-Drew Barrymore

In which our fish out of water is just fine, really.

Oops.

You freeze in place. Shit.

Estel snores softly and then settles, breathing deeply. Gingerly, you lean over and pluck the piece of wood off the floor from where you had dropped it by his foot.

You woke before dawn this morning to find Estel laid out on your floor, belt and sword and boots and pack still attached to him, as if he had jimmied the latch on your door to get in, closed it behind him, and then immediately sunk to his knees and tipped over until he crashed onto the floor.

He's fully stretched out on the bundles of reeds from his head pillowed on his arm beside your cot to the toes of his boots pointing toward your door. That's a lot of your floor. And there's not much chance of him moving out of the way. In fact, he's breathing loudly into his elbow and hasn't twitched all through the squeaking and crunching and rustling of your floor as you got dressed and ready for the day.

Once you stir up the ashes and find some coals and get the fire going, you ease past Estel and grab a couple pots and fill them with water.

That's when he wakes up.

He draws in a quick breath and launches himself to sitting and peers blearily at you, squinting and looking like the dim light before daybreak is altogether too bright for his liking.

And that's when you get a good look at him.

Fucking hell!

No wonder he'd passed out and slept through you moving around. You'd not seen him looking this rough since you first met and you'd hauled him out of a ditch. He's got the leftovers of a nasty black eye that's red and deep purple with a cut in his forehead over it that must have bled something fierce and blinded that eye during whatever no holds barred fight he'd gotten himself into. His left arm is hanging by its wrist, wrapped up in a strip of a rag around his neck. His knuckles are chipped and scabbed and where the skin of his face doesn't bear the imprint of the reeds from your floor it looks a bit like old ground beef, and that's not counting what's hiding under his clothes.

He makes this noise that's an incoherent fusion of a hum and 'good morrow' as he squeezes his eyes closed and rubs at his head.

He gives you a grunt that is as equally eloquent when you quip, "I'd hate to see the other guy."

He stares at you blank-faced for a beat after that, his hair pointing all kinds of directions.

"Maybe you should go back to sleep," you say as you nestle the pots with their little feet in the hearth. "I have to cover for Nob this morning, but I'll be back after the lunch rush."

Given how slowly he's moving, you think maybe he'll just crash back down again, but he shakes his head and, shifting about, gets his good arm beneath him and pushes himself bit by bit to standing. He's not the steadiest on his feet you've ever seen him as he eases himself out of the straps of his pack and lets it drop to the floor.

"Nay," he grunts. "I am awake."

You're not terribly convinced. You're even less convinced when he fumbles at his belt with his one good hand. It's not going terribly quickly, what with all the yawning and blinking going on up there. It's painful just watching it.

"C'mere," you say, standing up from the hearth and motioning to him to turn to you.

He doesn't so much allow you to unbuckle his belt as he simply gives up and lets his hand fall to his side. You've moved his pack and hung his belt and everything dangling from it on the peg when he starts tugging on the lacing on the side of his long vest to loosen it.

"Dude," you say and he stops and considers you. "Forget it." You nod at his sling and he glances at it. "No way you're getting that vest over your head with your arm like that."

It does little good. He's not any more coordinated trying to unlace the front either. He keeps pulling on the wrong ties, tightening and loosening things back and forth until your fingers twitch.

Good god, the fumbling. The Fumbling!

That's when you step in and brush Estel's hand away and start tugging the ties through their holes on the front of his vest. Once that's off and hung up too, you push him down to sitting onto the bench.

"Boots?" you ask but he shakes his head.

"All right," you say. You can't help smiling. He really does look adorable when he's all sleep-fuddled. "You big lug."

You ease your fingers through the knots of that section of his hair in the front that's standing straight up and smoothing it and the rest of the mess that is on his head down before you catch the look on his face and realize what you're doing.

He'd closed his eyes and leaned into you running your fingers through his hair as if it was exactly what he'd come here for, but then his eyes blinked open on something bleak and weary.

Fuck.

"I, uhm…" You back up and waggle your thumb in the direction of the hearth. "I'll get breakfast ready," you say as you turn your back.

Well, that went well.

Listen, no more taking advantage of the lonely, traumatized Ranger, you hear me? Cut that shit right the fuck out. What he needs is a friend, and that means you need to keep your hands off of him, no matter how warm and rumpled and drowsy he is and how much you want to let his head rest on you and play with his hair while he takes his time waking up.

And so you refrain from doing anything else other than refilling the bowl with pottage for him once you're done. You leave Estel munching on one of the early green apples and waving you out the door with his spoon.

