Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Over the next several days, Marco discovered that kissing Robert did not become less distracting simply because they had begun doing it regularly. If anything, it became worse.

There were kisses in the kitchen now, usually when Robert came in from outside and found Marco alone, and kisses before Robert left in the morning that sometimes lasted long enough for Marco to remind him that he had been the one complaining about all the work waiting in the fields. There were quieter ones upstairs at night, when they had finished talking and Robert reached for him beneath the blankets as naturally as though they had been going to sleep that way for years. They still went no further than that, although the line had begun to feel less fixed than it had before.

One night they were lying close together in bed, kissing in the dark with considerably less hesitation than there had been even a few days earlier. Marco had become used to Robert's hand resting at his waist and to the weight of his body close to his own, and he no longer had to remind himself every few seconds that he was allowed to touch back. His fingers were tangled in Robert's hair when Robert shifted closer, and this time there was no mistaking the hardness pressing against him through their clothes as Robert leaned over him. 

Marco's heart began beating faster. He was nervous, but not frightened. He wanted Robert, he had spent enough time thinking about it to know that much.

When Robert kissed along his cheek, Marco gathered what courage he had. "Do you want me on my back like this?"

Robert stopped.

Marco waited, then added, "Or I can - maybe turn around."

"No."

Marco frowned. "No?"

Robert moved his head back enough to see him. "No, daling."

"...But you want to."

Robert's expression shifted slightly. "I want you."

Marco glanced down between them before looking back at him. He could tell. That earned the faintest smile, but Robert still made no move to do anything more. Marco did not understand him.

"I don't mind," he said. "Really. I want you to."

"Okay."

"Then why do you keep saying no?" he whispered back into the dark, sounding stupid and desperate even to his own ears. 

Robert was quiet for a moment, his hand still resting against Marco's waist. "Because you keep asking me how I want you instead of telling me what you want."

Marco stared at him. "I just told you."

"You told me I can have you on your back or turn you over."

"Yes! It's better if you decide."

"That's not what I'm asking."

Marco's confusion must have shown because Robert sighed softly and brushed his thumb along his side. "Do you want to do that?"

"I want you to do what you want to do."

"Do you think you'll like it?"

Marco hesitated. He could have lied, but Robert was watching him too closely.

"I don't know."

"Marco."

"What?" Marco shifted slightly beneath his hand. "I don't have to like every part of it."

Robert's eyebrows drew together. Marco knew immediately that this was going badly again.

"I don't mean that I don't want you," he said quickly. "I do. It's just... different for Omegas, it might hurt. That doesn't mean I don't want to do it."

"Why would I want to hurt you?"

"You wouldn't be doing it to hurt me."

Robert continued looking at him. Marco tried to find a better way to explain something that had never seemed complicated before. "It's different for an Alpha. You enjoy it, differently."

"And you don't?"

"...Sometimes."

"Sometimes."

Marco wished Robert would stop repeating the parts that sounded worse when spoken back to him. "It's not a bad thing," he insisted. "I'm your husband. I love—"

He caught himself so abruptly that Robert's eyes changed. Marco's face grew hot and he continued before Robert could say anything about it. "I want to make you happy. That's all."

For a moment Robert simply looked at him, and Marco wondered whether he had somehow managed to make things even worse. Then Robert leaned forward and kissed him once, much more gently than before.

"There are other things, darling, we can do."

Marco frowned. "What things?"

Robert kissed him again.  "There are different ways to be close."

Marco went very still. He knew that, obviously. At least in theory. He had simply never thought much about those things as something an Alpha might actually choose when his Omega was available to him. His old Alpha had enjoyed that sort of thing occasionally. Marco had usually been on his knees, throat sore for hours, a whole day sometimes. 

But Robert reached for Marco's hand and guided it slowly down between them, stopping with Marco's palm resting over the hardness he had already felt against him. Marco swallowed.

Robert watched him carefully. "Is this alright?"

Marco looked down at their hands. "And that's enough?" It couldn’t be enough for him. 

"If that's what we want to do, yes."

Robert held his wrist loosely and Marco could have pulled away. He didn’t, of course. He tried to control his shallow breathing and moved his hand. 

Marco hesitated at first, painfully conscious of every movement and of how close Robert was beside him. He had touched an Alpha intimately before, of course, but there had usually been an expectation attached to it, an impatient hand showing him what was wanted or the knowledge that one thing was merely the beginning of everything that would follow. This felt different simply because Robert was doing nothing to hurry him.

Marco moved his hand tentatively, watching Robert rather than what he was doing. Robert's breathing changed, and the response sent an unexpected little rush of satisfaction through Marco. He tried again with slightly more confidence, learning from Robert's expression and the way his body reacted rather than waiting for instructions.

When Marco had reached past the clothes Robert was wearing, Robert grabbed him, his hand settling against Marco's side, and Marco tensed before he could help it.

The hand immediately stopped.

"No, no, you can keep touching me," Marco whispered.

Robert's thumb moved gently against his side. "Here?"

Marco nodded.

That was all Robert did.

The realization slowly loosened something in Marco. Robert was allowing himself to enjoy what Marco was giving him without turning it into a claim on the rest of Marco's body. Marco could concentrate on Robert, on the quiet changes in his breathing and the way his composure gradually became less convincing, without simultaneously preparing himself for what would happen afterward.

Robert was above him, panting by now, hips moving slightly along with Marco’s hand on his penis. His eyes were closed, mouth slightly open as he drew breath sharper and sharper. 

There was something deeply satisfying about being responsible for Robert losing some of that endless control. Marco had seen him tired, irritated, amused and angry by now, but this was different, and knowing that he was the reason for it made warmth spread through Marco that had very little to do with embarrassment. Robert looked terribly handsome like this. 

“Fuck, darling..”

Marco slowed uncertainly, wondering whether he was doing something wrong, and Robert opened his eyes. "Don't stop."

Marco almost smiled. "..Like that?"

