Summary: Will and Djaq see the same things when they look at each other: talented hands, keen minds, and unwavering passion. They both think themselves unworthy, but one day when words fly out of Djaq's mouth, they discover a new side to each other and mostly to themselves.

This is probably way too long, but I couldn't find an end I liked so I just kept going as I tend to do frequently. What's worse is I had no idea what I was going to do with this story. I had the first line of each person's perspective, but no real story, so I'm just glad I finished it. And I know I'll probably get at least one person who will request it, so let me say now that I would love to be able to continue this story but I just can't, I'm just not ready yet. It's been way too long since I wrote a chaptered story that it would simply be too much for me. But if you enjoy it, you can read some of my other stories, I keep adding to the Will/Djaq collection here because I'm running out of stories to read of this couple and I'm sure there are a few of you out there who are having the same problem. Anyway, I hope you like it! Thanks.

Steady Hands

He was a creator not a destroyer. She mused on the fact. He took blank pieces of wood and turned them into magnificent works of art. He took trees and made them into houses, shelters, and tools. Where she only saw bark, he saw something so much more beautiful and almost predestined in every ring of the wood. Sometimes she thought he could see the finished product long before his hands ever touched the sapling. She watched him now. He placed his steady hands upon the hilt of his axe and his small widdling knife. His fingers worked with perfect grace as his eyes studied the wood before him. It was almost like a dance. He saw each piece of the wood, the imperfections and subtle details that made it strong and weak at the same time. He could find the right parts and meld them perfectly to work to his advantage. The wood obeyed him as if it knew the power of his long fingers and piercing eyes.

Sometimes she feared those eyes. Just as they penetrated the guises of the wood and saw every bit of it, his eyes saw her with steadied fierceness. She feared that his practiced eyes would see all her imperfections as well. Her fear was mixed with extreme admiration, however, and his simple, soft, steady persona never failed to astonish and astound her. It was almost staggering the way his hands would flow over the soft surface of the wood that he had carved only moments before as if he was worshiping the wood beneath his hands. She could not help but wonder what that touch felt like.

At the finishing of each masterpiece, he would study the wood, checking that the work was completed with accuracy, and she could not help but find it silly. There could be no less than perfection, no less than precise, measured definition in everything he did. Even his words were evenly thought out and prepared before he ever considered opening his mouth.

At the moment, he was measuring with his eyes the length and width of his branch. He needed no tools or crafts, but his own cunning and that small carving knife. She envied him his perfection and she admired it, as well. His hands could create anything, and just that fact made her yearn for those long bony fingers to trace her every curve and expose her femininity for the first time since she said goodbye to her dear brother and became him.

She gave life, she didn't take it away. He admitted it to himself with no reservations, as he watched her skilled hands and brain respond together to the task in front of her. She was a scientist and had a scientific brain, but her motions were more romantic. She would assess the situation, and meticulously spring into action. But her actions were not rushed or forced, no matter how pressing the situation, she remained calm and calculated. Her hands would move with practiced swiftness and perfect steadiness. Her hands were one with her tools and the technique mesmerized him. He would stare on wondering what other miracles those hands could perform, and every time he did a slight blush would creep onto his cheeks at the thought.

Her interaction with her tools wasn't the only miraculous thing. She also handled every situation with a true physician's brain. She always knew what to do, and was talented beyond anyone he had ever met. Whether it was a stab from a dagger or simply a bee sting, she knew what to do and always performed to the best of her ability and with unwavering accuracy. He never knew such accuracy existed, the type that adapted to every situation. If an infection worsened she knew how to cure it, if it didn't work she had something else up her sleeve. Her fingers now were stitching up a wound on Allan's shoulder caused by a stray arrow. She had thoroughly cleaned the wound, "to prevent infection", she had said, and then went about the sewing of his flesh.

He couldn't help but be jealous of Allan in that moment as he watched her trained petite fingers trace the wound with the gentlest touch. Then, her hands seemed to command the flesh beneath them. Even now as the skin indented slightly at the response of the needle being pressed into the skin, he could see the control her hands had. Her pointer finger was directing the needle, while her middle finger and thumb held the needle and finally broke the first barrier of skin. He watched, as if in a trance as her hands danced across his skin with each thrust of the needle. Slow stab, then her wrist would turn and poke the needle through the flesh on the other side, then her fingers would pluck that jutting end out slowly and lightly pull the needle all the way through before her hands started again. It was a complicated game that looked so perfected and right that he couldn't help but admire her for it.

He almost felt the burn for her fingers upon his skin as she tied off the thread in Allan's arrow shot arm and cut it off with her teeth. He wanted to know how it felt to have those skilled hands upon his flesh, tracing his limbs as if assessing the damage. He yearned for her and her life-giving fingers, but he hardly felt worthy.

The camp was empty; the gang had gone out on a mission, delivering food at the drop offs. The camp was empty, except for two. They had returned early from their drop offs. He sat in one corner with a piece of birch wood trapezed between his thighs and a carving knife in his hands. She sat in the kitchen on the far end of the room chopping up vegetables for a stew she was brewing for the gang. He chanced a glance at her and noticed the same steadied petite fingers calculating each movement. He smiled and stuck the end of his knife between his teeth as he looked down and broke a stray limb jutting out of the side of his birch wood. The crack caught her attention. She glanced over at him just as he was removing the knife from his mouth and beginning to carve the wood with those worshiping fingers that only his passion could command.

