Denial, ch. 41: Kalilah: No Equal
Title: Denial, Ch. 41: Kalilah: No Equal
Authors: teamlavender
Characters/Pairings: Robin, Djaq, Little John, Will, Legrand
Rating: PG
Genre: PG
Words: 2107
Disclaimer: BBC & TA own
Notes: Takes place during 2x12, "A Good Day to Die".
Want to play? Come join us! Check out the Rules and join in the Round Robin fun!
Previous Chapters: Summary of previous chapters...
Summary: Robin realizes he’s been a real arse to Much.
Denial, Kalilah: No Equal
by darkentwisted , robinfanatic & wastingyourgum
Robin watched as Will and Djaq embraced, grateful that no-one had asked him to speak yet. He found himself wondering where Marian was at this moment and then, as they had so often recently, his thoughts turned from her to Much.
He laughed to himself as a sudden thought struck him.
"Now what?" said John.
Robin looked up to see them all watching him.
"Nothing!" said Robin sheepishly. "I just thought.. Well I just thought it's a good job Much isn't here or else we'd have to postpone the attack to give him time to talk."
Will threw a scowl at the outlaw. "Much did a lot more than just talk, you know?"
Legrand looked up. There was a harshness in Will's voice that he'd never heard before and he found himself watching the expressions on each outlaw's face.
Robin seemed surprised to hear it, too. "Of course. You're right."
Djaq studied the archer's face. "Do you really mean that, Robin?"
Robin sniggered.
Will threw up his hands in disgust. "See?"
"What?" Robin cried.
"You always took Much for granted!" Will was on his feet, looming large over Robin. For a moment Legrand wondered if he'd throw a punch but the carpenter merely drew his arms across his chest. "What did it matter that he talked too much and ate too much--"
"And worried," Little John added.
"He worried so much about you, Robin," Djaq said quietly.
"You just breezed through life, everyone's hero," Will snapped.
The accusations came rapid-fire, like Robin loosing arrows at an enemy. But this time, he was the target.
"You didn't have to worry about things like the fire or food. Much even mended your clothes -- you never had to ask," Djaq reminded him as she joined Will closer to the fire.
"Much took care of a lot of things - he was dependable like that," John said.
"Much?" Legrand rolled the name over his tongue. "He was your manservant in the Holy Land?"
Robin nodded wearily.
"Then this was his duty," the Frenchman insisted, incredulous that the others seemed ready to haul Robin across hot coals.
Will glared at Legrand then turned back on the archer. "Robin made Much a free man."
"I remember how his eyes would brighten when he spoke of the two of you in the Holy Land. You were a team." Thinking of the stories Much told around their campfires made Djaq miss him that much more. "You went through those times together. The good and the bad. The unspeakable horrors."
John nodded. "Brothers in arms."
"What happened to that?" Will asked.
"Gone," John answered.
Djaq's eyes glinted in the firelight. "You did not talk to him."
"Why couldn't you talk to him, Robin?" Will's anger faded and a pained expression filled his face. Djaq curled her arm around his waist. "You made him a free man. You claimed he was your equal."
John shook his head. "You weren't equals."
"You treated him like a servant," Will said, "not like a friend."
"Enough!" Robin thumped the pillar next to him so hard that the ground shook under their feet. "How I treated my manservant is of no concern to any one of you now!" He turned back toward the fire. "Besides what can I do about it anyway? I will make amends to him in the afterlife."
"He might already be there," John mused sadly.
Everyone stopped at the whispered lament from the big man. Djaq looked at him from Will's embrace. "Do not say that, John! He is a good man and Allah will look after him!"
"War is dangerous, cher," Legrand softly tutted. "Men die everyday over there. Good men."
Djaq didn't need to be reminded of that but her emotions got the better of her. "Not Much!" she cried before she buried her moist eyes into her lover's shoulder.
"I saw him." Robin looked up at the others. "When I was looking for the sheriff. I saw him."
"How did you see him?"
"I don't know, John! Maybe it was the panic of the situation, or the sun playing tricks on me, or maybe... All I know is he was there, as real as you are standing there now." He stared back into the fire. "All I know is that for the first time in months it felt right. I felt whole again." He looked up at Will again as the tears started to fall. "You think I don't miss him? He was more than my servant. He was the brother I never had. If anything happened to him..." He looked over at the giant outlaw. "He knew how I felt about him, didn't he, John?"