Robert nodded and kissed him instead of answering, and Marco found that easier than being instructed. He could pay attention. He could work out what Robert liked for himself. More importantly, Robert seemed perfectly content to let him. 

His eyes closed again, and for a moment they shared the same uneven breaths before Robert leaned in shakily, pressing his forehead into the curve of Marco's neck. Marco had never known him like this, quiet in an entirely different way from his usual silence, his composure slipping enough that Marco could feel it in every breath against his skin.

"Don't stop," Robert murmured again, his voice strained now as he chased the last of his pleasure.

A moment later he came into Marco's hand, his forehead still pressed into the curve of Marco's neck as his whole body tensed, the stillness in the room broken by a loud groan. Marco stayed close, almost startled by how quickly all that barely contained tension left Robert afterwards, and by the quiet satisfaction that settled over him when he realized that he had been the one to make that happen.

For several seconds neither of them moved. Robert's breathing was still uneven against Marco's skin, and Marco kept his other hand at the back of his neck, fingers resting there without quite knowing why. It felt strangely tender for something Marco had always thought of as simply another way of satisfying an Alpha.

Robert finally lifted his head and looked at him, his face flushed and his usual composure not quite recovered. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.” Marco said. He had done that. He had done this to him. Robert pulled him closer, both arms wrapping around Marco. 

More surprising was what had happened afterward.

Nothing.

Robert had not turned him onto his stomach or taken Marco's willingness to touch him as permission to continue. He had simply kissed Marco, pulled him against his chest and settled down.  Marco lay awake for a little while longer, listening to Robert breathe. He was still not entirely convinced by Luka's claim that Omegas could enjoy all of this as much as Alphas did. But perhaps Luka had been right about some things.

Robert had already fed the animals by the time Marco came downstairs, and after breakfast he disappeared outside again to repair the fence behind the stable. Before leaving, he kissed Marco beside the kitchen table, lingering just long enough to make Marco smile when the door closed behind him.

Marco stood there for a moment before returning to his work.

He was happy.

There was no more complicated word for it. He had gone to sleep in Robert's arms and woken there too, and nothing about the morning had suggested that Robert expected anything different from him now. If anything, the memory of the night before belonged almost entirely to Marco: Robert's face against his neck, his uneven breathing, the startling satisfaction Marco had felt at being able to please him.

He had done something because he wanted to. Robert had enjoyed it. Marco was still turning that over in his mind while he worked when somebody knocked at the front door. He wiped his hands and went to answer it.

Robert's mother stood outside.

Marco straightened instinctively. She held a familiar dish in her hands and for one absurd moment, Marco looked only at that. He had forgotten it at her house after Robert pulled him away from the table, and in the days since then he had deliberately avoided mentioning it. Remembering the dish meant remembering the afternoon attached to it, and Marco had been perfectly content to lose one piece of crockery forever if necessary.

"Good morning." She held it toward him. "You left this."

"Thank you."

Marco took it and immediately noticed that it was empty. More than empty. It had been scrubbed clean. Marco was not entirely sure whether that was more insulting than simply returning it untouched. He stepped aside. "Would you like to come in?"

She entered.

Marco closed the door and carried the dish into the kitchen, acutely aware of her following behind him. He set it beside the basin and turned to offer coffee or tea, but she was already looking around.

"You've moved the table."

"Oh. Yes."

Her gaze remained on it. "It was better where it was."

Marco looked at the table too. He liked it near the window. Robert had said nothing when Marco moved it, except that he nearly walked into its old place twice during the first week. Now Robert automatically sat where the morning light reached him.

Marco kept that to himself. "I can make you coffee."

"I don't want coffee."

She moved farther into the kitchen. Watching her look around made Marco suddenly aware of how much of himself had appeared in Robert's house without him ever consciously deciding to change it. The furniture was the same, but it no longer stood quite where it had when Marco arrived. The shelves had been reorganized according to what he used most often. A cloth he had chosen covered the table, the washing basket had moved, and Robert's collection of things that had once been left wherever he happened to put them had gradually acquired proper places.

Her eyes settled on the knives, displayed openly on the kitchen counter in their little box. "Those are new."

Marco nodded. "Robert bought them."

She picked up one, examined the handle and put it back. "Expensive."

Marco said nothing.

"The old ones were perfectly good. His father had made them. They served me for years before I left them here."

"They still are good. I kept them."

That seemed the safest answer. She glanced toward the shelves again.

"You've changed quite a lot."

Marco folded his hands loosely in front of himself.

"A few things."

"More than a few."

He smiled politely as she continued looking. Marco had become very good at being inspected long before he came here. He knew how to stand without appearing defensive, how to answer without encouraging another question and, most importantly, how to let a remark pass even when he understood perfectly well that it had not been intended kindly. Robert's mother was hardly the first person to enter a room and make Marco feel as though his presence in it required justification. It was easier simply not to provide one.

"Robert always managed the house well enough before. Used his father’s knives well enough before."

"I'm sure he did."

Her eyes flicked toward him and Marco smiled again. That apparently irritated her more than disagreement might have. "He told you about his father, then."

The change of subject caught Marco off guard. "..Yes."

"Everything?"

"I don't know."

She studied him. "You know Robert isn't his son."

Marco nodded. "Robert told me after we visited."

There had been more to the story than Marco expected. Robert had grown up believing the man who raised him was his father. Nobody had told him otherwise, although apparently other people had wondered for years. As Robert grew older, the differences became harder to ignore. He resembled neither the man nor his brothers enough, and his supposed father had noticed long before anyone admitted the truth. Worse, he had punished Robert for it. Only when the man was dying had Robert's mother finally told him that Robert was not his biological child. Marco had listened when Robert told him and asked very few questions. There were some things he could work out for himself.

His mother had been mated when Robert was conceived. Marco had tried not to judge her for that. He had not been particularly successful.

