Title: The Prodigal - Chapter 4 (Part 3), "The Things We Need"

Author: dcwash

Characters: Allan, Robin, and Winifred

Disclaimer: All characters belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect.

Rating: Hmmm. Pushing the envelope a bit with this one. If I've done my job, it's emotionally intense and maybe a little brutal. There's some pretty graphic talk about torture, and some rough language. For teens on up, maybe?

Spoilers: None, really.

Length:5589

Summary: Robin and Allan have never had it out about why Allan went over to Guy…until now.

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Once upon a time, Allan a Dale would have loved the idea of lolling around all day, but now he was getting pretty bloody sick of it. It wasn't like he could read, and he couldn't move far past the bed he was in even when he needed to. He could delight in Winifred and Djaq's company only so much, and they in his, and besides, they had things to do. Until a couple of days ago, that potion Djaq cooked up for his pain let him sleep for long stretches at a time, but she decided it was doing more harm than good and took it away. So Allan lay there, with nothing else to do besides stare at the ceiling.

That wouldn't be so bad for a man of strong imagination or of a contemplative nature, but Allan was neither of these. More especially, he shied away from introspection. There had been a few times in the past when his situation was so dire that he had looked inside himself to find out how he had gotten to the place he was in. He hadn't liked what he had seen, though, and had since tended to avoid the process. That was easier when he spent his life running—from the law, towards greener pastures—but things were different now. Now, the only thing to run from was himself, something he had been doing with increasing desperation since Vasey was ousted and the Sherwood gang officially broke up this summer past. For years, the gang had dreamed about going home and picking up where they had left off. But Allan didn't have a home, and picking up where he left off meant wandering from town to town and thieving for his own profit again. Once, that had made life one big adventure, but he was beginning to think he had had enough of that kind of adventure. At the same time, he was restless. Nothing satisfied him any more. He wanted…something, but couldn't get it to come into sharp enough focus to tell exactly what it was, let alone how to get it. It made him moody, and he drank to even those moods out, which in turn led to its own kind of trouble.

And then, to make matters worse, Robin had shown up and poked and prodded until old memories and feelings that the drink helped to wash away were revived. And make no mistake: Allan a Dale had some truly bad memories—he had inflicted his share of pain in his lifetime; people had even died because of things he had done and had left undone. He used to rationalize his actions by telling himself that he didn't have a choice, or that nobody would really be hurt, or that the fools of the world deserved it, or that the ends justified the means. But that didn't seem to work any more. Now, unable to run any further, lying there, hour after hour, it was almost as if the ghosts of his past sins had come back to haunt him, making him even more unsure of himself than before. It seemed that he had lied so long, so often, to so many people—to himself at least as much as to others—that he didn't even know what the truth was any more.

Which wasn't to say Allan spent this down time wallowing in remorse, either. His more hard-bitten side—the side that had kept him alive all these years—recognized there was too much potential to be choked by the sheer volume of guilt if he surrendered to it, and so transformed as much of that feeling as it could into self-pity. Self-pity, and self-justification, and defensiveness: his old emotional standbys, now with the added bonus of guilt and uncertainty, a burgeoning self-awareness and melancholy exhaustion. Throw in the effects of his recent injuries, and it was no wonder Allan was something of an emotional mess of late.

And now a hung-over, moody Robin, laden with his own issues about Allan's behavior, was about to walk into that mess.

Winifred's horse was already hobbled and ready to be loaded when Robin rode up. He knew his own horse would prefer being outside to being cooped up in a stall, even if it meant icicles dropped from his belly, so, despite the chilly, soft weather, Robin unsaddled him and went straight inside. He found Winifred bagging bread. She practically growled her greeting to him.

"Winifred!" he said.

"I'm sorry. It's just…His Nibs over there is in a foul mood, and I've caught it." She scowled in Allan's direction.

"Well, don't spread it my way!" Robin snapped.

"It doesn't look like I have to!" Winifred said. She eyed him shrewdly. "His bones ache and he can't breathe—that's his excuse. What's yours?" She asked, "Hung over? Is that it? You and the lads been drinking again? You boys didn't use to do that. I swear, I don't know what's gotten into you all. Are you that bored, or what? You need to watch yourselves…."

