the mirror. She was about to put it up, but then realized that leaving it down would conceal some part of the small shaved patch and the unsightly black row of stitches on her temple, like some horrible caterpillar that was slowly eating her hair. She combed the fall of her straggling hair and hoped that its current look of studied looseness would remain once it had dried.
Nothing, however, could be done about the bruises, or the dark circles under her eyes that suggested illness. Elisabeth washed her glasses, wiped them clean with her pajama T-shirt, and settled them over the bridge of her nose: the result was merely that she could see her pitiful face more clearly. She winced and stopped looking in the mirror.
When she came out she found Rupert packing his satchel. "Xander just called," he said. "He and Anya should be here any moment. I'll wait till he gets here before I go in to the shop."
"Okay," Elisabeth said, picking her quiet way over to the table and sitting down at her place. She laced her hands together on the table and sat waiting, watching him pack. She wanted to ask if he had slept well, but feared it might nettle him: nobody, she reflected, likes to be maneuvered into doing what is good for one, and continually referring to the fact could only make it worse.
He was moving briskly, and it occurred to Elisabeth that once Xander arrived he would expect her to be fully ready to leave. She got up and went to find her shoes.
Once shod, she sat back down at the table with her jacket in her lap. She watched Rupert put the finishing touches to his packing; he paused, one hand on hip, one hand seeking the back of his head, a thoughtful frown on his face. He had not yet put on his suit jacket, and Elisabeth noted the quirked hang of his tie (which she hoped he would not fix, as she found it endearing), the straight fall of the creases in his trousers (Rupert had such long legs), the soft crispness of his drying hair.
He felt her eyes on him and turned to look at her mildly. She took her gaze away and looked back at the front door, sucking in her lips.
Mercifully, the loud knock came then, sparing her any further diffidence, and sparing them both from placing too much emphasis on a stray moment. Rupert moved to answer it just as Anya turned the handle and pushed it open. "Hi there," she said, barging straight in, Xander lumbering in behind.
"Yes, do come right in," Rupert said, lifting his eyes to the ceiling. Xander shrugged an apology at him, then turned to where Elisabeth sat at the table. "All ready?" he said.
Elisabeth released her lips from between her teeth. "Yes." She got up and shrugged into her jacket.
"Okay," Xander said. He turned to Rupert. "We'll meet up back at the shop later."
Rupert nodded his agreement.
Less than a minute later Elisabeth, Xander, and Anya were out on Rupert's doorstep. "Giles is kindof a cranky-pants this morning," Anya observed as Xander shut the door behind them.
Xander looked at Elisabeth; Anya's eyes followed. Elisabeth could only shrug.
They took Xander's car, Elisabeth automatically choosing the back seat; she was usually the person with the shortest legs. "This is going to be fun," Anya said, grinning at her over the back of the passenger seat. "Almost as much fun as it would be if we were going shopping for me."
"Anya," Xander said; but Anya ignored him. Elisabeth smiled back at her: it seemed to her a great compliment that Anya would find this trip fun at all.
"Where are we going?" she asked Xander tentatively.
"Where all roads lead, of course," he said. "The mall."
Elisabeth had not been to a mall for a long time—that is, for the purposes of shopping. She had been to many malls in search of temporary employment, though she considered herself lucky that most of her jobs had been in independent establishments. She wondered, wasn't there some nice Burlington Coat Factory around Sunnydale? Things were likely to cost a great deal more at the mall.
Xander was watching her face in the rearview mirror. "Relax," he said. "It's going to be fine."
They arrived at the mall without fanfare, and Xander steered them gently to a department store which Elisabeth knew to have good sale racks, but whose merchandise was usually quite out of her star. Unhappily she followed Xander and Anya to the coat section.
To her amazement, she was met with a proliferation of coats that did not at all correspond with the usual weather in Southern California in the winter. She gave Xander a look of mute confusion, and he said, "Giles said this was the place for travelers."
She drew a long breath. "Okay," she said.
