Hi, so here is another chapter and I hope you enjoy this one, this is a bit of a shorter chapter and does deal mostly with Djaq and Will. It's my way of getting Djaq to heal after the events of the last story and Gisella.
Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine,
Please Read and Review.
And some trigger warnings for Gisella's character and her story and for some stuff that happened when Djaq was a slave etc.
The Growing Good Of The World
Chapter 7-It Bleeds, It Leads.
Djaq and Will have a heart to heart about their marriage, Gisella and the past and the future as the rest of the gang try to find Little John who has been split from the group by the arrival of Prince John's elite guards. Mostly Djaq and Will centric chapter. Some Trigger Warnings for Gisella's story. Slightly smaller chapter.
Sitting on a roof overlooking the courtyard of the castle was not the best place to have this conversation. Will could admit that, a romantic he was not but he could admit that this was not the best time or the best place to bring up this conversation.
But bring it up he was because Will wanted above all else a happy marriage. He wanted a successful marriage and he wanted a happy wife and he knew that his wife recently had not been happy. Granted she was doing a very good job of pretending otherwise but Will had long ago learnt all that he could learn from Djaq—sideway glances and little touches and smiles over the fire whenever they could and he knew when she was happy and when she was pretending to be happy and this was one of those times when she was pretending to be happy.
And he hated it.
And he had been as patient as he could be all things considered.
But this was not the time nor was it the place—so naturally this was the time and the place that he spoke such fears.
Sometimes he had to concede to Luke's opinion—he was a complete idiot. And he chose to stick the knife into his own happiness.
Since his marriage his brother had become a lot smarter. Will wasn't sure if the blame was entirely at Carter's door or if Luke was becoming the man that he was always meant to be but sometimes Will looked at his little brother and saw the good man underneath the rough cloth and the dirty fingernails and the marks on his neck (because Carter was an animal who for some reason unbeknown to Will, he seemed to enjoy marking his territory like a feral cat pressed up against a tree) and he was proud. So, so proud.
But here he was. Sat on a roof with his wife.
There was a story behind this of course. An actual story.
Prince John had sent the elite guards after them. Will who was a simple man from a simple world had no idea what was different. The elite guards, the Black Knights they all seemed to be the same to him. He thought that it was the same, they were in league with the Sherriff, working with Prince John and a threat to King Richard so what did it matter who was who?
Apparently to Robin it did but they had scattered into the woods each to their own hiding places, Allan and Erin, Robin and Marian, Much and Kate, Carter and Luke, Will and Djaq and it was supposed to be Tuck and John.
It was only when they all returned that night that they had realised that Tuck and John had been forced their separate ways and that John was missing. And that the Sherriff was clearly expecting someone or something. And that was what had led them to here. Will and Djaq—the lookouts for Robin's plan to help John escape whatever it was that was happening down below in the courtyard.
So it was natural for him that here was the moment he decided to implode his marriage.
"Djaq"
"Yes?"
"What's wrong? With you? I mean…I know something's been bothering you. I know it's your sister. And I want you to talk to me, I want you to want to talk to me about it. I want us to have the kind of marriage that means that we can talk about it. I don't have the same feelings for your sister that you do but I can listen to you. I know that you've been struggling…and I want to…no I need to be able to help you with this. We are partners in this marriage, I want us to be partners in this marriage and to do that I have to be able to help you, so please will you tell me what is going on in that head of yours?"
He half expected her to push him off the roof. Instead she turned to look at him for a long moment of silence and there was nothing that he could say when she looked at him like that. She had been growing her hair out again and this time it came to the bottom of her neck and her eyes were dark in her face and Will like the lovesick fool that he was thought she was the most stunning woman that he had ever clapped eyes upon.
"You don't want to know" she said finally.
"Try me" Will said sharply. "Seriously Djaq, try me"
Djaq said nothing for another long heartbeat and then she turned away and stared out over the courtyard her hands clasped in her lap.
"My feelings for my sister are complicated" she said slowly. "I know what her death means to Robin and everyone else. She was a thorn in his side for a long time and God knows you could never play her. I know that she would have stood in our way, in her own way but…but my feelings for her are complicated. You wouldn't understand. You and Luke have a good relationship"
Will conceded the point because she was right. The relationship between him and Luke had been very different to the one that she and Gisella had, had.
But then again it had been a different environment.
"Try me" he said again.
"Alright" Djaq said with a small grin. "There was years of hard feelings between us. Not just the war but before that, before Acre fell. We were two cats in a basket and we fought like hell and there was nothing that you could do about it. She was close to my mother, I was close to my father and then we lost both of them in quick succession. When I thought she was dead I didn't really grieve for her, not in the all-consuming way I grieved for my brother. That was all before she became the Woman in Red. You know what happened after that"
Will did know. He remembered the naked hatred in Gisella's eyes when she had seen her sister, it had faded in the Holy Lands but he had seen the distrust. He had never liked Gisella, Gisella had never liked him.
