A/N: So this is basically a one-shot, complete in itself. That said, I do have some ideas (and a bare few hundred words written) for where I'd like to take the plot further. I'm just not going to be promising that anything extra will be posted, though, because I have a horrendous track record with that sort of thing.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything/anyone you recognise. (Including the characters' initial lines.)

The Edinburgh Problem

'But we can't win alone,' William says. 'We know that.'

Can't win without the nobles, he means. Well, Hamish doesn't know about that. It's always been the common folk who get things done, be it farming or fighting. Nobles are basically nobles. Squabbling children, shoving vicious and greedy for whatever scraps get thrown from their English masters.

'It's the only way,' William adds, insistent.

Hamish scowls.

It's a sad day when Hamish is the most sensible man around. And Hamish is always the most sensible of anyone in this band of mad rebels. William is contagious, is what he is, and there's hardly any man but Hamish willing to hit him when he takes some impossible notion into his head. Hamish only leaves off because it'd be a bad look for leadership, really. They've all learnt, now, just how sour disunity tastes.

But this, Hamish thinks, this is the most damnably stupid thing he's heard out of William yet. He tells William so. William frowns at him, serious and intense and stupidly undaunted. Hamish glares back, with as little effect as usual, and Stephen looks interestedly between them. There seems to be concern mixed in with the Irishman's curiosity, though, so maybe Hamish has an actual ally in this fight. He's like to need one.

Hamish repeats himself, lowly, under his breath, because the utter stupidity of this plan is a thing that seems to bear repeating. Even William's infectious idealism can't shine up the tarnish here. This plan isn't his usual fare, dreaming up victories from hopeless odds; this is hardly a plan at all. This is William, acting on faith and hope and precious little else.

But William isn't wrong, is the problem. They can't survive with the titled bastards working against them. Now if only Hamish could ever trust their word, then the notion of wandering into their midst to clasp hands and pledge loyalty would be grand. Maybe even if only William could trust them.

Because the other problem, Hamish thinks, is that William looks exhausted. There are Scots all over this country toasting the name of William Wallace, but the man is slowly reaching the end of his rope.

And they all three know that this is a trap.

It must be: they're being promised exactly what they most need, when they are most desperate, and so it can only be a trap. Hamish knows how this world works. And it has never worked in a Scot's favour. Nor, he supposes, has it ever worked in an Irishman's favour. Nor the Welsh. Just for the English. Always and ever only the damned English.

'I don't want to be a martyr,' Hamish says.

William is solemn, quiet when he replies, 'Nor I.'

Hamish might even believe him. But it means little enough, really, when he knows that William also hadn't wanted to fight; hadn't wanted to do anything but marry and farm and live in peace. And look where they all are now. Look at all that their wants are worth in this life: nothing.

And anyway, Hamish knows, having no wish to be martyred doesn't mean that William will stop taking impossible risks with his own life; doesn't mean that William will grieve his own death. There's an easy retort, right there on Hamish's tongue, about that—about just who waits for William in the next life, and just how much he wants to be with her again—but he can't bring himself to say it.

Instead, Hamish says, 'So you'd best not be going to Edinburgh then.' Tell truth, he can hardly believe that they're even having a serious argument about this.

Except that William is a stupid, stubborn bastard once he's made up his mind. So really Hamish can hardly believe that William's hung around for long enough to give anyone—to give Hamish, because it's only Hamish who's sensible enough to realise that William sometimes needs a good thwack upside the head—a chance to start the argument.

Or maybe it isn't too unbelievable.

Instead of giving Hamish any answer about the Edinburgh problem, William chooses to make a movement like he's about to haul himself up off the ground, and Hamish and Stephen snag a shoulder each and wrestle him back down. It needs worryingly little effort. William's breathing gets worryingly laboured.

But there's still a pulse beating strong enough beneath Hamish's fingers. There's no extra blood leaking where it shouldn't be. So Hamish keeps one hand on William's shoulder to save time later, and decides he might as well take advantage of an opportunity to extend his argument. Maybe they could hurry all this useless blather up a bit. Get somewhere more defensible before any more English decide to pop up from the undergrowth, set on taking out rebels.

'Walking into an ambush won't win us anything,' Hamish says bluntly.

William looks no less mulish.

Hamish takes a fortifying deep breath and commits to using the magic word. 'It surely won't win us freedom.' More like exactly the opposite, he thinks—and then says aloud, because a bit of extra belabouring the point probably can't hurt now.

And apparently they're not all agreed that this plan is a made-to-order trap.

'If Edinburgh is to be an ambush,' William argues, 'then what of today?' His hand twitches an aborted wave at their surroundings. 'This wasn't from men planning to lay an ambush tomorrow.'

Hamish doesn't disagree; but he does have a bit of simple good paranoid sense on his side. 'Or maybe yon English won't be relying on just the one plan.'

'But,' William says, 'this isn't an English plan.'

Stephen adds his own unhelpful commentary: 'And if the Bruce wanted William dead, he would be by now.'

