A/N

Sooo, remember when I said this story may get silly? I did warn you. Be warned. Silly ahead. *imagine a big red sign with SILLY written on it*

I can only apologise for where my mind took this story, unless you are thoroughly enjoying it, in which case huzzah!

As always, I hope you enjoy but if not, thank you for trying :)))

Thank you again for any support sent my way and especially to BlueSaffire and her very kind words. I did want to create something different and it seems I may be accomplishing that very thing lol

Let's continue.

/

"Come now, a lady to sing us a little ditty!" The fiddle player was gesturing with his bow to the crowd, drawing everyone's attention. There were no takers.

Uncas gave Erin a sidelong look of pure wicked mischief, his brows pulling together.

"Here!" he called, not looking away from her face. "A singer here!"

Erin's jaw dropped, aghast, had he just pranked her in payback for all her teasing?

"Come on up then Miss." The fiddle player gestured and the crowd hooted in agreement.

Erin's mouth flapped with silent protests as she was guided forward by a collection of impatient hands, to stand by the fiddle player.

"Wait! I don't know any tunes you can play. I'm not from... these parts," she ended, rather feebly.

"That's fine, I can play to your voice Miss." He positioned the fiddle upon his shoulder, awaiting her, and Erin glared out into the crowd. There stood Uncas, arms crossed casually, finding this whole situation highly amusing, his face near aglow with merriment, teeth gleaming in the firelight.

"But I can't sing," she tried, and the fiddle player gave her a tolerant smile that said he'd heard that excuse from far too many fair singers in his time. His brow quirked and he gestured with his bow to the crowd, impatiently telling her everyone was waiting.

Expectant faces looked towards her and the fiddler stood ready. Erin's mind raced from one song to another, her brain doing its usual favourite thing of pushing every single unsuitable thing to the forefront, while laughing manically as it hid everything that would save her in this moment.

Her thoughts flitted to everything on her last playlist. No folk songs, only unsuitable ones, from Meg Myers, Tori Amos and Kate Bush; skinning people with tongues, ice cream assassins, and letting ghosts in through windows, seemed like the kind of thing that would get her quickly stoned here.

'Ok, a folk song, any folk song Erin, anything!'

But nothing came.

"Ok, so a song that just isn't weird here, anything not... weird.'

Her mind reached and pulled back something that felt so much better than all the others, while making her groan silently.

'Any but that one!'

But she'd run out of time...

"If I..." Her voice quavered out the words, shaky and unsure, "...should stay."

Faces stared up at her, causing a lump to form in her throat. She pushed on, "I would only be in your way-yay."

Of all the songs in the world, it had to be this one, the hardest song known to woman or man, and Erin was no singer, she could barely carry a note.

"So, I'll go... but I know, I'll think of you every step of the way-yay."

The fiddle had started to try and find a melody to her words now, and it made her voice somehow a little less tone deaf.

"And I-eeeeah will always love you-ooou. I will always love you." Her voice strained at the high notes and she winced.

"Bittersweet memories, that is all I'm taking with me-eeh." The people about her had seen her struggling and had begun to clap in some kind of gleeful sympathy, enjoying her discomfort. "So, goodbye, please... don't cry. We both know I'm not, not what you need-eed."

The fiddle had found its rhythm and it could almost have been a folk rendition of the ballad, with a seagull squawking over the pretty tune.

"And I hope life treats you kind. And I hope you have all you dreamed of." At every slightly higher note she winced at how off key she sounded. "Oh I wish you joy-ah and happiness, but above all this, I wish you love, oh love-ahh"

She took in a deep breath and closed her eyes, telling herself not to try and reach any level of Dolly or Whitney.

"And I-eeeeah will always love you-ooou. I will always love you. My darling you, I will always... love you-ooou." Her voice cracked a little and the crowd erupted into affable laughter.

The fiddle played its last strains and then the player was patting her on the back with good natured humour. "Let's all thank the Miss for her lovely... song. It will keep us all warm tonight." Erin knew this was a nice way of saying she was awful. He looked towards the original lady singer who had sang so beautifully before and both fell into hysterics.

Erin sheepishly smiled at the crowd, nodded a bow and then hurriedly got off the makeshift stage, while fighting back the burning embarrassment stinging at her face. She returned to Uncas' side, arms crossed and her posture slightly sulky, he was wearing the biggest grin she had ever seen.

"I couldn't tell if the howls of the dogs or your voice was the better tonight," he chuckled.

"It sounds better in Russian," she snapped, feeling humiliated, while at the same time understanding just how hilarious that whole spectacle had been.

"I don't think the language was the problem."

She pushed him, hard, and he stumbled just a little, which seemed to further his enjoyment of the situation.

"That was a mean thing to do," she said, narrowing her eyes at him while fighting the smile that wanted to spread across her lips.

"You brought much happiness." Uncas nodded, still grinning, at the people around them and she turned to see people giving her happy glances, even a wave or two.

"At my expense!"

"What is a little pride?" Uncas said, he had become the master of teasing now.

"I've created a monster," Erin said, and he frowned, not understanding her reference.

They stilled a moment and the crowd calmed, and with the lull, her feelings of deep mortification lessened into tolerable acceptance. She saw Uncas looking towards the fire, where the old man still sat nursing his ale.

"Did you speak to him of what you told me?" Even with his easy manner there was still something a little standoffish about him that she couldn't quite place.

"No," she said, enjoying the honesty for once.