She felt the question in the back of her mind, but she never intended to ask it. It was not until he looked up at her with a question in his eyes that she realized that she had whispered it none the less.

"What's that, Djaq?" he asked with childlike curiosity in his eyes. She smiled and gulped down her nervousness.

"I said...well I asked..." she hesitated as he shifted his position and discarded the knife to a spot beside him, prepared for a very serious question that he intended to give his full attention. "How did you learn to do that?" she finished with less reservation and nervousness than before. Somehow his eyes in this moment relaxed her.

He looked confused until she pointed to the wood. He glanced down and his face seemed to contort into a face that said the answer was obvious, but he responded anyway. "Well, my dad taught me from a very young age..." but almost before he finished she interupted with her hand in the air as a halt.

"I know where you learned it, Will Scarlet, my question was how."

He seemed very struck by the question. He didn't exactly know how to answer it. "What do you mean?"

She saw the utter confusion in his face and knew she would have to explain, she had dug the hole too deep now to turn back. The blush rose in her cheeks, turning her tanned skin into a blooming flower and he couldn't help but adore it. "Well, Will, you seem to have a magic touch with wood, I don't understand how such a skill is born." She knew it didn't even begin to explain what she meant, but like him, she was not that good with words, she prefered silence.

She knew she hadn't expressed it well enough when she saw how he took it. "Ah," he waved it off, "there are loads of better carpenters out there."

At that, the words fell out of her mouth, and her feet seemed to begin to move her closer to him all at once. "But you are more than just a carpenter, Will, you are an artist." She took the seat beside him, which caused him to straighten up and his eyes to widen slightly. His breathing had become slightly labored, but it went unnoticed to the the talented Djaq who was too busy explaining herself. "You don't just chop wood, you meld it and morph it, you command it, Will. I have never seen such a thing." Her face suddenly blushed as she realized how much she truly had admitted in her confession.

He blushed furiously at her compliment, but more than that he felt the fire in his cheeks because he saw the same thing in her hands every time she used her healing knowledge to help someone. Will was not as brave, though. He couldn't find the words to tell her how much he loved the way her hands floated over any wound and healed them. He just smiled and looked down. The silence enveloped them in that moment, but Djaq didn't mind, she was rather afraid of what he would say to her sloppy confession.

Suddenly, though, the silence seemed to bother Will as he looked up with an idea shinning in his eyes. "I could show you." He said it like a question, and it was not lost on her. She suddenly perked up and smiled wider than she had in a long time. He recognized it and catalogued it away in his mind as one of the rare moments that he was incredibly happy with himself for causing that reaction.

He shuffled closer to her and placed the small carving knife into her hands. She instintly held it like a weapon, and he placed his hands upon hers as if to tell her to refrain from the action. She looked up curiously and he leaned in to instruct her. "It's not a killing machine-" he said and she quickly responded, "no it is a creating machine." She smiled faintly and he continued, "you should hold it like it is a part of you, like your hands themselves can cut the wood." She smiled and immediately held it like one of her physician blades. He smiled and noticed instantly the inspiration.

He then instructed her on how to carve the wood. "It is not chopping, its widdling, its far more...careful," he said and then held her hands in his as he showed her. She felt her heart skip a beat as his warm hands closed around hers but she was not about to let him see it. Meanwhile, he was reveling in the feel of her physician hands, her perfect hands, in his. In one moment he flushed white and glanced up at her for a split second. He saw the full color in her cheeks and found it hard to breath. He gulped down and cleared his throat before speaking again.

"It's a lot easier than what you do all the time." He looked down at piece of wood at that moment, just as her eyes flew to his face searching frantically for something to answer her burning question.

"What do you mean?"

For the first time in their conversation, he looked directly into her eyes with a steady confidence as steady as his fingers. "I may have artists hands," he said, "but your hands give life." He stared unwavering as tears began to force themselves into Djaq's eyes. The measured, calculated words of Will Scarlet put her world at a stand still, where the only thing that moved was the tear that drifted down her cheek. He reached up, noticing for the first time that his hands had been holding hers the whole time, and brushed away the tear. The feel of the artists thumb stroking her face was like an answer from Allah.

In that moment, unfairly so, the door to the camp began to raise rather slowly signaling the return of the rest of the gang. Much's voice was unmistakeable as he was complaining of a stomach ache. Djaq and Will, with calculated movements and swift preciseness, moved away from each other back to the work they were doing. Will trapezed the wood between his legs once more and Djaq began chopping vegetables again. Robin immediately collapsed onto his bed and started up a conversation with Will about more traps on the North Road, and Much went to help Djaq with the cooking, while John and Allan shared a funny joke. All was well and nothing betrayed what had just transpired aside from the dried tear on Djaq's cheek and the slight blush on Will's.

But their hands were as steady and rigorous as before.