So much for Hamish having an ally in this; he'd really thought that Stephen might be more cynically suspicious. He scowls more deeply, and argues back, 'And the rest of them?'

Amazingly, William seems to concede the point. Or anyway he doesn't bother to argue about it. Of course he only looks like he's ignoring the point instead, which doesn't actually make Hamish much happier. William needs to start listening when other people talk common sense at him. Because maybe no one else is seeing what Hamish sees plain as day, maybe they're all convinced that William won't get himself killed, maybe they're just all waiting for Hamish to do the hard work of arguing—but there isn't a hope in bloody hell that William can make his merry way to Edinburgh. Not even for the sake of all Scotland.

Not that William is willing to admit to it.

Instead the great mutton-headed moron tries to stand up again. Not that he gets far. Not that he's learnt from all the last times he's tried it, but he'll not be going anywhere on his own feet in a hurry. And if not for the bloody great hole currently in William, then Hamish would be sitting on him by now just to keep him in place. Or, no, he'd be more like to have just hit the man over the head.

William's been patched up as best they can. But he isn't well. And plainly he knows it—can't much avoid his own body refusing him—but he's just as plainly ignoring the fact. Damn the man.

Can't anything ever be easy? Not lately. Probably, Hamish knows, not at all.

'It's the only way,' William says again, apparently imagining that he's still any chance at being convincing while laid up on his back.

Hamish only wants to hit him again. Hard.

'So I'll go.'

William shuts up at that, and finally quits his struggling—in surprise or agreement, Hamish can't tell. So long as William gives up on wasting all his energy, Hamish doesn't care. The mad Irishman, meanwhile, is looking as though Hamish's volunteering is reasonable. Probably most people would take that as a dire indictment of the plan. But Hamish is aiming to win this argument, even if it takes him talking to treacherous damned nobility.

'You'll go?' William echoes. He's gone quieter again, almost calm.

Hamish squints at him warily. If this sudden compliance is William's next foolhardy plan, and he's going to try standing and wandering off as soon as Hamish's back is turned, then Hamish is going to be very unhappy.

'He'll go,' Stephen answers confidently. 'And you'll lie low to rest up before there's any more of your charging at half the English garrison.' He sounds cheerful, but then that's only his usual flavour of bizarre.

Hamish actually finds it reassuring these days.

It seems that William agrees, because he scarcely even bothers mounting a token protest that it hadn't been fully half the garrison. And that's true: it had only felt like half the damned garrison cutting William off from his men, getting in the way of Hamish trying to make the ground to guard his back. But it hadn't taken half the garrison for William's luck to run out and put him on the ground. Not in the ground, though. Not yet.

Damn the man. Damn the English bastards, and damn the Scottish ill luck, and damn everything. Hamish watches William sag into the ground, pale and weary with pain and blood loss, looking awfully like some of the fight's been drained out of him, and all he can think is damn, damn, damn. There is nothing right in any of this, and there never has been any justice, not in all of Hamish's life, but if the Lord can only give Hamish just one more favour then Hamish needs it to be this one here now.

Let William live.

Let them all live, and win free.

Let this not have all been for nothing.

Hamish watches William, prone and near to passing out, and thinks that he has never been much good at prayer. He desperately wants to hit someone. He wants to carve up an Englishman like they've done William; wants to break them down and drain them dry like they've done his homeland for years on end. He wants to stop sitting by deathbeds. He wants, he wants, and he might not ever get.

But then that's what this rebellion thing is for.

So maybe Hamish had better get on with it, right?

Sitting on William's other side, Stephen nods at Hamish with the bright self-assurance of a man who's just settled an argument and has everything well under control. And, well, Hamish might just give him that first one even if it had really been more of a team effort with Hamish himself at the forefront. William seems to have been settled down, anyway, which is the main thing.

No one at all has this situation under control, of course, no matter what Stephen's expression suggests. But at least pretending to take charge of it all is about as good a start as Hamish can think up right now. For all his standard crazed babble, the Irishman has proven well alert to danger; mad he might be, but not stupid. Really, Stephen's probably the next-most sensible person around, after Hamish. Or anyway he's twitchily paranoid enough that Hamish can trust him to watch William's back when Hamish can't. So there's that problem sorted.

And as for Edinburgh?

If this isn't a trap then they can't afford to miss their chance. They're not like to get another. And sure, Hamish isn't the man that the nobles want to see; but with any luck they'll settle for him anyway, at least long enough for William to get back on his feet.

He'll probably make a fair enough consolation prize for any bastards who might be thinking of setting a snare, too.

He doesn't want to be a martyr.

They've not been spending all these months roaming apart from any settlement only for the fun of roughing it. For the pleasure of missing their families, their homes, the promise of anything like regular full meals. Walking straight through the gates of Edinburgh feels as foolhardy a notion now as it ever has. A poor repayment for all their time spent skulking and wary, striking hard and fast before melting back into the landscape.

Hamish doesn't like it; but had liked less when that stubborn bastard had been insisting on going himself, half-dead. And he'll not be breaking his word now.

Edinburgh it is.