A/N: Sorry update speeds have slowed down, I've just started a new part time job, had a birthday and gotten a cold so writing daily has been especially difficult.

Thanks for reading and please do review.

'Maud!...Maud!...' The petite woman turned around to see Rafael running up behind her and her face broke into a smile.

'Having a good day?' he asked her.

'No use in complaining. Why are you down here, there's no more food to be had.'

'Can't I just come to see you,' she raised her eyebrow and he laughed, 'Well for starters I only need to breathe William's name to get all the food I could want, but that's not why I came to find you. No what I'm interested in right now is what a little birdy told me.' He threw an arm round her shoulders and walked with her towards the kitchens. 'Somebody's got their eye on that pretty soldier boy Luke.'

She stopped suddenly and turned a shocked face up to his. 'Who told you that?'

'The who doesn't matter, all I want to know is whether it's true.'

She tried to keep her face neutral but a blush creep up in her checks.

'Ahhh,' he said with a grin, 'so it is true.'

'What's it to you…jealous?' she said turning away embarrassed.

'Jealous? No. I only wanted to say that if you did happen to like Luke then you might be interested in how much he was talking about you at dinner.'

'He was?'

If he was a crueller man he might have mocked how hopeful and excited her face became but being the hopeless romantic he was he found her expression endearing. 'Couldn't stop talking about how he was going to miss you when he went away to tour the county.' He wasn't exactly lying. The men had teased Luke over dinner and their ale about how doe eyed he was over his new found love but Luke, apart from going red, had offered no response. Rafael was taking a little liberty in imagining what the love struck teenager would have said if the testosterone level had been a little lower. He watched as Maud smiled to herself and her cheeks went a darker shade.

'You know he's on guard duty tonight.' He made sure he had her full attention again. 'All alone up on the western wall, nobody to talk to, nobody to help ward off the cold.'

'He'll be alone?'

'I'm sure of it, I listened to them discuss it over dinner.'

In fact he had gotten Luke's partner so drunk that the man could barely stand let alone go on patrol. He almost felt bad for the punishment the man was bound to receive… I mean almost.

She looked as if she was going to take the bait for a second before smiling wider and shaking her head. 'Rafael we'll get caught. You're not in Spain now.'

'Caught? Who'll be there to catch you? Dead of night, just the two of you, all alone….' She still looked dubious so he played his final card. 'You want him to remember you right; all those nights on his own in different towns and cities, all those new women….'

He saw her eyes harden. 'The western wall?'

'The western wall,' he replied with a smile knowing that she was sure to go, 'he'll have the turret to himself from one.'

'Thank you.' She reached out a rubbed his arm before turning and walking down the corridor; 'You're invited to the wedding!' she shouted over her shoulder with a laugh.

Rafael smiled as he watched her leave and thought to himself how easy it was to make people do what he wanted and have them think it was all their own idea in the first place.

William stared at his friend as he prepared to leave. He could barely remember a time when Rafael wasn't in his life, wasn't there to help him. He was the one who taught him how to sing, how to play chess, how to talk to girls- although he was still getting to grips with that one. He felt mad for helping him leave for someone he'd barely even met.

'You're sure the wall with be empty?'

'Yes William, we've been over this.' Rafael replied as he finished putting things in his bag, 'I made sure the guard will be busy.'

'You'll be careful though, this Benson woman might not be happy to see you.'

Rafael turned round to give a sarcastic and testy response but on seeing his friend's worried face his words died in his mouth. 'William,' he started, speaking slowly and looking at him straight, 'nothing is going to go wrong.' He didn't entirely trust his words, what he was about to do was pitied with risk and anything at any moment could go wrong but he knew that his friend didn't need to dwell on the negatives. 'Just remember that you don't know anything about it; okay.'

William nodded and went back to watching Rafael wind rope around his shoulder. 'I never knew you were so good at climbing buildings.' he said with a smile, trying not to think of the inevitable departure.

'There are many things you don't know about me,' Rafael replied with a wink, 'I'll have to tell you some other time.'

'There might not be another time.'

Rafael looked up again, he was finally finished packing and dressed in a dark shirt and breeches. 'There will be another time Will. I've spent too long turning you into a man to not come back and see the result.'

William smiled sadly and accepted Rafael's embrace, neither man wanting to let go. He wished he was smarter, that he could see another way; that he was able to rescue his sister himself. Instead he was having to say goodbye to his dearest friend never expecting, whatever Rafael said, to see him again. The only thing that made him step away was the memory of Alex, hanging bloody and beaten from the bed posts. He knew that whatever good he might do in his later life, if he did not help her now then there would never be enough penance for him. He walked over to his bed when he heard the door shut and used his pillow to soak up the tears he could not stop from falling.

'Alex!' Alex thought she heard something but after moving her head from side to side decided that it must have been in her head.

'Alex!' she heard the whisper again and this time knew she couldn't have been imagining it.

