FIC: A HEART OUT OF TIME, PART THREE

[moonchildetoo]

Title: A Heart Out of Time, Part Three
Author: Anne Fairchild
Summary: The past can come back to haunt you...literally. If you’re having trouble figuring out who you really are, ask the one who loves you.
Rating: Part 3: PG
Warnings: Part 3 - none
Word Count: 5702
Disclaimer: I don’t own these lovely lads and I’m certainly not making any profit from them, but I love ‘em dearly. For entertainment purposes only.
Beta’d by:
pinkdoom  and
murielperun . Hugs, kisses and boxes of chocolates to both of them.

Author’s Note: Heavy emotional angst in this part, but a generous portion of comfort and understanding too. Harry finally begins to learn of Bob's past.

Chapter One Chapter Two



It took Harry a few seconds, when he woke the next morning, to remember why he felt so good. Why he felt like he’d had sex. Whoa. He had indeed had sex - great sex. With Hrothbert. He might wish it had been with Bob, but lately, he was happy to take what was offered, and by whom. Life had gotten entirely too complicated.

He’d taken a pretty big risk last night. He hadn’t really known what would happen. He might have gotten hurt, and his relationship with Bob might have been shattered, if things had gone wrong. But instead of going wrong, they had just gone in a very different direction than he’d anticipated.

Harry opened his eyes and put out a hand. No Bob. His heart thumped in his chest, until he realized he could smell coffee. Okay.

What was Bob thinking this morning? Wishing it hadn’t happened? Embarrassed at what had transpired, and how? Feeling angry, and tricked? No use postponing the inevitable. Harry rose, put on his pajama bottoms, and went downstairs.

The egg carton and the bacon sat beside the stove, the skillet unused. Bob sat at the table nursing a cup of coffee. He didn’t look up when Harry came in.

“Good morning,” Harry ventured.

“Is it?”

“Are you angry with me?” Harry asked bluntly. Bob looked up at him in confusion.

“Am I angry with - no, Harry,” he sighed, “I’m not angry with you.”

When Harry went with his feelings about Bob, he would often wonder how he knew what he felt he knew. He had a vague idea about that, but the hypothesis wasn’t ready to be examined too closely yet. Still - in for a penny…

He moved behind Bob’s chair, leaned down and hugged him, laying his cheek against the mussed white hair. How warm he felt, and how Harry had missed that warmth these past days! After a moment he let go and sat opposite Bob, grasping his hand.

“Look at me,” he asked quietly, giving the hand a squeeze for emphasis. Reluctantly, Bob’s eyes met his, waiting.

“I’m not angry with you - not at all. I was not horrified or turned to stone by Hrothbert,” Harry told him. I wanted it to happen. I could have stopped it any time - but I didn’t want to. I enjoyed it. I want it to happen again,” he confessed. “I love you. Every part of you.”

“But you’ve never - how can you say you love…him? You don’t know him! You only see of him what I let you see,” Bob returned hopelessly.

“No, I haven’t - but there’s a first time for everything. It was good. You were good,” Harry smiled. “And I might see more than you do, about this…about him, right now. You’re being too hard on yourself,” he sighed. “Way too hard.”

“You don’t know…”

“Then tell me.”

“I…can’t.”

Harry sighed deeply, biting down on his disappointment. Damn, the man was stubborn!
@@@
Harry made it a point to touch Bob often. Sometimes it was sexual and sometimes it wasn’t, but he felt that the touch itself was important. He couldn’t put a finger on why, he just sensed it. His feeling was vindicated when Bob began to respond. Their sex life, though still far from what it had been, improved. At least, they were having sex again, and Bob would sometimes initiate things, although pointedly, not as Hrothbert - and for now, Harry wasn’t asking for a repeat performance.

Bob smiled a little more, talked to him more, but Harry often had the feeling that it was only for his benefit. It was as if he was only trying to hide his depression. As weeks passed and little really changed, the black cloud began to weigh on Harry as well.

