Title: The Prodigal - Chapter 4 (Part 2), "The Things We Need"

Author: dcwash

Characters: The Boyz: Robin, Will, Much, and John, with lots of talk of Allan

Disclaimer: All characters belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect.

Rating: PG

Spoilers: None, really.

Length: 3088

Summary: The Boys of the Gang get together, and Robin gets drunk. It's not a happy drunk, either, given the conversation he's just had with Marian about Allan.

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It was well after dark, and Robin was headed well into his cups, by the time John got to Bonchurch. Will and Robin and Much had finished eating so John headed straight to the kitchen to get some leftover peas porridge. (After months of these get-togethers, he knew the way. "Bring the jug back with you!" Robin hollered after him. "And wipe your feet!" added Much, who was regarding, sternly, all the mud that had already been tracked in.) When John returned to the hall, bowl of porridge and jug of strong beer in hand, he skipped the friendly preliminaries and addressed Much with characteristic bluntness.

"Well?" he said. "How's our boy? It was your turn today, wasn't it?"

In an effort to allow friends to visit—and to give Djaq and Winifred the occasional much-needed relief—without wearing out the recuperating Allan, Marian had drawn up a kind of rota whereby members of the old gang were assigned regular days of the week in which to come calling. They all found the scheme endearing and amusing, and very, very Marian. They also were finding that it served its purpose quite well.

"Better and worse," Much said. "His wounds seem to be healing, but he's got a new cough that's worrying Djaq. And he's in a foul temper! She's taken more of the bandages off, and I offered to give him a shave today, and he went into a nasty rant about how he didn't want me coming at him with a razor." Everybody smiled at the image. "I know what you're thinking, but he was serious, not joking like he does. We've had our differences, Allan and I, but he's never been a mean person before. But now it seems like every little thing sets him off and turns him nasty. Or teary."

"He was like that when I talked with him last week," Robin said.

"Djaq says that happens a lot when people get a blow to the head like that. All their emotions are exaggerated," said Will. "It usually goes away."

"But not always?" asked Much.

"Yeah, not always. She says brains are funny things, and you can never predict what they're going to do when they're injured. Sometimes they fix themselves fine, and sometimes they kind of get stuck," Will said.

"Well, Lord help us if we get stuck with this version of Allan a Dale," Much huffed.

"Any more word on who did it?" Will asked.

It took Robin a moment to realize everybody's eyes were on him. "Huh? I dunno. I'm staying out of it. It's the new sheriff's job." Was it his imagination, or was did everybody look a little disappointed?

"I've heard a few rumors, and suggestions, when I've gone up to Nottingham. But it's all gossip at this point. Nothing to really act on," Much said. Will nodded, suggesting he had heard something similar and come to the same conclusion.

"Can we change the subject?" Robin blurted out. "Isn't there anything else to talk about besides poor Allan a Dale? What a hard life he's had, and how nobody's ever loved him, and how his father abandoned him…." Robin was chanting the list in a kind of sing-song. If a voice could roll its eyes, this one did. Robin stopped to take a gulp from his mug.

"Wait, what's this?" John asked.

"It seems Robin and Allan had a nice, long chat last week. He's been telling us about it. all about it," Will said. He filled John in on the main points of Allan's biography while Robin brooded. Robin had originally wondered whether it was tactful for him to tell the men what Allan had told him, but decided Allan was free enough with the information in the first place, and they were all close enough, that it would be all right. Drink eliminated the rest of his hesitation.

"The bastard!" John interjected, when Will finished his narrative. Nobody thought he was referring to Allan. "But it explains some things."

"What, like how he sold out to Gisbourne?" Robin said.

"Robin! He was tortured! Get over it!" Will said. What is his PROBLEM? he wondered. He wasn't the only one.

"No. Well, maybe. But…." John looked at the others, obviously unsure as to whether he should go on. "Djaq will have my hide if she hears I told you this. That 'confidentiality of the sickroom' of hers and all that. But…you remember when we had that measles outbreak a couple of years ago? And Allan got so sick? With the brain fever?"

("And what kind of man gets to be that age without having had the measles?" Robin muttered.)

"Yeah," said Will. "Some of it. We were helping out in the villages while Winifred stayed behind and nursed him, so…. Hey, you helped her, didn't you?"

"That's the thing. He was out of his head, and she and Djaq were having a hard time keeping him under control, so they came to get me. I thought at first it was just because I was stronger than him, but…." John seemed to gather up his courage against the impending threat of an angry Djaq. "…but there was more to it than that. He kept calling out for his father, trying to get up and run after him. They thought that maybe if I pretended to be his dad, he'd calm down. And he did, a bit. But he kept asking why he—why I, I guess—had left him behind, and how he'd promise to be good if I came home, and why I wasn't pulling him out of the fire. People with fevers like that imagine they're on fire a lot, so we didn't think anything of it. But that father thing…. How was I supposed to answer that?"

