Title: When There Is Nothing Left

Rating: T

Summary: Friendship, betrayal, hatred. It's the story of two best friends: Allan a Dale, Will Scarlett. No one ever stops to wonder whether the ending of the tale will be as happy as the beginning.

Disclaimer: This particular version of Robin Hood is owned by the BBC, God bless 'em (and their promos – Will/Djaq forever!).

Oh, and this was written for a contest. So yeah. XD

R&R is love, and enjoy!

When There Is Nothing Left

It's not the pain that gets him so much, as the realisation that there is no one there to help him.

With his back to the hard-packed dirt courtyard, Will lies gasping. He can hear the cries of the others—echoing, screaming, wanting, needing—but they cannot get to him. He is alone; shot down. The stray separated from the pack.

He tries to move; tries to drag himself up, to fight, to flee. A scream wells up behind his clenched lips, and he whimpers. His hands press to his side, around the shaft of the arrow that has ripped its way through his flesh.

Blood wells up, seeping away and marring the earth.

A familiar face appears above him – balding head, silk slippers, bejewelled tooth. The Sheriff, his mind prompts. Dread; horror; anger. He wants to sleep. Black-painted nails grasp at the arrow in his side, and twitch.

Heat and shock and pain.

He screams.

Cool fingers press against his forehead, and he focuses on that meagre touch. Marian's worried eyes float above him.

Marian. Marian and Robin. One and one makes two: they are a pair. Where's Robin?

Will's mind is disjointed; confused. He can't think. His thoughts don't follow.

"He needs help!" Marian insists.

"Get her out of here," the Sheriff says dismissively, and tweaks the arrow again.

White lights, flashing, searing, burning. Oh God, oh God, make it stop!

Marian's furious voice twists through his mind, and he can hear Gisborne speaking in low tones to her as he drags her away, saying "Quiet!" and "Calm!", and Will thinks that Robin would never insist those things of her, and Marian is shouting back at Gisborne that Will is her friend and how can he let this happen and—

Allan.

There is fear in his traitorous friend's eyes.

The Sheriff moves away, bored. "Dungeon," he orders. "If he survives the night, hang him in the morning."

Still, Allan stands there.

The blue eyes of the betrayer; the red blood of the betrayed.

Help me, Will thinks, but then he remembers that there is no one there to help him.

Allan is suddenly beside him, kneeling on the ground. He presses one palm to Will's chest – holding him down, or keeping him safe? "Sorry," he murmurs softly.

"We came here because of you." Will's voice is cracked and bloody. "You said—" He coughs, and blood spatters across his lips.

"I didn't lie," Allan cuts across him softly, halting any further attempt at speech. "I wouldn't lie. Not to you."

It's a sudden moment of clarity that jolts through Will; a shaft of light in the fog of his pain-addled mind. He looks up, and his eyes are clear. "I'm dying, Allan."

Allan makes a funny noise; a kind of half-sob, half-laugh, all stuck in his throat and wound up with tension. "No, you're not," he denies.

"You said you wouldn't lie."

"You can't die."

Will blinks, and a tear slides down his cheek. He doesn't quite understand where it came from. He feels cold.

Suddenly, inexplicably, he wants Djaq.

"Will!"

It's his name, he recognises that much. It's screamed with such fear and passion and grief that he wonders who it came from. He's perfectly fine, after all, why should anyone scream like that?

Allan's face. Fear; grief; anger. Tears.

"Take me home, Allan," Will Scarlett whispers, and his eyes close, and, after just a second of blinding white light, the pain stops.

---------

The soft sound of a horse's hooves is what draws them out of their camp. They stand in the evening sunlight, arrayed in a loose line. No one speaks. No one can.

Allan is alone, and riding a black horse. The leather and dark colours are gone: once more, he wears the clothes of an outlaw. Yesterday, they would have forced him out, no matter his garb. Today, they cannot move.

Allan is crying, was crying, had been crying, has been crying. Tears gleam on his cheeks, but he rides on. A shape wrapped in black cloth rests before him.

The black horse stops, and stands motionless, head bowed.

Allan slides down from the saddle.

---------

Robin and Allan stand in the forest.

"Was it worth it?" Robin asks softly, his voice full of grief and confusion and hate. "Betraying us? Betraying us for money?"

Allan doesn't answer. He can't.

"Will is dead because of you." Robin's gaze is hard and unforgiving. Allan just wants to forget, but he knows that he cannot. He knows that Robin will not let him. He knows that he will never let himself.

Will.

He has to remember Will. The friend he killed.

"Dead."

Somewhere in his mind, Allan wonders how Robin can say those words so emotionlessly. But then he remembers who Robin is, what Robin has lived, and it makes more sense.

Allan looks down. His eyes close.

"You called us in. You said the Black Knights were coming. We trusted you; you were the reason we were in Nottingham. You are the reason that he is dead."

Robin waits, and the wind whispers in the trees.

"Take me home, Allan." A memory, flashing through the corners of his tumbled psyche. He hates it, and at the same time begs it to never stop – the day it stops is the day he loses everything he is. Maybe he has already lost it.

A lone tear; crystal-perfect and silent in grief. It rests on his cheek, as if it has always been there.

There are no words for his pain, so all Allan can whisper, with his voice nearly breaking, are his scattered thoughts that mean so much more than he can ever say:

"If I had known it would end like this, I never would have told you."

--end--