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The Strange Case of Lady Underwood

~`~ A Winter's Rose (or Crimes Against Nature) ~`~

Andromeda Persephone Underwood wondered if it was possible to attend an event and have absolutely no idea as to its purpose. If so, she imagined her Coming Out celebration would be one of these events. The entire thing seemed altogether rather pointless and dull if anyone asked her—but, as per usual, no one did. And, needless to say, any protest on her part was duly ignored in its entirety. So, here she was, dressed in a hideous monstrosity of fuchsia ruffles which clashed violently with her pigmentation, and quite honestly made her want to vomit every time she was unfortunate enough to pass by a mirror. And by the hushed tones of whispers amongst the little gaggles of women who stood mingling amongst themselves, she knew she was being laughed at. To make matters worse, her dark wavy hair was pinned up into a tight, unattractive chignon on the back of her head and it was giving her the worst headache imaginable.

Fed up with company, propriety be damned, she stood curtly where she sat alone and out of the way on a settee, and stalked past a gaggle of her sister's besotted admirers, jostling one unapologetically—some no-name bespectacled git—as she swept out the French doors and towards the garden. If anyone were to hazard a guess at the true reason for this miserable party, they'd say it was for Cecily. Andy didn't want to be jealous; she loved her sister dearly, but one could only be shoved to the wayside so often before they reached some sort of limit. Andy was swiftly and surely hurdling towards her metaphorical line in the sand with all the fury of a charging bull. She wasn't quite sure when she'd finally get there, but she was confident the occasion would be legendary.

More and more often she felt a burning anger welling up within her, growing more intense every time it flared. It was unsightly for a lady to have temper tantrums, her stepmother said, but what Andy had really felt much darker than that. With so much going wrong all at once in her life, she wanted to destroy everything in her sight, and damn the consequences. However, underneath the anger was the knowledge that she could do absolutely nothing to stop what was coming. She was helpless—powerless… And she had never felt more fury in her life.

She felt a scream of rage and frustration trapped in her chest, begging to be set free. She halted in the middle of the rose garden, her only company the babbling of a fountain centerpiece with obnoxious stone cherubs dancing in it, her fists clenched as if to strike something. But with nothing readily available, she turned them on herself, grabbing a chunk of her hair and ripping it violently out of the dull up-do her stepmother had insisted upon. She threw the pins on the ground with impunity, and shook out the long dark locks until they tumbled down her back in unruly ringlets. It was entirely improper, but freeing, somehow. And though her scalp ached where her hair had been tied up too tightly for too long, it was much more preferable than the ten tone migraine she'd been steadily developing.

Rage placated for the moment, replaced with a sullen throb of resentment, Andy's stiff posture crumpled and she descended to sit upon the edge of the fountain bonelessly as if all the strings holding her up had been cut. Resentment finally gave way to resignation, which laid bare an ever constant hallow feeling of hopelessness that felt like it was scraping out her ribcage and playing in her entrails. Unbidden, the next breath she took came as a quiet shuddering sob. She covered her mouth with a gloved hand to try and stifle it in vain; it only made it worse. The hopelessness gnawed at her like a starving animal...

With the obligatory ceremony now out of the way, it was time for her stepmother to arrange for a suitor.

The very thought of marriage made Andy feel violently ill.

It was just another cage. So many cages in this world, in this life. She saw them all around her. Pretty ones, ugly ones, and some that seemed to serve absolutely no purpose at all—walls and barriers everywhere. The others didn't seem to notice them, or at least didn't acknowledge them. And when she pointed out the absurdity of it all, her ideas were dismissed as nonsensical idealism at best, castigated and even mocked at worst. The indignity was enough to stir the coals of her temper into a raging inferno. The only one who'd ever listened to her was her father.

And he was dead.

She was seventeen when he passed from a sudden progressive illness the doctors could make neither head nor tail of. That was eight years ago. Her bottom lip trembled as the thought crossed her mind that were he here, he'd never make her go through with this. Were he here, he'd let Andy stay and read her books, and write her music until the day she died if she so willed it. But as it was…she was an unwelcome addition to the household. Her stepmother held no true fondness for her like she did for Cecily, her own daughter. It almost sounded like something out of a Grimm fairytale, she noted with bitter derision.

