Here's the fourth chapter. I had an incredibly bad week, but posting always makes me happy. After all, someone somewhere will be enjoying what I've written—and that makes me feel better. Anyway, this is a Will-centric chapter. Not sure if I got all of the angst across as well as I'd've liked to, but hopefully it gets the point across!

Disclaimer: Djaq and Will are not my property, though goodness knows I've tried.

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o…o

The quiet, uneventful life that resumed upon returning to Acre was more than welcome for both of them. The morning after they spend that night at the field hospital, Djaq still felt an obligation to stay and check up on the patients she'd seen the day before. The other physicians, grateful for her help, gave them food and refilled their water skins before sending them on their way back to the city on their newly-rested horses. Among the patients she checked on was Gregory, the English Crusader who'd been so thoroughly nasty to her the day before.

"How are you feeling?" She'd asked him.

"Much better," he said. Then he'd fidgeted nervously, looking like he was contemplating saying something. "I… I should thank you. For helping me. And I'm sorry for what I said."

"It is all right. You were frightened."

"And you helped me anyway."

"I did."

"Thank you," he said again.

Again, she shrugged it off.

"Once you are well enough to leave, they will help you find your regiment and you can go back to them."

And then they'd left for the ride back to Acre.

Will was happy to be back—he never thought he'd be glad to be back in the city where he couldn't understand the people around him, in this too-big house with all of the servants and the staff who didn't like him. But it was, at least, safer.

Bassam said nothing of their time missing; either he didn't want to know what they were doing or he suspected they were doing something else. Either way, it wasn't discussed and he said nothing to them about it aside from welcoming them back.

That was nearly a fortnight ago. And now that he was finished being relieved that he didn't have to worry about blood and war and dying soldiers, he went back to feeling bored.

He missed his friends. He was just so… so lonely. It was not for the first time, and undoubtedly not for the last, that he found himself slumping quietly in the aviary by himself, wishing more than anything that he was back in the forest.

At least in the forest he could do something. Or find something to do. And if there was nothing he could do or find to do, then he could at least talk to somebody. But here, when Djaq wasn't about, there was nobody to talk to and nothing to distract him from his loneliness. In his desperation, he could well have been content talking with Much.

He sighed sadly. This beautiful house—grander than anything he'd ever seen in England—was starting to feel like a prison. The big airy rooms and the courtyard outside were the only places he could go, and he felt trapped. The world ended at the threshold. It was an uncomfortable new feeling for somebody who had spent his life wandering the meadows and forests of Nottingham and Scarborough.

He flicked absently at a bit of wood with his knife. This one had become a great snarling bear while he'd been lost in his thoughts. Bears were something else he didn't see here—though the only places he'd really seen them in England was at fairs and festivals. The animals here were smaller, but no less dangerous. Lions that prowled the deserts; great snakes armed with deadly poisons; tiny little insects and spiders that looked small and harmless enough but apparently could kill people—just about everything in this place was trying to kill people. At least with bears and wolves, he knew what was coming.

Working took his mind off of things and kept him from thinking too much about everything. He found that thinking meant remembering, and remembering depressed him. If he thought, he'd remember the people he left behind—Luke, and Auntie Annie in Scarborough; poor Robin; Much and his whinging; John. Allan. He missed Allan so much. There was something weird in the way he felt about Allan—it was a weird kind of not-love that was something more that friendship and distinctly different from brotherhood. It was just Allan, he'd decided. There was no other way to explain it. And he missed him sorely, more than almost anybody else in England.

So he worked. And worked. And worked compulsively and produced figurines and miniatures and little wooden beads and bangles faster than he'd've ever thought possible. He just gave them away when they were finished—to the household servants and staff in Bassam's house and the bustling people he saw in the marketplace, who always looked surprised and shocked that someone had just stopped to give them something. Children, being inherently trusting and maybe a little naïve, didn't mind seeing him about and had begun to figure out that the tall Englishman with the pale eyes was a good place to find toys. Just as he'd done in Nottingham, he sat by and watched the happy faces of the children he'd given the toys to as they played with them. It was just one of those things that reminded him of home.

When he made the decision to stay here with Djaq, he'd accepted the reality that this world was going to be completely alien and different from anything he'd ever experienced before in his life. But it was quite a leap from just accepting it and actually living that reality, day in and day out. The days melted into weeks melted into months. He didn't even know what month it was—their days and months were different here—or exactly how long they'd been here, though he guessed it might have been three months now.