He apparently wasn't feeling a great need to do much talking. Though, you get that. Not like you're at your most coherent first thing in the morning, either, and you don't have his excuse. Well, whatever that excuse exactly is since he is certainly not going to tell you just who and how and where he obtained his bruises and whatever is going on with that arm of his.

You figure that maybe when you get back home he'll have slept himself into a more communicative mood, but no. Of course not. This is Estel we're talking about here. Your first sign that something's up as you scuff your way back down the Road from your shift at The Pony is that your door is ajar. Okay. Guess he's up, then. And then you get closer and you see the mound of loose dirt out beside your shed.

God damn it. Seeing it just makes you want to plop face down onto your cot even if he refuses to.

And yep, there's Estel, sling off, sweating in his shirtsleeves, digging out the hole in the floor of your shed.

Fucking A. You thought that you had made good progress here and there with what time you had, but the dude apparently went at it like a high speed version of Shawshank Redemption.

And so that is how you end up on your knees, sloshing water over a pile of mud and straw, with your hands deep in the clammy mix breaking up clumps of clay on your day off. Because, according to Master Builder and 'I know my own body and its limits' Estel, it's apparently the perfect clear and warm but not too hot weather for baking the daub you're in the process of slopping about with your hands, and finishing up the root cellar. Apparently it's also the perfect weather for Bill Ferny to see you slopping about in your garden and stop for a chat.

Fucker lives down the street on the same unfashionable side of town as you do. Never know when he's going to pass by and get it into his head to pop in on his way home.

"Come now," says Ferny around his short black pipe, leaning against your gate and watching as you struggle to pull the bottom layer of muck up through the sodden mess, "'tis naught would disagree with ye."

"No," you say from where you're kneeling without bothering to either look up or break the rhythm of lifting up handfuls of wet clay to the top of the pile and pressing it back down, layer after layer after layer of squeaking, squishing, clinging, clammy mud. You've added way too much water, damn it.

Ferny pulls his pipe from his mouth, its stem clicking against his teeth. "I need but an hour or two of your time and there's a pretty penny for ye at the end of it," he protests, squinting at you and gesturing with his pipe. "What kind of man do ye think I am, eh?"

"Ferny," you say and sigh. You don't know why you're wasting your breath on the man. "I know exactly what kind of man you are and that is exactly why I'm not coming anywhere near anything you'd have me do. So fuck off already."

Pfft. Like telling him off has ever worked. The man is as jaw-clamped on the idea of you under his oath as a tick dug deep and sucking blood.

"Pah!" Ferny says, and straightens himself from leaning on your gate, looking down the Road. He clears his throat loudly and spits into your garden.

Fucker.

"There's no cause for speaking to me like that. Mark my words, come time you'll regret it. There's naught who'll give you as good terms as I would."

Ha-ha! 'Good terms' Yeah, right. Sure.

"Is Master Ferny here with your leave, Hala?" comes Estel's voice and Ferny nearly chokes on his pipe-smoke.

You're not sure, but Ferny's shock may either have something to do with how silently Estel appeared at the side of your hut or, more probably, with how beat to hell Estel looks. He's standing there like a walking advertisement for an ass-kicking, crossed arms, wide-stanced, and looking over Bill Ferny like he's weighing the satisfaction he would take in chewing Ferny up and spitting him out against the nasty taste in his mouth it would cost him.

"No, he most decidedly is not," you say, your hands still deep in the wet clay, and Ferny makes a loud, disgusted sound.

"Always popping up," he mutters and, taking his pipe out his mouth, spits in the dirt. "Aye, I'm going, but mark my word, Fish, no good will come of it, taking up with the likes of him," he stabs the stem of his pipe at Estel before he saunters off.

Estel watches him go, as stone-faced as ever. It's not until Ferny's well out of sight that he speaks.

"What dealings have you with Master Ferny?" he asks and you sigh, scraping wet, gloppy clay off your fingers one at a time.

"As absolutely few as possible," you say.

Estel grunts. "I would strongly advise against any close association with him."

"No shit," you say and snort. You fling a glob of clay to splat in the pile. "Really?" you ask, peering up against the sun at him. "Whatever makes you say that, Estel? He's a fine upstanding citizen of Bree, beloved by all, voted pledge-holder of the year for the tenth year running."

"Hala, 'tis no matter for jest," he insists, irritation flashing on his face. He's drawing breath and you're about to get an earful of things you already know, aren't you.

"Listen," you say, cutting him off, "you got anything more specific you can tell me about Ferny other than the fact that he's a raging asshole who probably grew up pulling wings off flies and drowning sacks of kittens for fun, and putting myself under the thumb of a man like that is not going to end well for me?"

