A Tale Of Two Blades Chapter 13, a tv x-overs fanfic

1111 Faust Street
New York, NY
Saturday, July 28, 2001
6:15 pm

Kenneth Irons watched with growing trepidation as Nottingham defended himself from the attack of three of Irons' regular bodyguards. Irons often set up these exercises to test how good his employees were. Nottingham was allowed only to defend himself, while the others were encouraged to attack him with everything they had.

Nottingham was defending himself as thoroughly as usual, easily repelling all advances, but the movements he made were mechanical. Irons knew from many years studying the way the younger man did things that something was very wrong. Nottingham loved to fight. He was good at it, as he should be; after all, it was in his blood. There was always a light in his eyes as he fought, but that light was absent now. Nottingham was obeying, nothing more. And that could lead to costly mistakes.

Could his protégé really have fallen in love with the girl he was calling Angel? Irons had thought all the brainwashing and conditioning against all women but the Wielder he had given Nottingham from infancy was too strong for any woman but Sara to overcome.

Irons knew Angel had left Nottingham after helping Sara Pezzini rescue her "rookie" partner. He also knew that the very same night Nottingham had gone to her in the early morning at Sara's former apartment and had stayed for several hours. What Irons didn't understand was why the girl had told Bruno Dante that she was Sara's sister. Whoever Angel was, she wasn't Emily, the only sister Sara had. And why was Sara helping the young woman? It wasn't out of character for the Wielder to help a young woman in need, so he wasn't quite as worried about that as he was about Nottingham's sudden and deep attraction to her.

Until he could find out more, encouraging Nottingham to stay in contact with Angel might be the best way to keep an eye on her. Irons didn't dare send anyone other than Nottingham to tail Sara, it would upset the Witchblade, so no one would be able to keep an eye on Angel either while she was around Sara.

When Nottingham accidentally applied too much pressure and broke the arm of one of the men attacking him, Irons called the exercise to a halt and sent the other three men away. Nottingham resumed his place in the lighted alcove on the other side of the room, head down, without the slightest hint of the rebellious stance he had assumed since Sara's introduction to the Witchblade.

"I received a report two days ago that Green had been spotted in the city, then nothing. Did you run into him and take care of him?"

"No, Mr. Irons. I was unaware any of my old unit was in New York. If I had seen him, I would not have killed him, but reported his presence to you, as you called off my hunt for the other Black Dragons last year when Lady Sara first received the Witchblade."

"Perhaps he finished his business and left," Irons mused, though he knew that wasn't true. Green had not called for his money, and according to reports, Angel was still very much alive. Something had happened to the Black Dragon, and now he had no way of finding out what. "If any of them show up again and you run into them, I want you to take care of them."

Nottingham made no move, knowing it wasn't necessary to vocally acknowledge the order.

"Perhaps I was hasty in allowing you only a week with your lovely companion." Nottingham's head snapped up in surprise before he remembered himself. He hung his head again, but Irons could see that he now had Nottingham's full attention. "I think we should have a small dinner party and get to know each other, say Sunday the twelfth? I will send an invitation to the lovely Sara and her partner as well, shall I?"

Nottingham couldn't think of an excuse to give his master. He didn't want to admit that Lilianna had left him when he hoped with everything in him that she would come back to him. Somehow he felt that saying that she was no longer with him would force that fact to remain true.

Then he realized that the dinner would probably be called off when Sara refused to come. Sara and the Witchblade were the real reason for this party, not his master's sudden inexplicable interest in Lilianna. So he kept silent and let go of worrying about it, sinking slowly back into the void his existence had become since Lilianna had walked away from him.

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The Magic Box
Sunnydale, CA
Saturday, July 28, 2001
early afternoon

"Yes, thank you, I'll look into it."

A man in his forties set down the phone handset and took off his glasses, massaging the bridge of his nose.

"What is it, Giles?"

The woman who had spoken looked around twenty-five, but her eyes held the wisdom of more years than any mortal could fathom.

"Oh, Mara. I didn't see you. It was the Council. Someone in New York has been making inquiries on books about demon gods, and they thought perhaps it had something to do with Glory."

"New York? I'll go if you'd like. There are things there I need to take care of anyway."

Giles slipped his glasses back on.

"Thank you, I really didn't want to have to go out there with all that's going on here in Sunnydale."

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middle-class neighborhood, outside
New York, NY
Sunday, July 29, 2001
2:11 pm

Sara was studying the ground as she walked around the corner outside the house where a young man had been found with his heart and eyes removed. Jake was on the other side of the building, also looking for any clues the first cops on the scene might have missed. The Witchblade began to hum. She turned and leaned against the building so that she was facing the corner she had just come around.