Anya said, ticking off criteria on her fingers: "We're looking for a coat that repels water, that can stand up to cold and wind, and that you can beat up pretty good. Other than that, anything you want. So, go on—choose a coat." Anya flapped her hands at Elisabeth in a shooing motion.
Elisabeth disappeared among the coats before Xander could reprove Anya again.
It had been a very, very long time since Elisabeth had chosen anything off the rack, and it took her a while to begin her patient search. She felt herself drawn to the traditional burberry types, but didn't know if that was actually what she wanted. She did know that she wanted something dark, probably black, but she worried that it might make her look all Boris and Natasha. She mentioned this to Xander as she passed him among the racks, along with a musing aside on Cold War culture; Xander laughed appropriately, and she moved on.
However, Xander wasn't laughing when he caught her reeling in the price tag on the sleeve of a coat. His hand caught the tag before she got hold of it, effectively obscuring the price. "You're not supposed to be worrying about that," he said. "Choose what you like."
Elisabeth finally balked. "But what if what I like is too expensive?" she said, glaring up into Xander's face.
"It probably won't be," Xander said. "But if it is, we'll let you know."
"That will be embarrassing," Elisabeth muttered, casting wet eyes down to the carpet.
Xander sighed. "Tell you what. Choose three things you like best, and we'll work out which is the best buy afterward. Okay?"
Elisabeth nodded, clenching her teeth against the ache under her tongue.
Xander grasped her shoulder for a moment, and then left her alone again.
Elisabeth did find it easier, to choose three coats and let Xander and Anya guide her toward the best-priced one: a black trench with a zippered liner, made of a soft, almost moleskin-like material. On the whole, she was rather relieved that her choice and her friends' pockets were so compatible, and so she wandered off toward the doors, idly sniffing at perfume testers, while Xander and Anya paid for the coat. They caught her up after a few minutes; Anya presented the coat to Elisabeth, swathed in yards of plastic, for her to carry out; and as they stepped out into the bright sunlight, heading for the car, Xander drew her into a brief, strong side-hug. He let her go before their stride was compromised too much. Elisabeth ratcheted in another long breath, willing herself to relax.
In the car, Elisabeth comforted herself by saying: "Well, my birthday's coming up soon, so I think I'll look at this as an early birthday present."
"There you go," Xander said.
Anya turned to Xander with a frown. "You know, I haven't gotten any early-birthday presents. Or any right-on-my-birthday presents. Or even any late-birthday presents."
"Well," Xander said, "you never told me when your birthday is."
"Well…I can't remember my birthday. It was over a thousand years ago, you know. Dammit!" Anya said. "I'm getting gypped out of all my birthday presents because I can't remember when my birthday is."
"You can make up a birthday," Xander suggested.
"Yeah," Elisabeth said.
The trouble cleared from Anya's face. "Good idea! Except—" she frowned again— "if I pick some arbitrary day, nobody will remember it. I want an exciting day for my birthday that everyone will remember."
"There are pitfalls to picking arbitrary days, though," Elisabeth said, "if something exciting but bad happens on the day. Like the people born on what's now Pearl Harbor Day." Or September 11th, she reflected to herself, and then thought—Oh, God: I'm going to have to relive that all over again. She put a hand to her forehead, as if pressing against a nonexistent headache, and stared for a moment out the window.
Xander's voice recalled her. "You could pick a holiday."
"Okay," Anya said. "What's the best holiday?"
"Well, there are holidays and holidays," Elisabeth explained. "You don't want to be too close to Christmas, because people tend to give you a Christmas-slash-birthday present, and you get gypped."
"Okay, then Christmas is out," Anya said firmly.
"And you don't want to be too close to Thanksgiving either, like me," Elisabeth went on, "because everybody has family duty, and you can never have a party that everyone can come to."
"Okay," Anya said, as if making a list. "No Christmas. No Thanksgiving."
"Easter's a moving date," Elisabeth said thoughtfully, "though the Equinox has something to be said for it…Columbus Day is the pits…."
"Clearly," Anya said, "I'm going to have to start making a list of available holidays and debating the pros and cons of having my birthday on them. That's our project for this weekend," she told Xander.
