Title: This Time Imperfect

Author: Jessie-chan

Pairing: Will / Jack; Will / Frederick

Rating: NC-17

Warning(s): AU; Crossover with From Hell

Summary: Sequel / Off-shoot to "To Heaven" and "Warmer Waters." Over a century after the Jack the Ripper killing spree, a new killer has emerged, with Will Turner in his sights.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. So sorry. If I did, they'd spend all their time doing naughty things. *grin*

Feedback: Welcomed and appreciated.

Beta: none.

Author's Notes: I swore, up and down and sideways and even backwards, that I wouldn't write anymore stories regarding Frederick Abberline and Will Turner. Then I got the idea for this. So much for my vow. ^_^

This is a semi-sequel to "To Heaven" and "Warmer Waters" (both available at my website here), but I don't think it will be totally necessary to have read them before this one. If you'd like to know the plotline / backstory, see an entry in my LiveJournal, available here:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/jessie_chan5411/3920.html#cutid1

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

This Time Imperfect

Chapter One

The stairs leading down from the top floor of the Spitalfields Housing Projects were dank, dirty, and narrow, but twenty-year-old Will Turner descended them with the practiced motions granted only to the long-time residents of the government-funded building. Will, however, did not live in Spitalfields; his expensive designer clothes told everyone this, though no one begrudged the boy for what many would consider sight-seeing by the richer class: he had many friends in Spitalfields.

Once he reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped outside, he looked back up at the building he'd just emerged from. It saddened him to see that people still lived in places like this one; it was 1999--he would have thought the government would have done more for these people than give them food stamps, welfare checks, and terrible housing conditions. Indeed, he was unaware that places such as these even existed until he'd become friends with Jack, who'd taught him much about the poorer side of town, among other things.

Will glanced up at the darkening sky; it was late, and he needed to start heading home soon before his father began to worry, something he always did lately. Ever since Will's mother died when Will was twelve, Will's father had become increasingly overprotective of his only remaining son, seeing him as the only chance of the family line continuing. Perhaps the overprotectiveness was why Will always felt the need to rebel just a little, such as when he got his ear pierced (his father made him take the earring out) or when he got a tattoo of a sun on his lower stomach (which his father had yet to find out about).

Will briskly crossed the crumbling and decaying parking lot to his silver BMW, a gift from his father that looked highly out-of-place in such squalid conditions. Taking his keys from his pocket, he unlocked the door and slid inside, running his hand over the leather interior indulgently. He liked leather.

Will had just put the car in drive when the door he'd just left by opened, and a long-haired man signaled for him to stop. Will shifted the car back into park and waited as Jack hurried to the car, clutching something tightly in his left hand. He opened the passenger door and climbed in.

"I can't believe I forgot to tell you," he said slightly breathlessly. "I guess it was all the...excitement at seeing you. I got a phone."

Will's face brightened. Obviously, that meant Jack's financial situation was beginning to stabilize. "We can talk over the phone. I don't have to come all the way over here so often to see you."

Jack leaned in and kissed Will tenderly, pressing the paper into Will's hand. "I know you risk angering your father whenever you sneak out to see me," he said once they separated. "But I surely hope you'll come see me occasionally."

"At least once a week," Will promised; he folded the paper and shoved it into his pocket. Jack kissed him once more, then Will added, "I should get going."

Jack nodded and wordlessly exited the car.

"I'll see you in a few days, all right?" Will called out before Jack shut the car door.

Will heaved an irritated sigh as he flung the car into drive again and made for the street beyond the parking lot. It was obvious Jack was in one of his moods again--the moods he had a habit of getting into whenever Will was about to leave; the man would become cold and distant, and Will was beginning to tire of it.

The sex was great, though.

Jack was, essentially, an absolute mystery to Will. While Will would openly and without hesitation talk about his childhood, Jack never said a word about his past. He, furthermore, never spoke of a future or any dreams or goals he may have possessed. Will had once gotten the nerve to ask Jack about his childhood, but Jack had only said, "That's in the past, and the past is of no consequence here." Will couldn't help but wonder, though, a curse of his active imagination and his damnable curiosity.

His active imagination and damnable curiosity was what initially got Will involved with Jack. Curiosity about the much older man--by fifteen years, at least--had made him follow Jack up to his apartment for the first, and as it turned out, certainly not the last time. And it was his imagination that kept him coming back for more.

Once home, Will bypassed his father's study, where the elder Turner would be working on paperwork and other business-related things that Will could not and probably would never understand. His father was always making comments about not knowing what to do about the family finances were he to die; he professed a hesitance to hand them over to Will. Will didn't let this bother him, though; he was blissfully unaware of how to run the financial affairs of the Turner Estate, and he preferred to keep it that way.

Will's bedroom, unlike that of most men his age, was elegant and immaculate, even graceful in places, much like the bedroom's inhabitant. Deep cherry-wood paneling, burgundys and golds, the room exuded a warmth quite unlike the austere coldness of his father's rooms--indeed,, Will's room was warmer than any other room in the house. Will loved the nearly over-elaborate decorative scheme; it set his room apart from the rest of the rooms in the house.

Will threw himself backwards onto the bed, sighing as he sank down into its softness. There was something to be said about Will's own elegance to be sure. He was all long limbs and dark skin, topped by dark, longish curls and the darkest brown eyes to ever observe the world. Smooth as bittersweet, dark chocolate, his eyes slid over everything, seeming to take in everything and to disregard everything at the same time. That was the most unnerving thing about him; you could never be sure if Will was looking at you or through you.

This never hindered his ability to make friends, though; most looked past his strange eyes and nearly overwhelming beauty, a beauty that, to some, appeared nearly androgenous, both feminine and masculine at the same time.

