1758 – Carlow, Ireland – Early Spring
"I'm sick to death of potatoes," Willow grumbled as she made herself breakfast over the fire in the hovel that her and Spike were living in. It was a one room shack that they rented off the man Spike worked for.
"Why do you think I don't eat them anymore?" Spike asked from where he was lounging on the bed, his hair having been dyed black during their trek from Galway to Carlow and never needing touch-ups.
"Shut up, you get to have me for dinner every night and from the way you describe it my blood is like chocolate. And meanwhile I'm stuck with potatoes for every friggin' meal. So you just keep your comments to yourself." Willow hated this conversation. The one they were about to have... again. She knew it was coming before Spike even opened his mouth. It was why she rarely ever complained. At the moment she could've slapped herself for having spoken out loud.
"You know we don't have to live like this. This was your idea." He was sitting up now and glaring at her.
"How many times do I have to tell you that we can't go around robbing people, Spike? The consequences to history would be just too drastic. We can't risk that."
"And how many times do I have to remind you of the times we're living in? Crime is a way of life and we wouldn't necessarily have to do strong arm robberies. I can pick a lock. We could easily just break into places and steal. We wouldn't even have to take everything... just skim off the top. Enough to make our lives much more pleasant. We could travel. Get the hell out of Ireland and away from the potatoes you hate so much." He was pleading with his eyes, begging her with a sad look on his face.
Willow looked down at her potatoes and was tempted to just chuck it all and do it Spike's way, but she knew she couldn't do it. She was worried about the ripple effects they were already causing by just existing in the wrong time. Doing the things that Spike suggested would only make matters worse. It was times like these that she desperately missed Sunnydale and her old life. The one where food was convenient and she had her friends to lean on when things got rough. "I can't do it, Spike."
A chill ran down her spine as a gust of wind seeped through the cracks of the shack. Spike got her shawl and wrapped it around her shoulders when she shivered. It was enough to change the topic of conversation.
"You should really try to stay warm. We don't know if you can get sick or not," Spike said.
She smiled at him. "I don't think I can get sick. If I could get sick don't you think it would have happened when I got stuck in the snow last year? Besides, even if I did get sick, it's not like it could kill me."
He smiled warmly at her. "No, but if you got sick, you'd be miserable, which would make me miserable. And we can't have that, now can we?"
"No, we couldn't have that," she laughed softly before getting her potatoes out of the boiling water. They were probably overcooked, but it hardly mattered. Firm or mushy they still sucked.
When she finished choking down her breakfast, she drank a pint of milk to get the taste out of her mouth. Even though she had milk as often as she had potatoes, she never seemed to get sick of it. There were times she wished for variety, but the milk was the best part of her meal.
After that it was time to get ready for work. Spike was already dressed, his clothes dirty from his laborious job as a field worker. But Willow was only wearing her shift with her 1998 underpants underneath. Women of this age didn't wear underwear, but Willow couldn't go without, so while they were ready to fall apart, she still wore the tiny fabric of her old modern underpants. She was seriously considering learning how to sew so she could figure out how to make her own new underpants. The problem would be the lack of elastic. Perhaps if she substituted it with some kind of tie. It was something to think about.
Spike tied her into her corset, it no longer being the problem it once was. She was used to it now. And he did her unchanging short hair as she was still useless at using hairpins. They stuck with the same fashion everyday, because they didn't want to stand out. But as Willow understood it, Spike knew how to do more styles with hair than just a simple bun.
They already stood out because they were poor and didn't speak Gaelic, though they were learning. Still they were looked on as outsiders by everyone. No one was nice to them like in Galway. Willow learned quickly that the people that she had met in Galway were the exception to the rule.
She took care of the children for the Thompson family and was teaching them how to read and write, and while that got them three shillings a week from the Walkers, she was lucky that she was getting two here. And the parents didn't like her nonviolent approach to raising children. They were from the 'spare the rod, spoil the child' mentality and she loathed working there. But it was still better work than if she were cooking and cleaning. That was spirit breaking work indeed.
And compared to what Spike was doing she had it easy. She realized that he didn't have it as hard as the people doing the same job. He had preternatural strength and stamina to aid him in his work, but that didn't make his work any more interesting. It was repetitious and tedious work and she wasn't sure exactly what he did. She just knew he worked in the barley fields attached to the property. She had no idea what that meant. He refused to talk about it, when she asked, so she assumed that whatever it was, he hated it.