John shook his head. "I don't know." He got up and walked away.
The others left Robin by the fire, lost in his own self doubt.
>>>--------------------------------->
"He is not dead, Robin." Djaq smiled offering a plate of food. "I would know if he was and my heart has hope." She took his calloused hand in her smaller, soft one. "Just as I know we will get out of this."
Robin shot a look across the barn at Will whittling on a birch branch he found. Occasionally the young carpenter would cast a furtive glance at the outlaw leader. "You don't share your suitor's thoughts?"
Djaq picked up a twig, poked at the fire, and smiled. "Will is a young man and has never travelled far from Locksley." She darkened as she spoke. "He has no idea how cruel the world can be and what happens when you are alone in it."
"He watched his mother starve and his father die in front of him."
"But he has never had to deal with that alone." Djaq smiled as if she was dealing with an uncomprehending child instead of an English lord in exile. "You have, so has Much...and so have I." She nodded. "He sees servitude where I see brotherhood."
"He's right. You all are. I was not a friend to Much."
Djaq clasped her arms around the outlaw. "He always said you never talked to him. You could talk to others about the war but not him. Why did he say that, Robin?"
"I wanted to but...I can't explain why. I just couldn't. We lived through the horror together." Robin closed his eyes against memories--and not just of war--too ugly to share. "Much seemed to plod right through it, but me..."
Djaq listened quietly, thoughtfully. Like Robin, she knew people dealt with those voices of the past in different ways. War changed them. And whether they admitted it or not, they'd not come away from that experience unscathed.
Robin sighed. "I could see every man I killed when I closed my eyes each night. I watched them die over and over in my dreams. I know Much needed me and he was there for me, but I couldn't be there for him. He was the one man who really knew what I went through and I could not even let him cry on my shoulder." Robin's eyes were wet as he sought hers. "There were times I couldn't even look at him because he reminded me of things I'd done that I was not proud of." His mind wandered. Robin thought of the many times he took comfort from Much. He didn't dare tell the gang of the nights they shared and what he made his former servant do to ease his own loneliness. Robin's heart sank at the memory. Much had been more than a friend. He sighed. "I let him down and now I can never tell him how I felt about him."
Will stole another glance toward his lover. He knew better than to feel jealous as her hand snaked into Robin's again. He saw the firelight glint off the outlaw's eyes, noticed the tenderness in Djaq's touch. She always seemed to know how to soothe the hurt. Her compassion made him love her that much more.
"He already knows, Robin." Djaq ran her hand along his cheek. "And some day soon you will tell him, in this life or the next."
Will set his whittling aside and approached his friends. The young carpenter placed a comforting hand on Robin's shoulder. "Forget what I said," he told the outlaw. Djaq's eyes smiled up at him.
John wandered back toward the fire. "We shouldn't have said those things."
From his sentry post Legrand looked back at Djaq and the other outlaws. "You were a bit harsh."
"No, they are right, Legrand," Robin told the Frenchman. He looked back into the faces of his gang. "You were right. And I'll make sure I tell Much how you--my loyal friends--made me understand that," Robin replied. "All right. Let's get the weapons ready. As soon as there's light to see by we go."
"No," John said firmly. "No."
"John! We agreed this!"
"You have not spoken, Robin. It's your turn."
Robin planted his hands on his hips. "We have a few moments left on this earth. Let me have my thoughts to myself. I'll share them with you in the next life."
"Robin, if there is a heaven, yours is different from mine," Djaq said.
"What if there isn't a heaven?" Will asked.
"It's almost light."
"Robin..." John implored.
"You know my thoughts. They are for the poor. They are for you," Robin said, his eyes moist with regret for the lives his gang might never see. "And they're for Marian, the woman I love, the woman who recently I gave a ring to."
"You're engaged?" Djaq asked.