He gave a nod towards the so-called father figure, a frown making him seem more serious than his tone would deem. "Was it freedom from him you wished?"

Erin looked at him, seeing the muscles in his jaw clench, it was subtle but it was there. "Oh, no... no." She reached out and laid a comforting hand upon his arm and felt his muscles beneath her touch stiffen, then quickly relax. "My father is a good man, he would never..." It was so strange how easily she could read the silence between them and understand his meaning with so little prompt. Erin supposed that was how this time, this world, worked, there wasn't time to sit down and map out emotions and trauma, first impressions and gut instincts led actions.

When she looked up into his face she became truly aware of just how tall he was and how small she felt under his intense gaze; she owed him an explanation, but he wouldn't get the truth he deserved. How could she ever tell this honourable man how much she had disrespected him with her words?

"It was a man I was meant to marry." She gave him the only truth she could give him, her own.

"In Russia?"

She didn't affirm his words but continued. "A year ago now. A year since I left him."

Uncas quirked an uncertain eyebrow, his look stating clearly this was not something he heard often from her European culture.

"Russian women are free to leave such... agreements?"

"Yes." She paused. "Not that he was pleased about it." She grinned to distance the awkward feeling and he gave a uncertain smile in return.

"He was a bad man?" Uncas glanced away, looking at all the people milling around them, who were waiting for the fiddler to get his energy back.

"No... and yes."

"No and yes?" He shook his head, a soft smile barely upon his lips.

"He was like Duncan... I mean Major Heywood. He wanted control and power over me and everything I did." She flexed her fingers and slowly came to the dawning realisation that she hadn't really spoken like this to anyone.

Uncas nodded, as if finding some understanding in her words.

"He wants to do that to Cora, you know?" Erin said, making eye contact. "Turn her into his perfect little wife." She pulled a face and he smirked. "But it will crush her spirit... who she is." She looked away, suddenly ashamed for everything, herself, the situation, everything she'd done here.

"Did that happen to you?" His voice was touchingly low and deep, he sounded almost sad to hear her story of woe, but his face remained nonchalant.

Erin rubbed her palms together. "He took everything I loved away, my art, my love of books... I was expected to just... live that life. Marry him, have children, be the doting wife. I saw the cage closing around me every day and I just let it. I let myself be trapped." She caught his eyes and suddenly felt like she had shared far too much. Yet, she saw something within his gaze, a profound understanding that made her take a second glance before fully looking away.

She cleared her throat, feeling embarrassed.

"So you left?" He wasn't going to let her escape his questioning so easily.

Erin laughed, it was a hollow sound. "No, I caught him with another woman and I ran away." She tried to make it sound like a joke but Uncas didn't laugh.

"Running is not always bad." He was looking off into the crowd again, his voice soft but audible above the constant chatter of others. "Sometimes to go forward, we must run."

She nodded, feeling those words settle deep within her bones, like a soothing balm for her bitter memories.

"I got my marks a few months later. I wanted to feel something I guess. But I just felt numb and like I was standing still, stuck."

He nodded, his face serious. "But now it means you have moved forward. You are drawing again, you offer friendship to strangers and try to protect them. You care about the Munro sisters. You stood your ground with Heywood." He was so composed and matter of fact that the words stunned her for a moment as having no real truth to them, but he wasn't wrong, she had done those things, even if it had been in her own distorted way.

"You would not be here now if you were standing still." There was a drollness in his tone, a friendly teasing. He fixed his dark eyes upon her, the depths dancing with gentle humour. "Your spirit was never crushed."

She couldn't help but laugh, a soft chuffing sound of reluctant acceptance.

"Pests are always good at avoiding being crushed." He didn't look at her, and bar the mischievous gleam in his eyes, he looked aloof.

Erin laughed again and his lips quirked just a little.

She felt lighter than she had in months just from talking to him, but was brought back down with a nasty bump as she felt a renewed and rather unpleasant wave of guilt at what had happened tonight with Alice, and thanked whatever entity watched over her that this kind-hearted man would never know of it.

"Thank you." She didn't look at him and hoped he understood the note of deep apology she buried within the gratitude.

He nodded, but didn't look at her, his eyes still intent upon the people around them. "I know the cage you speak of, although to me it comes in a different form." The dancing glow of firelight reflected in his eyes and he spoke in his own language, just one word. "Tradition."

Again, it seemed to have many meanings, and it shifted, transforming into several inside her mind: Expectation, Faith, Requirement, Pressure...

Erin studied him, trying to see some form of explanation in his expression, but sensing he was inclined to speak no further on the matter she turned away.

They watched in silence for a long moment as the fiddle player started up again, a few people swaying and clapping to the music. She glanced over at him again and Erin knew in that moment that she couldn't stand by and watch any of these people die, not Uncas, not Alice, not the men and women of the fort, even if that meant she changed things in her own time. She didn't know what she could do, but she had to try, she had to take the risk.

Knowing she couldn't dally here forever, she had to help Cora and apologize to Alice, she turned to him and gave him an arm flourishing formal bow, a befitting gesture from any gentleman but looking absurd from her.

"I bid you goodnight, Sir."

"And I you, Miss." He seemed almost delighted by her foolishness and bowed in a similar fashion back.

"Don't let the kingdom fall while I'm gone."

He smirked. "I'll do my best."

She gave him a half hearted smile in return, knowing her tasks were not going to be fun. Without giving herself anymore time to procrastinate, she turned and made her way back to the barracks. She still had time to try and set things right.