Chapter 9

Will is woken by the sound of someone knocking at the door. He rolls out of bed and fumbles in the dark for his pants. He is still trying to get them fastened when he hears his mother's voice, raised in anger.

"Leave!"

A soft female voice answers her, but Will is too far away to hear what the woman outside says. He doesn't need to hear the words, however, to know who it is. Ana! He gives up on the infernal buttons of his fly and hurries toward the front of the cabin.

"You're not wanted here!" Mother cries. She goes to slam the door shut in Anastasia's face, but Will gets there just in time to rip it from her hands and fling it fully open.

Ana is standing in the dirt outside, her cheeks are red and streaked with the traces of tears. She looks young and scared and so very, very sad that Will doesn't even stop to think what mother will feel before he is outside, pulling Ana into his arms. "Anastasia? Ana! What's wrong?" His voice is soft, but urgent. His desire to comfort her wars with his desire to find whoever or whatever hurt her and grind it into dust and he tightens his hold on her trembling body.

"M-my f-fath-er…" She stammers in a thick, tear soaked voice he has never heard before. She seems to lose her ability to speak, but her arms come up to wrap around him and she buries her face against his chest, just like she'd done when she had that horrible headache after her Maths exam – it feels like a lifetime ago.

"It's okay." Will kisses her hair and rubs her back soothingly with one hand. "I'm right here, you're safe." He wants to believe that, but he also knows he's a sixteen year old boy and there're only so many demons he can tackle.

"She can't stay here."

Will had forgotten his mother was even there until she spoke. He flinches at her words and her icy tone. Here again is that stranger who so often inhabits his mother's body, ever since father was taken. Ignoring her for the moment, Will brings his hands up to cradle Ana's face. "Ana," he says in his gentlest voice, "wait for me in the workshop. No one will look for you there, and I'll come to you soon."

She doesn't even try to argue, and that hurts Will almost as much as mother's coldness or the sight of the tear tracks on Ana's face. His Ana is always ready to fight him on something. That fiery spirit is part of what he loves – well, likes a whole lot anyway - about her. He watches until Ana disappears from sight inside the small shed he uses to skin his catches and tan the hides before he turns to face his mother.

"How could you?" She asks the very question that was on the tip of his tongue as soon as he is facing her.

"How could you?" He spits back. "She's sixteen, and my friend, and she's upset."

"You know who her father is." Mother is unrepentant. Her narrow brown eyes look like pinpricks in her angry face. "I told you to stop spending time with her. She's trouble."

"You don't know her."

"I don't need to. They're all the same."

Will can't even find words to respond to that. He knows mother is angry about what happened to father, to 'her dear John,' and he even knows that she has a right to this anger, but he can't understand why she refuses to believe him that Anastasia is nothing like her father. "Please," he begs. "Please, mother." He closes the distance between them and takes his mother's hands in his. "Help her."

"No." She pulls away from him as if he's contaminated.

For what feels like much longer than the minute it is, they stand there staring at each other: mother and son, neither willing to budge. At last, Will's mother speaks "Are you coming in?"

"Can Ana?"

She folds her arms across her chest. She doesn't need to say anything, Will knows her answer.

"Don't make me choose." He knows there really is not choice. If she doesn't relent he knows exactly what he will do, he knew it the minute he heard Ana's muffled voice through the walls of his room, but that certainty doesn't make it any less painful.

"You come inside and agree to stay away from that girl, and we'll forget this ever happened." Mother's eyes are damp, she knows as well as Will does what he will choose, but she refuses to budge.

Will leans forward and kisses her on the cheek. "I'm sorry Mother." He means it, though what exactly he's sorry about he isn't sure. Is he sorry for what he's doing to her - for choosing Anastasia over his own flesh and blood, even if that flesh and blood feels more like a stranger every year - or is he sorry for her – sorry that she can't bend and that she'll never get to know the amazing person that Anastasia is or see the strong, loving family man Will sometimes thinks he can become with Ana at his side? It doesn't really matter in the end. "Goodbye." He says, turning and walking across the yard. He doesn't look back until he's at the door to his shed, and when he does it's too late, she is already gone.

"Will?" Anastasia touches his arm, bringing his attention back to her and the shed.

He turns and kisses her softly. It's as much for himself as for her. He knows, or he thinks he knows, that he made the right decision; Ana is his future. But that decision hurts and he needs the moment of reassurance, the grounding feeling of Ana's lips pressed against his to make him sure. When they break apart he holds her face between his hands for a long time, studying her with his eyes. "Are you alright?" He asks finally.

He feels more than sees her shrug. "Are you?"

A ghost of a smile crosses his face. "As long as I have you, I think I will be."

This time she kisses him.

When they break apart, Will steps into the shed and fumbles for a candle. "What happened?" He asks once its lit and he can make out her face in the dim, flickering light.

Anastasia avoids his eyes, but eventually she tells him. "Father heard gossip in the village about you and me."

Will's heart sinks. "The day you wrote your exam?" He guesses. He should have known that day that embracing Ana in public would start talk. Somehow it just hadn't mattered.

She shrugs again. "I suppose, he was too busy threatening your life to explain." She takes Will's hand and squeezes it. "It's not the poaching, or even your father. I—" she cut herself off.

When it's obvious she isn't going to continue on her own, Will prompts her, "What is it?"

"Maleficent and my father were grooming me so they could sell me off to the highest bidder."

Will stares at her, flabbergasted. Maleficent he could understand, assuming there was something in the match for her. But… "Your father was in on it?"

She bursts into giggles although her face looks more like she wants to cry than laugh. "My father… has… been dead… since… before I was… born." She gasps the words out between giggles.

"I— The grounds keeper isn't your father?" Will's brain is finding it nearly impossible to follow her words.

She nods. Taking a few shuddering breaths, she manages to get her hysterical giggling under control and she quickly fills Will in on the rest of what she learned that night. Well... most of it. "My real father was Maleficent's husband. When she found out her husband was in love with my mother, had gotten her pregnant, she killed him. Then she waited until my mother gave birth to me, and she killed her too. She gave me to my father to raise or kill as he saw fit."

"So Maleficent…"

"I'm Maleficent's illegitimate step daughter, in a way."

"Wow."

She smiles, although there really is nothing to smile about today. "I'm also exhausted." She admits.

Will makes a sweeping gesture with one arm. "Welcome to your home for the night."

"Your mother…?"

He shakes his head.

Ana kisses him softly. "I'm sorry, Will."

"Me too."

.

.

.

They spend the night in the shed. The summer air is warm so the lack of bedding, while uncomfortable, isn't really a problem. But Will knows they can't stay in his mother's shed beyond sun up. About an hour before dawn he slips his arm out from under Ana and creeps into the house. He retrieves the small bag of silver he's been saving from the grounds keeper's monthly tutoring payments as well as a change of clothes, a loaf of bread and a small sack of potatoes: provisions for their journey. He doesn't know where they will go, but one thing is certain, they cannot stay in the shadow of the Forbidden Mountain for another day.