Will stretched, arching his back up as far as he could, flinging his arms high above his head to rest the backs of his hands against his pillows. He was so tired. For the past few nights, he had gotten very little sleep; after spending time with Jack, he always found it difficult to fall asleep. Daydreams and rambling imaginings would plague his mind for hours on end. Fighting against the little daydreams, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift off to sleep.

~*~

It was one of the servants who woke him an hour later to announce that his father wished for him to take dinner in the dining room with him.

Will sat up and groggily rubbed at his eyes, feeling incredibly sleep-deprived and a certain amount of animosity at the servant who'd woken him. After straightening his touseled hair and slightly crumpled shirt, he headed into the dining hall, immediately spotting the newspaper that seemed to act as his father's shield to the world. The headline of today's paper proclaimed, "Millennium Murderer Strikes Again! White Chapel's Notorious Killer Claims Sixth Victim!" On the table was the food, and the chefs seemed to have nearly outdone themselves: all of Will's favorite vegetables surrounded some type of poor mammal that had been slaughtered and roasted for their dining pleasure. Sitting down and saying a silent grace, Will dove into the bowls of vegetables, neatly skirting around what he presumed was duck or some other type of medium-sized fowl.

His father finally lowered the newspaper enough to notice Will had joined him, and he folded it and placed it at the edge of the table. All of the servants knew better than to touch William Turner, Sr.'s paper.

"Will, William, how was your day?"

Will mentally groaned. The fact that his father used his full first name instead of just calling him "Will" like everyone else did was bad enough; the forced pleasantries were nearly unbearable already.

"It was fine," Will answered around a mouthful of green beans.

"What did you do?"

"Hung out with some friends from my old boarding school."

Mr. Turner picked up his knife and fork and carefully sliced into what Will was now certain was duck. "Do these friends have names?"

Will set his fork down impatiently. He'd had about enough of this. "Why are you so suddenly concerned with who I hang out with?"

Mr. Turner picked up the discarded newspaper and spread it out in front of Will. "THIS is why," he said, jabbing a finger at the paper. Six faces stared up at Will from the newsprint. "These six young men have been murderered. The police still haven't caught the killer. Because you seem to look like what this killer prefers, I want to know who you're with at all times, so if something happens, I can tell the police, 'Well, he was with so-and-so.'" He removed the paper from Will's sight and resumed eating. "I'm just trying to look out for you, Will. It's only in your best interests."

"How in the world do you know what's in my best interests?" Will asked disgustedly. He shoved away from the table and stormed from the room, absolutely furious.

Will was an adult by anyone's standards; he'd been one for just over two years. And he tired of his father attempting to control his life. It seemed he couldn't do anything without dear old daddy's permission. The overprotectiveness of his father was wearing thin, and fast.

He shut his bedroom door and sighed. Momentarily contemplating finding his keys and heading out to Jack's again, he shook his head and dug out Jack's phone number instead. He would talk to him on the phone and see if that helped.

~*~

Frederick Abberline stared down at the open file folder before him, forehead resting against fingers, eyes bloodshot and tired. For the past month, he had spent every bit of his time, spare and not, trying to make sense of the case before him. The Millennium Murderer, the media called the man. Frederick thought the moniker was stupid and bordering on the absurd. He'd voiced this opinion to the police chief, and the chief had since forbidden anyone in the White Chapel Police Department from referring to the killer as the Millennium Murderer.

Frederick had been put in charge of the case, due mainly to his deep knowledge and understanding of serial killers. Fascination, really. The bookshelves lining the wall behind his desk were dominated by books on serial killers, some even written by Frederick himself. His fascination had begun when he was young and had first read about Jack the Ripper. That case had never been solved, as far as he could see from his books, but a long-standing family story told of Frederick's ancestor, who had investigated the case, revealing on his deathbed the tale of a young man named William Turner, who he said had been pursued by Jack the Ripper. Frederick had revealed that he had killed Jack the Ripper himself, in 1910. He'd stormed into the solitary confinement cell and had shot him in the head in a bout of rage and drunkenness.

Most of Frederick's family dismissed the story of the past Frederick as the ravings of an old man on his deathbed. But Frederick wasn't so sure. Something about the tale struck a chord in him, and he spent years researching the existence of a William Turner in relation to the Jack the Ripper case. He'd never found one.

Someone cleared her throat, and Frederick looked up to see his partner standing in the doorway, a slight smirk on her full lips. Elizabeth Swann was a beautiful woman, Frederick acknowledged, and while he felt slight stirrings whenever he saw her, he suppressed them in favor of a professional relationship.

"You look as if you're about to fall asleep on the job again," Elizabeth stated, moving into the room and sitting gracefully in one of the chairs across from Frederick's desk. "You really should get some sleep, you know."

"I do get sleep," Frederick replied defensively, looking back down at the file before him.

"Obviously not enough," she shot back, a grin twitching at the corner of her lip. "Frederick, you look exhausted. You need to get some rest if you expect to function on any level."

Frederick glanced at her sharply. "Is there some reason you came to see me, Elizabeth?" He had no deserve to spend his entire evening engaging in witty reparte with her.

Elizabeth assumed an officiousness with a suddenness that always started Frederick. "Actually, yes. I stopped by Chief Warren's office on my way over here, and it seems he's gotten some new information about a possible home of the killer."

"The Spitalfields Housing Projects. Yes, I know," Frederick interrupted. "And it's not a home so much as a possible haunt. I have plans to go there in the morning to question residents about people who have been there who shouldn't be or other residents who act strangely. Do you want to come along?"

A strange grin came over Elizabeth's face, and she nodded enthusiastically. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."

To Be Continued...