[for Chase]

[rebellious_lady]

Marian had promised Silence that she would not share his secret, yet she needed to speak to someone. She had spent hours on her knees that night, the beads clacking together through her fingers. Their noise was a familiar comfort, but no matter how much she prayed, no answers came to her. She could only think of her feelings for Silence, and her

Comments

[dr_robchase]

He hadn't heard at first until the Doctor had jostled him into awakeness and pointed out that his name was being called. From there, he grabbed his track jacket and slid into a pair of khaki shorts as he wandered down and opened the door. "Marian, hey," he greeted groggily as he rubbed his eyes. "Is everything okay?" His first concern was for her stitches because if they were pulled, he was definitely worried.

[dr_robchase]

Chase froze. What was it with people asking him to keep a secret? "Marian, I can't promise you that I won't tell the Doctor," he admitted, truthfully. "I tell him everything and he knows when I'm not or when I'm lying."

[rebellious_lady]

Marian nodded at that, "That is understandable, and I would not ask you to keep something from your partner." She simply hoped that the Doctor would not speak of this more. "Things with Silence are... complicated."

[dr_robchase]

"I won't tell anyone else though," he made sure to add, after that, eyes wide and almost stricken. "And neither will he. Promise." As for the matter..."Silence? I don't think I've met...this person." Because he wasn't sure yet what sort of name Silence was.

[rebellious_lady]

"He is a good man. Honourable, and kind." Only therein lay the problem, did it not? "His parents were concerned what would happen should they only have a daughter and not a son. The king would not let any daughters inherit of course." She knows she is repeating a story she had promised to not, but she needed to speak with someone.

[dr_robchase]

Chase nodded, settling to listen as he offered her a second mug of tea. "Right," he said quietly. "So, from your period, right? Generally?"

[rebellious_lady]

Marian accepted, grateful more for the comfort of it than the tea itself. "Fifty years or so before my time." She suspected the England he was from was not quite hers, but she said nothing of that either. "I did not want this. At first it was simply a comfort, to have a friend and to share such a thing in a place such as this. He had offered to train with me as well, though I am sure his urge was more to protect me." That reaction made her smile some.

She has gotten off track in her story, but did not notice, quite not sure how to say the next part.

[dr_robchase]

Chase was still listening as carefully as he could, curling up in the chair with his mug of tea, just watching her over the rim. "And...?"

[rebellious_lady]

"He was the only child of his lady mother and lord father. They needed an heir. As such, he was raised as that." Marian looked at Doctor Chase, hoping he would intuit her meaning. "In every way since birth he has been what he was made to be, a knight, and a man."

[dr_robchase]

It clicked in a second for Chase, given what Marian had prefaced their conversation with and he cleared his throat. "Oh. Wow," he said, blinking at the enormity of what she'd just said. "Wow."

[rebellious_lady]

"Yet i do not want it to stop," This was her conflict. "Nor do I think does he. He said as much when he told me of it."

But that it was against all they both new, as much as Marian had come to accept it in others, accepting such a thing in herself... She did not know if she was able.

[dr_robchase]

Chase leaned forward to slowly set down his mug of tea as his brow furrowed, trying to figure out what to say to that. "What's stopping you, then, from continuing?" he asked quietly, making sure not to wake the Doctor up, upstairs.

[rebellious_lady]

"He knows no other way but to live as he has lived. As a man. Yet he is..." She still couldn't say it, her lips pursing briefly as she looked away from the Doctor for a moment. "I have changed since I have arrived here, yet there are things you can see in others that when you see in yourself you may realise you have not changed as much as you had thought."

[dr_robchase]

"So, is this a physical issue," Chase asked, trying to narrow down to what the actual problem was. "I mean, is it that you expect something more traditional?"

[rebellious_lady]

"Physical, you mean because..." Marian did blush then. She'd not really thought that through, having never experienced such in her life. "To be truthful, I am not perhaps able to judge one way or another. I just..."

She didn't know what she thought, truly. "I am comfortable with him appearing as a man. Being one in his mind and my own. Yet I am still comfortable with him not being one in truth. I know that even after i knew, when we kissed I felt no differently." But it still bothered her.

[dr_robchase]

Chase eased back and gave her a curious look. "I didn't kiss another man until I was out of seminary," he admitted, giving a little of himself. "Until my bonds with the church were cut. I couldn't. It took me realizing that I didn't owe heterosexuality to God to do it."

He was going far back, all the way to him being seventeen, now. "It didn't feel right. It never felt right, because I always felt I was doing something wrong."