"I don't need a lecture, Winifred!" Robin's head hurt, yes, but he was mainly feeling drained from a lack of sleep, which in turn was brought about by questions about Allan that crept up every time he started to doze off.

They both stayed silent for a moment, biting their tongues rather than continue the bickering. The quiet was broken when Robin said, more evenly than before, "Same routine as last time?"

"Not quite." Winifred continued to throw the loaves into the saddle bags with what seemed to Robin to be undue force. "First of all, thanks to all the company we've had lately, I've been able to get out and get some work done. So this trip should be a good bit shorter than the one last week." Another thrown loaf. Robin wondered they didn't turn into crumbs. "And you needn't worry about keeping him awake, or making him eat. He's awake and eating plenty these days!" She said it loudly, obviously for Allan's benefit more than Robin's.

"Oi! I'm right here, you know!" Allan said.

"And no medicine. Djaq caught him messing about with that poppy stuff she puts in it, and she took it away. Said he must not be suffering too badly if he can get up and do that." She shot a glare Allan's way.

"I was in pain! Not that that bint cares."

"So, really, then, not much like last week at all," Robin said to Winifred. Winifred was clutching the edges of her table as if she was about to throw it at Allan, and gritting her teeth. Robin tried to give her a smile. He turned when he heard Allan coughing.

"Then there's that," Winifred said. "You need to make sure he stays sitting up, or at least propped up. He's healing nicely, but Djaq's getting worried about the state of his lungs, and he'll breathe easier if he's upright. If he has to get up, let him, but he's not as strong as he likes to think he is, so keep an eye out. If he wants tea or broth or something like that, that's fine, but he's had his breakfast already so you don't need to push anything on him."

"There's some fresh beer in the crock over there," Allan said.

Winifred strode over to the alcove bed where he lay and said, "No! No beer!" She was talking to Robin but looking at Allan, hand on hip. "He'll give you enough trouble as it is without him getting drunk on top of everything. Maybe a little small beer if he gets thirsty and he decides the tea isn't good enough for him. But I should be back by then."

She and Allan glowered at each other. "Mithering old cow," Allan muttered.

Winifred sucked in a deep breath, turned on her heel, grabbed the saddlebags, and cried, "He's all yours!" over her shoulder as she stalked out of the house. But she popped her head back in to say, "Oh, and watch for fever!"

Both Robin and Allan stayed silent even after they heard Winifred's horse walk away. Robin puttered and poked around the house, much the same as he did the last time he was there. But his reasons were different. Last time, he was almost afraid of Allan—of how fragile and hurt he was, of how much he needed. Now, he was almost afraid of himself. Marian's words about Allan—"Guy loved him;" "Whatever was going on between them…there was something personal about it"—still reverberated in his brain. Once brief conversation with Marian, based on an almost off-hand remark, and all the sympathy he had felt for Allan for an entire week was gone and Robin was back to his obsession with Gisbourne. John was right: Robin never had forgiven Allan for going over to Gisbourne. He pretended he had—he had told himself he had for years now—but no, he hadn't, not really. Of course, he had never really confronted Allan with it, either. Allan returned to the gang in such spectacular fashion that it was hard to say anything to him about it soon afterwards without appearing churlish. Then, they were too busy, and Robin had stayed by Marian during her medical recovery in Acre while Allan went off and did his own thing. By the time they were all back in England, so much time had passed, and Allan had done so many little things for them all, and did them in such a way that indicated knew he had reason to prove his loyalty and gratitude, that it seemed best to Robin to just pretend nothing had ever happened. Sometimes it was an effort to swallow it down, but he did.

Robin didn't want any of that to spill out now. There didn't seem to be any point, and, in a vague way, it didn't seem fair to throw it at Allan when he was as low as this. He couldn't meet Allan's gaze, but the occasional glance he shot Allan's way showed him that he was improving, but still far from well. There seemed to be fewer bandages than before, and the swelling had gone down, and Allan was wearing at least a shirt under the bedclothes this time, but pain still seemed to pinch around his eyes. He hadn't coughed nearly as much or as badly as Robin had expected, but he was awfully wheezy and gaspy and generally having a hard time breathing. Robin had ridden to Featherstone through something heavier than a fog but not quite a drizzle, and he noticed when he arrived that the smoke from Winifred's hearth clung around the eaves of the house, unable to rise any further. Indoors didn't seem to be much of an improvement. He opened the window, but all that did was allow in a gust of damp.