XxXx
When Willow was done with her day and Spike was there picking her up for the night so he could walk her home, Mrs. Thompson asked, "How long have you been working for us, Willow?"
"Almost five years, ma'am," Willow answered.
Mrs. Thompson studied Willow and Spike carefully. "Neither one of you have changed at all in all that time. You still have such short hair," she commented to Spike and then she took Willow by the chin. "And there isn't any sign of age on your skin."
"I like to keep my hair short, ma'am," Spike said.
Willow took a step back out of Mrs. Thompson's grasp. "I must be blessed with youth."
"It's just not natural," the older woman commented.
"If you don't need anything else this evening," Willow said, "we'll be on our way."
Mrs. Thompson grunted at them and Willow and Spike left.
"Well I don't think I need to tell you that we need to leave town," Spike said as they started to walk back to what had been their home for the last four and a half years.
"We'll leave tomorrow. Have we saved enough to get the hell out of Ireland?" Willow asked, taking Spike's arm as they walked.
"Sure. We should have enough to get off this island and start up in England somewhere." Spike eyed her for a second. "Any ideas of where in England you'd like to start?"
"Not London. It seems to me that Darla and Angelus spent a lot of time in London so I say we avoid it until the last minute."
"That's fine. You have a point. Perhaps we should start in Wales, shorter trip. I had an aunt who lived there, lots of history. Could be interesting."
"Sounds good. We should get a good night's sleep before heading out tomorrow. Are we walking or renting a coach? Do we have enough for a coach?" It was easier to let Spike take care of the money since everyone expected him to. She always had access to it, but Spike was the one who kept track of how much there was and how much they could afford to spend on what. She was still, even after five years, trying to get used to the prices of things and how haggling worked.
"We do."
"Good. It'll get us out of here faster."
As soon as they got inside their ramshackle house, Willow was taking the pins out of her hair and Spike was putting a fire on for her. She knew the cold didn't bother him, so she smiled at him being so thoughtful. She started to unbutton her dress, it was the same green one that Emma gave her when she first showed up in Ireland. She had another now too, a dark blue one that was very utilitarian. Once the dress was off, Spike automatically started to loosen the laces on her corset, like he did every night. When she was down to her shift, he started peeling off his jacket, vest, shirt, and stalkings. He left his pants on and he crawled into the one bed in the room. Willow crawled in after him. Spike pulled Willow into his arms, while she shook her hair back to reveal her neck.
"This is my favorite part of the day," Spike said.
"I'd imagine," Willow replied, not telling him that she liked this too now.
Willow knew that he took great care when he bit her. The little pain there was anymore registered as a knot that formed pleasantly in her belly. She wrapped her arms around him and closed her eyes. As she drifted off into oblivion, she wondered how she ever had thought of this as a sacrifice.
XxXx
1767 – Merthyr Tydfil, Wales – Winter
They hadn't had jobs in over a year. Being new in town didn't help. They had no one to recommend them to anyone and jobs were scarce. All they owned were the clothes on their backs, what clothes they still had from 1998, a knife, and the ring they refused to get rid of no matter how desperate they got. Neither one of them had shoes or stalkings that were right for the times so they got a lot of strange looks when people noticed their feet. Willow had dyed her sneakers from the bright red they were to a less noticeable black and she painted the whites of the soles black as well, though that was chipping off now. Spike's utility boots got more than a fair share of the attention. When questioned they lied and said the shoes were from distant lands; they were never able to keep straight who they told what and they rarely cared. Most of the time Willow was wrapped up in Spike's duster and she wore her jeans under her dress as she shivered in the freezing British winter. For his part Spike pretended to shake and shiver in the cold when they were around other people.
The rich of the area had to pay a poor tax that went to the churches to take care of the destitute, but the paupers had to prove they were from that parish in order to get help. Willow and Spike were not even allowed to sleep in the churches at night because they couldn't prove they were from any particular parish. During the day they would beg in the streets and at night they would huddle together in an alleyway.
Spike returned to the alley where Willow was waiting for him with the stolen bread hidden under his jacket. He had stolen it from a windowsill of one of the richest families around when the cook left the room to set the table. He couldn't let Willow continue to go hungry. It was making her even more miserable than the cold and she was starting to get grouchy with him. This afternoon she snapped at him for not looking poor enough to encourage people's sympathies into giving them money. What was he supposed to do? Suck in his cheeks to look like he hadn't eaten in a really long time? She didn't look any worse than him. She looked perfectly healthy too, so if it was anyone's fault it was hers. He had a way to get money, she just wouldn't let him do it.