She sucked in another shuddery breath and shivered as a chilly breeze wafted through the garden, rustling the leaves of the rose bushes. Normally she enjoyed the nights. It was quiet out here, which she much preferred to the incessant noise of the party, but with the coming winter… She sighed, resigning herself to return indoors when a flash of color caught her eye. The roses had come and gone much earlier in the season, and yet there, nestled into a lonely corner of the garden, was a single budding red flower. The roses were the one thing both she and her stepmother enjoyed in common, and Andy was forbidden to touch them…

Feeling defiant, she sniffed a bit, quietening her shaky breaths, and she stood slowly to approach as one does when trying not to startle a wild animal.

The rose did not, in fact, run away as she drew close; neither did it combust, nor did it explode, nor did it disintegrate, as she reached out for it. Her fingers hesitated just before reaching it, hovering just over the velvet burgundy petals and tracing its outline for just a moment, longing to take her gloves off and feel them for herself. But just then, a telltale prickling at the back of her neck and a shuffling noise startled her out of her moment of tranquility, electing a yelp out of her as she jerked around to discern the source of the disturbance. She gasped as a sharp stab of pain assaulted her senses along with a horrible ripping sound that sent her heart plummeting to her stomach as her glove snagged on a wicked thorn, pricking her fingers as she spun to face her unwelcome company.

"Curses…" she muttered to herself, looking down at her hand to see not only a tear in the silk fabric, but also a dot of blood blooming out from the tip of her middle finger to stain it. She frowned with anxiety, knowing her stepmother would ask how it had happened... She looked up irritably and commanded, "Come out. I know you're there."

"I—I apologize, Miss Andromeda," stuttered a voice from the shadows, and as he moved into the light, she remembered the bespectacled fool she'd bumped into on her way out to the gardens. "I d-did not mean to startle you, I simply… I could have sworn I heard someone weeping, and—"

"I wasn't crying," she denied shortly, dismissing him—merely a bumbling idiot—and turning her attention back to her bleeding fingertip, carefully pulling her glove off and examining the ruined fabric with worry. "You must have heard someone else—"

"You're bleeding," he pointed out with some alarm, quickly approaching her. "Are you well? Do you need someone to take a look at the injury—"

"It's just a prick, really," Andy frowned at him and took a step back, but caught a glimpse of blue eyes behind clouded lenses that actually held some true concern for her; something that was becoming increasingly rare more recently. She backtracked and offered him a small smile in return, even joking depreciatively, "Nothing that needs to be amputated quite yet, Doctor, I don't think. Are you a doctor?"

"N-nothing of the sort." He shook his head quickly with a nervous laugh. "I'm a scholar." Well, that ruled out the bumbling idiot theory, she thought sheepishly. He hesitated before quietly adding, "A poet, to be honest…"

"A poet jumps to the assistance of a bleeding maiden? Not a doctor, or a knight?" The corners of her lips lifted in slow amusement. "'Tis more than a bit ironic, don't you think?"

"J-just a smidge, perhaps..." he agreed with that nervous laugh again, wringing his hands. He kept glancing back at the house as if expecting someone to peek their head out the door and spot him alone with her. It really was quite improper—especially as her hair hung loose down her back in tangles and her glove was in tatters; she hadn't even bothered to lift her train as she had wandered the garden, letting it drag over the flagstones without a care. She was a mess.

Oddly enough, she didn't care. A plan was slowly forming in her head.

"We've yet to be introduced…" she verged promptingly at his awkward silence.

"Oh—yes, please forgive me, I've been terribly rude. I am William." At her arched brow, he added hurriedly, "Pratt—William Pratt." She winced slightly at the unfortunate last name, but tried to smile when he gave her a small bow. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Andromeda—may I call you Andromeda? Or would you prefer—"

"Andy," she offered Cecily's nickname for her impulsively. At the inquisitive tilt of his head, she shrugged. "'Tis a bit course, true enough. But it rolls off the tongue better than that other monstrosity, don't you think?"

"I think your name is lovely," he said earnestly, then balked somewhat, as if he hadn't meant for the words to come out.

Her cheeks heated unexpectedly. In the bluster of people indoors and the dim lighting outdoors, it was easy to miss, but William Pratt was really quite handsome. It was hard to tell behind the obnoxious spectacles and mop of curly hair, and though he looked gaunt and thin at a cursory glance, when you looked a bit closer… Andy's cheeks heated further, and she hurriedly looked down at her feet.