"How did you answer that?" Much asked, quietly.

John shrugged. "I made up something about how he was a good boy, and how when he got better we'd go off and do things together, or some such—I don't really remember it all. Like I said, I just made stuff up, on the fly. And it seemed to work pretty well. And he didn't seem to remember any of it when he got better, so I didn't think any more on it, even though it scared the hell out of me at the time. I mean, people see all kinds of things when they're out of their head like that, so…." It was his turn to take a gulp of his drink.

"And can we now please talk about something else?" Robin whined. "Surely there's something more interesting going on around here than Allan a Dale getting his head knocked in two weeks ago!"

Actually, there wasn't. Allan's beating was the biggest thing that had happened around Locksley for months. Will, Much, and John all looked at each other, stumped for a topic of conversation.

"I can tell you why I was so late getting her tonight," John said, hesitatingly, as if doubtful if that would suit."

"Alright, John. Why were you late so late tonight?" Robin asked.

"That toll gate of Much's. I got hung up at it."

"Toll gate? I don't have a toll gate!" Much said.

"Yes, you do. That one Vasey set up, on the road between here and the river," Will said.

"That's not on my land. Is it? It is on Bonchurch land? Or is it on yours?" Much looked at Robin, quizzically.

"There's a toll gate around here?" Robin seemed to honestly not be aware of it, let alone that it might be on his own land.

Will rolled his eyes. "Yes, Robin! Two, in fact. You know the road that goes from here to the river? And then it fords the river and goes the long way round to Nottingham?"

"Yeah." Robin guessed he knew the road Will was talking about.

"And how the road that comes out of the forest comes down a steep slope, and then up a little one, to get to Locksley?"

"Yeah." Robin could now, vaguely, through his haze, get a picture of the spot Will was talking about.

"Well, not long before we got rid of him, Vasey put up toll gates at the crossroads there. He gave the concession to some flunky of his…."

"Eric de Moignes," Much said.

"Yeah, Eric de Moignes. Built him a little house, let him do a little farming, and in return Eric did the hard work of shaking down anybody who went past and passing it on to Vasey," Will said.

"Eric ran off when Vasey did," John added, "But the gates are still there, hanging everybody up when they try to pass by. It's not so bad if you're on foot, because you can kind of lift them up and duck under them, but if you're on a horse, it's a pain and a half. You get off the horse to lift the gate, but it's too heavy to handle with one hand, so you have to kind of prop it up as high as you can, but it's weighted so that it falls just as you're starting to lead the horse through…."

"Can't you tie it back with a piece of rope of something?" Much asked.

"Oh, like I have a handy hank of rope with me every time I leave the house!" John said. "Anyway, it's not my gate, so it's not my responsibility."

"Well, it's not my gate, either!"

Robin sighed. "That land over there…some was Vasey's, some was mine, some was technically part of the king's forest, then Gisbourne got it….God knows who owns what over there by now. I tell you what. I'll sit down with Much and we'll pull out the maps and deeds and sort it out and do something." He drank some more, even though his toes were numb and his stomach was starting to roll a bit. One more thing to worry about. One more responsibility, he thought. It never ends, does it?

"But it took you that long to get through a simple gate like that?" Will asked.

"It wasn't just me. There must have been a good dozen people there, all trying to fix the damned thing," John said.

"What were so many people doing out on that road?" Robin asked.

John shrugged. "Heading to Nottingham, they said."

"But why? I noticed that tonight, remember Will? It seemed like all of Locksley was on the move tonight."

"And I told you: No special reason." Will said. "People have a little money in their purses for the first time in years. It's after harvest but before spring planting, so people have time on their hands as well. They just want to get out and mix about." He chuckled. "You know John the wainwright's son, Adam? He told me he goes to Nottingham sometimes just to see the lights and all the people. To Nottingham!" Will seemed to forget that when he was Adam's age, Nottingham was the closest to a big city he could imagine, and he thought of it with similar awe.

"And they go to Wellesley and to Mill-on-Trent and other places, too, so long as they have a tavern."

"I don't know that I like this," Robin grumped. "All my people prowling around and getting drunk like that." He was one to talk. He didn't even notice when some of his own drink slopped over onto the floor, though Much did, and immediately attacked the spill with the rag he had learned to keep handy on these occasions. "Waste of money, if you ask me. And a bad influence. We're going to wind up with a village of Allan a Dale's if we don't put a stop to it. As if one isn't enough." We're back on that again, Much noticed.

"They're not out specifically to get drunk and cause trouble," Will said. "It's just nice to get out of your own four walls to meet your mates sometimes."