Xander grinned, and nodded acquiescently.
They stopped, on their way to the magic shop, at the university, so that Elisabeth could model her new burberry for Tara and Willow, and pay her last respects.
She had tried it on in the store, of course, but now, wearing it with the tags off and adjusting all the various buttons and straps to her liking, she found it was beginning, just a little, to feel like her own. She turned, the long hem of the coat swishing gently, to survey herself in the mirror.
"It's nice," Willow said, from where she lounged on the bed. "It looks very…."
"Watchery," Tara supplied, helping Elisabeth straighten the shoulders.
"Really?" Elisabeth said. "You think it says 'Watcher' and not, y'know, 'Boris and Natasha'?"
This prompted a number of Bullwinkle jokes and impressions which left them all grinning and giggling.
"Well," Willow concluded, "this oughta do you good in England. Good job, Xander and Anya."
Tara said tentatively, "So…it's all arranged then? All the stuff for moving…?"
"Yeah," Elisabeth said, concentrating on adjusting the sleeves.
"Cause," Willow said, growing bolder with each word, "Giles was freaking out pretty heavily the other day about getting it all done."
Elisabeth looked up to catch Xander frowning at Willow. But Anya picked up where Willow left off.
"He called his old orgasm friend to take you, and then when we questioned his judgment he bit our heads off," she said. "But not literally. It's a metaphor."
"Just barely," Willow muttered.
Elisabeth tried not to think too hard over her answer. "Well, the biggest bit of difficulty, I think, is getting my visa and passport all in order. I don't know very much about that; he said he'd take care of it."
But it didn't deflect the attention of the others. "So," Tara said, "you don't think it's going to be a problem? Staying with Giles's friend?"
"What, Olivia?" Elisabeth looked at them and gave up trying to misdirect. "Rupert said he'd worked it out with her. I asked him if she'd mind that we'd had a—you know—and he said, no, she'd probably take it for granted."
Everyone blinked.
"He said that?" Willow yelped, causing Elisabeth to regret instantly what she'd done. She hurried to walk it back. "Well…."
But she didn't get the chance.
"What's wrong with him?" Tara said, with some concern.
"Oh!" Anya said, before anyone could stab at a guess. "You know what this means? This means Xander and I get money."
"Anya—" Xander began.
"Yes! We get money. Xander and I bet ten dollars that Giles would screw up the Olivia thing. And he did, boy howdy."
"You made a bet?" Elisabeth asked, frowning intently at her. But Anya paid no attention.
"Anya—" Xander said.
"Ten dollars," Anya said, holding her hand out insistently. "From each of you."
Tara and Willow rolled their eyes acquiescently and went each for their wallets. Elisabeth watched, standing blankly in her black trenchcoat with one sleeve adjusted and the other drooping over her knuckles, as Tara counted singles out of a wad in her change purse and Willow snapped a crisp ten out of her wallet.
"Does nobody know the meaning of tact anymore?" Xander asked the ceiling. Everyone ignored him. Elisabeth watched Anya happily counting the money, growing more and more indignant.
Finally she stuck out her hand. "Where's my cut?"
Anya finally looked up, startled. "You don't get any. You weren't in the bet."
"He said it to me," Elisabeth said, not lowering her hand. "I think I should get paid. Not to mention you wouldn't have the money if I hadn't told you what he said."
"She does have a point there, An," Xander said.
"But that's not how gambling works," Anya protested.
"I need vengeance money," Elisabeth insisted.
Anya wavered. "Well…okay." She began to peel a one off her takings, but Xander reached over and tugged out the crisp ten. Anya made a face of protest, but reluctantly handed over the ten to Elisabeth, who folded it away into her pocket with satisfaction.
"I've got to recoup my losses somehow," Anya said.
"Well, strictly speaking, Giles ought to pay Elisabeth ten dollars," Tara said, folding her arms with a wicked smile.
"'Taking it for granted,' indeed," Willow muttered. "He's such a guy."
"Hey!" Xander said. "Y chromosome here."