"You were rather hard on Djaq and Winifred there, weren't you?" he finally said.

Allan replied, defensively, "Yeah, well, the one thing that makes me feel good, and they take it away from me, don't they? Don't even ask what I think. Like I can't look after myself."

"And if there's one thing we all know Allan a Dale can do, it's look after himself."

If the either man had been able to get past his secrets and insecurities enough to actually look at the other, then Robin would have seen remorse pass over Allan's face when Robin called him on his treatment of Winifred and Djaq, and Allan would have seen Robin wince in regret of his own sarcasm. But neither did.

"And if I don't, who will? Huh?"

Allan stopped himself just short of adding, "You?" but Robin caught the meaning anyway. It made him so angry he lost the sense of restraint he had been nursing. He said, "Well, Gisbourne's gone, so it won't be him any more, will it?"

Allan looked a little stunned. "What brought that on?" he asked.

"Marian."

"What's she been saying?"

"Not much, to be honest. She said that, from what she saw, there was something personal between you and Gisbourne. I had thought it was just about the money, that you were just that mercenary. I didn't like it, but at least I understood it." Robin shook his head. "But 'personal.' What does that mean?"

"I don't…." Allan said. Or, at least tried to say.

"Maybe it means there was something between you two from the very beginning." Robin wasn't pausing long enough to let Allan say. "Maybe it means there was a reason he picked you up and not Much or any of the others on that particular day. Is that it? When did it start, Allan? Back when you were first arrested for poaching? Right after I came back from the Crusade? Were you playing me for a fool all along?" Robin was aware that he sounded like a jealous lover, but he didn't care.

"Robin!" Allan was pale. "Where do you get these ideas?" Then Allan said, more quietly, "The man's dead. And I've been back with you for years now. What more do I have to do to prove myself?" To Robin's ear, he sounded resentful, and injured.

Robin came to sit by Allan's bed. "Tell me why you went over to him in the first place. Because that's always what it comes back to with you and me, isn't it? It's always there, and we've never had it out."

"And so now that I'm flat on my back, you pounce, is that it?" Allan said.

"You got a better time? We've circled it and circled it and pretended it isn't there, but it always is. But now you can't get away," Robin said. "And neither can I." Robin believed what he said now, though it hadn't even occurred to him until the words came out of his mouth. They should have it out, as difficult as it may be to do so, and it was now or never.

Allan swallowed hard, and licked his lips. "I told you! When you first caught me out! I was tortured!" His statement ended in a cough.

"You didn't have a mark on you when you got back to camp that day."

"What, you think they were going to make it obvious? You want proof? Here, you want to see the scars?" Allan was angry. He moved to turn back the bedclothes, but Robin stopped him.

"It doesn't matter."

"Doesn't matter? Well, it mattered to me, that's for sure! But that's you all over, isn't it, Robin? A little thing like me being tortured doesn't fit into your grand schemes, so you can't be arsed. You had to look after King Richard before your own people."

"I always look after my people!" The heat was back.

"Not on that day, you didn't!" Allan turned his face toward the wall.

Robin fought to get himself back under control. He couldn't believe that all it took was a little discomfort for Allan to turn traitor, not after all that Robin had done for him. As angry as he still was, though, he had to approach this calmly, and with an open mind. "Whether you were tortured or not, it doesn't answer my question: why did you go over to Gisbourne? I don't mean why did you break under torture—everybody breaks. That's why I said it didn't matter. But you did more than that, and you kept on doing it long after you got out of the dungeon. That's what does matter." Allan just kept staring at the wall.

Finally, Allan said, "Did you ever ask yourself why I was with you in the first place?"

The question had never occurred to Robin, but maybe Allan was trying to make a larger point having to do with Gisbourne. "I assumed it had something to do with saving you from a hanging."

Allan snorted. "I paid that back with that first rescue mission to the castle. I could have left after that with a clear conscious. But I didn't. And you know why? Because I felt sorry for you."

