Post-Shrewsbury, Barplace

[newredmuses]

Harry would have hoped that death would be a little kinder to him, for all his sins. He rebelled against an anointed king, true, but surely God or the Devil would have forgiven that, given the justness of his complaint. He does not see this afterlife as a rebuke of his passions, nor his tendency to curse or lose his temper or fall prey to his own pride. A true punishment would have been directed. This -- this is mere aimlessness, a new set of rules and no familiar boundaries.

To the best of his reckoning, it has been a month since he arrived, bleeding and gasping on the floor. Warkworth, the king's court, Glendower's keep, Shrewsbury, all of it confounds his sense of what's real. He was in a hospital bed for some time, then told that the way home was shut to him and his clothes were not salvageable. Every morning, in the strange, small room he's been provided, he stares at his reflection and feels nothing like himself. Who is Harry Percy without his sword, his horse, his battered jacket, his life? This scruffy man in jeans and a t-shirt never led armies nor defied princes.

Harry was never one for sitting still, but he has grown too frustrated with pacing. He has been told that he may choose what to do next, but what does a choice mean when none are fulfilling? It is a thing he wrestles with, sitting by himself at the Bar, his back to the door, staring into the tea Bar believes he will like.

When he is this quiet, the other patrons have learned to leave him alone.

Comments

[newredmuses]

"What's this? Timid? Not my Kate, in faith."

He closes the space between them and sweeps her close, and tight. She smells like home. The t-shirt does not hide him much; she may feel him tremble too.

Allan, wisely, decides to back out and leave them to it. His work here looks to be done.

[adivasheadvoices]

"Oh--"

She wraps her arms around him and suddenly all she can do is touch him, map him everywhere with her hands: the lines of his back and the curve of his hip and the grain of his hair between her fingers.

She's clutching him tight. Mayhap her hands are not as gentle as they should be, but the bruises she leaves on his arms are her proof that he's flesh and blood and real. Dreams don't bleed.

[newredmuses]

By heaven, he'll not begrudge her that. Left to his own devices he'd never release her himself.

"How do our friends?" he murmurs, his chest still tight. "My mother and father?"

[adivasheadvoices]

Another laugh, still bitter, muffled against his shoulder.

"Your father is infected now with remorse, that he did not send his men to you. But he will not throw away that which remains him on those who still talk of rebellion -- that your mother and I have seen to. He is flown to Scotland and bides there 'till we better know the fortunes of the Archbishop and Mowbray."

[newredmuses]

He stares straight ahead, his cheek pressed to her hair. "We almost won. I'd have killed him if I'd just done it quicker. I'm so sorry, Kate."

[adivasheadvoices]

"Be quiet," she snaps, looking up and taking his face in her hands. "Do you think I haven't tortured myself enough with thoughts of what might have been if this and what should have been if that? I'll not hear it from you, Harry, I will not, not now."

[newredmuses]

He snorts. "Well enough for you to say so. There's little else for me to bend on here. That I must sit here and be unable to finish--"

[adivasheadvoices]

"And why art thou here? This is not Heaven, by my troth."

[newredmuses]

"Why, I came to the Gates of St. Peter and the good old man asked me if I'd care to come in. 'Not I," I said, 'for me, a death in a tavern is what I've always craved. I'll take my eternal reward with two sugars, an' it please.'"

[adivasheadvoices]

Kate bursts into laughter.

And then, before it can turn into weeping, kisses him.

[newredmuses]

Oh, now this is fit to extinguish all petty rages. He puts his hands to her cheeks and leans into her. This feels real, at last.

When they break away, his fingers have already found themselves in her hair. "I know enough, it is not hell. I am glad to see you, very so."

[adivasheadvoices]

"My lord," she murmurs. "My love."

Her cheeks are wet.

[newredmuses]

With one hand he takes up hers, and cradles her cheek with the other. "My one," he says softly, "shall we go somewhere a while?"

[adivasheadvoices]

She manages a smile, now.

"Aye, Harry, that we shall."

[newredmuses]

Not that it's eavesdropping, it's hard not to overhear those two -- but one fellow in particular may just have done a little fistpump to see the pair of them head hand in hand off toward Hotspur's room. Not that he was snooping or nothing. You know how it is.