Murphy asked him about it, but he made up some story about an unsuccessful job that had gotten to him. He loved and trusted Murph, but this was something he wasn’t going to tell her. Not about him and Bob - he figured a blind man or woman would see that and he assumed she’d known for a long time. But he strongly felt that Bob’s past and how it was affecting the two of them was something that should not be shared with her. It had to be something she was not part of in his life, both for Bob’s sake and her own. He knew that at times, Bob was jealous of his relationship with Murphy, and vice versa. And he doubted that the liberated Murph would appreciate Hrothbert’s more regressive outlook on life, anyway.

Harry continued to worry that one night when he came home Bob would be gone for good. He hadn’t said it wouldn’t happen, after all. He wondered which of them feared abandonment most, and whether Bob had a clue as to his fears; he suspected not.

At least now that they were having sex again, he knew that Bob wasn’t seriously injuring himself ala the knife incident, but there were a lot more bruises than there had been before, and the odd small cut or abrasion. Bob chalked it up to his just being ‘clumsy’, and not paying attention to what he was doing, but Harry didn’t see it that way. He didn’t always pay that much attention, but when he did notice, he saw that Bob wasn’t eating much. He’d told Bob he wouldn’t force him to talk about his past, but he was feeling pretty helpless.

Bob clearly felt threatened when asked about Hrothbert. Harry hoped he might not feel quite as resistant if he was asked about his pre-Hrothbert life. As before, not knowing where it would lead, Harry waited until after he and Bob had eaten and were comfortable on the couch. After about a half hour of watching TV, Harry picked up the remote and hit the Mute button. Bob looked at him warily.

“Come here,” Harry asked, motioning for Bob to scoot closer to him. “Please?” With a look on his face that spoke volumes about what he feared was coming next, Bob reluctantly complied. Harry put an arm around him and hugged him gently, guiding his head to Harry’s shoulder.

“You know we need to talk again, don’t you?”

“Harry, I know you mean well, but I cannot - ”

“This isn’t just about me wanting to know, it’s about you getting it out, telling someone. It’s about you needing someone besides yourself to know,” Harry told him, stroking his neck and shoulder softly. “There’s a sickness in you, poisoning you, and Us. If you can’t do it for yourself right now, then do it for me. I need it,” Harry admitted, “because I need Us again, the way we used to be. I don’t know how much more I can just sit by and let you destroy yourself.”

“Turn me loose, Harry. Cut your losses.” The words were quiet, but Harry felt like he’d been punched in the gut.

“We’ve been over that territory before, love. The answer is no. Never,” Harry returned. Unconsciously, his grip tightened. Bob struggled a little until Harry let go, but he didn’t move away.

“What…do you want to know?” he asked, finally.

Oh God. “Whatever you want to tell me. What was young Hrothbert like? What was your family like, your home - or was it a castle?” Harry asked calmly. “How did you grow up?”

“Accidentally.” Bob’s acid retort was unexpected. Ouch. Remembering his own childhood, Harry could certainly relate to the pain it could cause. Bob’s must run deep.

“Tell me?” Harry asked.

Bob gave a great sigh. He sat up for a moment, and then, surprisingly, settled his head in Harry’s lap, facing away from him and curling his body on the couch as if to make himself smaller. He shivered a little. Harry took the afghan from the back of the couch and draped it over him. He petted Bob softly, fingers lightly caressing his ear and neck, and waited.

“I expect it wasn’t intended that I should live very long after birth, but I disgusted them all by surviving,” Bob began. “I was the youngest of eleven children of Godfroi of Bainbridge, the last of eight children born to my mother Alys - who died giving birth to me. I would have sworn to you that my father never loved anyone, but if he had it must have been my mother, because from the first moment I had memory, I knew I was blamed for her death and hated for it, before I could be despised for any other reason - although sufficient other reasons soon presented themselves, apparently.”