'Alex open the window.' She was sat on the edge of one of her chairs and though the fire wasn't lit there was a light sheen of sweat on her upper lip. She hadn't moved since she had returned from the forest that morning. Her father had walked her back to her rooms and helped her remove her armour before sitting her in the chair and saying that he would be back. She had let her mind drift since then and she had no idea how much time had passed, only that no one had come for her.

She heard a bang from across the room and assumed that whoever was outside was trying to kick their way in; she wasn't really that bothered. Her whole body had felt numb since riding out from under the trees. She had hoped that after betraying Olivia to her father she would become who she once was. The ice cold woman who could hang people and not feel a thing. However, it never happened. Watching as Olivia and the others were swept away through the rock- that she now realised Elliot had lied to her about- tore at her heart in a way she had never felt before. Every time Olivia cried her name a fresh wave of tears fell over her cheeks till she was sure her helmet would fill with water and drown her. She had expected to feel nothing; instead she had wanted to throw herself off the top and let the river drag her to the bottom.

The banging stopped with a resounding crash as the wooden shutters flew off their hinges and a small olive skinned man fell through the window. Alex didn't blink. She watched as he rolled to his feet and brushed off his shirt.

'Why didn't you help?' He asked with an annoyed tone. She simply stared at him. The shutters had been locked closed since she returned and she had no way to open them.

Rafael looked at the woman in front of him, at her white skin and rigid posture. He wiped the frustration off his face, more at himself for not expecting the windows to be barred, and tried to think how shocking this must be for her. A foreign stranger had just broken into her quarters then yelled at her for not helping; not exactly the best start.

'Alex,' he raised his hands palm outwards and started again, 'I'm here to help you escape.'

She watched him walk towards her with his hands up and tried to understand what he was saying but it was as if her mind was covered in fog. Everything was kind of blurry and confusing; she couldn't seem to focus or care about anything.

'Alex!' he tried again. 'You need to come with me. William sent me.'

Her brother's name seemed to get through although she still hadn't grasped what was happening. 'William. You know William?'

'Yes,' he smiled, happy that she was talking, 'he sent me to help you escape.'

She paused for a moment as if pondering his words before saying, 'I'm tired, I don't want to go out.'

He hadn't expected her to resist her own rescue and was at a loss at what to say. She didn't look right and her eyes couldn't seem to focus on anything but he needed her to help him; he couldn't carry her down the wall.

'Alex,' he said getting down on one knee in front of her, 'you have to leave with me. You can't stay here.'

She shook her head and looked away from his eyes 'I can't leave.'

'Yes, you can. With me now, into the forest, to find Olivia.' He knew he was taking risk mentioning Olivia as him and William weren't sure what exactly had happened but didn't know what else to say.

Alex laughed and he winced at the sound. She was panting softly now as every pain that she had held a bay in her numbness came back full force. She had thought that she had felt all the pain she could over Olivia but just the mention of her name sent a dagger into her heart. She looked back at Rafael and said in a broken voice, 'If you want to help me so bad then just kill me.'

Rafael rocked back on his heels. When William had told him about what he'd seen he'd said that she still had some fight left in her, that she was refusing to give in. The image Rafael had built wasn't the same as the woman sitting in front of him.

'Cariño nothing you have done, nothing you are feeling cannot be fixed. It is too early to give up, there is always hope; this pain,' he placed a hand on her knee, 'this pain can be healed.'

She shook her head again, tears pooling in her eyes. Suddenly she hated this man. This bastard who had fallen into her life and destroyed the calm she had built. She had been fine just sitting there, refusing to feel any of it, but then he had rocked up and everything had rushed to the surface and she couldn't get her breath let alone see clearly. Her whole body felt as if it were on fire and her chest ached over her heart in such a way that she wished she could rip the organ out to stop the pain. 'It's too late.' She panted. 'It's too late.'

Rafael saw the pain in her eyes and knew that trying to break though both the physical and mental barriers she was erecting was going to impossible. He played the last card he had. The card that anyone who had heard of the Black Cloak would say didn't exist.

'Fine,' he stated leaning back and crossing his arms, 'then my death will be your fault.'

'What?' she raised her tear stained face to meet his.

'You want to die… fine. But die trying to escape, die in the forest, I don't care. If we stay here I will die too and it will be entirely your fault.'

'That's not fair.' His words had gotten through like he hoped and though she wanted to be numb she still cared. Still wanted to be a good person although she thought that path lost to her.

'I don't care about fair. I care about saving your life.'

They sat in silence for so long that Rafael thought she must be calling his bluff and he began to fear that the Sheriff would turn up and kill him on the spot until Alex suddenly got to her feet. He rose quickly with her and grabbed at her arm as she wobbled slightly. Her eyes still seemed unfocused and the sweat had moved from her upper lip to cover her whole face but she smiled grimly and turned to meet his eye.

'Well let's go then.'