Perhaps it was unfair. He knew almost nothing about her marriage. But he remembered too well what it had been like when his own Alpha went elsewhere, and particularly what followed when other people found out. Their sympathy had humiliated Marco almost as much as their gossip. People had looked at him and wondered what he had failed to provide, why his husband needed another Omega when he already had one at home. He had never understood how somebody could willingly inflict that humiliation on the person they had married.

Robert's mother was watching him. "You disapprove."

Marco's stomach tightened. "No."

"Don't lie."

Marco lowered his eyes. He had learned long ago that silence was often safer than attempting to defend himself after somebody had already decided what he thought. 

She gave a small, unpleasant laugh. "At least have the courage to admit it."

Marco looked at her again but said nothing.

"You think I betrayed him."

He wished Robert would come inside.

"Don't you, little lord?"

Marco chose his words carefully. "It isn't my place to judge your marriage."

Her expression changed slightly. "How diplomatic."

Marco ignored that. She walked toward the window.

"Knowing my husband, he would have thrown Robert out of this house the moment he had confirmation."

Marco frowned before he could stop himself. "This house?"

She looked back at him. "Yes."

Marco glanced around. He did not understand what Robert's childhood had to do with the farmhouse they were standing in now. "I thought this was Robert's."

Something almost amused entered her expression. "Did you?"

Marco felt the first stirrings of unease.

She looked around the kitchen again, taking in the moved table and the knives and everything else Marco had slowly begun thinking of as theirs. "He hasn't told you."

"Told me what?"

“Where did he find you again, this stupid and naive?” She turned back toward the window. "My husband always suspected, you know. Robert grew into the wrong face, and every year it became harder for him to pretend he didn't see it."

Marco's unease about the house gave way to something else. Robert had told him enough about that part.

"He would look at Robert and see another man. He hated him for it. Made him pay regularly."

Marco pressed his lips together.

"Of course, he never had proof. Not until the end."

"You told him."

She glanced over. "Robert told you that much too."

Marco nodded.

"I told him because I wanted him to know before he died." There was something about the way she said it that made Marco look at her more carefully. "I wanted him to suffer."

Marco said nothing.

"He was a drunk and a bastard, and I wanted him to die believing that his Omega had gone to another Alpha. I wanted him to look at Robert and know he had raised another man's son. I wanted him furious. More than that, I wanted him humiliated."

Marco could not keep his discomfort entirely from his face. He thought suddenly of his own husband near the end of his life. There had been no satisfaction in watching him become weaker. Relief, yes, although Marco had spent a long time feeling ashamed of that relief. He remembered sitting beside the bed because it was expected of him, bringing water, changing linen and listening to the increasingly difficult breaths of a man who had frightened him for years. He had wanted it to be over. He had never wanted to make him suffer more.

"There."

Marco's attention returned to her. She was staring at him. "That's the face."

Marco immediately lowered his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"No, you're not."

Marco said nothing.

"You think whatever sort of man he was, I shouldn't have done that to my Alpha."

It was close enough to the truth that Marco could not answer without lying. She stepped closer.

"Look at me."

Marco did.

"I never betrayed him."

He frowned. For the first time since she arrived, she seemed to struggle with what she was about to say, although the hesitation lasted only a moment. "Robert's father was my husband's friend. Do you understand?"

Marco waited.

"They drank together. Constantly. They were drunk the night Robert was conceived too."

Something cold settled in Marco's stomach.

"His friend forced himself on me." Her face remained hard. "And my husband watched."

Marco stared at her.

"He watched his friend force himself on me, and he laughed."

For several seconds Marco heard nothing except the faint sounds coming from outside. Robert working. The animals. A bird somewhere near the window. Everything continuing as though she had not just changed the meaning of an entire life in two sentences.

Marco's eyes began to burn. "...I didn't know."

"No." Her voice was merciless. "You didn't."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't you dare pity me now."

Marco swallowed. "I wasn't—"

"You were happy enough to think me a whore five minutes ago. I don't need you looking at me like some poor wounded thing now."

He could not even blame her for it. He had judged her. Quietly, perhaps. He had never spoken badly of her to Robert or anyone else, but he had looked at the facts he knew and decided he understood them. He hadn't. "I'm sorry," he said again.

"Stop saying that." She turned away from him. s"I wanted my husband to believe I had betrayed him. That was the point. I wanted him to think I had chosen another Alpha and given him a son. I wanted him to wonder how many times I'd done it and how many people knew. He cared about humiliation more than he ever cared about me."

Marco thought of the gossip surrounding his own marriage. For the first time he understood exactly why she had chosen that particular weapon. It made him feel worse.

She looked back at him and immediately saw it. "And now you understand me."

A knock sounded at the door before Marco could think of anything else to say and he was grateful for it. "I'll get it."

Robert's mother made no attempt to stop him. Marco crossed the kitchen quickly, grateful for the few seconds in which he could turn his back on her and arrange his face into something more presentable. He had barely opened the door before Jude was coming through it.

"I swear, if your husband has sent Erling to help him with that fence again, I'm going to—"

Jude stopped. He had already stepped past Marco, baby Erik in a little blanket in his arms, and the easy irritation disappeared from his face the moment he saw the woman standing in the kitchen. Jude had plainly expected to find Marco alone. He had probably intended to stay for coffee, complain about Erling and whatever crime he had committed that morning, and perhaps give Marco the baby for an hour if he was feeling particularly shameless about it. Instead he stood in Marco's entrance staring at Robert's mother.

She stared back. Jude recovered first, although not by much. "Good morning. I apologize, I didn’t.."

"Jude Bellingham."

Something about the way she said his full name made Jude's expression become noticeably more cautious. "Yes."

Her attention moved over him from head to toe, lingering briefly at his middle before returning to his face. "So you survived."

Jude blinked.

"I was wondering whether you'd had that pup already."

Jude's eyebrows rose. Robert's mother continued looking him over. "Healthy?"

"Yes, very."

"And the Viking doesn't mind that the child isn't as pale as he is?"