“Even my name was considered a joke. It was long out of fashion, even for the old-fashioned, but my mother had taken it into her head to name her child, if it was a son, for a long-dead ancestor, a renowned scholar of his time. I think if she had lived, my father would have persuaded her, in the dark way he possessed, to choose another name. As it was, the name became just another of my many punishments for being alive,” Bob sighed.

“The late 14th century was a dark time, Harry, brutish and violent. The politics of the land were vicious, and solutions to any sort of dispute or disagreement were swift and nearly always fatal,” Bob told him. “Richard II became king in the year of my birth. I grew to manhood in a time of chaos, when ‘every man for himself’ was a fact of life.”

Such a long time - literally hundreds of years. Of course, Harry had always known Bob’s age, but until now, it hadn’t seemed real to him. This was a time he had trouble imagining…didn’t want to imagine, when it came to Bob’s suffering.

“The only way to survive was to be strong. Weakness was Death. The way to become strong was to fight…and fight again and again, until you were the strongest, and few would challenge you. I,” Bob revealed, “was neither ‘strong’ in the only sense that was understood then, nor brutish, nor aggressive by nature. I was quiet and studious, and I hated learning fighting skills. Therefore, I was useless to my father and fit only for the company of women. A mere object for my older brothers and half-brothers and the manor’s men-at-arms to bully and t-torment.” He was silent for a time. Harry said nothing, only continued to softly stroke him, hoping that he would go on, yet aware of how painful it was.

“I had no friends of my own age; it was beyond my hopes to imagine such a thing. I was lucky to make it through a single day without being kicked, punched, tripped, slapped, having my hair pulled, or being beaten with a thick rod. I often cried myself to sleep at night - further proof that I was some sort of changeling in the household,” Bob whispered. “The only tenderness I had was from a young nursemaid called Emma, who cared for me until I was perhaps four or five. She was gentle and kind, and always quick to bind my wounds or just to hold me when I gave in to tears. I was her ‘wee Robin’. Of course, once my father observed this kindness, the girl was simply gone. I never knew what became of her. From that time I was fed, though rather poorly, and I was clothed, but that was all.

Harry heard much in Bob’s quiet recital - anguish at being born motherless and unwanted, at being discarded. He’d been reviled without cause and powerless to defend himself. He ached for the kind, loving man who had been everything to him that Bob himself had never had, and who had determined early on that Justin would not ruin Harry’s life the way that Godfroi had brutally tossed his aside.

“The Bainbridges had gotten where they were by cunning and by being very good at seeing which way the wind was going to blow before it did - and also by being well armed and protected, so their threats again villeins and villagers alike, even the local clergy, were heeded. Any protest was ruthlessly put down. So ruthlessly that as a child I despaired of ever being able to do the things my father, uncles and brothers did. I often thought, especially after a particularly bad, usually senseless beating, about jumping into the river, with no desire to come out again,” Bob sighed.

“I’m not surprised, love,” Harry murmured, smoothing his hair. “It would have been a hard life for a man, but for a small boy it must have been hell.”

“I’ve been to Hell, and you know something? It wasn’t as bad as that. At least in Hell, I had a chance of standing up for myself…defending myself.” Harry thought he heard tears in Bob’s voice. He squeezed his shoulder.

“When I was a little older, perhaps nine or ten, I was foisted off on the village cleric for basic schooling. He was considered a senile old goat, but I suspect he was scarcely more than a decade older than I am now. Most villeins were dead before the age of 40, and even in the upper classes it wasn’t common for men to live past sixty. I remember praying for my father’s death,” Bob whispered. “I told Father Ranald that once. Bless him - since he could see the bruises on my body, he demanded no penance of me, and only told me it was wrong to ask God for such a thing. I seem to remember him saying something about God meting out justice in his own way.