Estel huffs out an annoyed breath and relaxes his stance just enough to put his hands on his hips.

You really really don't want to get into it with Estel about Bill Fucking Ferny. The fucker. Nope. Nothing good would come out of it. You'll have to handle him on your own.

"No," he says at last, but then goes on, "naught I dare share with you."

Fuck. Of course not.

"Okay then." You drag your hands through the grass, hoping to get rid of the worst of the mud. "Consider us on the same page about the man, okay?" you say once done, Estel watching you, guarding against moving that arm too much and digging into the tendons and muscles about his shoulder with an unhappy look on his face.

He's clearly not satisfied, well, with anything, not the state of your readiness for the winter, nor Ferny's interest in you, nor the necessity of keeping silent about certain things that are clearly on his mind because he still, after all this time, doesn't quite trust you, nor his body's apparent betrayal of him, and certainly not his inability to do much about any of it.

"C'mon." You push yourself up off your knees. "I think the daub is done. It's going to need to sit for a bit to dry out before it's ready. What do you say we take a break for some water and shade?" you ask, but he shakes his head.

Of course not. God forbid he not take every opportunity to wear himself into the ground.

"Okay," you say, "how about I take care of the laying in the stones and you take a break for some water and shade, and maybe rest that shoulder of yours."

His hand drops from his shoulder as if you'd just slapped it away.

Of course it does. God damn it.

"I am well enough." He turns his back on you for the pile of stones along your fence. "Should you wish some rest, you are welcome to it," he says over his shoulder.

Fucker.

Some day, seriously, some day the two of you are going to have a raised voices, wild gesturing and grand proclamations, knock down-drag out fight. It's not going to be today, but boy is it coming.

You and Estel scavenged flat stones from the foundation of some house deep in the scrub on Bree-hill that had burned down and the family had moved elsewhere long before you got there. There's a pile of them along your garden fence and that's where he goes, of course. And there he goes picking up one of the biggest ones, grunting behind his lips with effort.

Of course. God damn it.

You shake your head. Welp. You are going to take that break, then, fuck you very much. There's an apple and some water and shade with your name on it in your hut and that's where you're going to go.

You're shaking your hands dry and wiping them on your pants when you hear a crash and then a thud and a hastily bitten-off cry.

Shit! You round the corner to find Estel hunched over, standing in the bottom of the hole in your shed and leaning on its lip as if he had fallen against it, his face screwed up in pain.

Shit shit shit!

In the next second, you're down on your knees next to him, your hands hovering over him, arm and shoulder and back, unsure where to touch that might not cause him more pain.

"What happened? Did you drop it on your foot?" It actually doesn't look like it. The large stone he had been carrying is laying on its side in the hole.

"Nay, no," he says, breathing in short huffs of air and clutching his arm to his side. "Shoulder," he gets out and, indeed, that joint is not looking like it should. In fact, it's making you feel a little ill with how much it doesn't look like it should.

Oh, so that's what happened. He'd dislocated his shoulder, or, well, he'd probably had a little help with it the first time, and now it's popped out again, the impatient fucker.

"Dumbass! What were you thinking carrying that thing all by yourself?" You nod at the stone lying akimbo at the bottom of a hole you could stand in and just barely see over the lip into your garden. You're not even sure how the hell he got it down there.

"I thought it better," he says and sucks in a breath.

"Well it probably was," you say. Maybe now he can quit with his grandstanding. "But it isn't any more."

He sighs, glancing about the hole and shed, his face a study in resignation. "I shall need your help to climb out, I think."

"Yep, you sure are," you say and sit back on your heels. "But I'm not going to give it to you."

The shock on his face is strangely reassuring. "You will not?"

"No," you say, "because you're going to have to do something for me first."

"Ai, Hala!" he protests, readjusting his grip on his arm and grimacing. "And what may that be?"

"Give me your word that you will take the next week and rest," you say and he comes very near to rolling his eyes.

"Hala-"

"Seven full days, Estel," you say, jabbing your finger at him, "nothing more strenuous than hanging out, telling stories, doing laundry, cooking dinner, or taking walks. Maybe we could even play Hare and the Hound. I'm surprised you don't want a rematch since I wiped the floor with you last time." And when he screws up his face looking like he's going to protest, you go on, "Either that or I'm going to leave you here and you can find your own way out of that hole."

"And this is the thanks I get?" he demands and then winces at the jolt his vehemence sends down his shoulder. "I had not thought you cruel-"

"Fuck you!" Okay now you're just pissed. "I don't give a shit. You will not, I repeat, will not grind yourself into the dust for me. Do you feel me? Do you get it? If my comfort comes at that kind of cost to you? Then I don't want it! And you're being an asshole forcing it on me."