It was harder than he'd ever imagined it could have been, and part of him—the really horrid and disgustingly selfish part—wished he hadn't stayed at all. After all, which was worse? Living minus the one person he loved? Or living in a strange land minus the five people who had become his family?

He looked around and sighed. Notched walls rose up on every side of him, with the pigeons in their little roosts, some cooing at him and others just sitting there. They were just as caged as he was.

For a few seconds, he thought to let them out and let them fly away—to be with their mates again, from whom some were separated, and to raise their little baby chicks in the wild, far away from cages. Except he knew that the birds would just fly right back to Bassam and his aviary again if they were freed; that was, after all, what they were trained to do. But for a little while, at least, they'd have the freedom that he didn't.

He imagined the forest, lush and green and full of magic and shadows and teeming with life. The markets were the same, just as busy in England as here, even though they didn't have the same fine silks and precious spices to sell and trade. It was always loud—braying donkeys and loud cows and annoying goats that had to be watched every second or they'd eat something right out of a vendor's stall, and the noise of people arguing and bartering and catching up with friends they hadn't seen since last week.

It had always been smoky in the markets, he remembered. He had no idea why.

And crowded, too. The streets were narrower there than they were here, but just as many people and merchants had to crowd into them. It wasn't all that uncommon to get trodden on if he wasn't paying attention. Once, in trying not to step on anybody himself, Will had gone too close to a vendor's stall—the hood of his cloak caught on it, and he tripped trying to free himself. He bashed the side of his face against somebody's water jug and bled sluggishly into his hand and onto his clothes all the way back to the forest, where Much promptly fainted from seeing him and Djaq had to tend to them both.

Djaq was always taking care of them whenever they hurt themselves, which was, in fact, quite often. They were a hopeless bunch sometimes, and she scolded them for it like a mother scolding her sons. But the thought of being alone with Djaq with her gentle, strong physician's hands whatever part he'd managed to injure made being hurt all worthwhile. Once or twice he thought, preposterously, of possibly accidentally-on-purpose getting hurt just so she would touch him.

It was funny, he thought absently to himself as he carved claws into his angry wooden bear. He used to think that nothing in the world could equal the pain and loneliness that was his pining for the beautiful Saracen woman. To live every day so close to her and have her never know how he felt about her, he thought he could never feel anything quite that crushingly lonely. Now she knew of and reciprocated his love, and he should have been happy, but instead they were here, in her homeland with her family, and he felt even lonelier than he had before.

He loved her, would never take back those tender words, but he didn't want to have to choose between the woman he loved and the people and places that were so important to him.

The bear in his hand was finished now. It looked like he felt—snarling and frustrated. He stood up and tucked it into his belt-pouch. Time to go for a walk, clear his head. Just because Acre and this house were his prisons didn't mean that he had to sit still in them.

o…o

Despite having to communicate almost entirely via pantomime, and his two words of Arabic, Will found that he rather like the marketplace. People weren't so different once he stopped thinking so gloomily. The marketplace was just as crowded, and just as loud. It was curiously smoky here, too, and as dusty as the Nottingham market was muddy. Even though he couldn't understand most of what was said, he knew there were friends meeting in the market to talk, and vendors arguing with patrons over the quality of their goods. Camels grunted and mules brayed—and there were plenty of obnoxious, hungry goats chomping on anything they could close their teeth around.

Children chased each other around his legs before disappearing somewhere into the marketplace. He used to do that with his brother in the marketplace when they were little and times were better—it was easier to hide from one another in a crowded market and made a chasing game all the more interesting. He remembered driving his mother absolutely crazy doing it. Just as these children were doing now, he realized, as an exasperated-looking woman stomped by after them, shouting, and no doubt threatening to sell them to the gypsies just like his mother used to threaten him.

Even though he wasn't really a part of this bustle and busyness, it made him feel less alone and less trapped. At least there were people here, and by now he was brown enough from the sun to be largely unnoticed just so long as he didn't open his mouth.

He walked aimlessly for a while, just enjoying the sights and the happy chaos and that feeling of being, if not welcome, at least accepted. It was a feeling that he was entirely unaware of until it was gone, and now he was glad to have some of it back again.

His walk took him around to the mosque in the middle of the city, and then back again—he didn't dare go much further than that, lest he lose his way. Acre was a big city and all the houses and streets looked mostly the same to him, so he would rather have not taken that risk.

So back around he went.

