A/N: Well, well, well. If it isn't me. Come back after a long absence, daring to post another chapter - tsk, tsk. Massive apologies to everyone for the extreme delay in updates, but this chapter really resisted being fixed, and I had a lot going on in Darth Real Life that kept me away from the computer. Please, if anyone has some critiques about this chapter, let me know. I am forever dissatisfied with my work, always finding things to edit and alter, so concrit that comes from more objective sources is always appreciated and taken into serious consideration. I won't say I'm content with this chapter, but I fleshed it out quite a bit, as I felt it was previously glossing over some important moments, so it is improved.
Thank you to everyone who remains interested in this story and to everyone who reviews. You are all greatly appreciated.
Bound Home
Chapter 17
You have left me behind, old friend, at the Yellow Crane Terrace,
On your way to visit Yangzhou in the misty month of flowers;
Your sail, a single shadow, becomes one with the blue sky,
Till now I see only the river, on its way to heaven.
- Li Bai, A Farewell to Meng Haoran on His Way to Yangzhou
Aalim is not at all surprised by Guy's announcement.
"I knew this was coming," he says with a shrug. "Of course, I will be sad to see you go. But a man should not be so long away from his home."
"How did you know?" Guy asks, chagrined at how, time and again, Aalim proves to him how easily he is read.
His friend waves one hand in the air in a vague gesture. "Oh, there is a way about you now. You are better than you were when I first met you. More alive. Being here has served its purpose?" Guy nods. "So it is," Aalim continues. "I could see you were getting restless."
Guy studies him as they sit once again in the shade by the docks. Another pot of tea steams between them. The birds still circle and cry. Aalim still stares at the sea as if he is waiting for something to emerge from its depths. "I hate to leave you, my friend."
Aalim lets out a silent, humorless laugh. "I hate to see you go. But we all travel different paths."
"Our paths may cross again."
"Oh? What would bring you back so far as Acre? Is one miserable journey over the seas not enough?"
"But I have found a very good friend on this particular journey." Two, actually, Guy silently corrects, thinking of a strong, lonely woman, and the feel of her hand in his. "That makes it all worthwhile."
He can tell Aalim is not really convinced. Despite his apparent complacency, Guy knows that the news of his departure has saddened his friend. The man remains a mystery - all ease and contentment, casting a beam of light to put the person he really is in deep shadow. Guy makes a silent promise to himself that, if ever he is able, he will indeed make this journey again, if only to give Aalim another day of company. Even if he never explains the mystery of his constant watchfulness at the docks, Guy thinks it would be worth the discomforts and dangers to travel here once more, to sit again under this tree and drink from this same pot and share another unbearably hot afternoon with his friend.
"When do you go?"
He leaves his meditations with a sigh. "I'm still not sure."
Aalim slurps his drink noisily, and then frowns at the tea pot. Guy quirks a smile, and then turns his gaze to the sea. "I suppose I should have at least brought some wine."
The sun beats down brightly on the water, throwing golden sparks into his eyes. His smile widens when he looks back over at his friend. Aalim is nearly doubled over, laughing heartily in agreement.
August brings her many new patients, most of them sick from the heat. She is familiar with this season's harsh ways. The treatments are simple and the outcomes are often good. She loses herself in her work and finds herself now content, settled into a comfortable routine. At times, the absence of her husband strikes her with its incredible wrongness – but she is dreaming about him less and less, and he occupies her thoughts now only in the quiet moments at the edges of her days, before sleep and just after waking, when her bed seems to echo with its emptiness.
"It is good to see you smile," Gisborne says to her one evening. "I know how hard a fight it can be to do even so simple a thing."
She reaches for his hand and gives it a brief squeeze. She is only easy with touching him when he shows himself to be of such quality, and though this is one of those times - though his words now fill her with warmth - his past still pales the space between them, and she is not able to let her hand linger in his.
"Thank you," she says, trying to put more gratitude in her voice than she is able to express by her touch. "Lately I have been well, but I'm afraid this night would have been more difficult had you not come. My thoughts have been dark today."
He responds with a shake of his head, murmuring, "You've been a friend to me here. I could not but return your charity."
She busies herself with the usual hospitality - arranging the floor cushions, lighting an extra lamp. But she notices that, instead of taking a seat, he has not moved from his position just inside the doorway. His posture is stiff. She looks at him with one eyebrow raised in question.
