Authors Note: Ok, so have had two assessments already this week. Life is barrels of fun. Have taken an hour of valuable study time to write this, so I hope you enjoy it. Lol. IF this chapter sucks blame the brain deadness that comes in the hours following large tests and speeches.

Hope you enjoy the next chapter.

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Allan had forced himself awake upon hearing Will's shout, trying to focus his scattered thoughts.

What is Will doing here? What is going on?!

Whereas before he had been perfectly content just to lie in the dungeon and wait for Robin, (because after all the injured man deserves a bit of help every now and then) now he had to actually try and work out what was going on, and more importantly at this moment, what was happening to Will.

And why.

He needed to stop this somehow.

Oh yeah Allan. Why don't you just politely ask the sadistic jailer, who tried to hang you for saying you came from Loxsley, if he would pretty please stop…don't say torturing…he can't be torturing…doing whatever he's doing to Will. Oh yes, maybe you could also join his book club and discuss flower pressing.

No time for that Allan.

Thinking…

Thinking…

There was silence again in the dungeons. Wondering where exactly Will's noise had come from Allan propped himself up on one arm trying to see if he could find the jailer, or his friend.

Where could they be?

Allan lay down again, nursing his sore head and thinking soothing thoughts so that he didn't lose his lunch, mmm, rabbit, very nice, all over the nice stone floor. He was freezing, and therefore shaking, but his shakes were making his head move, which was exacerbating the pain that seemed to radiate around his body.

Not a happy camper by any stretch of the imagination.

Deciding that saving Will was one problem his body could not handle at this point in time Allan instead decided to try and make his brain remember how they had got here, deciding that if he concentrated hard enough he would have to think of some explanation.

He was not disappointed, finding that just lying on his back and closing his eyes he was able to focus his memories more clearly.

There were flashes that pieced together the story quite neatly…Him sitting in the camp alone, him sitting in the camp not-so-alone, a rather disagreeable discussion with Gisbourne (oh, so that's why my head hurts) and then Robin coming…the need to warn him.

And Will, leaping out of the rocks like a suicidal lunatic and ploughing straight into the thick of the soldiers, shouting warnings as he went.

And then a fist…and darkness.

Allan was just considering the fact that maybe he could have avoided this day occurring by just staying asleep when there was the clang of a door opening somewhere near the front of the dungeon. He turned himself carefully, his head had actually moved a step down on the pain scales and he really didn't want it to go back up again, trying to get a good look at what was happening through the bars.

The breath was knocked out of him as though he'd been punched.

Will was draped between two soldiers, though he was conscious and walking, not being carried by them.

His face was bloody and bruised, he looks like I feel, and from the way he was moving it was clear that some damage had been done to his ribs or back, or both.

Allan gingerly pulled himself to his feet so that he could glare at the guards eye to eye as they stood holding Will by the door of the cage while the jailer rattled his keys around trying to find the right one.

They wasted no time in depositing their captive once the door was open, flinging Will forward as hard as they could, clearly hoping to inflict more damage by bouncing him off a wall or something.

Like to bounce you off a wall you slimy…

He managed to keep his balance, despite the ferocity of the shove, and ended up standing close to Allan. Well, not for long. As soon as the door of the cell was shut and the guards had turned he slid gratefully to the ground of the cell. Allan caught him and helped to ease him down, before also allowing himself a gentle slide to the floor.

Allan stopped himself before he asked if Will was alright. It was clearly a stupid question, and he didn't want his friend to have to waste precious air answering it.

Instead he just moved closer, intent on seeing the injuries that had been caused to his best mate while he had been blissfully unconscious.

"What did they do to you?" He asked, quiet fury in his voice as his poking of Will's stomach produced a wince and he lifted the shirt to see the damage. A number of purplish, boot-shaped, bruises were interspersed with some nasty looking welts. There was a brief second when he couldn't understand how they had got there.

"They BURNT you?" He was incredulous, his mouth almost unable to form the words to express his anger.

I'm going to get every single one of them.

Will looked almost embarrassed at how angry his friend was. He was pale in contrast the blood that dripped from his split lip, and the red bruise on his cheek stood out against the rest of his face. His eyes, always more expressive than he really wanted them to be, were glossy with pain, but seemed to also hold a quiet resignation.

"I've had worse." He muttered, as though in a feeble attempt to stop the investigation of his new found wounds. He pulled his shirt down, preventing any more inspection of his injuries.

Opting to just hold onto that little nugget of information for a more appropriate time, because how can anyone be hurt worse that he is now? Allan shuffled across, so that and Will were leaning against the same wall and decided that he would just sit and provide moral support or something, let Will get his bearings before asking any questions that would involve much thinking to answer. Like, who the hell did this to you? What did they do? And the always important, did you happen to bring your 'escape the dungeon' equipment on this little soirée…

"Gisbourne's furious he didn't get Robin." Will's voice was quiet, even by his usual standards, but it penetrated the eerie quiet of the dungeon as though he had shouted.

Allan, who had resigned himself to sitting quietly in the dungeon for sometime before Will had gotten himself together enough to discuss anything (because after all the man had just been burnt by sadistic castle guards!) was surprised out of his fairly bitter reverie, and had to wait a minute before he could answer anything.

"I think Gisbourne was going to be furious if Robin were here or not. Not bein' funny…he's an angry man."

