Chapter Two

"What is that?"

Alistair nearly jumped at the sound of Mahmoud's voice behind him. The last he'd seen of his cousin he'd been fueling the fire to start coffee. Had he truly been so absorbed in the letter he read over and over again? He looked towards the elder man as the latter sat next to him. "I got my degree."

"So I'd heard," Mahmoud answered, but his eyes told the younger man he was still expecting an answer for his question.

"Of course you did." The young man folded and unfolded the letter in his hand. It was brief and to the point. "Your father wanted me to come strait back to Justice – or my own home, I suppose, but he said Justice – and said that I was being dragged into all of this."

"Are you?"

"Of my own will," Ali responded with a small smile playing on his lips.

Mahmoud nodded. "You've been traveling back and forth between two worlds for two years now, Ali. You will have to choose."

Ali chuckled. "Your father is afraid I'll leave too, I suppose."

"He raised you for many years."

"Even when my father was alive, I suppose," Alistair mused as he took a tobacco pouch from his robes and began to roll a cigarette. "I did spend more time in Justice Hall than anywhere else."

There was a long silence between the two men as the younger lit the newly made cigarette. Mahmoud let out a low breath of air. "You should return to England."

Ali nearly choked. "What?" he demanded in English, his first words spoken with his cousin in their native language in a year and a half.

"Exactly what I said," Mahmoud said in Arabic. "You know what is like here now."

"The Turks?" Ali asked, almost scoffing at the idea. "I'm not afraid of them."

"I'd rather you go home."

"This is home." He snubbed out the cigarette. "You wouldn't take that, would you?"

"Ali."

Ali stood from his spot, moving away wordlessly. His cousin sighed and watched him. "What do I have to do to prove myself to you?" he demanded at last. "I learned this language. I learned these customs. I've breathed this air and loved this land as much or more than even you do. What do you want from me? What more could there be? I've waited two years to join you permanently. Do you still think I am a child that you have to protect?"

"I want you away from the Turks," Mahmoud said simply. "You travel with one that works with the English government. If I were to ever be discovered by them and you were with me you would be taken as well."

Ali shook his head. "I am twenty-one. Will you hide me away from the danger forever? I want to stay in these lands and if you send me away, I will find a way to stay on my own." With the words lingering in the dry air, the younger man disappeared into their shared tent, leaving Mahmoud to his own thoughts and his coffee.

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The two cousins had fallen into an easy routine over the two years that Ali had been coming to Palestine. Mahmoud would meet him and they would travel for anywhere between two and three weeks before the younger of the two cousins would return, most of the time sulking slightly, to the boat that would return him to England. Mahmoud had promised himself that even if Ali decided he wanted to stay, he would not stand for the boy – young man – putting himself in the danger in which he really did not need to be put in. It was Marsh's fate, not Alistair's. Right?

But Ali was a man now, not the child that he had been only a few years before. He had done all he had said and done in well, leaving the natives with the impression that he had been born and had grown in these lands. No one questioned it.

Mahmoud Hazr stood from the place he had been since Ali had stormed off to the tent. He moved silently and peered in to see the younger man whittling a small animal with the knife he kept around his neck, a practice he had begun some time before on his journeys to Palestine. He spared one glance up before continuing.

"Ali."

Ali sighed before replacing the knife around his neck and setting the small animal down next to where he was sitting. He looked up in acknowledgement.

"We'll break camp now." That was all he said as he let the flap of the tent back down and he turned to begin clearing things away, leaving a very confused Ali there.

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Ali's visits had always been somewhat brief before now. He'd been in Palestine two weeks before he had told Mahmoud that he wished to stay. Normally at that time they would have turned back and spent a week moving towards the place where he'd leave for England, but they started off in a different direction when they moved on.

Mahmoud offered no explanation for his course, Ali did not ask for fear that he might remind his elder cousin that only a few hours before he'd been bent on sending him back to England.

They walked on for three days, barely a word said between the two of them. Pride kept Ali from breaking down and asking for their destination and what they might be doing, and his thoughts kept Mahmoud to himself.

Finally they reached the small town that the elder of the two men seemed to be aiming for. They set up camp with no words exchanged.

Ali had just finished with the tent when a stranger approached. Mahmoud stood abruptly and moved swiftly, embracing the other man as if he had met a long lost brother. They spoke in low tones for a few moments and then Mahmoud made eye contact with his younger cousin, a silent command to come to them.

"Mikhail, this is my younger brother Ali."

"Salaam aleikum," Mikhail greeted with a smile.

Ali stood for a moment, fumbled with the customary response, and then regained a handle on his fleeting control. They took a seat around the fire that had just begun to burn and talked, the youngest man's eyes slightly distant until Mikhail stood and said it was time for him to leave. Someone was waiting for him, though he did not say whom.

"You were silent most of the evening," Mahmoud said after a moment of fiddling with a cigarette.

"You called me brother," Ali blurted, unable to hold it any longer. "Does that mean…?"

His newly proclaimed brother looked at him seriously. There was no mischief hidden behind his dark eyes as there often was. "You are my brother now, no longer a distant cousin. I…wish you to stay here in Palestine. I will send a letter to Mycroft Holmes to-morrow. He is the one we ultimately answer to."

Ali grinned for a moment, and then quickly removed the smile from his lips, even if it did remain in his eyes. He nodded his understanding and his answer, and the two men settled for one more cup of Turkish coffee.

Oneiriad: Thank you for your review!

OpheliaRussell: Yes, got to love the Hazr brothers, or cousins… After finishing reading Justice Hall, I went back and started rereading O Jerusalem so that I'd get all my details right, but it's funny to know who they really are while reading it with them still "Arabian cut throats". Hopefully I'll still keep them in character. Thanks for the review :)