“Father Ranald was my father’s greatest mistake, where I was concerned.” Harry heard satisfaction in Bob’s voice. “He was a learned man - far more learned than anyone in my family - and observant. He knew the sort of existence I had. He found in me a sponge for all the learning he could give me. I was quick and clever, and he saw, I think, an opportunity to give me a few weapons with which to defend myself as I grew older. The Bainbridge cunning I had in abundance; it would be my downfall after all - but Ranald taught me to keep my wits about me, and to out-think my opponents.

“He taught me to read, and I quickly went through his small library. Occasionally he would have something new. I think he bought books for me out of what must have been a very small stipend. He was a kind man. I don’t think he ever raised a hand to me, or said a harsh word. I suppose he knew I had enough of both at home. I loved him. He was the only stable thing I knew; the only person I could count on not to betray me in some way.” Bob’s voice caught again, but though it was clearly full of tears, he went on, as if he couldn’t stop.

“His death was the end of my childhood.” Bitterness invaded the sorrow. “My father could not read. When he learned that his despised youngest son, ‘the weakling’, as I was called at home, could not only read but was, for the times and for a twelve year old child, quite well read, he was furious. He managed to trump up some ridiculous charge of heresy in the devout old man, and he was executed. My father forced me to watch him being suffocated for witchcraft, of all things,” Bob rasped. “His only crime had been that he was kind to me.

“If I hated and feared my father before, after that I wished him dead with every particle of my being. I could no longer escape to the village, because the villagers blamed Ranald’s death on me…as they should have. But I was a Bainbridge and hated for that as well.

“I nearly went mad, those next few years. It was, truly, a hellish existence - and compounded by the realization, at about the same time, that my first sexual yearnings were not for fair ladies, but for the men-at-arms serving my father’s house. I’ve often wondered what Ranald would have thought of that. I don’t want to think he would have condemned me,” Bob sighed, fidgeting.

Beneath the afghan, Harry slowly stroked his back under the sweatshirt, soothing.

“I don’t think he would have,” he assured Bob. “Did you know…how I felt about you, after I’d been at Justin’s a few years?” he asked.

“Oh yes.” Harry could hear memories in the soft voice. “You reminded me so much of myself at that age. I wanted to help you find yourself, to keep you safe from Justin’s mind-bending ways…”

“You did, sweetheart. You did all of that, and more,” Harry told him. “And you survived your father, too.”

Silence again, for a couple of minutes. Harry held his breath, wondering if this was all he would hear for the night. Then -

“I really do think it was Fate that just when I had reached the age when my father would no longer be forced by custom to keep me under his roof, and my physical longings, which scared the hell out of me, were becoming unbearable, Master Bartholomew entered my world,” Bob revealed.

“I first saw him at the old Roman fort. I used to escape the house sometimes and just go and sit in the ruins, imagining what it would have been like in Roman times. I’d seldom seen anyone else there before. He was about the same age as my father, perhaps slightly older. I hadn’t seen him before, so I knew he didn’t come from the village. I thought he was…well, not ugly, and fairly well dressed, much as a well-to-do villager or townsman might be. Other than that, I didn’t know what to make of him.
“He asked me what I knew about the ruins, which was little, and then told me what he knew of them, which was much more. He admitted to a knowledge of the sciences. I sensed the teacher in him, as I’d felt it in Ranald. Heaven knew what he saw in me, but he arranged to meet me at the fort when I could get away, several times a week.

Often, he brought food for me, seeming to sense that I did not eat well,” Bob sighed.

“While I didn’t trust him as I’d trusted Ranald - I never came to do that, but that was perhaps because I was older and less trusting generally - I enjoyed talking to him, and because of that, he learned quite a bit about me that I didn’t realize I was revealing. I suppose he must have been trying to decide if I’d make a good apprentice,” he acknowledged.