Well, okay, that was a little overboard, but, you know, honestly, you're having a hard time regretting it.

"Do you swear or not?"

He was staring at you, mouth clamped shut and breathing harshly through his nose, but now he's looked away, as if he's not quite sure how he feels about all of this. It may be a little on the nose that he is literally in a hole he dug himself.

"Aye," he says finally, "I yield."

Well, at least he isn't quite as freaked out about it as the last time he gave up and did as you asked. The look on his face is more sour than terrified.

"Uh huh," you say, pushing the point, "and what are you going to do for the next week?"

He sighs, shifting his weight against the lip of the hole. "I shall teach you games of strategy and therein shall I wipe the floor with you."

You snort and, rising, cast about for something that Estel can stand on. "Yeah yeah. That's lots of talk, big guy. You're on."

"Now have I your aid?" he asks, clutching his arm to his side and calling after you as you stride to the back of your hut. "It is in truth quite painful."

"Yeah, c'mon." You dump out the muddy water from the bucket you'd used to wash your hands. It's a pretty good size. Should be big enough. "I've got a new method of reducing shoulder dislocations I want to try out on you."

Once you've dropped down into the hole with him and upended the bucket in the corner where it has the best chance of remaining stable, you grin up at him. "How do you feel about having your hands tied together?"

This is rather a surprise for him, as you intended. His brows rise and he considers you before lifting himself off the edge of the hole with a huff. "I care not, should your method not cause further damage."

"Let's get to it, then."

With that, you take some of his weight and steady him as he steps up on the bucket, and from there, leap out of the hole to the ground and do the same from the other side. It goes a bit better than you hoped, with only a few grunts of pain surprised from him.

His mood hasn't really improved by the time you get him indoors and prepped, though you can't say you blame him. You'd be pretty skeptical too if you were in that much pain and the cure involved being tied up, but within a few minutes you're unwrapping the strip of wool you'd wound around his wrists and he's easing his knee from behind his hands where he had used it as a lever and leaned back to stretch his arms and ease his shoulder back into place.

"Better?" you ask from where you sit next to him on the floor, rolling the wool back around on itself as he holds his arm across his chest and stretches his head and neck away from his shoulder. Yeah, you don't doubt he's all stiffened up with the way he's been holding himself.

"Aye, very much," he says, with more surprise than you were hoping. Fucker. Can't say he doesn't have high standards, but his arm had slipped back into its socket nice and easy. What was he thinking you were going to do?

"Stay there for a second."

He's silent through you crawling to your big basket at the foot of your cot and rummaging about in it and throughout you coming back and wrapping up his arm. You get his arm tucked in a cloth and laid across his chest from waist to opposite shoulder so you can support that elbow with the sling and reduce movement. It should make it a hell of a lot more comfortable. It's not until you're winding up the extra corner of cloth at his elbow that he speaks.

"You have some skill in the care of injuries," he observes in a carefully neutral voice.

You shrug. "Kept you alive, didn't I?" You smile, hoping to soften the sting of the reminder.

"Aye," he says, but his look is so somber you wonder just what is going on in his mind.

"Is that what's been eating at you?" You tuck the twisted end under the cloth at his elbow to keep it in place. Maybe later you'll convince him to let you lay hot compresses over the muscle and tendons in that whole area.

When he gives you a puzzled look, you go on, "I know you're not feeling great, but you've kinda been more grumpy than usual."

"Come now, I have barely been back half a day," he protests, leaning away to resettle into a more comfortable position on the floor now that you're done. "And most of that spent in your absence."

"Yeah, I know, right?" you say. "Not that you need to entertain me and yet even in that little time it has been noticeably less pleasant than other visits."

He rubs at his shoulder and neck, glancing at the door. You are sitting between him and the exit. No way he can escape now no matter how emotionally constipated he looks. He's digging his fingers into the muscles of his neck as if they had offended him.

You know, once, just once, you'd wish he'd let someone take care of him without it scaring the crap out of him.

"It is okay, Estel," you say, "you can come here just to rest."

"Ah!" he exclaims, scowling. "What would you have me do, Hala?" he asks with some exasperation. He let's off prodding at his neck and turns about to face you more fully, gesturing about the hut. "Truly, do not think me ungrateful, Hala but, atimes, you are generous with me with so little heed to its cost to you that I dare not rely upon your word."

"Oh, I see," you say, "I'm just an idiot who-"

He raises his voice, insistent. "Would you have me eat your food and wonder with each bite should I have eaten the one that could have sustained you just a little longer until the spring? Is it this, or the next, or all of them together that I have taken from you that would have kept you from grave harm?"

