Author's Note: I want to say thank you to all you writers (and readers) of LOTM FF! First, your stories (and comments) helped get me through some difficult times in the past year as I found escape in your works. Special BIG THANKS must go to Mohawk Woman and Loredana, who have been so supportive and encouraging and truly inspirational as the muse slowly found it's way back to me after a looooong haitus. As you might guess, this is the first time I am posting.
While I know this "missing scene" has been written about several times by many of you, these two wonderful characters started invading my mind and they wouldn't leave until I put pen to paper. So, here it is, my vision of what may have transpired...
If you've already read this when it was a "one shot" no need to read it again (only tiny changes made). Just go on to Part II, which takes place immediately after the last sentence.
Disclaimer: I do not own any rights, etc. to Last of the Mohicans or the characters therein. Just having some fun and sharing the joy!
At the Fort - The Missing Scenes - Part I
Finally, a chance to rest after two harrowing days. Alice had just settled down on one of the beds in her father's quarters when Duncan burst through the door, "Cora! I wanted to talk to you."
"Duncan," Cora said, "hush."
Alice rose from the bed, "Talk to Duncan, Cora. I must manage. I cannot be an invalid school girl."
"Alice," Cora admonished.
"I'll see if Mr. Phelps needs anything."
"I'm sorry," Duncan said.
Alice stepped out the door as an explosion rocked the night. She recoiled. Dear God, when would this nightmare end? She looked about, seeking safety, comfort, something to hold onto.
She had created the excuse of helping Mr. Phelps to escape the inevitable encounter between Duncan and Cora, but perhaps she really could offer her services. Although not as knowledgeable as Cora, surely there was something she could do; be useful somehow.
"Alice, how may I help you?" Mr. Phelps asked when she entered the infirmary.
"I thought I might be of use. Is there something I can do here?" she gestured around her. Mr. Phelps stared at her as if he didn't understand what she'd said. The silence was deafening. "Anything?" she urged.
"Well, yes, I suppose," he murmured. Alice was not convinced he wanted her help, but she would not go back to the room she shared with Cora just yet. "Supplies to be packed up," he gestured to a nearby table, "in a trunk in the exam room." He handed her an empty basket. "Thank you."
"Of course," she said. "Is…is anyone—"
"The room is empty," he replied. She nodded and filled the basket.
The trunk Mr. Phelps had referred to was shoved in a corner of the small room below shelves containing rolled strips of cloth and bottles of various liquids unknown to Alice. The only other items in the room were a wooden table where she knew the injured had been attended to, and one chair. She knelt, lifted the lid of the trunk and began emptying the contents of the basket. When she packed the last item, the sound of a throat clearing caused Alice to whip around and fall onto her backside with an "oomph."
"Sorry, Miss," Uncas, standing just inside the doorway, said in his deep, resonant voice, "didn't mean to frighten you."
Her cheeks warmed with embarrassment as she tried to lift herself from her rather undignified position on the floor. Like a fox, Uncas loped over to her, extended his hand. She looked up at him, unsure. But as she stared into the dark orbs of his eyes, saw the serenity nestled in their depths, she reached up. He lifted her effortlessly. She stumbled on her dress and he caught her as she swayed against him. "Oh, I am sorry," she said, trying to collect herself. She heard a faint grunt as he held her away from him. "Are you hurt?" she asked. He held her arms as he had on the George Road when he'd stopped her from running after the horses he'd scattered, not with brute strength, but with a quietude she had rarely experienced from anyone.
"Just a scratch," he replied.
But she saw a small, red splotch on the left side of his tunic. "You're bleeding." She touched the spot with her fingertips.
"Need a clean bandage."
"I can change it for you. Take your shirt off," this as she tugged the fabric, all business with a focus on being of use, finally. He grabbed her hands, stilling them. Startled, she looked up. He released her and stepped back. Still looking at her, he untied his belt, pulled his tunic over his head and slid onto the table.
