AN: summary is a quote from Shame, this is one of many fics I found on my old laptop and awh. memories!
Enjoy.
If Guy closes his eyes just right he can picture a happy family. Before his father left, before he became a leper. He can picture his father swinging him up above his head and spinning him around, he can picture his parents dancing together a the village fair, he can picture his sister laughing, playing, blossoming.
But sometimes if he turns his head just right he can see the cracks, the blurred edges. He can hear his parents arguing (how am I to raise our children without you!?) he can see the lingering glances between his mother and Locksley, he can see his sister's smile fade away.
He's five when Isabella's born, his grandfather keeps him outside and sings songs with him as they pick apples. Eventually his father calls him inside, his eyes are all red and he's smiling. "Come meet your little sister, Guy," he says. "Come meet Isabella."
His mother hands her to him gently and Guy stares at her in awe. She's so tiny, so fragile. So perfect.
"This is your little sister," his mother says. "She's ours to raise, ours to protect. Can you do that Guy? Will you help me look after her?"
Guy nods, wide eyed.
"Promise?
"Oui, mama."
News travels fast around these parts and its not long before he and Isabella aren't welcome in most of the towns along the road to Portsmouth.
"I want to go home," Isabella says, quiet and defiant the first night they sleep in the forest. It's autumn, it's starting to get cold and its been raining. He's built a rickety lean-to shelter, managed to start a weak fire with the few dry branches he could find. It took him a while to get the blaze going (he managed to start the fire at home easily enough.)
He hands Isabella his cloak. She accepts it and drapes it around her scrawny shoulders, he wonders if she was always to skinny or if its just because they're not eating properly anymore. "I want to go home." She repeats.
"We can't," he snaps, glares. She's not a little kid, at ten she should be able to work out what happened. "We're not welcome there anymore."
Or anywhere in England for that matter. He sighs, runs a hand through his grimy hair. "Things will be better in France." He says, unwrapping the last of their food. They can go to their grandparent's village, it might be smaller than Locksley but its better than nothing. He breaks the mouldy bread in two, hands Isabella the larger part.
"I don't want to go to France," she says petulantly.
"Neither do I."
Isabella glares at him, picking out mould and flicking it in his direction. "If we can't even afford food how are we going to afford passage to France?"
"I don't know." He mumbles, burying his face in his hands. This wasn't supposed to be like this.
They have to stay in the port a week before they secure passage. They stay on a cramped hostel full of soldiers and sailors who look at Isabella in all the wrong ways. On the second night he cuts her hair off, hands a tunic and trousers and boots, it's safer (if only marginally) to be a boy. She weeps and pounds at him and swears she hates him but he promised his mother once that he'd protect her and he fully intends to do so. (It's his fault there mother isn't here anymore - Isabella knows it too.)
He works a few odd jobs around the docks to pay for board and food, sells Isabella's dress. It's not much but they survive.
He finds passage with a merchant sailor who'll take them to Le Harve for all of Guy's money and his services on board. The crossing should only take a few hours. Guy can handle that. He's not ignorant to the ways of the world, he'll do what he needs to to keep them both safe even if does involve playing catamite to dirty sailors and rich merchants.
"I miss mama," Isabella says as they look out over the ocean. When they made this crossing before Isabella was just a babe, squalling in his mother's arms. She shouldn't have to suffer for his sins. "And father. And home."
He puts an arm around her thin shoulders. She shrugs him off. "This is all your fault." She tells him tearfully.
"I know," he murmurs.
She looks up at him, bites her lip and for a moment he thinks she might apologise but before she can the merchant calls him and Guy's sure he can smell the man's foul breath from here.
"BOY!"
Isabella clutches at his cloak as he turns to go, "Guy..."
"I'll be fine," he smiles as he gently untangles her fingers from the fabric. "Just stay here, keep your head down. I won't let anybody hurt you."
France is a lot bigger than England, a lot wilder, a lot colder.
It'll take them weeks to get from Normandy to their family's home in Lorraine, months even. They'll need provisions which means they'll need money. They stay in La Havre for almost a month, Guy tries not to let Isabella out of his sight but there are some jobs he does not want her to see. He teaches her French and keeps her hair cut short. They meet a kind family who lets them board for free.
He manages to buy them two cloaks and boots and packs full of food. A dagger for Isabella, a sword for him. If they'd stayed a few months longer he could have bought a horse but he doesn't feel clean in La Havre. He doesn't feel right. And there are still too many people who look at his little sister the wrong way.
"How long will it take us to get there?" Isabella asks, glaring moodily at the flames. They're camping in an abandoned farm house.
"I don't know."
She glares at him. "Do grandpa and grandma even know we're coming?"
He shakes his head. They could have written ahead, tried to find someone to carry it there but it would have cost more money, money they could ill afford. Besides there was no guarantee the message would even reach them. He wonders if they even know his mother's dead.
"How do we know they still live there?"
Guy sighs. We don't.
"Are they even still alive?" She growls, "Do they know about mother? About father?"
"I don't know."
"Is there anything you know?" She snaps angrily.
"Go to sleep Isabella."
"It's too cold to sleep," she grumbles. "And there might be wolves out here."
Guy snorts and tosses his cloak to her. "I won't let you get eaten by wolves, Isabella. You don't need to be scared."