When he came to the woodcutter's stall, he stopped to look. He liked seeing what the different artisans could do with their chosen materials, and wood especially gave him new ideas and made him think of new ways to work. Everything was ornate—tables, chairs, bedposts, chests—anything that someone might put in their house had been carved and ornamented in some way. Will had never have thought to do that in England. Tables and chairs and boxes and chests were just basic things that people needed, not anything to take too much time or effort making 'pretty'—except for the obscenely wealthy—and now he sort of wished he had. Just because something was supposed to be useful didn't mean it couldn't also be nice to look at.

He picked up a ladies comb with leaves and flowers carved along the teeth. He should learn how to do this—he could start a whole new way of doing things in England when they got back, whenever that was. He studied it a long time, the curves and the dips and the detail. Whoever did this must've had quite a few different tools for the job, to make all the little tiny details and the sharp lines. All he'd ever used for carving was his knife, the same one he ate and did everything else with—which occasionally led to him finding flakes of wood in his dinner.

Maybe he should get another knife.

Or something.

Somebody slapped the back of his hand and he dropped the comb, startled. The vendor—a young man not much older than he was—sat on the other side of the stall, frowning at him and scolding.

"I'm sorry!" He said quickly, then desperately tried to remember how to say something in Arabic. "Assif, assif! Sorry!"

He held his hands up to show that he was unarmed, and hadn't taken anything.

The man stopped scolding and leaned across the table between them, studying him closely with steely yellow-brown eyes. Will's first instinct was to back away and get the stranger out of his personal space, but he stayed put.

"You are Englishman," he said in slow, halting English, heavily accented.

He wasn't sure if the man was just making some kind of an observation or if he was preparing to call the soldiers on him or what. He didn't look angry, just… curious.

Will returned the favour, answering in Arabic, "Na'am," for 'yes'.

Pause.

"You can speak English," he added, redundantly.

"I learn small bit. From Crusaders."

Another pause.

"You speak mine language."

He managed to communicate to the man that he spoke even less of his language. Then he reached into his belt-pouched and pulled out the wooden bear.

"I do what you do," he told him, the simplest way he could manage.

He took the bear and looked closely at it, his thick dark eyebrows raised. Will couldn't be sure, but he thought the man looked impressed. Then he looked up at him.

"What are you called?"

"I'm… I'm Will."

"Am—I am—Irfan."

He was surprised and almost amazed at what had just happened. For whatever reason, Ifran wasn't afraid or wary of him. He talked to him, in English. It was the first conversation he'd had in days with anybody who wasn't Bassam or Djaq, and it felt good. The two men had, at least, woodwork as some common ground. He couldn't help it—he smiled. That, he knew, was the same in both languages.

The corners of the other man's eyes crinkled and he gestured to Will to come around and sit down. When he hesitated, Ifran held up the bear.

"You will… teach this?" He asked. Then he picked up the comb. "And I will give this."

He was offering a trade—to teach him how to carve something like his wooden bear in exchange for the comb that Will had been admiring.

"I will teach," he assured slowly, but he put the comb back on the table. "But you don't have to give me anything." He didn't need anything, and in truth the company would be more than enough in exchange.

He wasn't sure that Ifran understood or not, but he plopped a sturdy piece of dark wood into his lap.

"Teach?"

He grinned. "All right."

It was late afternoon by the time he wandered back to Bassam's house, feeling much better than he had when he'd left. He walked through the courtyard and saw Djaq there, leaning against an archway with her arms crossed.

"I was wondering when you would come back," she said. "Another hour or two and I would have gone out looking for you."

"I'm not that helpless, you know," he reminded her. "I just wanted to get out, go for a walk. I felt a little crazy locked up in here all day."

"I know. I do not mean to worry so much but I cannot help myself."

"Afraid I'd gotten lost?"

"I was afraid somebody might kidnap you for a male harem," she said. He snorted at such silliness. "I would not rule it out, you know—you are too lovely not to notice."

One thing that he alternately loved and hated about Djaq was that she could say just about anything and keep a straight face—it came in handy when telling an outright lie to some suspicious character in the forest or in one of the villages they frequented. Sometimes it also made for comedic deadpan, and other times it made him have to think long and hard about whether she was serious about something or not.

Now was one of those latter times. It was only when the corners of her mouth turned up that he realized she was joking. He sighed in relief—she wasn't cross.

"I cannot believe that you believed that," she said as she began to giggle at him. Then she looped her arms around his neck and rested her forehead against his chest and sighed.

"Long day?"