"For me!"

"And Will, and Much. All of you—you were so pitiful! Remember what you were like at first? You were in a daze. Can't say I blame you—I expect I'd be the same if I was an earl one day and an outlaw the next. You honestly couldn't believe what had happened—it was like this outlaw thing was some game you were playing for a little while, and once you won you and the sheriff would shake hands and it'd be all over. That attitude got you tossed in the castle dungeon but it still didn't sink in. That's when I saw had bad you needed me."

Allan started coughing and Robin took advantage of the chance to say, "John would have…."

Allan interrupted. "John alone couldn't have protected you against his old men if they came back looking to earn a reward," he wheezed out. "And I'm not so sure in those early days if he would have even tried too hard. He owed them a lot more than they owed you. No, Robin, you needed me. You may not have been able to admit it, but you did. And not just my sword! You had no idea how to avoid the law, or even how to break it properly. You had this great idea of robbing rich travelers, but who had to teach you what to look for? Me, that's who. It wasn't like John and Roy were any great shakes at it, after all. And you know what? I kind of liked it. Being needed like that. It was a new feeling, being good for something."

More silence as Robin thought this over, and Allan's memory reached back. Robin had to admit Allan was right. John and Roy were outlaws in the sense that poverty had made them resort to petty crime and that they were cut off from law-abiding society because of it. They had learned how to live catch-as-catch-can. But Allan was the one who made breaking the law his profession, and taught them all his tricks of the trade.

"If we needed you—and I'm not saying we didn't, but if we did—and if you liked it…how could you leave us? How could you…." Robin hesitated. "….break our hearts like that?"

Allan turned back to face him with a jerk. "Leave you? Break your hearts?" he said. "You don't know me at all, do you?" Robin looked at him, uncomprehendingly. "Robin, you left me!"

"What are you talking about?"

"You left me! Abandoned me, to the tender mercies of that jailer…."

"I never…."

"You left me!" Allan roared back, not really listening. The effort left him winded. He closed his eyes and panted, trying to get his breath back.

After a moment, he said, quietly, "You said everybody breaks. No, they don't. I didn't. I know you can't believe it, that you thought—still think—I'm weak, but I didn't." He opened his eyes again and looked at Robin for the first time since the conversation had begun in earnest. "Do you know what they did to me? Do you want to know?"

Robin shook his head. His mind had never stretched that far. He never really believed Allan had been tortured in the first place.

"They started out with your bog-standard beating. Well, I guess you could say they first started out by leaving me alone with a madman who had been in the dungeon too long, in earshot of another torture session, letting me know what was in store for me if I didn't give in. And to tell you the truth, if they had left it at that long enough, it might have worked better than the fancy tricks they got into later. But they weren't patient enough. So that's when they started the beatings. They knotted up the end of a big rope and hit me in the kidneys with that. I couldn't see it, the way they had me tied, but it felt like they had put a rock or something in the knot to on top of it." Robin looked puzzled. "I forget—you've not spent much time in prisons, have you? The knot, the rope—do it right, and it won't show any bruises. Put a rock in it, and it'll hurt worse."

Allan seemed a little contemptuous of Robin's naiveté, which rankled. He went on, in a purposely mater-of-fact tone. "They said I only had to answer one question and they'd stop: where was the camp? I didn't tell. I tried being all cocky because it made me feel braver, but all that did was make them hit me other places, but I still didn't tell.

Allan paused, studying Robin's reaction to his story. Robin appeared to be trying, but not fully succeeding, in taking it all in stride, just as Allan was trying, but not fully succeeding, to keep a quaver out of his voice.

"After a while, they gave that up and started in with the needles. This bit they did want me to see. The jailer, he brought in this brazier, and all these clamps and pincers and such, and they stripped me down, buck naked. It scared me, but I thought that there'd be no way they could use them without leaving some nasty marks, and that made me feel better, because I knew that was the last thing they wanted—to give you some proof, to make it so I could say, 'See what they did to me?'" Allan gave a bitter chuckle. "They didn't think you'd take my word for it. Maybe my reputation preceded me."

Robin noticed Allan was sweating now, and breathing hard again. Robin found himself gripping the edge of his stool, as if to keep himself steady. My God! he thought. Could it be….? Was I wrong?

