Chapter 15: Of Shadows and Nightmares

A/N: Well I tried to put a more happy ending on this chapter. Skipping ahead one year, Bill now 19, Nancy now 7. Like I said these next chapters are going to be some time lapses. Anyway, enjoy, and thanks to all my wonderful reviewers. You guys are awesome! Keep it up. :-D

Warning: Contains an angry Nancy, some disturbing imagery, and ideas of abandonment.

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A year passed, the seasons changed, and soon new boys joined to replace the ones that had fled. Edward and Benjamin, brothers Nancy thought but she wasn't too sure. They were nothing at all like her past partners in crime. They were crude and loud and sometimes annoying. Then again, they were even younger then she was, Edward being six and Ben being five. Nancy could remember enough about her old life to know that she was born in the winter, so she knew she'd had a birthday since she came to the flat. Seven years old, 'what a big girl' Fagin had commented merrily. They had held the celebration two days after Johnny left. Not a soul in the flat had felt like celebrating. For the most part things went without event, the occasional scare here, the noisy fight there, but never anything quite like the drama they'd experienced with Ace. Bulls-Eye grew too, grew attached to Bill's hip that is. The dog never left his side, Nancy had never seen one without the other.

Bill had gotten better and better at what he did, well enough that Fagin began to pay him for the goods he brought back. Vaguely Nancy could remember Fagin's words 'we all 'ave to grow up sometime'. He would move out into the world soon, especially with how good he'd become at the housebreaking business. Still, the better he got, the worse Nancy seemed to be worried for him. It seemed that after the whole ordeal with Ace, she sat up every night he was gone listening for Bulls-Eye's paws to once again scratch the door.

Something was wrong with her now, the events in her first few months at Fagin's had shaken her so soundly she knew it would take her years to get over it. Every time she saw dawn's light, it gave her chills to think of the last dawn Ace must've seen. Whenever she heard a paper boy shouting 'extra' in the street, it made her blood run cold. The worst of it all was the nightmares, yes, those were the worst. For the most part she could keep them from everybody, but they just kept getting worse as time wore on. The one she'd had tonight, had been extremely bad...

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Nancy woke shivering and gasping for air as she stared around the flat. Everybody was sleeping safe and sound, even Bill was back by now. She felt cold sweat pouring down her face as she looked around trying to get a grip on reality. Her breathing was nowhere near steady, coming to her in short, shallow puffs. It had all been so real, every last detail.

Dawn broke over the horizon line as Nancy was brought out of her cell. Her dress was in tatters and her hair was matted with days of hands running through it distraught. They were all there, lining her walk to the gallows. Bill, Fagin, everyone. Every last face of the gang was looking at her with shame, clucking their tongues in disappointment that she had been so daft as to get caught. She looked up at the hangman, who seemed one hundred feet tall in comparison to her petite frame, and he sneered at her menacingly. Then they slipped the rope around her neck and pulled it taught. The fibers cut and burned against her delicate and pale skin. The hangman reached for the lever to drop the platform, she cried out.....

Nancy shuddered as she tried to shake the dream from her thoughts. Gagging at the memory of the noose she clutched her hands to her neck instinctively. She had felt the rope. Felt it burning into her neck, searing her delicate flesh.

"I felt the rope," she croaked. Nancy heard distantly the sound of distressed wails of agony, it took her a few minutes to realize the sound was coming from her own throat. There was another sound then, the sound of somebody getting out of bed.

"Nance?" Nancy looked over to see Bill. Bill. He was always there for her. She wasn't sure what on earth was happening, but she was so overjoyed to see his face in this time of darkness that she threw her arms around his neck in a hug while he continued to kneel by her bed. "Are you alright?" he asked concerned. Nancy shook her head desperately against his chest.

"I dreamed they hung me Bill, hung me at dawn just like Ace." She began crying again as she spoke, her fear assaulting her cheeks in the form of hot salty tears. Bill didn't seem quite sure how to react, except for to shush her delicately and lay her back down.

"It was just a dream Nance, go back to sleep." Nancy's hand shot out and grabbed Bill's. Her tiny palm could barely wrap around one of his fingers but she held him there desperately with what little grip she had.

"Stay with me," she whispered quietly. She bore up into him with her innocent little eyes, "please?" Bill hesitated a moment before sitting down next to her bed and waiting for her to fall asleep. He was dead dog tired but something about the young one was so powerful he couldn't refuse her. He ran his thumb in delicate circles around the hand that still held his fast as Nancy drifted off to sleep. First her eyes fluttered shut, then her breathing slowed to a very countable pace, and finally, the hand holding Bill to her relaxed. Smiling, Bill went to lay down at last, just as dawn broke over the flat.

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"Leaving?" Nancy gasped. Gin cups were held half way to mouths, cards had been dropped and scattered in a moment of shock, only Fagin seemed unsurprised by the news. "Oh Bill," she moaned "why?" He shrugged almost absentmindedly as he took a sip of his gin.

"It's just time fer me to go Nance. I've got enough to get a 'ouse not too far from 'ere. It's not as if I'm goin' away forever. There's just more opportunities fer me now wiv the pickings I'm earning."

"Bill," James gasped. "The Bill Sikes is leaving us?" He too seemed incapable of wrapping his brain around the idea.

"Not leaving, not really. I'll come back to visit a lot, still gotta get the goods to Fagin so 'e can get me my cash." Instantly, every child swiveled in their chair to look at the old miser. He was nodding calmly, unaware of the attention that had suddenly been turned to him.