Actually come to think of that, they had understood each other very well.
But he didn't miss her. And had he died he knew that she wouldn't miss him.
"You miss her" he said finally.
"Yes. And I blame myself for it. I should have been there. I should have stopped it. I should have…"
"Should have what? Been raped and murdered in her place? Become the Woman in Red for her? Seriously Djaq what good could you have done if they'd have captured you with her?"
"I was dressed as a boy, I could have gotten her out, I could have…"
But Will was already shaking his head because he knew the answer to that one as well. Djaq shook her head as well and looked away wiping her eyes furiously. He took her hand in response.
"Djaq…there was nothing that you could have done, even Gisella knew that. She might have loved and hated you in that contradictory way she did for everyone but there's was nothing you could do about it. And…and I think she knew when she went back to the Holy Lands that she wasn't going to come back to England. I think she knew that she had to die over there, one way or the other. She'd been a dead woman walking for a long time. And she took out the one person that had hurt her above all others"
That he would give his sister-in-law. There had not been a man with a shred of decency in him that had not seen her take down her rapist and her owner (for what other word was there for a man who sold young girls to brutal soldiers?) and had not cheered her along, Will included. Gisella might have been fucking insane but God knows she was justified in her actions.
Most of them anyway.
"She was my baby sister Will" Djaq said finally. "And no matter how much she looked at me when she died I know there was a part of her that placed the blame for what she was turned into firmly at my door. And I agree with her. And there is nothing that you can do about it. It's truth. I just have to find a way to live with it. And one of these days I will be able to but today is just not one of them"
"You didn't do anything" Will said firmly. "You just…you just got out"
It was a lame excuse and he knew it but it was all he could say. In truth he didn't know what it was like for his wife, whose country had been invaded and who even now was considered an outsider in every country known to man.
But he did know what it was like to have a home and a family and to watch that family fall apart and then to be turned out of your home and hunted down like a dog.
Dear God he knew something about that.
He voiced that opinion to her staring out over the courtyard walls and Djaq's hand found his own. She leaned her head on his shoulder and she pressed a kiss into the dark hair and they sat there for a while letting the wind gently ruffle them and quite forgetting what it was they were supposed to be doing.
"Djaq?"
"Hmm"
"I love you, with everything I am. And I want to do anything I can to help you. Please tell me what I can do to help you and I will try to do it"
Djaq just smiled at him for a second and this time he was pleased to see that it met her eyes.
"I miss her" she said simply. "I miss who she was and who she could have been. I hate the way it had to be and I hate the people who were responsible and whatever you say Will I do put myself in that box. And I know that you don't agree with me but that's just the way I see it. Maybe one day Gisella can be a story I tell my children but right now…right now I just miss the dark, acrid glamour that was my silly little sister"
Will nodded. It was not what he wanted, it wasn't the total conclusion to the story that he wanted but then again some stories didn't have a conclusion. Otherwise he was would have stayed in the Holy Lands with her and raised the birds and gotten used to the sand everywhere. Instead, he came back. But this was one ending that he thought that he wait for.
There was a long pause as they sat there and then one of her comments popped into his mind.
"Children? You want to have…I mean…do you want to think about…"
"I don't know" Djaq said quietly. "I know I want children with you Will. I always thought that I would want us to be more settled, like a nice little house in the village—on the edge of the village like what Luke had but I don't know if I want that. I don't know if that is something that we can have. And if so I think that I don't want to wait anymore, it might be horrendously selfish having children in this life, with our lives like that but if there is one thing I want to take away from my sister it's that life is too fucking short to wait until everything is perfect"
"So is that—"
"Yes Will" she said smiling and it met her eyes again and Will thought she was one of the most stunning woman who had ever walked the Earth. Seriously how in all of Christendom and beyond had he, Will Scarlett been lucky enough to land this woman?
"I am saying that I want to try"
And so he kissed her. He wanted to do more but there was a time and a place—common decency and all and he knew that the troubles that plagued her were not over.
But as she had said, they had to try, because if they didn't try then what was the point of living and if Will had to give that crazed woman in red that had been his sister in law any kind of credit it was that life was too short and that when you got the chance to live it with the love of your life, you lived it proud, you lived it happy and you just dealt with the shit that came you way together.
And God damn it, Sherriff or no Sherriff that was what he was going to do.
And nothing could stop him.
No. Nothing could stop them.
So here you go, I hope you enjoy this chapter and I will do my best to bring you the next one sooner rather later.
Next Chapter-A strange woman enters the castle creating confusion for the outlaws. Carter hears that things are developing in London and Marian's pregnancy is creating a strain on her friendship with Erin.