She lies down, wrapping herself in both cloaks. "I'm not scared."
He smiles a little at the tremor in her voice, "Sure you're not."
They're somewhere in Picardie when they meet their first group of outlaws. They sweep out of the forest clad in black and hiss like demons swarming out of hell and Guy is too cold and too tired to fight but he has to for his sister.
"Run," he says pushing her out of a small hole in the cave they're sheltering in. "Run, Isabella!"
"Guy!" She cries and their footsteps get louder.
"I'll find you, I promise!"
He doesn't. She finds him, beaten and bloodied but at least she's safe. "They took all our food," he chokes.
She shushes him, "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
She looks up at him, tearing a spare shirt into strips for bandages. "Saying it was your fault."
He turns his head away, "It was, though."
"No," Isabella says quietly. "It was an accident."
That doesn't mean it wasn't my fault, Guy thinks.
They make it to their Grandparents home after three months.
They're cold and hungry and so, so tired and Isabella cries when their grandmother opens the door.
Guy tells them about their parents death, a fire, tragic. Leaves out the bit about leprosy and his mother's proposed marriage. His grandmother cries, his grandfather watches him with hard cold eyes, his mouth a grim line, he grumbles about English stupidity and how he never should have let them leave. When its all said and done he ad Isabella go to bed full and warm and safe for the first time in months.
Of course it doesn't last.
Six months after they arrive a messenger arrives from Locksley, an old family friend who tells his grandfather all about the leprosy. Their grandfather is none to pleased, kicks them out snarling about dishonour.
They go back to living by the skins of their teeth, cold and hungry and desperate but they survive.
When Lord Thornton offers to marry Isabella Guy says yes without a second thought.
They're living in a one room hovel in Pas-De-Calais, Guy's not entirely sure why they're there but they both have work, they have a small straw mattress and a few thin ratty blankets. It's more then they've had in years (which is actually kind of sad.) But they still have to go for days without eating sometimes. Thornton offers him enough money to get back to England, to live comfortably for a time, at least until he can get Locksley back.
And with money comes power and since the sailors, since the outlaws, since he lost everything in one day Guy's never wanted to be powerless again.
This marriage is far beyond what he could have dreamed for Isabella, she'll be well looked after, fed, clothed. Maybe she'll grow to love him in time. If she stays here they'll likely starve to death or freeze when winter comes, or be murdered in their beds by thieves."No," she says immediately when he tells her. "No. I won't."
He sighs, she looks more like their mother everyday but the clench of her jaw, the fire in her eyes, that is all their father. He cannot watch her starve here, cannot let her degrade herself for food and shelter as he has done. "I have already said yes, Isabella."
She scowls at him, hands on her hips. "No, Guy! I don't want to marry! I want to stay with you! You don't get to control my life!"
He's tired. He really doesn't want to argue with her. "He's rich, Isabella. You'll want for nothing. You'll never go hungry again."
"Like you care," she snaps. "I bet you're only doing this because he'll pay you! I'm your sister, Guy! You're supposed to care about me."
"It's already done, Isabella. He'll arrive tomorrow." He turns away before Isabella starts stamping her feet, breaking their few plates and pans. He heads to tavern and talks himself into a few free ales before going home.
"I hate you," Isabella hisses, venom in here voice. "If you hadn't gone to visit father none of this would have happened."
"I know."
"Father never would have sold me, mother wouldn't have let him."
"I know."
"It's your fault they're dead."
"I know."
"You said you wouldn't let anyone hurt me."
I know.
Thornton arrives early the next morning, an ornate horse drawn cart and three man servants. Guy pretends he doesn't see the cruelty in his smile, the way he digs his fingers into his sister's skin.
He wants to say no, you can't, I won't let you. But he can't. If he does Thornton will probably kill him and take Isabella anyway (and you're letting him take her) at least this way he can pretend he has control.
I'm sorry, he wants to say as Thornton hands him a bag of gold, I'm sorry Isabella.
"Don't make me do this." She says, pleads. "You don't have to let him take me." Her breath hitches, "Guy, please."
Guy bites his tongue. "Goodbye, Isabella."
His sister sobs as Thornton's men push her into the carriage and Thornton shoots him a grin that makes him want to throw up or drown in ale or both.
He's lucky it's raining. It wouldn't do to be seen crying.
When he gets back to England he travels a little, works as a guardsman, he's always been good with swords.
Then he meets Vaisey. Vaisey who whispers that he could be great, that he could get his father's lands back, that he could be powerful. And Guy eats it up.
Vaisey keeps caged song birds in his room so that when he's angry he can snap their necks. It takes Guy longer than it should to realise he's just another caged bird.
Vaisey keeps him in a cage of half-promises and growled threats, no one else would hire you Gisborne, son of leper, failure. And when Vaisey's in a particularly bad mood (when Hood and his men escape, when the taxes are too few) he creeps to Guy's room and makes him sing.
Guy loses himself sometime after meeting Vaisey, he's stripped away and stitched back together in all the wrong ways. But at least he's not cold and hungry. At least he has some power, even if it is just over peasants. And at least he gets Locksley back, for a time anyway.
Guy does what he has to do to survive because really, that's all he's ever been able do.