Marco's stomach dropped. Jude said nothing. That was considerably more alarming than if Jude had become angry. Marco had known him long enough now to recognize that particular silence. Jude was not failing to think of an answer. He was thinking of far too many and, for once, apparently attempting to decide whether any of them were suitable to say to an older woman. Robert's mother seemed entirely untroubled by it.

"Your mother will be happy you survived, of course. You should write to her."

That did it. Jude's expression changed completely. "My mother?"

"Yes, your mother."

Jude stared at her. Robert's mother gave him the impatient look of someone who could not understand why the conversation had become difficult.

"Who else would I mean?"

"Why are you talking about my mother?"

Marco looked between them, wishing suddenly that he hadn’t opened the door today.  Robert's mother sighed. "Do you really think you let that brute take you away to wastelands like these, settle down with only another Alpha as your nearest neighbour and start having his children, and your mother doesn't try to inquire after you?"

Jude did not move. Marco had never seen him so still. "Inquire with who?"

"Anyone who might know something." Her tone suggested this should have been obvious. "She found her way to people here eventually. I've had to tell her several times that yes, you're still here, you're still sound, and as far as anybody can tell the enormous blond man hasn't killed yo yet."

Marco suddenly remembered everything Jude had said about his family, the letters from Jobe, the years away, and the way his eyes had filled with tears on Marco's sofa when he admitted that missing them had not stopped simply because he was happy with Erling. His mother had been asking about him.

"When?" Jude asked.

Robert's mother shrugged. "Now and then."

"How long?"

"I don't keep records of other people's family problems."

Jude's mouth opened, then closed again. Marco wanted to go to him. He also suspected touching him at that particular moment might be a mistake. Robert's mother seemed to have already lost interest in the revelation she had just dropped into Jude's lap. She reached for her gloves instead. "Honestly. What is it with you young Omegas these days?"

Jude still appeared incapable of answering.

"One runs off with some Viking twice his size and disappears for years, then comes back here and starts producing children as though nobody might wonder whether he's alive."

Her eyes moved to Marco. Marco had the distinct and immediate feeling that he would prefer whatever came next to remain unspoken. It did not. 

"And the other one..." She looked him over.Her gaze lingered long enough that Marco became acutely conscious of every one of his thirty years. "Well. Not exactly young anymore, are you?" Robert's mother pulled on one glove. "At least this one had the sense to tell people where he was going."

Marco's embarrassment disappeared. That one landed differently. He thought of his family knowing exactly where he had gone because they had been involved in every stage of arranging it. He thought of four months of letters, his train ticket and the long journey east because putting as much distance as possible between himself and home had seemed the safest choice available to him. He had been very well behaved about leaving. Something in him, already rubbed raw by the conversation before Jude arrived, finally slipped.

“You know, you were fortunate Robert wasn't particular in his search for a little Omega to warm his bed.”

“Robert was particular. He chose me. And I think you should leave my house.”

The kitchen went silent.

Marco heard himself only after he had finished speaking. His stomach tightened. Robert's mother stopped pulling on her second glove. Marco lowered his gaze almost automatically. The apology was already forming, an old and familiar response arriving quickly enough that he could have offered it before anyone demanded one. He didn't. That was perhaps the strangest part.

When he looked up again, Robert's mother was still staring at him. For the first time since Marco had met her, he appeared to have said something she had not already prepared an answer for. Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Hm."

Marco waited. She finished putting on her glove. "Perhaps Robert hasn't brought home quite as obedient a little lord as I thought."

Heat climbed Marco's neck. Jude looked from her to Marco and back again. Robert's mother adjusted the cuff of her coat as though nothing unusual had happened. "Good."

Marco had absolutely no idea what to do with that. Apparently neither did Jude. She moved toward the door, forcing Jude to step aside for her. Before passing him, she stopped.

Jude visibly braced himself. Her expression remained as unpleasantly matter-of-fact as ever. "Write to your mother, boy."

Jude's face hardened again. "If she wants to know whether I'm alive, she can write to me."

Robert's mother gave him a long look. "Then I suppose you're more like her than either of you would enjoy hearing."

Jude looked genuinely offended.

She opened the door. "What is it with you young Omegas?" she muttered again as she stepped outside. The door shut behind her. Neither Marco nor Jude spoke.

Marco continued staring at the door, listening to her footsteps move across the yard. Only when they had faded did he become aware of Jude standing beside him.There was another silence.

Then Jude slowly turned his head. He looked as though he had approximately twenty questions and was struggling to decide which disaster deserved attention first. Marco suspected he looked much the same. Neither of them seemed particularly interested in coffee anymore.

Jude stayed until evening.

He did not say anything about Robert's mother or his own. Neither did Marco.

Robert came in sometime before dinner, washed and changed his shirt, and Erling appeared not long afterward to collect Jude. By then Marco had made enough food for everyone, so Erling stayed, and the four of them ate together around the kitchen table while Jude behaved so normally that Marco began to wonder whether he had imagined the expression on his face when Robert's mother mentioned Jude's own.

He hadn't. Every now and then Jude became quiet in the middle of the conversation, only to recover before either Alpha seemed to notice. Marco did much the same.

When Erling finally stood to leave, Jude went with him without mentioning what had happened that morning. He only gave Marco a look at the door, one that lasted a little longer than usual, before following his Alpha outside. Marco understood.  Robert closed the door behind them and came back to the table.

Marco began gathering the plates. Robert helped without being asked, carrying the cups to the basin while Marco scraped what remained of dinner into a smaller bowl for tomorrow. They worked around one another easily now, Marco moving aside before Robert needed the space, Robert reaching past him for the cloth without either of them thinking much about how close it brought them. Usually Marco liked this part of the evening. Tonight he could not stop hearing Robert's mother.

He kept thinking of her standing at his window, telling him what had happened with the same hard expression she had used to criticize his knives. He thought about Robert as a child in this house, although he wasn't even certain Robert had been a child here, and about a man looking at him year after year and punishing him for having another man's face.