Sure enough, Nottingham nearly plowed right into her. He heaved a sigh and avoided her gaze.

She softly berated him, "You're slipping."

His shoulders sank. He was so completely despondent that she actually began to feel genuine concern about him.

"You're miserable without her, aren't you?" She didn't wait for him to reply, knowing that he probably wouldn't. "She's just as bad without you. Now, please, whatever is going on between you two, work it out, will you? I never would have chosen you for her, but I'm starting to be OK with it."

"She doesn't ... ," he paused. His broad shoulders remained slumped, and Sara realized that whatever it was that he had been about to say, he couldn't physically say the words. He finished awkwardly, "... want me in her life anymore."

Sara sighed and instinctively reached out a hand to comfort him. It was her Witchblade arm, and the minute she touched him, the bracelet reacted violently, expanding and surrounding both his arm and hers in silver metal. Sara was suddenly yanked away from reality, Nottingham with her. The clarity of the Witchblade showed her that he had often been there in her dreams of former lives, sometimes older, most of the time younger, always a silent, brooding guardian.

They were in her apartment, but it was different. There were men's clothes on the rack with hers. A brand new baby bassinet, still wrapped in plastic with a huge pink bow on top, was sitting on the couch. The door to the apartment opened and Sara watched in amazement as she came in. She darted a glance sideways at Nottingham. He didn't seem surprised at all, but he did surprise her. His head was up, and he was watching the unfolding scene with obvious interest.

Vision Sara walked over to the bassinet and shook her head. Leaning over, she pulled a stuffed dragon out of it. A powder pink and lilac dragon.

"Nottingham!" vision Sara yelled, the dragon still in her hand.

Vision Nottingham materialized from behind the front door and vision Sara raised her eyebrows at him. He steadfastly stared at the floor.

"You know, if you're actually paying for these things, and my baby is a boy, you're going to have to return everything you've gotten. Jake definitely isn't the kind of man to think pink is okay for a boy."

"She will not be a boy," Nottingham stated, certainty in every word.

Vision Sara smiled and dropped a hand to her abdomen. Then she frowned and stared at vision Nottingham for a minute.

"Nottingham, how do you know that? It's still too early for the sonogram to show the baby's sex. I know, I just came from the doctor's office."

Vision Nottingham shifted from one foot to the other.

Vision Sara got impatient. "Does this have anything to do with your master?"

"No," vision Nottingham's answer was immediate. "Mr. Irons is no longer my employer."

"What?" both Sara's exclaimed, though of course vision Nottingham only heard vision Sara.

"Mr. Irons no longer wants me in his employ. I would not protect him against you, and he wishes to control your child in hopes of controlling you."

"So help me, Nottingham, if you're lying to me ... "

"I have never lied to you, Lady Sara."

Vision Sara considered this for a moment. "Then why do you think my baby will be a girl?"

"She ... she speaks to me." Vision Nottingham raised his head slightly to glance at vision Sara from beneath his eyebrows.

"She speaks to you? How?"

His eyes drifted to the Witchblade.

Vision Sara looked surprised, thoughtfully rubbing the Stone. "Why?"

"She is ... important to me. I have been born many times, waiting for you to find the man who would give her to you, but ... "

"But?" Vision Sara was too shocked to do more than echo his last word.

"But I am too old. I should have been born only several years ago. I don't know if she will have me when she is old enough."

"Have you? You mean ... " Vision Sara took a deep breath and paled considerably.

The Witchblade's Stone pulsed brilliantly and Sara knew it was telling her vision-self that what vision Nottingham had told her was true. "Oh my God."

Suddenly they were yanked again, and this time Jake was in the vision, too. They both easily realized this scenario was much later as vision Sara's stomach was now well-rounded.

Vision Nottingham was in one corner of the living room, sledgehammer in hand, tarps on the floor and drop cloths over the furniture. He appeared ready to knock out part of the wall that separated her apartment from the one next to it.

Vision Jake, it appeared, was against this.

"What the hell does he think he's doing? It's bad enough that he follows you around all the time and has been living next door for two months, he is NOT going to live with us!"

"Jake, calm down! He just saved my life and our daughter's today. Again. He saved your life, too. He just wants to be close enough at all times to keep our daughter safe, especially from Irons. You should see what he's done with that place! All for her! Do you even realize that we no longer have to move to have a bigger place when she's born? I don't know what you have against him, but you really need to get past it."

"Don't know what I have against him? Sara, the man is a killer!"

"Yeah, lucky for us."