He stops on a choked sound, pressing the heel of his hand above his eye before he rubs his hand over his face and bursts out with, "What kind of man would I be who would not think of the cost to you?"

"Estel!" you cry. "You have helped me out in all kinds of ways. Not all of them have to involve you practically killing yourself. I am far better off since you started coming to visit me. Really, I am!"

And when he sighs, looking for all like he wishes your skull was not quite so thick, you raise your voice. "No, listen to me. I mean it. Look around." You point at the beams overhead where strings of onions and garlic dangle and lines of fish split and dried and growing dark in the haze of smoke that drifts constantly overhead. You reach over and knock your knuckles against the wooden bin by the bench.

"Do you hear that? Do you know how full that is with bags of rye and beans and peas?" Your knuckles beat a dull thumping sound against the wood. Not an echo to be heard within. You'd show him your little purse nearly full with pennies, but that would necessitate giving away your hiding place and, well, you're not showing that to anyone, no matter how much you like them. "And when we get the root cellar done we can fill it with the burdock root and I've got enough money to go to Bree's market and buy potatoes and whatever other roots you think would be best. I'll even buy cabbage if you think that it will last long enough, though I can't tell you that it's my favorite vegetable."

He's been shaking his head throughout your recital and he now speaks with a grim look. "Hala," he insists, "you will not make it more than half the winter on what you have now."

God damn it. Maybe he can quit with the "teachable moments" thing he's been doing since he got back. You don't need them. You are not an idiot.

"I know that," you say. "I'm not saying it's not going to suck. Yeah, I'm not going to be able to make a feast of it, but if I'm careful and can rebuild my funds with work at The Pony off and on like I did last year then I should make it. And, like, the taste of mushrooms and carrot is definitely going to get old, but it is what it is. I'll hold on until spring comes and we'll see if I can make some headway in my standing in Bree by next year."

Yeah there's an unsteady house of cards of "if"'s and "maybe"'s in there, and that uneasy look on Estel's face is making them all kinds of more obvious, but it's still a hell of a lot better place than you've ever been since you got here.

"Look," you say and give him a tap of your fist on his thigh, "if you really want to make it up to me, then you can be the one to go to the market and purchase the supplies that are going into the root cellar." You laugh, even if it is a little bitter. "Shit, Estel, all you'd have to do is loom over them and you'll get everything I need for half the price they would ask from me."

"Ai, Halanya," he says and sighs. He's hunched over his lap with his mouth and chin in his hand as he stares at the bit of floor between you. Well, fuck, now you've made him sad.

The thought has just occurred to you that maybe you should remove your hand from his thigh, when he moves and takes your hand.

Holy fuck. He's touching you.

Looking at your hand solemnly, he eases his fingers into your fist and, drawing your knuckles to his lips, he presses the bare whisper of a kiss to them.

And that's it. You can't recall a single thing about what you two were arguing about and what the hell was the point and even, honestly, what words are and how they are forced out over your vocal chords and into your mouth. His hand is strong and, well, fucking huge, and the whole world narrows down to where he rubs his thumb over the roughened skin of your knuckles and you can still feel the faintest ghost of warmth and brush of his lips.

"Forgive me," he says, looking at you earnestly. "I would wish to be of such service to you, but I am unsure should I be able."

"You have the right of it. I have been ill-tempered and foolish," he says and searches your face before his eyes drop back down to his hand where he's cupped yours. "The truth of the matter is, I have dreaded this visit since first I turned my feet back to your door."

Well, fuck. That's what all this touching and trying to gentle what these next words out of his mouth are about.

"There is much that has eluded me in my endeavors when I am away. Should I achieve what I must, I must travel further afield in my search," he says, looking at you as if he were begging forgiveness. "Aye, I will rest, should you wish, but when next I leave, I am unsure where my path shall take me."

"Oh," you say and then you're the one who can't meet his eyes.

Fuck. This is it, isn't it. God damn it, you are not going to cry.

"It grieves me, Hala," he says, clutching at your hand and peering at you, "and I shall do my utmost to return ere the harvest should it be within my power, but I cannot promise it."

Fuck. He's going to just disappear on you, isn't he.

Well. Shit.

You clear your throat. "Uhm," you say and tug your hand out of his grip to swipe at your nose. "If it will make you feel any better, how about you rest here for the remainder of the afternoon while I work on laying down the stones in the cellar, then you can come out and take a look and tell me everything I've done wrong, yeah?"

A fond smile flashes upon his face, though it is swiftly gone and a little sad. His hand comes up, cupping your cheek, and his thumb brushes below your eye where the skin stings.

"Sui aníradh, my friend," he says.