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Is it a blessing or a curse to be reunited with those who are gone?

The question has been much on Kate's mind since she returned to this place and found her Harry here, seemingly alive -- and yet, as he told her, trapped in this purgatory, unable to move forward or back. So Kate finds herself in a position no widow has ever been in: she may have the enjoyment of her dead husband again, but not the keeping of him. Should she leave this place at the end of the world, he dies to her again. And she's not sure she has the strength to lose him more than once.

They're heavy thoughts, but she can cast them off for hours at a time in Harry's bed. They only begin to creep up on her when she slips out of his room while he sleeps. (He looks too much like the dead Hotspur of her nightmares, then, still and quiet. She used to love sleeping beside him; now she prefers him awake and laughing.)

So evening in Milliways finds her in the common room, dressed again in her mourning black -- the only clothes she has here -- and splitting her attention between brooding glances at the fire and fascinated people-watching.

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"That Allan fellow did give me a very start, I confess."

Under the table, Harry immediately resolves to help Allan perfect his northern accent, shave off that ridiculous goatee and terrorize Hal.

Hal meditates on the phrase "the deal walk," but moves on to surer grounds. "It is tonight; every room is hushed and all within are anxious. Interregnums make any court skittish."

"And any son."

Hal only smiles.

"More wine, my lady?"

"An it please you."

Why not. In for a penny.

He pours for them both.

"I do not begin to think we will see each other like this when we are both on the right side of our door... but I do hope you will write, Kate, if there is news."

Speaking of sons. Particularly when said sons may be an issue of national security.

At which point Harry bumps his head on underside of the table. Hal frowns at Kate. "Was that you?"

She coughs. Loudly.

"Your pardon, lord -- I do not often drink with kings. Forgive me if my nerves best me at times."

"Your nerves were far less fraught and more for the fray an hour ago," he says wryly.

"Perhaps I've thought the better of it now."

Hint: This is a lie, she would totally punch him again.

Edited 2012-08-19 19:14 (UTC)

Yeah, he believes that.

He glances at the bottle; more than half empty. She may keep the rest. He takes a deep breath and exhales. "I have no wish to shred your nerves further. I had best take my leave besides."

"Your graciousness to a lady does you credit, sire."

She lifts a hand to stop him leaving, though.

"My lord -- to lie is sin, and I cannot say I sorrow for the blow I struck thee, but I thank thee for bearing it so well. And for our lands, but--"

Beneath the table, she touches Harry's hair again.

"But most I thank thee for your report of my Harry. I would that he had heard you speak of him so."

"I would that he and I had parted as friends, my lady. I pray that God keeps him in a better world now."

It is a good thing Harry Percy is so anchored, for given leave to speak and room to move, even he cannot know what he would do next. He watches that madcap, that swindler, that sovereign prince rise from the booth and bid his wife adieu, as though there were little between them as a misunderstanding.

She keeps her hand on Harry's head until Hal is well gone.

Then she pulls away from him and pushes the wine away from her, nearly spilling it.

He cannot believe most of what he has just heard, and endured. When he has crawled out from under the table and stared after the Prince of Wales, he cannot muster one coherent thought; all churns within him, that feeling he well knows of old.

After a long silence, he turns toward the table. "What was that?" he asks quietly, not entirely looking at Kate.

Her jaw tightens.

"He is king, Harry, and from his throne he swears the crown shall not seize your lands."

"Is the old Henry dead, then? Why, God save the English!" He laughs, once, bitterly. "I shall trust this Henry as well as I did the last one. And why should he promise such a thing, Kate? What oath can he swear that will hold in any world, that one or this? Give him a war to wage, then he'll knock on our door."

"What would you have me do, then? Pick up a sword myself and run him through?"

"It would be a start!"

He closes his eyes and props himself against the table. "Kate, what did he want from you?"

"To speak with me, and make me recompense. No more."

She starts to reach for him, but draws back.

"I beg your pardon, love, Harry, pardon me."

He shakes his head. "Would that I had spoke with him. Would that I had had my sword."

Her temper flares.

"And so undo what good we might have done."

"What good! What good? Cold comfort to keep our lands -- and by God's grace, lands that we have held for longer than Lancaster's been on the throne or near it!"

Were it any other man -- any other in the world, he might be able to see reason. But he cannot brook the vision of Harry Monmouth, bloodied and trembling on the ground, gripping his dagger when he has given away his sword.

"Cold comfort to you who are cold!" she snaps. "But warm enough to I when I must needs leave my Harry's arms!"

A pained look crosses his face. "Ah, love, let us not tread there for a little while yet."

"I have tread there this last month and I will wear that path to gravel and to dust ere my days are out."

She rubs a hand over her face.

"Ah, God, I pray you, Harry, rebuke me not if I seek to clothe me in security. I wear my griefs against my skin and they make sorry armor."

He watches her, his temper extinguished. "Nay, I cannot begrudge you that," he says quietly.

He lowers himself into the seat beside her, though hesitant to draw her close.