"What I couldn't see right away was the needles. Or maybe nails would be a better word. What they did was, use the pincers to hold these long, fat needles over the coals in the brazier, until they were red hot. Then they…." He swallowed again, and broke away from Robin's gaze. "Then they stuck them in, one at a time…." Robin didn't want to know where they stuck the needles, but despite that, he remembered how, after he came back to the fold, Allan always wore his braies when they went swimming. He hadn't done that before.

Allan continued: "Each needle, they'd ask me again, 'Where's the camp? Give us Robin Hood, and we'll stop.' But I didn't tell." Allan closed his eyes, and wiped his forehead with a trembling hand. But he smiled slightly, too.

"Oh, I was so proud! I'd never been brave like that—there'd never been any point to it. But I thought—I knew—you were coming to rescue me, and I didn't think I could face you if you busted into my cell and I had already told. So I screamed, and I hollered, and I let it all out, because that did make it easier, and I made up a bunch of crap, but I. Did. Not. Tell. And they left. And I thought, for a little bit, that I had won. And that you'd be showing up any minute to take me out of there. I was wrong on that, too, though."

"I was…." Robin tried to say.

"Do you know what they were doing?" It was as if Allan hadn't heard him; even though he was looking in Robin's direction, it was as if he didn't see him. "They were getting a fire ready to smoke me."

"Smoke you?"

"Like a ham. During the worst of it, my mind…it was like I wasn't there, you know? But was watching it happen to somebody else, listening to the jailers while they chatted about it, like it was the most normal thing in the world. Seems it was an old trick from Stephen and Mathilda's time. They'd take a man, and hoist him up by the ankles, and leave him there to dangle over the fire until he gave it up. Or died.

"But I didn't know that's what they were about when they started. All I knew was that they frog-marched me out of my cell—my knees were kind of wobbly by that point—and took me into this other one, where this fire was smoldering. I thought it was kind of odd that it wasn't really burning, because if they wanted to hurt me worse than they already had, it didn't seem enough to do the job. Then I noticed all this shit piled up—literally, they had cow patties in a stack—and things like a dirty fleece, and what looked like wet leaves…I didn't know what it was for, but it sent a chill down me anyway, maybe because I couldn't make sense of it. Before I knew what was happening, I was hanging there, upside down. It's hard enough to breathe when you're in that position, but then they started putting that stuff on the fire to make it smoke more…." Allan closed his eyes again, squeezing them shut this time, as if to make the images go away, and had a wracking coughing fit. "That was the first time all day I started to panic. The only thing they tied up was my ankles, so my hands were free, and I actually tried to push up from the floor to try to get away from the smoke. Course, all I got from that was burned hands." A grim, wry smile, but the eyes were still screwed shut. "They kept saying all I had to do to make it stop was tell them where the camp was, that's all, but I wouldn't do it! I coughed, and I choked, and at one point I even puked, not on purpose, but I thought at least it might put the fire out…all it did was make it stink more…so there I was, naked, upside down, scorched hands, puke running down my face, and you know what I did to get through it? I imagined your rescue mission. I walked through it, step by step, because I knew—I knew!—you and the lads were on your way, that you'd come bursting in any minute, and I'd have saved you all, and you'd be so proud of me…" Tears were beginning to trickle out from behind Allan's closed eyelids. "…and over and over again, I told them they'd have to kill me, because I wouldn't give you up like that, and for the first time in my life I meant it, because for the first time in my life something seemed worse than dying, because I loved you all so much and I kept picturing your face, and Will's, and even Much's.…and, GOD DAMN YOU, YOU NEVER CAME!"

The words came out in a choking sob but dissolved into a hacking cough that left Allan spent, gasping for breath.