"That's it," Anya said. "I'll make Giles pay me ten dollars."
"Now wait a minute," Elisabeth said.
"You don't want me to make Giles pay me ten dollars?"
Elisabeth hastened to explain. "Oh, no—I don't mind you taking ten dollars from Giles—it's just—I already gave him an earful about what he said, and then I told you all about it, and I don't want to twist the knife…."
Everybody made a derisive noise.
"If he didn't want it to get around to the fambly," Willow said firmly, "he shouldn't have said it."
"Plus he gave us an earful the other day," Xander said.
Elisabeth relaxed. "I see. Payment for all the guilty bystanders."
"Who's a guilty bystander?"
They turned. Buffy was peeking into the room, and at their notice she came inside altogether. "Will, I came by real quick to get your history notes before I go pick up Dawn."
"Right," Willow said, going to her backpack on the floor.
"So who's a guilty bystander?"
Willow stood up, indignant all over again. "Giles," she said, "told Elisabeth that Olivia would take it for granted that she slept with him."
Buffy stared. Elisabeth blushed.
Buffy said: "Well, that's setting a record, even for a guy. I clearly need to have a talk with him."
"Hello," Xander said, "still have a Y chromosome here."
"We know, sweetie," Anya said, patting his chest.
Willow dragged a notebook to the surface; Elisabeth saw that "19th c. European History" was printed neatly on the cover. "Here," Willow said, "just take the whole thing. I'll come get it tonight or tomorrow."
"Thanks," Buffy said. "You're the best. I'd better get going."
"Better say goodbye to Elisabeth," Tara reminded her. "Her plane leaves tomorrow morning."
"Oh! right," Buffy said distractedly, looking at Elisabeth at last. "Hey, nice coat."
"Thanks," Elisabeth said, blushing again.
Buffy passed the history notebook from one hand to the other. "Well…good luck in England. Bring us all some souvenirs…which…you would do if you were coming back. I'm sorry." Buffy grimaced. "Brain, clearly on the fritz."
Elisabeth offered her a diffident smile—then had an idea. She pointed, her unadjusted sleeve flopping. "Oh! tell you what. I'll shoepolish Quentin Travers's car for you. 'U…SUCK.'" Elisabeth pantomimed drawing the block letters, her hand half-lost in her black coat-sleeve.
Buffy broke into a genuine smile. "You do that," she said.
She reached to shake Elisabeth's hand.
In the end, it was Xander alone who brought Elisabeth back to the Magic Box; he had successfully convinced Anya that she could get her ten dollars from Giles just as well tomorrow as today. Elisabeth had taken leave of Anya and Willow and Tara with dry eyes until the very last moment when Tara drew back from their hug and said, "Take care, okay?"
Now, pausing outside the door of the shop, she turned to Xander and said quietly, "Thanks. For everything…you know."
He smiled, self-deprecating and affectionate at once. "No problem."
They hugged, briefly, tightly; then Xander held the door for Elisabeth to enter the shop.
Rupert looked up from his desultory efforts with the ledger. "Oh, hallo," he said. "Good hunting?"
Elisabeth held up the arm over which lay her coat.
Xander poked her. "Show it to him."
She rolled her eyes good-naturedly, shucked off her jacket, and shrugged into the coat. She buttoned two buttons and gave a half-twirl for Rupert's benefit.
He smiled. "Very nice."
"Well, I'm going to head out," Xander said.
Elisabeth and Rupert both turned. "I'll see you tomorrow, then, or the day after," Rupert said mildly. Xander nodded.
"Bye," Elisabeth said, offering him a small wave.
Xander stopped in his movement toward the door and came to shake her hand. "Good luck in England."
She returned his handshake firmly. "Thanks. The same to you."
Xander grinned, and with a final wave, departed. The bell gave a lonely little ring as the door shut behind him.
With a sigh Elisabeth took off her new coat and resumed her jacket. "Said my goodbyes to everybody today," she said as she put her hands into all the pockets, making sure she had everything. She wasn't quite ready to move her wallet and other paraphernalia into her new coat.
"Yes," Rupert said softly.