"The woman who makes me believe that by a twist of fate we might just be able to see this through. And if Much was here, I'd tell him that I betrayed his friendship but I think you know why." Will frowned and shook his head. He drew a blank stare from John and Legrand. "I wasn't as strong as Much. I have to put those things we saw in the Holy Land out of my mind because if I don't I wouldn't be able to lead. I mean, I wouldn't be able to--"
"What?" Will asked.
"It doesn't mat--"
"--to shoot," John said quietly.
"Shoot? Of course you can shoot," Legrand insisted.
"No. John's right. In the holy land, the men we saw...in bits...screaming." Robin took a breath, released it. "Every time I raise my bow I see them. I hear them and I know now whether it was right or wrong, what we did in the Holy Land, it makes no difference. So I have to try not to kill. I have to avoid killing. I mean, God gave me the gift with bow. I can kill with my eyes closed, I mean I can kill a man from a thousand yards and have to try everything in my power not to. And that's why I wasn't there for Much in his hour of need because I just have to let those memories go. I just have to be free."
"Why didn't you tell him?" John asked.
"It doesn't matter now. In a few moments we'll be free forever."
"Well... here's to freedom," Legrand said.
"Here's to the poor." Will held Djaq tightly in his arms hoping his brother Luke and people like John's Alice and little Little John would have better lives. "Here's to the good people we leave behind."
John looked at his friends with fierce yet quiet determination. "We...are Robin Hood."
"We are Robin Hood," each of the outlaws repeated.
>>>------------------------->
While the others were resting in preparation for battle, Will turned in restless sleep and sat bolt upright. Djaq was nowhere to be found. In a dim corner of the loft a soft tinkling sound and that of ripping fabric caught his attention.
Djaq spun around in embarrassed shock as her eyes matched the surprise of her lover's. "I did not want to wake you."
"What are you doing?" Will asked, almost dream-like as he took in the sight.
Skin, too much skin, brightly coloured silks and tiny bells encircled her waist and what was left of her tunic clung suggestively to her full breast. Djaq's dark hair swept against her neck in a way it never did in battle. Her shy look caught his. The woman he knew, who was his friend and lover, was gone but yet still there. Now she was something more, she was Safiyya.
She moistened her lips and spoke hesitantly. "I think I have figured out a way for us to escape."
>>>------------------------->
On to Chapter 42....
Authors: teamlavender
Characters/Pairings: Robin, Djaq, Little John, Will, Legrand
Rating: PG
Genre: PG
Words: 2107
Disclaimer: BBC & TA own
Notes: Takes place during 2x12, "A Good Day to Die".
Want to play? Come join us! Check out the Rules and join in the Round Robin fun!
Previous Chapters: Summary of previous chapters...
Summary: Robin realizes he’s been a real arse to Much.
Denial, Kalilah: No Equal
by darkentwisted , robinfanatic & wastingyourgum
Robin watched as Will and Djaq embraced, grateful that no-one had asked him to speak yet. He found himself wondering where Marian was at this moment and then, as they had so often recently, his thoughts turned from her to Much.
He laughed to himself as a sudden thought struck him.
"Now what?" said John.
Robin looked up to see them all watching him.
"Nothing!" said Robin sheepishly. "I just thought.. Well I just thought it's a good job Much isn't here or else we'd have to postpone the attack to give him time to talk."
Will threw a scowl at the outlaw. "Much did a lot more than just talk, you know?"
Legrand looked up. There was a harshness in Will's voice that he'd never heard before and he found himself watching the expressions on each outlaw's face.
Robin seemed surprised to hear it, too. "Of course. You're right."
Djaq studied the archer's face. "Do you really mean that, Robin?"
Robin sniggered.
Will threw up his hands in disgust. "See?"
"What?" Robin cried.
"You always took Much for granted!" Will was on his feet, looming large over Robin. For a moment Legrand wondered if he'd throw a punch but the carpenter merely drew his arms across his chest. "What did it matter that he talked too much and ate too much--"
"And worried," Little John added.
"He worried so much about you, Robin," Djaq said quietly.
"You just breezed through life, everyone's hero," Will snapped.
The accusations came rapid-fire, like Robin loosing arrows at an enemy. But this time, he was the target.
"You didn't have to worry about things like the fire or food. Much even mended your clothes -- you never had to ask," Djaq reminded him as she joined Will closer to the fire.