“One day it was very cold, and after an hour’s time we were both freezing. I made to go, but he stayed me with a word. He built a small fire ring between some blocks of stone where we had been sitting. I was puzzled to see him place several large rocks in the center of the thing. There was no wood about, and I found his behavior very odd. Everyone knew that stones didn’t burn. But with a snap of his fingers and a few muttered words, they did. We soon had a fire to warm us…a fire of burning stones.

“He asked me if I knew what a sorcerer, was, a wizard. I said that I’d heard of such things, but had no knowledge of them myself…until now. He laughed at that; my answer pleased him. He admitted that he was indeed a wizard, and asked me if I had any questions for him. I asked him if it was true that wizards could control the elements, and could bring about events. Yes, he answered me to both. Would I like to be able to do such things? Thinking of my family, and Ranald, I told him yes, I would. He must have been able to read my thoughts, because he told me that there were two kinds of wizards and two kinds of magic, white and black, and that he would never be or use the latter. He probably knew,” Bob sighed, “what was to come, at least part of it. But he needed an apprentice regardless and he was willing to risk me.
“He asked me if I wanted to go with him, away from Bainbridge, and learn his magic. I didn’t think twice about it. Yes, I told him, very much. He told me to come back to the fort in two nights’ time, with any belongings I wanted to bring with me, and we would be off. I’m sure he realized it was highly unlikely that my father would come after the son he’d wanted dead since birth.

“I was so excited,” Bob related, “that I ran all the way home. For the first time in my life, I was glad to get there, because I was soon to leave it for good. I had few articles of clothing to gather together and even fewer possessions, and no one I cared to say goodbye to. On a cold late autumn night, just after moonrise, I left my childhood home - I thought forever, but Fate had other plans. Still, I was not to see it again for years. It had been a long time since I’d been so glad of anything, the night I set out for my new home with Master Bartholomew.”

Unexpectedly, Bob sighed, stretched a little, and sat up. His eyes were red, but dry. He searched Harry’s face intently, finding nothing but sympathy and sorrow - and love. Yes, well…this had been the easy telling, difficult though it had been to bring the pain back. Up to now, he’d been a helpless child, a victim. Anything he admitted to from now on would be another story altogether.

Pulled tight into Harry’s embrace and held firmly, he concentrated on the purely sensory pleasures he’d been so long denied. The comfort and safety of strong arms surrounding him and the hardness of a male body against his. The rough softness of the sweater against his cheek, smelling so strongly of Harry. Most of all, the living, breathing love and tenderness that enveloped him - breath, heartbeat, pulse. The lips pressed to his temple, murmuring soft words of comfort. If only he never had to move…never had to reveal anything more.

He started to speak, but hesitated. It must be said before he lost his courage - or while the weakness was still upon him, depending upon how you looked at it.

“Bob?”

“Harry - no matter how much I try to push you away from me - don’t let me succeed. Please - don’t stop…touching me,” he whispered, so softly that Harry could barely hear him.

“No chance,” Harry assured him, hugging tighter, resting his head against Bob’s. “I know this must hurt like hell, and I’m sorry. But thank you for telling me,” he breathed, “and never forget how much I love you. How much I’ll always love you, whatever you tell me.”

Ah, if that could only be true!

They stayed that way for long, contented minutes, drinking each other in, but eventually Bob broke the embrace. However, he didn’t get up and end his tale as Harry expected, but only settled himself across Harry’s lap, head on the couch cushions, torso across Harry’s thighs. Harry sighed in relief, pleased that Bob wanted the comfort and closeness - and that he still wanted to talk. He didn’t realize that each further revelation was being dragged from deep within, and was increasingly painful because it brought him still closer to the person Bob didn’t want him to know about.

“His home was in Richmond, a good twenty miles from Bainbridge. In those days, most people didn’t travel more than ten miles from their place of birth in a lifetime, so I considered it a foreign land. It was certainly a town and not a village, and it even had a cathedral. Market days were an experience for me, I can tell you,” Bob chuckled. “As eager as I was to learn, for a while that desire warred with my budding satisfaction with life and the new wonders I was experiencing.