"They were," Elisabeth said, drawing out her wallet and looking carefully through it, "very kind to me."
Rupert had no reply, and after a moment's silence she looked up at him. He was looking at her, head cocked, an abstract and unreadable expression in his eyes. He had, she noticed, straightened his tie since the morning.
Elisabeth moved her glance from him to their surroundings: this was, if she were lucky, the last time she would ever be in the Magic Box. Her eyes fell once more to the wallet in her hand, and she opened it to finger the bills inside. "Listen," she said as she counted money, "I want to—" Pulling out a few bills, she looked up to catch the look of scandal and horror crossing Rupert's face.
"Elisabeth," he uttered, "you mustn't think of—"
He stopped. She said:
"Can I buy that book from you now?"
Relief softened his face into a small, bright smile. "Of course," he said. Then frowned nervously. "—If, of course, I still have—I shoved it somewhere when you—hang on, let me see—" He bustled around the counter and began rooting around beneath the cash register. Elisabeth drifted toward the counter and fetched up against the glass, resting her open wallet on the top surface.
All she could see was the top of his head as he muttered and grunted and shoved things aside. Several rattles and crackles later, he cried, "Aha!" and emerged with the book, slightly dusty but none the worse. He looked inside the cover, tilting his head back and raising his brows above his glass-rims. "Would you like a student discount?"
"Absolutely not," Elisabeth said, straightening her spine.
He grinned and rang the book up; she handed over her money, and he gave her her change. "Would you like me to wrap it?" he asked, with the faintest of courtly bows.
Elisabeth wavered. Usually she declined the wrapping of any book, as the whole purpose of buying it was to get her hands on it as soon as she was out of the shop. She looked up at him, and raised her chin. "Yes, please," she said, folding her wallet away with a regal air. "I would like it wrapped."
She watched with pleasure as he covered the green-and-gold book with decorated brown paper. He finished with a small flourish of scotch tape and handed the book over. "Thank you for shopping with us," he said, with a little smile.
She gave him a majestic nod, clutching her purchase close.
Elisabeth resisted the temptation to unwrap the book as Rupert closed up the shop for the night. She contented herself with holding onto it and occasionally fingering the stars and moons on the wrapping paper.
Her eyes were on the book as Rupert locked the front door, and as she followed him to his car; and it wasn't till she was seated and he was turning the ignition that she remembered with a bump that she had another leave-taking to make. "Oh!" she said.
He looked up, leaving the car unstarted. "What?"
"Can we stop by that church before we go home?" she asked. "Just for a minute. I want to let the priest know what happened."
There was a brief silence as their eyes met.
"Very well," he said quietly, and reached to start the car.
It was quite dark by the time Rupert and Elisabeth arrived home. Both of them listened carefully to the darkness as they approached the door of his flat, but nothing came at them, and Rupert's hand finally relaxed in his jacket pocket as he unlocked the door with the other hand and ushered Elisabeth in ahead of him. Elisabeth hung one new purchase neatly on an empty hook, and carried the other to the table, where she sat and contemplated it for a moment, running a fingertip idly under the edge of the wrapping. At last she smoothed the wrapping intact and took up the book to carry it upstairs.
"You're not going to unwrap it?" Rupert asked, smiling from the kitchen where he was getting out pans and bowls preparatory to cooking.
Elisabeth paused scarcely a second on the landing to answer. "Not yet."
After tucking the book safely away in her pack upstairs, Elisabeth came down to help with dinner, which they prepared and ate with the usual brevity of comment. Elisabeth kept her eyes on her food—for the most part—except when she flicked up her gaze to study him furtively on the other side of the table. He had been freaking out, Willow had said. Elisabeth wasn't sure what she ought to make of that; wasn't sure if it betokened a pleasing concern for her, or a worrying and guilt-inducing tendency to take too much on himself. Or both. Complicated, it was so complicated—and would be even if she hadn't actually slept with him. Which she hadn't regretted yet. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life— Elisabeth smirked to herself over a bite of salad.