He wondered how much Robert knew. That thought was the worst one, so Marco pushed it away again.Robert dried the last plate and put it down. "Are you all right?"

Marco looked at him. "Yes, of course."

Robert leaned back against the table rather than accepting that immediately. Marco folded the cloth.

"Did you and Jude fight?"

That startled him enough that he almost laughed. "Of course not!"

"All right." Robert was still watching him. Marco looked down at the cloth in his hands and realized he had folded it twice more than necessary. "Why would you think that?"

"You've both been strange all evening." Robert waited, and when Marco offered nothing more, something in his expression changed. His eyes moved away for a moment. "Oh."

Marco frowned. Robert rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.

"About last night—"

Marco's stomach dropped for an entirely different reason. "What about it?"

Robert looked at him again, clearly trying to decide how to say whatever had occurred to him. "If you didn't—" He stopped and then tried once more. "If I made you uncomfortable, you don't have to—"

"No."

The answer came so quickly that Robert fell silent. Marco's face warmed. "No. You didn't."

Robert studied him. Marco wished he could explain without explaining everything else. He could hardly tell Robert what his mother had told him, not when it belonged to her as much as it belonged to Robert, and certainly not before he knew what Robert himself knew about the circumstances of his birth. But he could not let Robert think last night had been a mistake.

"I liked last night."

Robert's face softened slightly.

"I mean, I wanted to."

"Okay, good."

There was no teasing in Robert's voice. That made it easier. Robert remained where he was for another moment before glancing toward the stairs.

"I can sleep down here tonight."

Marco looked up sharply. "What?"

"On the sofa."

"Why?"

Robert gave him a look that suggested the answer should be obvious. "If you want some space."

"I don't." Marco felt something tighten painfully in his chest. All day he had been carrying thoughts of Robert's family, Robert's childhood and the things his mother had said, and now Robert was standing in front of him preparing to remove himself from his own bed because Marco had been quiet over dinner. "No," Marco repeated, more firmly. "I don't want you to sleep down here."

Robert searched his face. "...All right."

The relief Marco felt was disproportionate. He put the cloth down and stepped closer. He did not quite know what he intended until his hand found Robert's sleeve, fingers curling lightly around his forearm. Instead of stopping, he moved closer still. "Come upstairs with me."

Something in Robert's face eased. He covered Marco's hand briefly with his own. "All right, darling."

Marco still didn't tell him what had happened. Not that night. But when they eventually went upstairs, Robert did not return to his old side of the bed, and Marco did not wait for him to decide where they should lie. He moved toward Robert as soon as the mattress dipped beneath his weight, tucked himself against his side and felt Robert's arm settle around him.

For a while they simply lay there. Marco thought again of Robert's mother, of Robert offering to sleep downstairs because he thought Marco might need distance from him. Marco pressed his face more firmly against Robert's shoulder. Whatever else he did not understand yet, he was certain of one thing. Last night was not something he wanted to take back. 

By the time the first signs of autumn appeared, Robert's mother had become another thing Marco had worried over without anything actually coming of it.

For several days after her visit, he had half expected somebody else from Robert's family to appear. He found himself looking toward the road whenever he heard wheels and listening more carefully whenever Robert mentioned town, waiting for some indication that his brothers had written or his mother had spoken to him about what had happened. Nothing came.

Nobody visited. Robert did not suggest another Sunday with his family, and if his mother had told him anything about her conversation with Marco, he gave no sign of it. Eventually the farm stopped leaving Marco enough time to worry properly.

The days were shortening, although the work seemed determined to expand to fill every remaining hour of light. There were potatoes to lift and bring in, vegetables to sort, stores to prepare and feed to put away before the weather turned. Robert was already talking about what needed repairing before winter and which fields still had to be dealt with, and some evenings he came inside with enough soil on him that Marco made him leave half his clothes by the door.

Marco was busier too. Some of it was the same work he had done since spring, only there was more of everything now. The kitchen seemed permanently occupied by baskets, jars or something waiting to be cleaned, cooked, dried or put away. But gradually, almost without noticing when it had happened, Marco had begun doing things outside as well. He collected the eggs without thinking about it anymore. He fed the chickens himself, including Helga, who had grown so shameless that she now came running the moment she saw him carrying anything remotely edible. He could manage the cows when Robert needed another pair of hands for something simple, although he still preferred when they remained exactly where they were supposed to be. He had spent one entire afternoon sorting potatoes until his back hurt and another carrying smaller baskets into storage while Robert dealt with the heavier ones.

Robert had looked at him strangely the first time Marco followed him out to help. After that it simply became something they did. On particularly busy days, somebody else usually appeared as well. Erling came when his own work allowed it, and Sergio occasionally arrived with one or two of his older children. The arrangement seemed to involve very little formal asking. One man helped another when there was work that needed more hands, and eventually the favour went back in the other direction. Marco was beginning to understand that too.

That afternoon Sergio appeared with his eldest son while Robert was already out beyond the stable. Marco noticed them from the kitchen window.

The boy had grown enough that from a distance Marco occasionally mistook him for someone older, especially when he walked beside his father.  Marco watched them cross toward Robert and then returned to the vegetables spread across the table.

Some time later he saw all three men farther out, although he could not tell exactly what they were doing. Something involving a wagon, from the look of it, and enough lifting that Marco was perfectly content to remain in the kitchen. He had nearly finished when somebody knocked Marco wiped his hands and went to the door to find Sergio standing outside.

Marco hesitated for only a moment before smiling. "Hello."

"Hello." Sergio glanced behind him toward the fields, then back at Marco. "Busy?"

Marco looked at the kitchen behind him. "A little."

"Everyone is busy, I suppose." Sergio offered, then there was a pause. 

Despite knowing Sergio for months now, there was still something about having the Alpha standing alone at his door that made Marco instinctively more careful. It was ridiculous by this point, but he couldn't go against his nature. 