Alice swallowed; she was seeing him without a shirt for the first time. With a will of their own, her eyes followed the line of tattoos across his chest just below his collar bone, and along his wrists and forearms. She wished she was brave enough to ask him about them. Her eyes noted the gold bands encircling his left wrist. In her experience, bracelets were adornment only women wore, but on Uncas they seemed a natural part of him, like his mane of long, black hair. She felt the urge to reach out and touch them, as she wanted to trace the tattoos inked across his skin, and run her fingers through all that hair. While she had found men back home to be handsome, she'd never felt such inclinations towards any of them. How was it that this Mohican, so alien to her experience, affected her so?
When she looked up at his face again, she thought she saw amusement in his eyes, but it vanished quickly and was replaced by something she did not recognize. All she knew was that she needed to remind herself why he was sitting on the table, shirtless. She turned hastily to the shelves above the trunk. "I don't know what potions these bottles contain, but we can at least change your bandage." She looked at him over her shoulder and he nodded. She wondered what his skin would feel like if she touched him. Smooth? Warm? Anything like her own pale skin? She didn't think skin the color of caramel could ever be cold.
He laid his shirt and belt beside him and began untying the wrapping that Cora had secured around his torso earlier in the evening. Alice reached around to unwind the strip of cotton, bringing her close enough to his body that she could feel the heat radiating off him even though she was not touching him. Warmth, so much warmth. She felt his breath skim across her forehead causing her to hold in her own suddenly rapid breathing. Thankfully, the bandage was only wrapped around him once. She tossed it aside and picked up a clean strip of cloth. "Hold this, please," she stated, pressing the cloth against his left side and breathing once again. Silently, he did as she asked. When she finished securing the new bandage, she stepped back and asked, "Does that feel alright?"
He nodded, "Never better. Thank you."
"Of course, sir. It's the least I can do after all you have done for me…I mean, for us. Your father and brother as well," she amended and busied herself gathering the soiled cloth.
"Uncas."
"Hmm?" she looked up, distracted.
"Uncas. My name. Call me 'Uncas.'"
"Oh, I couldn't. I—"
He raised an eyebrow. This time, Alice definitely saw amusement in his face and felt silly for being so formal after all they'd been through. She'd slept by his side at the Indian burial site last night. Tonight, he'd seen her inelegantly fall on her bottom, eye his naked chest, and now was so close to him that the skirt of her dress brushed his left knee; it seemed foolish to continue to abide by formalities that were meaningless in this new world in which she found herself. She gazed again into his eyes and saw something unfamiliar, but not unwelcome, in their depths. Something that gave her courage. "Well, Mr. Uncas," she began, "if you insist," and smiled, thinking she hadn't done so for two days.
He chuckled. She realized it was the first time she'd seen him smile. He had a faint dimple in his right cheek. It felt so good to feel some kind of normalcy since the George Road, even though she found herself in a very unusual situation—alone with a half naked man, a very attractive half naked man, who was focused on her. "Will you call me 'Alice?'"
"Not sure your father or the Major, or even your sister, would approve, Miss."
Surprising herself with her audacity, she turned fully towards him and replied, "I approve." Again, Uncas raised an eyebrow, flashed that dimple. He tilted his head, causing his hair to fall over his right shoulder. Oh, yes, she approved wholeheartedly. As they stared at one another, Alice wondered what was happening here between them. What was this pull she felt? This need to touch his skin, his hair? She admitted she was mesmerized by all that hair. All the men of her acquaintance wore stiff powdered wigs; she'd never given a thought to their natural hair and what it might look like or feel like. But watching Uncas, his hair tumbling down around him, she wanted to sift her fingers through those velvety looking strands. She could not be quite that bold, yet.
"Do you really want to marry the Major?" Uncas asked.
Alice remembered her off- hand comment to Duncan as they'd forged their way to the fort that if Cora didn't marry him, she would. "You heard?"
With the slightest lift of a cheek, Uncas concurred. She had seen this particular gesture one other time, when they'd first arrived at the fort and were in her father's office. Col. Munro had thanked the three Mohicans for delivering his daughters to him safely. She'd been looking through her lowered lashes at Uncas and found his silent response to be both unexpected and rather endearing.
She watched him a moment, as if undecided, then nodded. "No," she teased with a smile. He answered her smile with one of his own. She wanted to trace his dimple, but refrained.