"Much took care of a lot of things - he was dependable like that," John said.
"Much?" Legrand rolled the name over his tongue. "He was your manservant in the Holy Land?"
Robin nodded wearily.
"Then this was his duty," the Frenchman insisted, incredulous that the others seemed ready to haul Robin across hot coals.
Will glared at Legrand then turned back on the archer. "Robin made Much a free man."
"I remember how his eyes would brighten when he spoke of the two of you in the Holy Land. You were a team." Thinking of the stories Much told around their campfires made Djaq miss him that much more. "You went through those times together. The good and the bad. The unspeakable horrors."
John nodded. "Brothers in arms."
"What happened to that?" Will asked.
"Gone," John answered.
Djaq's eyes glinted in the firelight. "You did not talk to him."
"Why couldn't you talk to him, Robin?" Will's anger faded and a pained expression filled his face. Djaq curled her arm around his waist. "You made him a free man. You claimed he was your equal."
John shook his head. "You weren't equals."
"You treated him like a servant," Will said, "not like a friend."
"Enough!" Robin thumped the pillar next to him so hard that the ground shook under their feet. "How I treated my manservant is of no concern to any one of you now!" He turned back toward the fire. "Besides what can I do about it anyway? I will make amends to him in the afterlife."
"He might already be there," John mused sadly.
Everyone stopped at the whispered lament from the big man. Djaq looked at him from Will's embrace. "Do not say that, John! He is a good man and Allah will look after him!"
"War is dangerous, cher," Legrand softly tutted. "Men die everyday over there. Good men."
Djaq didn't need to be reminded of that but her emotions got the better of her. "Not Much!" she cried before she buried her moist eyes into her lover's shoulder.
"I saw him." Robin looked up at the others. "When I was looking for the sheriff. I saw him."
"How did you see him?"
"I don't know, John! Maybe it was the panic of the situation, or the sun playing tricks on me, or maybe... All I know is he was there, as real as you are standing there now." He stared back into the fire. "All I know is that for the first time in months it felt right. I felt whole again." He looked up at Will again as the tears started to fall. "You think I don't miss him? He was more than my servant. He was the brother I never had. If anything happened to him..." He looked over at the giant outlaw. "He knew how I felt about him, didn't he, John?"
John shook his head. "I don't know." He got up and walked away.
The others left Robin by the fire, lost in his own self doubt.
>>>--------------------------------->
"He is not dead, Robin." Djaq smiled offering a plate of food. "I would know if he was and my heart has hope." She took his calloused hand in her smaller, soft one. "Just as I know we will get out of this."
Robin shot a look across the barn at Will whittling on a birch branch he found. Occasionally the young carpenter would cast a furtive glance at the outlaw leader. "You don't share your suitor's thoughts?"
Djaq picked up a twig, poked at the fire, and smiled. "Will is a young man and has never travelled far from Locksley." She darkened as she spoke. "He has no idea how cruel the world can be and what happens when you are alone in it."
"He watched his mother starve and his father die in front of him."
"But he has never had to deal with that alone." Djaq smiled as if she was dealing with an uncomprehending child instead of an English lord in exile. "You have, so has Much...and so have I." She nodded. "He sees servitude where I see brotherhood."
"He's right. You all are. I was not a friend to Much."
Djaq clasped her arms around the outlaw. "He always said you never talked to him. You could talk to others about the war but not him. Why did he say that, Robin?"
"I wanted to but...I can't explain why. I just couldn't. We lived through the horror together." Robin closed his eyes against memories--and not just of war--too ugly to share. "Much seemed to plod right through it, but me..."
Djaq listened quietly, thoughtfully. Like Robin, she knew people dealt with those voices of the past in different ways. War changed them. And whether they admitted it or not, they'd not come away from that experience unscathed.
Robin sighed. "I could see every man I killed when I closed my eyes each night. I watched them die over and over in my dreams. I know Much needed me and he was there for me, but I couldn't be there for him. He was the one man who really knew what I went through and I could not even let him cry on my shoulder." Robin's eyes were wet as he sought hers. "There were times I couldn't even look at him because he reminded me of things I'd done that I was not proud of." His mind wandered. Robin thought of the many times he took comfort from Much. He didn't dare tell the gang of the nights they shared and what he made his former servant do to ease his own loneliness. Robin's heart sank at the memory. Much had been more than a friend. He sighed. "I let him down and now I can never tell him how I felt about him."