"Robert says you're helping outside now."

Marco smiled slightly. "Sometimes."

"Luka will be impressed."

That made Marco's smile easier. "Tell him I've stopped being afraid of the chickens."

Sergio's mouth moved faintly. "Okay." Then, more carefully, "Would you like to come see Luka?"

Marco blinked. "Today?"

"Or tomorrow. Whenever you can."

"Of course."

Marco had not seen Luka properly in over a week, maybe even more. That was not particularly unusual now that everyone was busy, but he suddenly realized he could not remember the last time Luka had come by with Tomas. "I can come this afternoon, if Robert doesn't need me."

Sergio nodded, and Marco could see the tiredness around his eyes.  "Luka is supposed to stay in bed for the next few days."

Marco's concern was immediate. "Why?"

Sergio looked down briefly. Marco stepped farther into the doorway. "Is he ill?"

"No. Not ill." Sergio rubbed his thumb slowly along the side of his hand, and Marco had the strange realization that he had never seen the Alpha struggle this much to say something. "There was bleeding."

Marco went still. Sergio looked toward the yard rather than at him. "He lost a baby."

For a moment Marco did not understand. Then he did. "Oh." The word came out quietly.

Sergio's expression tightened. "It was early. Only a few weeks." He said it almost apologetically, as though Marco might decide that made it too small a thing to explain the sadness on his face.

"How many?"

"Six, maybe seven. We weren't completely certain yet."

Luka had been pregnant. He had lost the baby. And Marco had not even known there had been one.

"But.. when?"

"Three days ago."

Three days. Marco thought of those same three days with a horrible sense of disbelief. He had been sorting potatoes. He had complained to Robert about one of the jars not sealing properly. Yesterday he had spent half an hour trying to get mud out of one of Robert's shirts and had been irritated when Robert came home with more of it on his trousers.Meanwhile Luka had been bleeding.

"I didn't know."

"We hadn't told many people."

"But I haven't even been over."

His own memory had arrived before he could stop it, not as a complete picture but in pieces he knew too well: pain, the frightening warmth of blood, his hand pressed against his stomach and the terrible understanding that came before anybody needed to tell him what was happening. He pushed it away. "Is Luka all right?"

"The doctor says he will be." he said, shrugging. Sergio's voice changed slightly on the last word. "He keeps saying it was barely anything yet. Then he cries because he said that."

Marco's throat tightened. "I'll go."

Sergio studied him for a moment and then nodded again. "He'd like that."

Marco hoped so.He watched Sergio walk back toward the fields, his eldest son visible in the distance beside Robert, and remained in the doorway long after there was any reason to. Six or seven weeks. His hand moved unconsciously toward his own stomach, but Marco stopped it halfway. 

Marco went over as soon as he had finished what needed doing at home, carrying a covered bowl of soup despite Sergio having said nothing about bringing food.

He expected to find Luka in bed, but instead, Luka opened the door. For a moment Marco simply looked at him. Luka was dressed, his hair tied back loosely, and he was smiling as though there were nothing unusual about finding him on his feet after Sergio had stood at Marco's door looking more miserable than Marco had ever seen him.

"I'm fine," Luka said before Marco could ask. "He just worries."

Marco stepped inside. "Sergio said you're supposed to be in bed."

Luka waved that away and reached for the bowl Marco was carrying, but Marco moved it out of reach. "Bed."

Usually he would not have dreamed of entering somebody else's house and immediately telling them what to do in it, but something about Luka standing there pretending everything was perfectly ordinary made him unexpectedly stubborn. "The doctor told you to rest."

"The doctor also said I'm fine."

"Then you can be fine in bed."

For a moment Luka looked as though he might argue. Then something in his face changed and the smile disappeared. "All right."

Marco immediately wished he had been gentler. He put the food down in the kitchen and followed Luka upstairs instead. By the time Luka climbed back beneath the blankets, there was none of the false cheerfulness left in him. For a while neither of them spoke. The house was unusually quiet. Tomas was apparently with one of the older children, and Sergio had taken the eldest with him to Robert's farm. Marco suspected that arrangement had been considerably less accidental than Sergio had made it sound.

Luka picked at a loose thread on the blanket. "It was only brief."

Marco looked at him.

"I barely had time to understand what was happening," Luka continued. "I knew I was late, but that happens sometimes. I hadn't even told Sergio." His fingers stopped moving. "He knew anyway."

Marco waited. Luka gave a small, tired smile. "He could smell it."

Something cold went through Marco. The thought arrived so quickly and so horribly that he spoke before he could examine it. "...What happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"After Sergio knew."

Luka's expression changed as he understood the question. "Marco. Nothing."

Marco immediately looked down.

"Nothing happened," Luka repeated, more firmly this time. "Sergio didn't do anything."

"Of course." Marco wished he had not asked. Luka continued watching him for another moment, but thankfully he did not ask why Marco's mind had gone there so quickly.

"Nothing happened at all," he said eventually. "That's the worst part, maybe. I wasn't lifting anything heavy. I didn't fall. I didn't do anything I wasn't supposed to do. I woke up and there was blood."

Marco's hands tightened together in his lap. "These things happen," Luka said. After a while Luka drew the blanket higher over himself. "I'm all right."

Marco looked at him.

"I am." Luka seemed determined to make him believe it. "I have four children. Four healthy children. Tomas is barely old enough to give me five minutes to myself as it is." A little smile appeared and Marco tried to return it. Luka looked toward the window. "We weren't even trying."

His voice had become quieter. "I didn't know for certain yet. Not really. It was only a few weeks. So it's fine."

Marco's throat tightened. Luka nodded as though agreeing with himself. "I have four."

The first tear slipped down his cheek, Luka wiped it away impatiently. Marco was out of the chair before he had properly decided to move. He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled Luka toward him.For a moment Luka resisted, not strongly enough to push him away but enough that Marco could feel him trying to maintain whatever remained of his composure. Then his forehead dropped against Marco's shoulder. The next breath shook.