Robin was frozen. Throughout Allan's narrative, all he could think of was, Oh, my God! It's all my fault! All of it! I failed him, utterly! But even as his brain whispered that, another voice put him on the defensive. Standing back, looking at it objectively, it told him there was absolutely nothing he could have done for Allan. That voice won. Robin studied him for a moment before he said, through clenched teeth, "That's what it was all about—a full year, at least, of lies and betrayals? You felt neglected, and your feelings were hurt, so you thought you'd hurt me back? Then I'll say it: I'm sorry, Allan. That's what you want to hear, isn't it? I'm sorry. I'm sorry you screwed up and let the guards snatch you. I'm sorry Gisbourne put you in the dungeon and was mean to you. Most of all, I'm sorry I wasn't there to snatch your nuts out of the fire—again!—because I was too busy dangling over a pit of vipers…remember that part of the story? After all I did for you, and I make one mistake…." He sputtered for a bit, at a loss for words.

"And then you left us, after all that, to go over to your torturer! You didn't just to give him a little information now and then, you become 'Sir Guy's man!' It doesn't make any sense! It doesn't add up!"

"Guy didn't torture me." Allan was coughing again, but emotionally, at least, he seemed to be pulling himself back together.

"What do you mean? Oh, that's right! He was too busy torturing me at the time! But you knew he ordered it."

"Maybe. But when you're in that kind of agony, you don't think in terms of orders. All you can think of is making it stop. Guy did that. He made it stop. And you didn't." The coolness had returned to Allan's voice, though he was still gasping for breath.

"I don't know how I got away from that fire, but when I came to, they had tied me to a stake because I couldn't stand on my own. And Guy was waking me up. He was talking to me in that little purr he had. And you know what he said? He said I had won. That he knew I'd never tell them how to find you. And that he respected me for it. Respected me! I wasn't sure I believed him, but I thought it was possible, and I knew one thing: I had never gotten anything like that from you. You had never even suggested you respected me, let alone said it! No, you always let me know that I was just a common thief, and what I did and what I wanted was beneath your lofty ideals…." A brief cough, a hard swallow, a wince, and Allan brought himself back under control. "So I listened to him. And he cleaned me up, and fed me, and put salve on my wounds, with his own hands…." Allan's voice trailed off at the memory. "…and the whole time he kept talking to me in that voice of his, about how brave I was, and how much he and I were alike, about how the two of us knew how the world really works, and how we could help each other out. And he slipped me a purse of money for my troubles, and sent me back to you. I gave him to understand I'd help him out with bits of info from time to time, but I didn't mean it. Because I knew for once I'd be everybody's hero, and I'd have to live up to that. And I thought that when I got back to camp, I'd tell you the whole story, and you would be so proud of me, and we'd have a laugh at Guy's expense, and maybe you'd even let me keep his money.

"But you know what? After all I went through, I got back to camp…and there was no rescue in the works. Nobody was worried about me. You had barely even noticed I was gone! 'Where the hell have you been?' you said. And that's when I faced facts. You left me there in that dungeon because I didn't matter to you! For a year, I gave you everything I had, everything I was, because I wanted to, not because I had to, but no! That wasn't important, because your bloody great king might have a problem one of these days if he ever bothered to come back to England." He and Robin stared at each other, both drained. "Maybe you did need me still, but a fat lot of good that was going to do me. It was time to stop looking after you and to start looking after myself again. I wouldn't go out of my way to do you harm, but Guy needed me, too, and he was willing to pay for the things he needed. Then I found he was willing to give me other things as well. Like praise. And responsibility. Things you had never thought were important. Or that I deserved."

Emotionally, Robin was overwhelmed, but intellectually, he saw where Allan was coming from—he understood the logic that took Allan from one step to the next. Except for the last step, the one neither had mentioned yet.

"If he Gisbourne gave you so much…and you cared so little for the king…why did you come back to us? Why then and not earlier? Or later?" There wasn't a trace of sneer in Robin's tone; he genuinely wanted to understand.

"God, Robin! After all this, do you really think I ever gave a flying fuck about King Richard?" Allan, exhausted, leaned back and closed his eyes again. "We were almost to Dover before I put all the pieces together and realized what was going on back in that barn. I knew I had enough pull to at least try to stop it. And when push came to shove, it seemed I still loved you and the lads enough to throw away everything Guy gave me, or promised me—land, a lordship, power, prestige, respect…all of it. Guy made me somebody," he murmured, "That was all I ever wanted, from anyone—to matter, to be somebody to somebody. And he was going to make me somebody bigger. But in the end, I guess that still wasn't enough. I needed more."