Nod.

"I should retire from medicine and be a dancing girl for a living. It will be much less of a strain on my nerves and my patience."

"You used to say that in the forest, too," he reminded her. "Until Allan started saying he thought that might not be a half-bad idea."

She used to threaten the same thing, occasionally, when the strain of their life in the forest and the madness of the people they lived around and the work they did and the apparent gracelessness of some people got too much for her. She told them that she was leaving the forest and running away to become a dancing girl and she would never have to see or speak to any of them again—and then Allan started expressing interest in seeing her dressed in one of those costumes and 'wriggling about', as he put it, and she stopped that particular threat.

She sighed again.

"It was that bad?" He asked.

Another nod. "I shall tell you later. But for now," here she paused and took him by the hand, tugging him toward the house. "Bassam is not here and we can do whatever we like until he comes back tomorrow morning."

He very much liked the sound of that. "Oh, really?"

"Yes—and everybody has promised to pretend not to hear anything."

His eyes narrowed and he grinned at her and he could swear he saw her shiver just ever so slightly as he looked at her. Then he hoisted her up and threw her over his shoulder and loped up the stairs—she giggled helplessly the whole way to the room until the door slammed behind them.

It was the dark and very early hours of the morning when he woke up and groggily forced himself to get out of bed and pick his things up off the floor. Usually Djaq was the one to wake up ungodly early to sneak back to her own room—so that nobody would catch them in bed together—but they'd stayed in her room tonight and so he had to navigate the halls in the dark.

He hated this. He hated that she was so afraid of her uncle's reaction that she didn't dare let them stay the whole night together for fear of being caught. He didn't like waking up all alone, with just a little dip in the sheets to remind him that she'd been there—or clumsily roaming the halls so early in the morning to collapse into a cold and empty bed. It was lonely; even before they were sleeping together he was never too far from her at night. She was always there, just across the fire, and all he'd had to do was sit up and he could see her.

But not in Acre.

He understood her apprehension—these were people she'd known from childhood, she told him once, and the thought of being discovered by them just felt wrong to her. He supposed he would have felt much the same way if, say, his brother or Matilda the wise-woman, or someone else he'd known since he was a boy, walked in on them. He understood, if only a little bit, but that didn't stop him from resenting the fact that they couldn't stay together all night.

He pulled his trousers back on and hopped around on the shockingly cold tiled floor before he found his sandals. His shirt wasn't on the floor or under the bed, so he figured it must have been tangled up in the bedclothes somewhere. He searched through the mass of cloth before he found it and pulled it on over his head. He paused there to have a look at her—she was sleepy and peaceful, on her stomach with one arm under her pillow and the other on the empty space where he'd been sleeping. She clenched the empty sheet in her hand, then let go.

He should probably go now, before he decided to Hell with what anybody else thought and he was going to stay in that room with her. He turned to pick up his belt and pouch and scan the room to make sure he had everything.

When he stood to leave, he was stopped by a firm grip in the back of his shirt.

"Hurk!" He startled, then choked, and then fell back to the floor. He turned to see Djaq still in the same place she was a moment ago, her eyes still closed, but with a little smile on her lips and a death-grip on the back of his shirt.

She opened one eye.

"Where are you going?"

"Back… to my room?" He said slowly. "It's nearly morning and you don't want us caught."

She dropped his shirt and pushed herself up on her elbows. "Stay here," she murmured. "Please?"

He sat on the edge of the bed. "Even though we'll get caught?"

"Let the others think what they will. I am a grown woman and I do not need their permission or approval to do anything. It is time for them to stop thinking of me as a little girl, I think. And anyway," she paused to pull him down by his shirt. "I dislike sleeping all alone in the cold."

He grinned and kissed her gently. Then he stripped back down to bare skin and climbed into bed with her, and there he stayed until she woke him for breakfast. The next night, he didn't even bother going to his own room at all.

o…o

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I hope the ending fluff-scene satisfied your fluff-quota for the day. There really isn't a whole lot in the way of romance in this story, which for me is a little unusual. It's a more serious fic than I'm used to writing, but then… the subject matter is a little more serious. The little flashback to Will getting injured in the marketplace was taken from an interview with Harry Lloyd, in which he stated that he'd hurt himself on the set by catching his hood on a stall and hitting his face on a water pitcher. I had to put it in there, just because. Why not?

I'll be back next week with chapter five. Until then, enjoy the read. Feedback is, of course, always greatly appreciated—but never demanded.