"What?" he said, startling her. She realized he had been watching her face. She blushed and shook her head. "I couldn't explain," she said, diffidently.
He offered her a little smile and went back to eating.
She sat idly stirring the last bits of her salad with her fork and thought about the ending of Casablanca. Obviously Rupert was putting her on a plane with—well, sending her to Olivia, though Olivia, from all Elisabeth knew, didn't frame well as a Victor Laszlo. Rupert was putting her on a plane with—her book, that was it. She was Escaping From Sunnydale, and Keeping Her Marriage to the Fairy-Tale….
She was getting far too silly now. Besides, there was no Louis for Rupert to nudge and say, "This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Then it struck her, the hilarity of Rupert Giles as Humphrey Bogart. It took a great deal of effort to keep the laughter off her face.
She dared a glance up at him once more. His eyes were on his plate, his expression somber. Elisabeth felt all over again the strain within her, between wanting to offer him something, having nothing to offer, and having instead to accept all that he gave. It was too much to think about, and she pushed it and her plate away.
Elisabeth volunteered to do the dishes, and Rupert, after only a moment's hesitation, let her tackle their plates and the pans while he went up to change and get out his notes for the evening's research.
Once the dishes were done, Elisabeth opted for one last long bath, as she was certain she would get no chance to bathe the next day. This she told Rupert as she gathered her bath things; but her unavowed desire was to get away alone to think.
But once she sank into the warm water, all desire to think left her. The two-and-a-half years of history she had to relive—the bitter cup of accepting a coat, a plane ticket, and a provisional sum of money—the loss of her past—none of these would bear dwelling on, and instead Elisabeth closed her eyes and stirred the water around her skin, letting the scent and the flow draw her attention.
She stayed in the bath as long as she could, letting its pleasant associations lull her. But duty urged her up before too long: she had to go over the next morning's procedure and make sure she was properly packed. Elisabeth quashed the tendril of anxiety that wound around her breath, and pulled the bathtub plug.
Wet hair pinned up, glasses perched damply on her nose, Elisabeth sat down with Rupert to work out the manner in which she would leave the country of her birth. He explained it all very simply and carefully, but she felt her competence and then her attention slipping the longer he went on. He glanced up from the papers on the coffee table to her face: she hitched an attentive look back on and nodded at him to continue.
"All right?" he asked, when they had finished.
"I don't know if I'll remember any of this in the morning," she said, pushing her glasses up to rub her eyes.
"I expect it'll go so fast you won't even notice," he said, laying a hand briefly on her shoulder.
By the time she had her hands away from her face and her eyes open to look at him, he had taken his hand away and begun shuffling the papers into a single pile.
Inside her stomach was a fuzz of anxiety and frustration: she wanted something simple, something single in purpose….
She took off her glasses, rose, turned: dropped the glasses on top of the papers he was piling, took his shoulder, stilling him, and kissed his mouth.
His hand came up to steady her, and for the first few seconds he was even kissing her back. But even with her eyes closed Elisabeth knew it was all wrong, and stubbornly she pressed the kiss forward in an urgent appeal. Perhaps a little force would get them over whatever stile—
He got hold of her shoulders and held her gently away, and their kiss broke gently despite Elisabeth's efforts to maintain it. "May I ask," he said softly, eyes steady on hers, "what you are doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" The sharpness of her own voice stung her, and she dropped her gaze and her head.
"Well…." He was too gracious to finish the sentence. Elisabeth tried to do it for him.
"I was just—" she faltered— "I only wanted to—"
"Prove your membership in the Bloomsbury club?" He said it gently, but she jerked her chin up in protest.
"No!" His hands were so gentle, holding her arms. Elisabeth's eyes stung and filled. She couldn't look at him any more. "That's a…better motive than the one I was thinking of," she managed at last. And finally she dropped her shoulders and let out a great sigh, hoping it would curtail the impending tears. "I'm sorry. Damn!"
He tilted his head, mouth wry, which was in itself a speech she didn't want to hear. "Come here," he said, shifting back to recline further on the couch.