"I think that may be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me," she told him honestly. "You're wrong, but…thank you, regardless."

He offered a faltering smile and gave her a nod. "You are quite welcome… Miss Andy," he paused, as if testing it out, then continued, "m-might I inquire about your, erm…" He gestured to her sluggishly dripping finger, which had stained her gloves with even more blood when she was being distracted by attractively chiseled cheekbones.

She frowned, giving her head a little shake to clear it of errant thoughts. "On the subject, Mr. William…would you mind doing me a small favor?"

"Why, o-of course not," he answered immediately, stumbling over his words. "A-anything you need."

"Do you not want to know what it is first?" she wondered a bit incredulously.

"That might be helpful…" he murmured, embarrassed.

She smiled at him, then she held out her ruined, bloody gloves. "Help me dispose of the evidence…?"

"E-evidence?" he stammered, shocked. "To what crime?"

She looked down with a frown and explained quietly, "I'm not allowed to touch the roses… If Stepmother finds out…"

He blinked owlishly at her, then his eyes flicked to the single rose on the bush and he remarked, "A blossom, so late in the season? A rather spectacular find, I must say. My mother is fond of these as well. The thorns can be right unpleasant, however…"

He took another look at her downcast face and slowly offered up a smile before coming to some sort of decision and reaching out for the hazardous stem, getting several nasty pricks for himself in the process. He wrestled with it for a minute with several nearly inaudible curses muttered under his breath until the rose was finally severed from the rest of the bush. He admired it for a moment before shyly offering it to her.

"Crush the bottom of the stem with the flat of a blade and it will last much longer indoors than out of them, especially if the weather continues on as it is," he trailed off. "You—you should look after it, Miss Andy…"

She reached for it almost reverently, letting her bare fingers brush against the petals gently, her lips morphing into a true smile when she found them to be just as soft as she'd imagined—more even; softer than velvet, smoother than silk. She ducked her head to take in its sweet perfume—carefully avoiding the thorns this time—before turning her joyful grin on William. For just a moment, she thought with a growing warmth in her chest that if she were betrothed to a man like him, she might not mind the cage in the slightest, unfortunate surname be damned—but it was only a moment.

"Thank you…" she whispered, her eyes glittering. Judging by his dazed expression, he probably had no idea what it meant to her. "Would you…" Instead of finishing, she offered her tattered gloves in explanation; it seemed an unfair exchange for what she had received.

"Oh—yes, er—" he shook his head, spectacles slipping down the slope of his nose and nearly tumbling off all together; they would have if he didn't seem so used to catching them. He accepted the once dainty gloves gingerly—and if he was squeamish about the bloodstains, he did an adamant job of concealing it. He even sounded amused when he assured her, "Not to worry, Miss Andy. Your heinous crimes against nature won't be divulged on my account… I shan't breathe a single word."

"Take it to your grave?"

"To the grave," he agreed solemnly.

She wasn't sure why, but something about his statement pegged her as terribly ironic...

"Goodnight, Mister William."

"Goodnight, Miss Andy."

She didn't see William again after that—he passed away, unfortunately, not too long after—but she kept the rose hidden on the sill between her window and the curtain. Neither her stepmother nor Cecily ever found out about it. Following the instructions she'd been given, she even went a step further, changing the water in the tiny vase every day, making sure it never got dirty. It lasted a couple of weeks, but inevitably, all things must come to an end… When the first petals began to fall, Andy cut the stem and pressed the blossom in between the pages of the heavy bible she neither read nor believed in.

And despite the trials, and many, many changes that Andy would endure over the next several years—despite throwing away everything she ever knew—the bible, she would keep for many years to come...

So, just disclaimer here: I'm taking some liberties with Cecily's/Halfrek's character. I've managed to make it fit in with cannon though! Minus the addition of Andy, of course, but hey. Details. (Ask yourself: What exactly was Halfrek doing in London posing as an upscale lady for all that time?)

THERE WILL BE A BtVS/AtS CROSSOVER at more than one or two points and more than just one pairing!

For those of you who don't like OCs, just give it a chance. OCs are my specialty, so you're in good hands. (Also, "Andromeda Persephone Underwood" is supposed to sound awful and pretentious. It's intentional.)