“Fortunately, Master Bartholomew was fairly indulgent. He bought me decent clothes and saw that I had enough pocket money to buy myself occasional trinkets and treats. He let me settle in and settle down a bit before our lessons began,” he remembered fondly. “He seemed to understand that coltish time between childhood and manhood, which came very quickly in those days, and not begrudge my high spirits and flights of fancy.”

“Not long after we arrived in Richmond, I realized he’d chosen me not just to be his apprentice, but to share his bed. It hadn’t been so very many years before that Edward II had suffered a ghastly death for being not only arrogant and foolish, but a lover of men besides. Certainly, Master Bartholomew was aware of the desirability of having satisfaction in the privacy of his own household. He must have sensed a likeness in me during our meetings at the fort, or felt I would be pliant enough when the time came.

“Because he treated me well, and also because I was by this age positively brimming with little understood and poorly controlled desire, I didn’t think to protest; indeed, I was luckier than most in the way I was introduced to sex. Though primarily mindful of his own pleasure and not always patient, my master was not cruel or unfeeling, and often remarkably kind in his way. I had no reason to complain about any aspect of my life then,” Bob remembered, reaching up to cup Harry’s jaw, his smile reaching his eyes this time. Smiling back, Harry’s hand slid up beneath Bob’s sweatshirt, stroking his abdomen and chest softly. Bob’s eyes closed in pleasure.

“Eventually, our lessons began. He set me to reading several basic books and parchments. I had an excellent memory, which served me well when I began to apply my book learning.”

Bob paused and looked up at him wistfully.

“You have something I do not possess, Harry. I never used to understand what it was, or why it was so desirable, so special. It’s only as the years have passed, and I came into the possession of Morningways, that I understood the difference between us.”

“What are you talking about, Bob? You’re one of the greatest sorcerers who ever lived,” Harry assured him.

“Sorcery, Harry, and magic, are not precisely the same thing,” Bob sighed.

“What do you mean?” Harry puzzled.

“A true wizard not only does magic, he is magic. It’s not simply something he learns; it comes from within. It is something he is born possessing. He may need to learn to control it, and to channel it, but it is still there, whether he controls it or not,” Bob explained. “You, Harry, are a true wizard, as are all Morningways, and others like you.

“I, on the other hand, am indeed a sorcerer, and a magician - but I am not magic. I can create magic; I can weave spells and curses. I can read the work of others before me, and I can use my own intelligence to modify and improve upon their magic - but it is a sad, mechanical sort of magic when compared to yours, sweet Harry,” Bob explained wistfully. “Any magic I may create is the result of work and study, while it escapes you with every breath you exhale. It oozes from your pores.” Bob smiled, softly stroking the thick hair of Harry’s forearm. “Your natural, untamed abilities take my breath away sometimes.”

“Bob, no, that can’t be true! You know so much. You know more about magic than I ever will,” Harry protested.

“Knowledge and ability are not the same thing,” Bob reminded him again. “I would rather have half of my knowledge, and a tenth of your natural abilities.”
“But you have all the answers! And since you’ve come back, I’ve seen you do - ”

“Much like your father, I’ve become quite good at the show - at giving the appearance of having more power than I actually possess. It’s been the only thing that has given me the illusion of power, all these centuries. An illusion I needed in order to survive,” Bob finished softly.

Harry thought that even if Bob didn’t realize it, this was probably the most difficult thing for him to admit so far. Even if it wasn’t true - and Harry was positive that it wasn’t true, he knew it with the sixth sense Morningways had - Bob believed it was true, and it was something he was secretly ashamed of.

“Then it was very clever of you, and it definitely worked,” Harry told him. “It still works. Nobody has a clue,” Harry assured him. “As for me, I don’t give a damn,” he growled. “It doesn’t matter to me if you’re a wizard, a sorcerer, a fraud or the pizza delivery guy, Bob - it doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

“I love you, too, my wise Harry.” Bob moved to settle into Harry’s shoulder, one arm across his chest.