Marco held him. Luka cried quietly at first. It became harder after that, his fingers catching in the back of Marco's shirt while Marco kept one arm around his shoulders and the other at the back of his head.

Eventually the crying eased enough that Luka could breathe without shaking. "Maybe I just can't do it anymore."

Marco frowned and drew back enough to see him. "What?"

Luka wiped his face. "I'm getting older."

Marco almost objected immediately. Luka was hardly old.

"Maybe that's all. Maybe four is what I get." He looked down at the blanket. "And that should be fine. It is fine. Four is more than enough."He muttered, mouth trembling. "But still."

Marco understood the unfinished part perfectly. He reached for Luka's hand, just holding it "You don't know that you can't."

Luka gave him a miserable little look. "Apparently my body has an opinion."

"One loss doesn't mean you can't become pregnant again. The doctor told me that, too."

Luka's eyes returned to his face and Marco realized what he had said. He could still stop. Instead he thought of Luka crying against his shoulder and of the certainty with which the doctor in the city had spoken to him years ago, when Marco had been terrified that what happened had damaged something permanently. "He said even after losing one, you can still conceive again."

Luka watched him carefully. "Really?"

Marco smiled. "Yes. Really. He told me there was no reason I couldn't become pregnant again either. Even after the injury." The silence that followed was different.

Marco's smile faded.

"What injury?"

Marco's stomach dropped. He had said too much. He could hear it now, painfully clearly. He had only wanted Luka to understand that this did not have to mean the end of anything. He had wanted to give him something hopeful, something a doctor had once given Marco when he desperately needed it. Instead Luka was staring at him.

Marco released his hand and looked toward the window. "It was a long time ago."

"What injury, Marco?"

"It doesn't matter." He stood. "I should heat the soup."

Luka caught his wrist before he could get far. His voice was quieter when he spoke again. "You lost a baby?"

Marco looked down at their hands, hating himself for having said anything now. "Yes."

"How far?"

"Not very." Marco hesitated. "About two months." Luka's grip on his wrist loosened, although he did not let go. For a moment Marco thought perhaps that would be enoug but then Luka's brow furrowed. "You said there was an injury."

"It was an accident." That came automatically. He had called it that for years, really. Instead of shutting up he heard himself trying to reassure Luka again. "The doctor said there was no permanent damage. Even after the blow, he said I should still be able to carry another pregnancy."

Luka went completely still. "The blow?"

Marco closed his eyes. That had been the wrong word again. When he opened them again, Luka was staring at him with an expression Marco had never seen on his face before.

"By force?"

Marco's heart sank. "No. I didn't mean—"

"You said a blow."

"I caught the table!"

Luka stared and Marco could see the questions assembling far too quickly. "How? Did your husband do that?"

"No."

The answer was immediate and technically true, Marco thought. His old Alpha had not struck his stomach. He had not even known there was a child to lose.

"We argued. He grabbed me and I hit the table."

Luka said nothing.

"He didn't know."

Still nothing.

"He didn't know I was pregnant," Marco added, because somehow that seemed important. "I hadn't told him yet."

Luka slowly released his him. Marco felt horrible. This was supposed to have been about Luka, not whatever thing he had dealth with years ago. He had come here because his friend had lost a pregnancy three days ago, and somehow Marco had managed to turn the afternoon into Luka sitting in bed staring at him as though Marco were the one who needed looking after.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. I only meant that you can still have another baby."

"Marco—"

"You can." He smiled again, although it felt considerably less convincing now. "The doctor was very certain about it. That's all I meant."

Luka continued staring.

"I should warm up the soup. Wait here."

Afterward he found bread and made Luka eat some of that too along with the soup.

He washed the bowl when Luka finished, then discovered the breakfast dishes Sergio had apparently abandoned in his determination to get Luka back upstairs and washed those as well. Luka complained from the bedroom when he realized what Marco was doing. Marco ignored him. He straightened the kitchen, swept beneath the table and folded the washing that had been left in a basket near the stove. None of it was particularly necessary. Sergio would have done it eventually, and the older children were capable of helping. But Marco knew what to do with work.

Work was easier than sitting upstairs wondering whether Luka was still thinking about what he had said. He checked on him several times, of course. Once Luka was asleep. The next time he was awake and asked Marco to sit with him for a while, so Marco did. They did not speak about either pregnancy again.

By the time Marco finally left, the light outside had changed and he realized with some surprise how late it had become.

Luka was back in bed. The kitchen was clean. There was food ready for Sergio and the children when they returned, and Marco had left enough within Luka's reach upstairs that he would not need to come down immediately if he woke hungry.

Before he had left, Luka caught Marco's hand. "Thank you."

Marco smiled. "Rest." he only muttered to his friend. 

"...Now get home before Lewy comes looking for you."

Marco smiled faintly. "I will."

It was dark by the time Marco came home. Robert was still in the kitchen, waiting for him, though he didn't comment on the hour when Marco stepped inside. Marco took off his coat and tried to smile. "Sorry. I stayed longer than I meant to."

Robert only looked at him for a moment, then crossed the kitchen and pulled Marco into his arms. Marco hadn't realized how badly he needed that until his face was pressed against Robert's chest. His eyes filled almost immediately, and he gripped Robert's shirt, embarrassed by how quickly the tears came.

Robert didn't ask.

He only held him closer, one hand moving slowly over his back.

Marco spent much of the following days going back and forth to Luka's, relieved to find his friend looking a little better with every visit. Some of the tiredness remained, and Sergio still watched him more closely than Luka seemed to appreciate, but there was more colour in his face again, and gradually their afternoons began to feel ordinary.

