Many thanks to all you wonderful readers, both for reading and for reviewing! ^_^
Just a note - this should be the last of the shorter chapters. All the following chapters I have written and ready are of far more respectable length, but I felt this one needed to stand alone. In this case, the length works well, I think. If it doesn't, you guys let me know. :P
LadyMurdock: I'm firmly in denial about the ending the writers gave Allan. I couldn't tell you how many times growing up I warned younger siblings "If you're not going to treat that toy/book/stuffed animal right, you're not going to be allowed to play with it…", and that's the same attitude I find myself taking with the scriptwriters here. There was no reason to doom certain characters to such tragic fates; it makes my heart ache just to think about it, and the show gained nothing from it. So I've mentally gathered up all those poor characters and put them safely (well, relatively safely…) into a never-ending Season One of my mind, where eventually the bad guys lose and the good guys win, and nobody meets undeserved ends because the scriptwriters thought it'd be "interesting". :P
DoubleDaggered: Allan has some impulse-control problems. :P He thought the dramatic reveal would be a pretty funny idea, too, until he actually did it. Turns out being Robin Hood involves a lot more peril and a lot less glamor than he was hoping. ;)
LadyKate1: It always seemed to me that Allan was half-fascinated by Djaq, especially in the first few episodes after "Turk Flu". She's so completely outside of his experience, he didn't know quite what to make of her at first. I'm glad you came through Sandy safely – enjoy your vacation! Sounds like you've earned it over the past few weeks. ;)
Prats 'R' Us: Thank you so much! This story is a sort of practice run (in terms of finishing such a large writing project) for writing an actual novel, and it's enormously encouraging to hear that you like what you're reading! Allan's one of my favorite characters to write for (after Much, of course), mainly because of his sense of humor. He can find something darkly amusing in any situation, and I'm glad I let him narrate that last chapter, to lighten the mood just a shade or so. :)
For the first time in a long while, Much was almost comfortable. His limbs were lead weights, useless and heavy, but that was all right. He didn't feel like moving just now, though he lay on the peculiar border between slightly cramped and snugly tucked away somewhere. He didn't care, really. It didn't hurt, and that was nice. The whole world was rocking slightly though, not quite in rhythm with itself, swaying him, and Much turned his face further into the warmth, feeling vaguely ill. That happened a lot though, lately. He hadn't been so bad in the past few days, he didn't think…. Robin had warned him about that before they sailed, had said that lots of people found the journey didn't agree with them at first. And seasick Much had been, miserably and thoroughly, until one day he'd opened his eyes from what he'd half-hoped had been an early death, and he didn't feel quite so horribly sick as before.
If Robin had been seasick, he'd hidden it well, at least until Much wasn't paying any more attention to him, preoccupied with his own growing misery. He'd looked pale and restless the first day or so, prowling like a trapped barnyard cat in their quarters when he wasn't dozing in his bunk, but he'd shaken it off quickly enough after that, leaving Much to hide his head beneath the blankets and try to ignore the way the ocean wouldn't stop toying with the ship. The whole craft, enormous as it was, swayed at the slightest push from the waters, which batted it curiously this way and that, as if testing to see how far its playful water-paws could press before the whole thing simply tipped over and emptied into the water.
The waves gave a harder shove, and something stabbed suddenly in his side and hand, but Much's wordless moan half-vanished under the sound of timbers groaning soothingly, as if admonishing the water back to its easy almost-rhythm. There were almost words in the low sound, but the strange pain began to fade again, and the ocean resumed its gentle pace.
The ocean had turned out to be far larger than he could conceive, more vast than his mind could hold. It was endless fields and fields of grey water, lifting and dropping away beneath their creaking ship like a huge blanket. Robin told him the ship was sailing faster than the swiftest horse, but they traveled for days upon days without seeing a change. The sky changed, though. It was the same sky as the one above England, of course, but not the same. This sky didn't smile down or go cloudy with tears – it swept from an implacable blue gaze to glaring through a storm, a bared-teeth tempest…
Much decided quickly that he didn't like the ocean, hated the bottomless way the waves never settled. There could never be a familiar landmark or wayside there. Even the grinning sailors who claimed to adore the sea, calling her by sweet names like a lover, they used the stars to find their way. They pulled themselves and the ship across the water by those tenuous handholds, night after lonesome night, and Much could have wept for earth beneath his feet again.