She resisted, but in the end found herself acceding to his touch; they shifted and clambered, and finally she found herself tucked around him, his long legs gathered onto the couch somehow, her head under his chin. For a long moment they were silent together as he stroked her hair; Rupert mercifully did not speak, and Elisabeth could not: she was fully occupied with chewing the inside of her cheek and fighting tears.
When she thought she had voice again, she whispered: "I'm too proud for all this, you know."
He said nothing, only moved his chin over her hair, acknowledging her words.
"I hate accepting things I can't pay for myself. It makes one so helpless." She gave a small bark of a laugh. "You'd think after wrestling so hard to accept that tenet on a theological level, that it wouldn't bother me in the mortal plane. But here I am." She sighed.
Rupert made a small sound, but otherwise let her speech go unanswered.
"I come from a long line of proud people," Elisabeth said, keeping her eyes on the knickknacks on the mantelpiece. "My father dug ditches to put himself through college. His father was an Okie who went to earn a living horse-breaking instead of going to high school. My mother came from Presbyterian patrician stock. I was an adult before I figured out that that was a problem for him." She sighed again and closed her eyes. "Of course being an intellectual dilettante doesn't exempt you from the Bowen pride. It just makes things a little harder."
After a little silence, she said: "Are these some of the things you wanted to know?"
For answer, he sighed and held her closer. Elisabeth shut her eyes again.
"They're all dead to me now. Or I'm dead to them. But it doesn't feel like that. I don't…I don't understand it. Why I'm alive again. What I'm doing here."
He shook his head a little: she could feel the movement of his cheek against her hair. He was warm, and her warmth added to his made their nest very snug. She left her eyes softly closed.
"'There seems no plan because it is all plan. Blessed be He!'" she murmured.
He grunted a laugh. "You must be feeling a little better, if you're back to quoting," he said.
"Don't be fooled," she said, smiling with her eyes closed. "I have a quote for all weathers. I'm trying to remember the one from Byron about buffooning when one's depressed, but it's escaped me."
He gave a little laugh, shaking them.
After a little silence, she felt him clear his throat. He said: "It may not be worth much, but for whatever it's worth—I for one am glad you are not dead."
Briefly she opened her eyes; then shut them again and tightened her hold on him for a moment. In response, she felt his lips on her hair.
They were quiet together, and their breathing was soft.
Later, he came upstairs to find her stretched out on the bed, lovingly turning pages of her book with all the care that a librarian-antiquarian brings to reading. He smiled.
"So you unwrapped it after all," he said.
She gave him a wry guilty smile. "Couldn't help it," she said. "Plus I figured I'd better unwrap it here, in case airport security decides it's a bomb."
"Highly unlikely," he said, smirking. He sat down on his side of the bed and reached for the alarm clock.
"What time are we getting up?" she asked him.
"Oh—" he thought about it— "like to leave about a half-hour for getting there and parked, and an hour for security—"
"Oh, you'd better leave more than that," Elisabeth said, alarmed.
He turned to look at her. "I've never known it take more than an hour, even considering it's your first time leaving the country."
Elisabeth shook her head. "Sorry. I forgot." She turned back to the book.
He didn't move his gaze from her face. "Security takes longer in your world," he said.
"My old world," she reminded him gently. "And yes." She sighed and closed the book.
To her relief he dropped the subject and returned to setting the alarm. That done, he got under the covers and began arranging his pillows.
She took his cue and went to pack the book before getting into bed and turning off the lamp.
In the darkness they both sighed and settled under the covers. "Am I crowding you?" he asked. "No," she said.
He sighed again, and after a few minutes was still, though she could sense that he was not yet asleep.
There was so much she could say to him now, in the darkness, in the safety of her imminent departure. She could leave behind some trace, some imprint of who she was, before leaving, like Abraham, to seek a fortune the shape of which she knew not.
But the silence was soft, though filled with the unspoken anxiety and wistfulness of her leavetaking; and despite the suspense, Elisabeth soon found herself dropping into a heavy sleep.
Beside her, Rupert breathed quietly, shadowing her sleeping body with his own.
Chapter 30