“I learned from my master, and I grew. I learned the ways of towns, and of the Church and the aristocracy, and quite a bit about politics. I spoke Latin and French as well as what was slowly becoming the English language you understand today, and I could read well in Latin, and passably in Greek. I was inducted into the intricacies of alchemy as well as herbalism. I was taught to defend myself.

“To outward appearances, Master Bartholomew was a merchant who dealt with other merchants in Venice and Milan, importing cloth and scarce luxury goods from the continent. There were still people in the towns and villages who hesitated to deal with such merchants because of their memories of the Black Death and how it spread, but the rich still wanted their spoils, so there was a living to be made.” Bob sighed when Harry’s lips brushed over his forehead. “His true work was known only to a few others of our kind.

“I would occasionally hear news of Bainbridge, and the hell my father and my brothers were making of the manor and the village. I longed to be able to go back and wreak vengeance on them all. At first I bought Black manuscripts in secret, keeping them hidden from my master, but as the years passed I lost my physical fear of him, and I was more careless about my purchases and my search for knowledge…and my lovers,” Bob smirked in remembrance.

“I’m sure he felt hard done by, in that I was not repaying him as he would have wished, but he must have understood it was likely to happen so. In any case, there was little he could do about it. By the time I was two score and odd years my knowledge and skill equaled his, and my knowledge of the Black more than frightened him. We bore no animosity towards one another and more than a little affection. It was time we parted company, yet neither of us knew how to effect this.

“Yet fearlessly, Fate stepped in,” Bob told Harry with an unpleasant smile, “with a series of blows to the Lords of Bainbridge. For Ranald’s sake, I was overjoyed. My father and my oldest brother were struck down by a fever. My next brother, afraid that my uncle would claim the estate, had him murdered. In the course of two short years, all the heirs to the title and lands perished through illness or misadventure, until I was the only Bainbridge left,” Bob shook his head, remembering.

“They - the village, those of my family still alive, and the nobles to which my father owed allegiance - were shocked that I was alive to haunt them, and even more that the scrawny, quiet boy they remembered would have the bollocks to come back and claim the estate.

“Yet claim it I did. I actually traveled to court to press my suit with King Henry. Bold as brass I was, they said. Well, he was only just king, and he was having enough trouble keeping the nobles quiet then that I think he appreciated the idea of at least one loyal house in the area, and one which might supply him with some revenue at that. I had brought a reasonable amount of gold with me - one of my first, and ultimately most harmless, uses of the Black, with the promise of more when the manor became profitable again. So, unbelievably,” Bob sighed, “Bainbridge was mine.”

Harry thought about the changes he had seen and heard in Bob tonight. The helpless, pained, and bitter voice of young Robin, coming from a Bob who wanted only to make himself invisible. The cheerful, cocky voice of young Hrothbert, facing Harry and the world for the first time. And now the birth of Hrothbert in his prime, fueled by revenge, full of cunning and the need for power. Yet while his voice was bold and verging on the boastful, he still lay in Harry’s arms.

As the two of them dealt with Hrothbert’s future deeds, all those things he didn’t want Harry to know and feared abandonment for, they would need to remember, and cling to, what they wanted now. Though he didn’t want Bob to stop, Harry knew this might be their last time for a while. He also knew he needed the comfort. Bob had acknowledged Hrothbert tonight, but the memories of Robin were raw in him. Harry was in no hurry for Hrothbert to become Robin’s crutch. That would come soon enough, and he wanted a rest before he tackled Bob’s bogeyman.

But the time for thinking was over for tonight.

“Come upstairs with me.” Harry didn’t phrase it as a question. He tipped Bob’s head up, kissing him hard.

"Yes." Bob nodded when Harry let him go. "Please."