"Tell me about it!" Much muttered, still mopping, only this time a spill he noticed under Will's own feet. "I'm sure it is nice! But I wouldn't know, would I?"

"What are you going on about?" Will asked.

"Nothing! Nothing!" Much protested, a little too much. "It's just…" he paused from his mopping and sat back on his heels, "I love these little gatherings, I really do…but why are they always here? Why can't they be at your house sometime? Or John's?"

Will looked down at Much on the floor with a puzzled expression that said he was surprised Much could be so thick. "Because you're the one with a cook, Much."

Robin found this hilarious and spilled some more as he drank and laughed.

"Time was, Locksley had it's own tavern. And its own priest. And baker. And even a dame school," John said. They had found lately that John loved reminiscing about Locksley pre-Vasey, as if it reinforced his image of himself as a village elder, though a slightly errant one.

"I think I remember that. I remember asking my father if I could go to the dame school, but he said I couldn't. Said it would give me ideas above my station. Nearly broke my heart," Much said. Everybody laughed at that—Robin a little half-heartedly because the drink was really beginning to do a number on his stomach—which pained Much until he looked around and saw they were laughing at the irony of a dame school being "above the station" of a man who lived in such a grand house.

"I don't even know what a dame school is," Will said.

"It's not much, really. Just a lady of the village who can read and write a bit teaching the children their letters and numbers in her spare time. My mother might have run it. But after she died, I don't think there wasn't anybody else with the know-how." Robin was clutching his belly by this point, but it didn't stop him from finishing what was in his cup.

"Maybe Marian…."

Robin shook his head, but they never found out if that was in reference to the dame school or the state of his stomach, because he immediately stood up and started breathing hard and fast.

Much knew the signs. "If you're going to puke, do it out the back door this time!" Much called after him as Robin ran out of the hall. Much hated it when Robin drank like this. Not getting drunk in and off itself—they all did that—or even to the point of sickness, but drinking with such determination and purpose. Though to be fair, I could probably count the number of times he's done it on my fingers, he thought. Maybe even on one hand. There was that time he decided to break it off with that girl. And the time he was in charge of the plan of attack in the Holy Land, and it failed so badly. And after we got word his father had died. Not the wake we had for him—everybody gets drunk at those, and there was some real joy there as well—but soon after, after he weighed his duties to the king there in Palestine, and to his people in Locksley, and decided he should stay where he was. And then….

"Maybe somebody should go check on him," Will said, uncertainly. He and John were obviously concerned as well.

John jumped up. "I'll do it."

When he got to the back yard, he found Robin sitting in the cold air, clutching his head and trying to make the world stop spinning.

"Robin? You all right?"

Robin didn't look up. "Marian says I still haven't forgiven Allan for going over to Gisbourne."

This wasn't the answer John was expecting, and it threw him for a moment. Eventually, sensing he needed to say something, he replied, "Of course you haven't. I haven't, I know that. Neither has Much. We've just…moved on, I guess. But…." John was sure there was some way to use the story he had come out there to tell in such a way as to reassure Robin, but, unused to using language to do anything more than convey the most basic of information, he felt somewhat overwhelmed by the effort.

"And she says Gisbourne gave him something he needed, something besides money. And whatever it was, it was something I couldn't give him. That I can't give him."

John was sure Marian wouldn't say anything that cruel—Robin must have misinterpreted her words. But he knew Robin needed to be all things to all people, even a traitor like Allan. So maybe his story would make him feel better after all.

"Robin, you know how we were talking about when he had that fever? And how he was calling for his father?"

"Yeah."

"He didn't just call for his father."

Robin looked up. "So?"

"He called for you." Robin just looked at John. "He kept asking for you. 'Where are you, Robin?' he kept saying. He said he couldn't breathe because of the smoke (I reckon it was that fire thing again, like he had with his father) and asking where were you, and begging you to hurry up and help him. Oh, and how he was sorry."

Again, Robin just looked at John. John smiled triumphantly. "So you see? He trusted you, even in his fever! He knew you'd come through for him. It wasn't Gisbourne he wanted, when it came down to it, was it? It was you."

"How did it end?"

"What? What do you mean?"

"This fever dream of Allan's. How did it end? Did I ride up on a white horse and snatch him out of the fire, or what?"

"Oh!" John hadn't thought about it in terms of plot. "It just sort of…petered out. He got calmer, and then he fell asleep."

Robin nodded. So he hadn't come to Allan's rescue after all. "Why didn't you tell me about this at the time?"

"Well, it was just the once. You were out in Clune when it kicked in, and it was over before you got back. So there wasn't really anything you could do about it. Didn't seem much point to telling you, really." Poor John had felt the story would go far to make Robin feel better, but it seemed to be having the opposite effect. "Don't you see, though? You were his hero, not Gisbourne!"

Which wasn't how Robin saw it, at all.