Vision Jake threw his hands up in the air.

"Lady Sara, I'd like to speak with Detective McCartey alone for a moment if it's alright with you."

"Sure Nottingham, though I don't know how you're gonna get through to him." Vision Sara glared at vision Jake. "You have my permission to beat some sense into him."

Sara tensed beside Nottingham, but he knew his other self wasn't about to hurt Jake McCartey. Vision Nottingham set down his sledgehammer and pulled a file folder out of his coat. Vision Jake visibly relaxed. Vision Nottingham handed the folder over, and vision Jake quickly skimmed the contents, the two observers unable to see inside the folder, though Nottingham already knew what was in it.

Vision Jake looked up at vision Nottingham, "How long have you had these?"

"Since you came here. I have told no one, and I don't plan on doing so. I will protect Lady Sara and her daughter until death, and if you wish, you as well. Children need their parents, and your daughter will need as much ... caring and protection as she can get with Mr. Irons as an enemy."

Vision Jake frowned and pondered vision Nottingham's words for a few minutes. Finally he sighed, handing the file folder back to vision Nottingham, "Alright."

Nottingham and Sara were yanked again. Sara assumed they were in the apartment next to hers that vision Nottingham had fixed up.

The walls were light blue, sponged white clouds near the ceiling and painted grass and flowers near the floor. All the outlets in the room were covered with plastic safety caps, and everything else in the room was baby-friendly. Vision Jake was putting a sheet on the mattress in a white crib, vision Sara was rocking gently in a large wooden rocker with a light blue cushion, and vision Nottingham was sitting Indian style in a corner, knitting a buttercup yellow baby blanket.

Sara's mouth dropped open and she turned to Nottingham, "Can you knit?"

He inclined his head, "I've never had a reason to, though."

"Is there anything you can't do?"

"Speak in front of crowds."

Sara laughed. So he was human after all.

Vision Sara suddenly gasped and wrapped her arms around her extremely pregnant belly. Vision Nottingham was at her side in an instant.

He told vision Jake, who was next to them a second later, "I think it's time."

Just then, a bunch of armed, masked men broke into the room. They seemed to just keep coming and Sara counted at least twenty of them. Vision Nottingham was immediately shot and Sara involuntarily called out. The men quickly subdued vision Sara and Jake, carrying them both out of the building.

Suddenly Sara and Nottingham were in Irons' office. Vision Irons was waving a gun at vision Jake, trying to coerce vision Sara into giving up the child and joining him as his right hand. She refused, and vision Irons pulled the trigger.

There was a blur of motion, and an injured vision Nottingham fell to the side as vision Jake fell back, dead. The bullet had gone through vision Nottingham's arm and into vision Jake's chest. He had been too late. Vision Irons shook his head at his former protégé.

"Do you really think I would have let you be with Sara's daughter? I introduced your parents long before they should have met so you would be born too early. No matter how much you somehow managed to change, the girl never would have wanted to be with an old, damaged man."

Vision Nottingham raised his head to look at vision Sara. Tears were streaming down his face, and vision Sara began to cry softly as well.

Vision Irons looked from one to the other and said, "Well, perhaps I had better be on the safe side, if the child dies before it is born and Sara dies with it, I can get you back under my control and we can wait another thirty years for the next Wielder."

He turned his gun on vision Sara.

Vision Nottingham didn't make a sound as he darted in front of vision Sara to take the bullet meant for her in the heart.

He was dead before he hit the floor.

"No!" Vision Sara screamed.

She struggled to get at vision Irons, but the guards holding her down were more than enough against a woman in the middle of labor. A woman in a nurse's uniform entered the room.

"Deliver the baby, then sedate the mother," vision Irons ordered, sounding bored. To a man in the background dressed all in khaki green, he said, "Get the helicopter warmed up, we're taking the baby to Blue Cove."

"What about the mother?"

"Leave her."

They were back in the alley and the Witchblade was back in bracelet form.

Sara studied the assassin for a moment and said softly, "I would have let you be with her when she was old enough, no matter what the age difference was. I knew you loved her. Now you have another chance to be together. Take it. The Witchblade has been telling me for days that the only reason she isn't with you right now is because she doesn't want to hurt you. But being apart is hurting both of you, and I want her to be happy for whatever time she has left. She won't be unless you go to her. You were wrong. She does want you in her life, and she does love you. And, Nottingham, thank you. For everything you've ever done for me, for everything you would have done."

For the first time, Nottingham raised his head and looked her straight in the eye. He really was quite magnificent.

"No, Lady Sara, thank you."

Then he was gone. Sara took a deep breath and got back to work.