"Good," he murmured and touched the sleeve of her dress, trailed a finger across the inside of her elbow, then settled his hands, spider-light, around her slim waist. When she did not protest or pull away, he moved his knee so that she stood between his legs. His eyes, still on her, held a question. She had been hugged by her father, of course. Duncan had held her hand as any gentleman was taught to do, with polite indifference. But she'd never been held thus by a man who looked right into her eyes and seemed to truly see her. She found she liked it, liked it very much. While she wasn't exactly sure what he was asking, she knew she did not want to be anywhere but where she was at this moment. He wrapped his hands almost completely around her, urging her deeper between the V of his thighs. Then she did what she'd wanted to do from the moment he'd removed his shirt. She palmed his shoulders, felt the heat radiate from his smooth skin, the muscles and sinew below the surface coil beneath her delicate fingers. He was all power and strength, but his hold was gentle. She raised her eyes to his and saw the question still lingering in the onyx depths. And finally, she thought she knew what he was asking. She tilted her head, an invitation. His lips touched hers briefly, like a whisper, and he looked again into her hazel eyes, raised one eyebrow and asked, "You sure you don't want to marry the Major?"
She giggled; she could not help herself because she realized Uncas was teasing her. And she found she liked this side of him she hadn't seen before. His hands wove through the loose tresses flowing down her back. When her laughter ceased, she looked up at him, touched his cheek and whispered, "I'm sure."
Slowly, their lips came together, lingering this time, tentative, interested. When the tip of his tongue skipped along her bottom lip, even though this was her first real kiss, she somehow knew what he wanted, and opened her mouth, accepting the sensual sweep of his tongue inside. She trailed her fingers through the silken, ebony mane cascading across his back and shoulders. It was as soft and velvety as she'd imagined and she moaned with the feel of it slipping through her fingers and his tongue sliding along the roof of her mouth. His fingers skimmed her back and neck until they cupped her face. He angled her head and deepened the kiss. She tightened her hold, lacing her fingers in his hair. And with a boldness she didn't know she possessed, she arched against him, her tongue dancing with his.
In the end, it was Uncas who broke off the kiss. Resting his forehead against hers, fingers tracing her cheeks and jaw, he whispered her name like a prayer.
She sighed, "Thank you."
He leaned back. "For what?"
"My first kiss."
When he smiled again, she felt brave enough to ask, "Do you know you have a dimple, right here?" She traced the groove. "You have a lovely smile." She'd never been this forward with any man, but this man in her arms somehow freed her. Maybe it was that he was the first man who saw her, not as a girl or Cora's little sister, but as her own woman.
His fingers slid into her hair, pushing it back as he held her face between his hands. "You . . ." he hesitated.
"What?" she asked.
"You are brave and strong and beautiful," he stated in that deep, dark, silken voice that sent shivers along her arms and a quiver deep in her belly.
She shook her head. "No. Cora is the courageous one. Cora is strong and—"
He cut her off with a hard kiss. "You," he affirmed, "are all those things and more."
"Alice, how are you—" Mr. Phelps' voice echoed across the room as he burst through the door and halted at the threshold.
She jumped back, out of Uncas' arms and spun around. "He's doing fine, Mr. Phelps. The bandage seems to be holding now. And I…I packed the supplies. I can do the same with the items on the shelves if you wish," she babbled. She could sense Uncas stiffen at her back, so she inched a hand behind and touched his knee, squeezing. She felt his hand envelope hers then glide to her wrist and wrap around her forearm, caressing.
"It's getting late, Alice. You should go back to your father's quarters," this as he eyed Uncas with a frown.
"She was a help, Mr. Phelps. I couldn't have fixed this myself," Uncas said as he hopped off the table and gestured to his bandage. Alice wondered what kind of picture the two of them made standing together, the pale white woman, hair unbound, body warmed by the heat of their kisses, and the shirtless, tattooed, dark "savage" standing slightly behind her, not touching her but close enough that she could feel his breath flutter along the top of her head.
"Alice," Mr. Phelps said again, "you don't want to worry your father and sister."
Alice glanced back at Uncas, trying to tell him with her eyes that she didn't want to go but felt she had no choice. She saw that minute gesture of assertion again; he understood. "Good night, sir," she said to him.
"Thank you for your help, Miss," he replied.
As she passed Mr. Phelps, she bobbed her head, saying, "Good evening, Mr. Phelps," then floated out the door.