He sat next to her and pulled out the food for her. "I got ya this."
"Spike," she admonished as she took the bread from him.
"Don't even say it. Ya get mean when ya haven't eaten in a while and I'm calling this self-preservation." He pushed her hand with the food in it closer to her. "Eat."
"Where did ya get him from?" she asked instead.
"They'll have already noticed him gone, so you can't take him back unless ya want to get thrown in jail leaving me without a food source and ya know how I'll eat with ya locked up, so just eat."
Over the last several years both of them managed to pick up a distinctly Southern Welsh dialect replacing the word it with he or him to add on top of the accents they already had. So Willow sounded somewhere between American, Irish, and Welsh and Spike sounded somewhere between English, American, Welsh with a little Irish flavor. It didn't help them fit in.
"Why do ya do this to me?" she asked. "I was really close to having the hunger under control. I know him."
"We don't know if that'll even happen with the spell we're under," Spike argued. "Ya haven't eaten in over a week. I woulda thought that no hunger thing woulda kicked in by now."
"I canno remember how long he takes. I read his information in the fourth grade." Willow looked at the food in her hand and Spike could tell that she wasn't going to resist for much longer.
"Eat."
"I'm not gonna die from starvation."
"But ya get tired more often when ya haven't eaten in a long time. Eat."
"I shouldn't."
"Willow if ya don't eat I'll find a way to kill ya permanently even if he means forcing ya to do the second half of the spell without me and sending ya off into some unknown distant hell future by yourself. EAT!"
She finally caved and started eating. He wasn't able to take much or he would have been noticed, but he knew that Willow wouldn't be able to eat that much anyway, so it really didn't matter. He watched her until there was nothing left of the bread and she was washing it down with a handful of snow. He knew better than to argue with her about stealing anything else, she would never allow it. So she had doomed them to living on the streets and sleeping in alleyways. Finding places that weren't covered in some kind of excrement was often difficult. Lately the spot they were in now was where they retreated at night. It was a patch between buildings that had no windows above it. It wasn't large, just enough for the two of them to squeeze into it, but it was the best they could find. On nights when Willow couldn't bare the cold anymore they would sneak into someone's stable and sleep with the horses. It was warmer there, but they risked being caught by the owner.
"I just don't understand. He shouldn't be like this," Willow complained. And Spike was well aware of the conversation they were about to have. It was the one they had a lot lately. She seemed unable to let it go. He really didn't care about it, but he would go over it all again with her if she wanted.
"I don't get him either," Spike said. "Like why am I now completely resistant to holy water and crosses as well as the sun?"
"But you still need invitations into houses," she said in a higher pitch. "He makes no sense. And me. I can break a bone and he snaps right back into place and is healed in less than a minute, but hard work makes my muscles sore and they stay that way 'til I've either rested or worked out the knots."
"Ya're right. He makes zero sense. But that's magic for ya. Never makin' any sense." Spike made this point every time and it always had the same result: it led to the end of the conversation.
"But magic is based off of physics. He should make sense. Unless this spell is based off quantum mechanics... then there is no hope of him ever making any sense." She lay her head on Spike's shoulder and yawned. "I've said all this before haven't I?"
"Yeah, but I'm not worried about him. Let's just not have this conversation every day for the next hundred years, please." He leaned his head against hers. "We should get some sleep."
"And ya should eat," Willow said with another yawn. "And why do we get tired? Never mind, I'm dropping him."
Spike laughed softly. Her mind never stopped. It must an interesting place in there.
Rather than make her expose her neck for him, he accepted her outstretched wrist and sank his fangs into that. He was still able to get her heart to stop beating this way, it just took a little longer. When she was unconscious in his arms he lay them both down and he draped himself almost completely over her. This served two purposes: one it turned him into a blanket and two it kept anyone from coming and trying to steal her away from him. There were all kinds of scoundrels out at night and he wasn't going to have her deal with any one of them. It was bad enough that she almost got raped a little over a year ago by their last employer. An employer that was now making it rather impossible for them to find work in Wales. They'd even tried using different names but it seemed that their descriptions went with the warning not to hire them. And all because Spike punched the guy and kept him from hurting a girl... specifically his wife.