Will stole another glance toward his lover. He knew better than to feel jealous as her hand snaked into Robin's again. He saw the firelight glint off the outlaw's eyes, noticed the tenderness in Djaq's touch. She always seemed to know how to soothe the hurt. Her compassion made him love her that much more.
"He already knows, Robin." Djaq ran her hand along his cheek. "And some day soon you will tell him, in this life or the next."
Will set his whittling aside and approached his friends. The young carpenter placed a comforting hand on Robin's shoulder. "Forget what I said," he told the outlaw. Djaq's eyes smiled up at him.
John wandered back toward the fire. "We shouldn't have said those things."
From his sentry post Legrand looked back at Djaq and the other outlaws. "You were a bit harsh."
"No, they are right, Legrand," Robin told the Frenchman. He looked back into the faces of his gang. "You were right. And I'll make sure I tell Much how you--my loyal friends--made me understand that," Robin replied. "All right. Let's get the weapons ready. As soon as there's light to see by we go."
"No," John said firmly. "No."
"John! We agreed this!"
"You have not spoken, Robin. It's your turn."
Robin planted his hands on his hips. "We have a few moments left on this earth. Let me have my thoughts to myself. I'll share them with you in the next life."
"Robin, if there is a heaven, yours is different from mine," Djaq said.
"What if there isn't a heaven?" Will asked.
"It's almost light."
"Robin..." John implored.
"You know my thoughts. They are for the poor. They are for you," Robin said, his eyes moist with regret for the lives his gang might never see. "And they're for Marian, the woman I love, the woman who recently I gave a ring to."
"You're engaged?" Djaq asked.
"The woman who makes me believe that by a twist of fate we might just be able to see this through. And if Much was here, I'd tell him that I betrayed his friendship but I think you know why." Will frowned and shook his head. He drew a blank stare from John and Legrand. "I wasn't as strong as Much. I have to put those things we saw in the Holy Land out of my mind because if I don't I wouldn't be able to lead. I mean, I wouldn't be able to--"
"What?" Will asked.
"It doesn't mat--"
"--to shoot," John said quietly.
"Shoot? Of course you can shoot," Legrand insisted.
"No. John's right. In the holy land, the men we saw...in bits...screaming." Robin took a breath, released it. "Every time I raise my bow I see them. I hear them and I know now whether it was right or wrong, what we did in the Holy Land, it makes no difference. So I have to try not to kill. I have to avoid killing. I mean, God gave me the gift with bow. I can kill with my eyes closed, I mean I can kill a man from a thousand yards and have to try everything in my power not to. And that's why I wasn't there for Much in his hour of need because I just have to let those memories go. I just have to be free."
"Why didn't you tell him?" John asked.
"It doesn't matter now. In a few moments we'll be free forever."
"Well... here's to freedom," Legrand said.
"Here's to the poor." Will held Djaq tightly in his arms hoping his brother Luke and people like John's Alice and little Little John would have better lives. "Here's to the good people we leave behind."
John looked at his friends with fierce yet quiet determination. "We...are Robin Hood."
"We are Robin Hood," each of the outlaws repeated.
>>>------------------------->
While the others were resting in preparation for battle, Will turned in restless sleep and sat bolt upright. Djaq was nowhere to be found. In a dim corner of the loft a soft tinkling sound and that of ripping fabric caught his attention.
Djaq spun around in embarrassed shock as her eyes matched the surprise of her lover's. "I did not want to wake you."
"What are you doing?" Will asked, almost dream-like as he took in the sight.
Skin, too much skin, brightly coloured silks and tiny bells encircled her waist and what was left of her tunic clung suggestively to her full breast. Djaq's dark hair swept against her neck in a way it never did in battle. Her shy look caught his. The woman he knew, who was his friend and lover, was gone but yet still there. Now she was something more, she was Safiyya.
She moistened her lips and spoke hesitantly. "I think I have figured out a way for us to escape."
>>>------------------------->
On to Chapter 42....