Will murmured his assent.

There was a somewhat awkward silence and Allan had to fight the urge to roll his eyes. Every moment that they had spent together in the past week had been filled with short, stilted conversations and silences like this. Their little 'confessions' had added a new, unwanted, dimension to their relationship, and made everything complicated, which annoyed Allan because before Djaq they had been easily close. The shared experience of almost hanging had certainly forged some of their bonds, but they also just meshed well. There was a ying and yang nature to their relationship that Allan enjoyed. He liked laughing at Will's seriousness, just as Will needed to be laughed at sometimes, during moments when he became perhaps a little to overzealous. On the other hand it was important sometimes that their friendship have that solemn aspect. Will grounded Allan, kept him balanced, helped him to realise exactly why it was that he froze his toes off sleeping in the forest.

And it would be a shame if a woman were to become between them, and to ruin all that friendship building they had bothered with.

Not that it was just any woman…

Allan was drifting again. He had pushed his injured mind too hard, the strain of all that standing and sitting making itself known. His head throbbing, making him feel as though he was floating on a sort of alternate plane of existence. The world was fuzzy at best, and Will's voice, rather than coming in clearly was hovering at the edge of his consciousness.

"Not being funny" he muttered, black hovering on the edge of his vision, "but I think I'm going to pass out again."

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Will had woken up disorientated at best, his vision sloppy, his head sore. He had moved slowly, like a feeble old woman, as he attempted to pick himself off the cold ground and try to get his bearings back. He had seen Allan as he turned around from where he had awoken. His friend was lying, unaware, in front of the bars of the cell that they were in.

He was about to sit down on the floor again, closer to Allan, and check vitals like breathing, and how much blood had left the body comparative to how much he assumed should still be inside when the dungeon door clanged open, startling him.

Gisbourne had been shouting before the door even opened, and so his voice was immediately echoing through the stone room.

There was a brief moment when Will, wondering just what could have brought Gisbourne down so quickly as usually he left the prisoners stewing for a while, looked around madly, thinking that his plan had failed and Robin was here with them. Didn't they warn them in time? Oh no, what if they caught Djaq? What if the diversion wasn't enough for her to get past? His heart had leaped into his throat and he had spun, thoroughly checking every corner of the cell he was in, and trying to seek out familiar faces in the dungeons.

It all seemed empty and he'd breathed a sigh of relief, despite his head's somewhat animated protest at having to move so quickly.

She's safe. Thank God.

But then, why the heck is Gisbourne down here?

It had hit him like the proverbial tonne of bricks. Gisbourne had been angry at the camp when Robin had taken a long time to arrive, Gisbourne was furious now.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that he was not a happy man because he had failed in his objective to capture Robin. Despite, and Will didn't mind admitting this, the fact that he had had quite an excellent plan this time. If it wasn't for Will and Djaq stumbling in when they did…

Oh, no, not good. Gisbourne's furious because he doesn't have Robin.

And why doesn't he have Robin…

Oh yeah, great plan Will. Glad you thought THIS one through…

"YOU!" Gisbourne was at the door of the cell, his yelling turned from the jailer onto Will.

Will's headache had clocked up a notch.

"Where is the secondary base that Hood would have gone to when he saw me at the camp?"

Will had a moment of indecision between the always popular, "I don't know, we don't have one" and "He's to smart to go to the one we agreed on knowing that we've been captured" before settling on

"I wouldn't tell you even if I did know." He was quite proud of the amount of courage he managed to eject into that one statement. His voice hadn't shaken once, even though his insides were shouting at him to maybe not be quite so provocative.

Gisbourne's venomous answer of, "We shall see…" Had ultimately proved his insides somewhat correct.

So it was that sometime later he was sitting, hurting, leaning up against a wall and attempting to keep his ribs supported, and his burns well… what could you do with burns…his burns not touching anything, with Allan slumped unconscious on the ground next to him after an extremely productive 10 minutes or so of awareness.

He hadn't been quite sure of how to handle Allan's anger at his injuries. In retrospect letting Allan know that this wasn't the worst he had been hurt wasn't the best idea, it simply provided an opportunity for a fairly awkward talk in the near future, but it had gotten him off his back for the time being, and meant that he had avoided all the questions that he was hoping to never have to answer.

He was worried about Allan. Though he didn't know much about medicine beyond blood and pain bad, the fact that his friend had passed out again after only a short period of somewhat groggy consciousness must somehow, he assumed, be connected with the number of hits he had taken to the head.

And it surely wasn't a good sign.

But then he supposed, wincing as he shifted slightly, there weren't many good things in store for them if Robin didn't get his act together and think of a way to get them out of their current predicament somewhat quickly. Gisbourne had only stopped what he was doing because of a timely call away by Marian, who had come looking for him just as he was about to get unpleasant.

Will had never been so happy to see anyone in his whole life than when Marian had arrived, blood draining from her face at the sight of him.

He didn't think his somewhat ragged smile had helped to satisfy her worry.

Will groaned as he leaned back against the wall, his body protesting adamantly.

At least Djaq isn't here…

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Ok, so long story short, I really, truly DESPISE this chapter. It just, doesn't work or something. I dunno. Long story short, I really, really don't like it. But I suppose something is better than nothing.

REVIEW PLEASE.

They make ignoring my history so much more worth while.