"However," he adds, "I have come to tell you that...my time in Acre is over. I leave for England next week."
At first she does not fully understand. Leave the city? How? To go where? And then she remembers that her home is not his, and his days in Acre were numbered from the start. He came with a purpose, and it appears to now be completed.
"Oh?" she says.
He nods. His eyes are steady and bright, lined with concern. His whole attention is focused on her, and it produces a heady sensation that she has grown familiar with but has never quite grown accustomed to. Gisborne's intensity and openness still has the power at times to throw her. His stare every once in a while can make her feel as though she is the center of the universe, and he is stopping time itself to study her. Will used to look at her in that way. And though she knows that Gisborne is just naturally such a man, and that his interest in her has never plumbed the depths of her husband's, it is still a consuming feeling, and it fires her from head to foot.
She loses herself for a moment in that strange pull, and then draws back, blinking, and gestures at the table. "Sit. Tell me more."
The night deepens. The lamps slowly burn through their oil. Gisborne talks of his yearning to return home, of his being at peace with the past. As he explains, she slowly begins to understand the full implications of his going, and panic twinges in her chest. Her one friend will be gone. Her days, filled as they are with work, are easy enough to get through, but what of nights like this, when the loneliness is a cold, deep well, and Gisborne is not there to draw her out of it? How did she survive after Will's passing and before this man's friendship? Those days are lost to her. Memories of that time are scarce and obscure.
She notices his careful, searching gaze. He was surely afraid this news would upset her, and now he worries.
She takes a breath, and then once more takes his hand. This time, she does not let herself shrink away. "I am happy for you, truly. And I wish you a safe journey."
He seems to relax, and his hand turns over to grasp hers. His eyes brighten. "You could come with me. Robin, John...everyone wants to see you again, I'm sure. They spoke of you with such fondness-"
"No," she says, breathing out a laugh and shaking her head, trying to move past a sudden burst of terror that tore through her at the thought of leaving. Memories of England start to whisper at the edges of her mind. The desire to go back burns, but it is a distant fire. "I have too much to keep me here. I have a home here." Her eyes wander the room and walls. "A home I made with my husband. I cannot leave it so easily."
She stares at Gisborne's long fingers as they gently wrap around her wrist. That weak desire to return with him seems to be given strength through his touch, and she fears it is a false strength. She pulls away. She shakes her head. The quiet of her rooms settles down around her and she again feels set in her right place, nested, secure. England fades from her mind's eye.
He is frowning when she looks back up. "I just want to make sure you'll be alright," he says. His voice is tender, and his eyes caring. He looks truly pained at the thought of leaving her, and she is so moved by his constant and sincere concern that she nearly leans forward to touch his cheek. The urge smolders in her breast. She tightens her hands in her lap.
There is no good answer to give him now. She will never be alright, not entirely, not without Will. And she knows that the truth will only further burden him with guilt at leaving her side. So she replies, "And you?", turning the attention away from herself and all the never-agains that Will's passing brought her.
Guy smiles just slightly. "I will be fine. I have a brother who will not hesitate to knock my senses back into me if ever I'm not fine. Well, that goes for Little John, too. And Robin. Come to think of it, perhaps going back to England is not the greatest idea after all..."
She laughs with him, knowing he needs to hear it, needs to see her happy and smiling so that he can leave with an easy conscience. She promises to see him off at the port and bids him a mildly cheerful goodnight, but when he is gone and the door is closed, the quiet that was only moments ago reassuring becomes unsettling. She wonders why the idea of leaving terrified her so much. She looks at the emptiness of her room – Will's things are gone, finally given up or packed away - and knows that this place stopped feeling like their home the day that he died. Clinging to a patch of sand and a small house seems somewhat foolish.
There was once a presence about this house, a weight, as if all of the seconds and minutes and days spent with her husband were stored in the air when spent, to be felt and breathed in and breathed out and surrounded by. This home once seemed packed from the threshold to the roof with memories.
She still senses them there, but what was once a heavy canopy seems to have turned into a veil. She sees beyond it now. The weight and warmth has faded to almost nothing.
She goes to the port as she promised and smiles when Gisborne kisses her hand in farewell. She watches the ship sail west, and feels a pang of envy. He is moving on. She questions why she is not doing the same.