Then they reached the other side of that endless expanse, and only Robin's presence at his side kept him from retreating back onto the ship and home. They stepped out onto another ocean made of sand and astonishing heat, filled with eyes staring from under dusty cloths and the ever-present thirst that they somehow learned to live with. The language was incomprehensible, rippling past like ribbon unspooling. The damp and rains of their homeland blew from their clothes as dust in the furnace-like air, barely there to recall at night when Much lay in their tent and tried to dream of home. When Robin heard his homesick tears one night in the first month, he joked without a smile that they had to preserve what water they had. After that, every drop Much encountered was magnified in his mind. They might have been diamonds. But he still couldn't help leaving a few on his pillow as the months stretched into a year, then two, three, and on.
His master's ready grin was still present, bracing their fellow Crusaders both in the camp and as the King's Guard rode out yet again. Robin's boundless energy, quick mind, and genuine care for each man had not changed, but other things crept in, trailing back with them like the sand-coated bloodstains soaked into the hem of Much's cloak. Silences grew longer between them. Robin's temper frayed at the edges, and Much learned to wake his master in the mornings with his voice only, not his hand, after he found a dagger poised at his throat.
The steady support under him suddenly vanished, and Much panicked against the feeling of falling, arms too heavy to obey, to stop his fall. Then he wasn't falling anymore, blankets and solid earth beneath him, but a confusion of voices all around him made his head throb (-an you hear me?), hot pain jolting through his side to steal his breath (-only us, don't-). Robin's voice wove in and out of the others, tangled too deeply to find and hold onto. He couldn't think, couldn't breathe, and Robin was calling for him somewhere nearby, fear drawing his master's voice tight like a bowstring. Again his name, and Much couldn't find his sword, couldn't make his arm rise to grasp it and follow out into the night and screams where his master lay bleeding into the sand.
Inky shapes poured down from the night itself, and a black-robed Saracen raider turned to pierce him with a blue-eyed stare. The eyes were pale, ice the desert could not melt, and someone drove a dagger made of ice into his master's side, this time with a grunt of effort to pierce the armor and living flesh. Another rough sound, black-clad fists swinging out of the flickering torchlight at Much's face, into his stomach, everywhere that hurt, and his hands were pinned by his sides, rope wrapped like long fingers around his wrists, touching his sore face with soft sounds. He can hear moans, dreadful, pleading sounds, and needs to free his hand to find Robin in the darkness, because he's so warm Much can feel the heat on his face, the fever radiating out of his master like a consuming demon lighting his skin afire. Robin's so sick, crying for Marian like a lost child, and fear courses through Much again, a shaking fist clenched in his gut, cold hands trailing across his temples at the thought of losing Robin to this invisible death-dealer, this slow, lingering agony.
The ropes twist tighter as he struggles, holding him fast with falsely soothing whispers, and then his hand explodes into splinters of bloody glass, until all he can see is the throbbing red pain behind his eyelids. Wood, rough and earthy, grates between his teeth, and heavy hands lean hard on his shoulders. Voices skitter through the air above him, cut lines through the white-hot pain, weight on his legs and shoulders crushing him to stillness. Then finally Robin's voice, urgent and close, heralding an end to the agony like the sun setting, the blinding white bleeding slowly into gold, then orange, then a darker scarlet that let Much breathe again, notice a different voice that dipped and danced unexpectedly, that smelled of sweet herbs and touched his face gently, brushing away the wetness. The voice asked something, the words falling apart before they reached his ears, but questions were dangerous, delivering him back to the pain and the dark, and Much tried to say "I won't tell you where Robin is". The world tipped again, a sudden swell of black water beneath him, and more wood tapped against his teeth, gently this time, a heady scent of herbs filling the air around him.
He tried not to drink too much, because water was precious, they had to ration everything so carefully, and Robin had to drink too, had to get better. But Robin spoke again, told him to finish the mug, that it was all right, so Much drank, and toppled into a quieter darkness.