"That's right my dear, that's very right indeed," Fagin said with a gap toothed smile. The air was laced with tension so thick you could've sliced it with a knife. All the boys' breath was ragged, some were wide eyed at the news they'd just received. You could've heard a pin drop and then...laughter! Hysterical laughter bubbled up from Nancy and she laughed so hard that she almost fell from the old chair she was seated in. Every eye turned from Fagin to face the little red head who was giggling so hysterically some were contemplating placing a bet on when she would stop. Finally Nancy's giggles dissolved into a few strained chuckles and when she regained her breath she looked up at Bill.

"That's hilarious Bill. For a second there I thought you were serious, leavin' us, cor! What a card!" She giggled again and all the boys looked even sadder at the way she was taking this news.

"Nance," Bill said gently to the giggling girl, "It's not in jest." Instantly Nancy's giggles stopped and she was sitting rigidly in her chair.

"You can't be serious Bill," she said in a painfully optimistic tone.

"I am Nance, I mean it. Every last word." All was quiet for a second, the boys had momentarily forgotten their own shock as they watched the strained scene before them. Deafening silence echoed around the flat and then the red head spoke again, this time in a tone that sounded nothing short of broken.

"You're really goin' to leave me too?"

"Nance, I'm not leavin' ya-"

"YES YOU ARE!" she exploded. Young Nancy was absolutely shaking with the intensity of her words. Fagin had seen her ill tempered before, but this was something else, something new. There was meaning behind her words this time, something had truly upset her. "They always leave me, always! Everybody, every last friend I've 'ad 'ere 'as left me! Ace, 'e didn't 'ave a choice but 'e left us didn't 'e?" Fagin opened his mouth to interject but she turned to face him just as furiously. "Don't deny it! An' then Johnny was right behind him, never mind that scared little girls were 'is friend 'ere. Never mind about little ol' Nancy, who gives a care about 'er. An' now you Bill, you're right behind um! YOU'RE RIGHT BLOODY BEHIND UM!"

Silence resounded off the walls of the flat following her words. She sat there, a cross between anger and depression as she stared down the boys who were gawking at her in shock. It was quiet for a very long time before she spoke again.

"Are you really going to leave me 'ere all alone?" Her voice was a murmur, and nobody took any offense by them, they knew what she meant. Bill was her last boy that she was really close with, without him she had no true friends in the gang. Sikes wavered in his calm resolve, those words had cut deep, really deep. He stood there dumbfounded for a moment, and then took a slow step towards her. Fagin, recognizing the sudden intimacy of the moment between friends, shooed the other boys away and tactfully pretended to be interested in his cooking.

"Nancy," Bill said. His voice sounded distant, as if he was more guilty than ever by the daggers she had chosen for words. He knelt down so he could be on eye level with the girl violently fighting back tears before him. "You've known for a long, long time, that I was gonna 'ave to move out. You know, lor' you 'ave to know by now that you'll always be my friend. It's not as though I'm going off to the clink or somethin'." He reached his arms out and clamped both his hands on her shoulder. Her head snapped up and her crystal eyes bore into him as he continued talking. "I'm not Ace or Johnny, I am coming back." She sat quietly for a moment and then drew a deep breath to calm herself.

"When are you leavin'?" There was quiet resolve in her voice but it was nowhere near the contentment he'd heard so many times.

"Tonight." He was shocked to find that his voice was even quieter then hers.

"Far away?" Bill shook his head as harshly as he could to reassure her.

"Just up town Nance, a little place near the Cripples."

"And you'll come back to visit me?" Bill smiled and ruffled her hair as Ace had done so many times. Her heart stung with the familiar gesture as she stared up at Bill.

"Who could stay away?" Nancy nodded, not happy, but accepting at the very least.

"Alright."

She went to bed after that, unable to watch him leave. Nancy was still staring at her shadow on the wall when the church bells chimed midnight in the distance. Silently she wondered if Bill could hear those bells from his new house. Nancy stared at her shadow on the wall and was almost amused by the look of it. Bulls-Eye wasn't even here anymore, was her existence so sad that her shadow was her only friend? Chilled to her very bone by that possibility, Nancy turned her back on her shadow and slid into a fitful sleep.

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It was two weeks later and things were more or less back to normal at the flat. Nancy was gathered with the boys finishing up their usually moldy sausages and winning at cards. Things seemed oddly normal for the boys, they'd stayed out of Bill's way enough while he slept during the day, and interacted with him only in the late evening. It was worse for Nancy now though, she hadn't the foggiest if he made it back from his housebreaking trips alright or not. Every morning she listened very carefully to the headlines the newsboys were shouting, it was not that Bill Sikes had been caught.

"I win again," Nancy grinned as she raked the cards in towards her person.

"Oh Nance!"

"Not again!"

"What is this like her sixth game this-"

The cries of protest were cut off by a dog barking roughly in the distance. Nancy froze in fear as she strained her ears to catch the sound of goings on outside. That was definitely Bulls-Eye, but where was-

"Bill m'boy!" Fagin cried as Sikes entered the flat with a smile on his face. "So good to see you."

"Good to see me?" Bill joked smiling as he began to empty his heavy coat pockets "or good to see the goods?"

"A little bit of both I suppose," Fagin said smiling while Nancy practically exploded with joy from her seat at the table. "A little bit of both."