On those walks Marco noticed that the town was changing too. There seemed to be more people on the roads each day, wagons arriving from farms he did not recognize and shopkeepers carrying crates outside or rearranging their windows. Once he passed two men putting up a row of wooden stalls near the square, and another afternoon he had to step aside for a farmer leading three horses through a street that was usually almost empty. Marco wondered about it without thinking to ask. There were still so many things about the rhythms of this place that everyone else seemed simply to know. Robert finally mentioned the fair one evening while they were finishing dinner, so casually that Marco nearly missed the fact that he was being invited somewhere.

"There'll be a fair in town next Saturday," Robert said, reaching for the last piece of bread. "Sergio usually takes some of his horses to sell. We could go and see what else they have."

Marco looked up. "Do you need something?"

"No."

That made him pause.

Robert tore the bread in half. "We can go for the day. Eat something, look around."

"Oh." Marco tried not to sound too interested. "Yes. That would be nice."

It was more than nice. For the rest of the week, the coming Saturday settled pleasantly at the back of his mind. There was no particular reason for it. He had been to town several times by now, and a crowded market should not have been enough to make a grown man look forward to something like a child waiting for Christmas, but Marco found himself thinking about it while he worked and wondering what would be there. 

By that Saturday morning, Marco had already been dressed for nearly an hour when Robert went outside to finish with the animals.

He made himself useful while he waited. He wiped a table that did not need wiping, checked the bread they would not be eating until evening and went outside twice on perfectly reasonable errands that happened to give him a clear view of the road. By the third time, Robert caught him.

He was coming out of the stable when Marco appeared near the yard again, and although he said nothing, there was an unmistakable smile on his face.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Marco narrowed his eyes at him and Robert continued toward the cows. "They said noon," he reminded him.

"I know." It was barely eleven, Marco went back inside.

The next hour took an unreasonable amount of time. It was almost exactly noon when wheels finally sounded on the road, and this time Marco did not bother pretending that he had come outside for another reason.

Erling was driving. Erik was strapped securely against his chest, bundled warmly enough that very little of him could be seen besides his round face, while Jude and Jobe sat behind them. Jude spotted Marco almost immediately and waved with enough enthusiasm for all four of them. Before the wagon had even stopped completely, he attempted to jump down.

Erling caught the back of his coat at almost the same moment Jobe grabbed his arm.

"Would you both stop doing that?"

"Wait until we've stopped moving." Erling told him.

"We are moving at the speed of an elderly cow!" Jude declared, rolling his eyes at them. He reached for Marco instead as soon as the wagon came to a proper stop. Marco took his hand and climbed up, laughing when Jude pulled harder than necessary and nearly landed him in his lap. Robert followed at a considerably more dignified pace.

The journey itself was enough to put Marco in a good mood. The air had acquired the cool edge that had been creeping into the mornings for weeks now, and the road was busy with other wagons travelling in the same direction. The closer they came to town, the more people joined them, some walking with baskets over their arms, others leading horses or livestock, children occasionally running alongside their parents until somebody called them back. Still, Marco had not expected the crowd they found when they arrived.

For a while he could only look. The ordinary streets had been transformed. Stalls crowded the square and spilled into the roads beyond it, their tables covered with everything from cloth and pottery to tools, ribbons, baskets and small wooden toys. Animals added their own noise from farther away, horses calling above the lower sounds of cattle while men shouted to one another over prices and people. Smoke drifted from food stalls and carried the smell of hot meat, fresh bread and something sweet Marco couldn't immediately identify. Music was playing somewhere beyond the square, almost lost beneath the conversations around them.

There were Germans and Poles everywhere, the two languages overlapping until Marco stopped trying to separate them. "This is bigger than I thought," he admitted.

Robert glanced at him rather than at the crowd. "Good?"

Marco smiled. "Very."

They had barely managed to find somewhere to leave the wagon before Erik, who had slept peacefully through the entire journey, decided that he had suffered long enough. His face crumpled.

Jude looked down at him. "Oh, don't."

Erik began to cry.

"You've been asleep for an hour!" The crying grew louder. Jude sighed and shifted closer to the side of the wagon while Erling helped him down. "Little joy thief. Just like your father and your uncle."

Jobe looked offended. "What did I do?"

Jude ignored him. Once they were away from the worst of the moving crowd, he took Erik and settled him beneath his shirt, feeding him with complete lack of embarrassment Marco had come to expect from him. Alphas passed within a few feet of them, families squeezed around them and Erling stood beside Jude talking to Jobe as though nothing remotely noteworthy was happening. Marco still noticed things like that. He suspected he always would.

Robert touched his hand and Marco looked down as several coins were pressed into his palm. "What's this?"

"For you."

Marco immediately tried to give them back. "No, I really don't need anything."

Robert closed Marco's fingers around the coins before he could. "Have it on you. Please."

"I don't need—"

"Buy something."

Marco glanced at Jude and Jobe and felt his face warming. He was not going to stand in the middle of a crowded fair arguing with his husband about money while both of them listened. "Fine."

Robert looked far too pleased with himself. Marco slipped the coins safely away with every intention of returning whatever remained at the end of the day.

They wandered without much of a plan after that, which Marco discovered was perhaps the best part of it. Nobody was hurrying him toward a particular shop or waiting impatiently while he looked. If something caught Jude's attention, they stopped. When Jobe wanted to inspect a stall full of tools, Erling went with him while the others continued slowly ahead. Robert remained beside Marco, sometimes looking with him and sometimes simply waiting while Marco picked up a bowl or examined a length of cloth before carefully returning it to its place.

He found himself wanting things, which was inconvenient. Not anything important. A pair of woollen gloves that were softer than the ones he owned, a painted bowl that would have looked lovely on the kitchen table, some little jars of spices he did not usually see in their village. He looked, asked prices and moved on. Robert noticed every single time.

They found Sergio much later, among the horses at the far end of the fair, where the crowd had thinned just enough to leave room for the animals. Several men had gathered around him, and from the way Sergio was talking, one hand resting against the neck of a dark horse while the other gestured toward its legs, Marco guessed he had been answering the same questions for some time.

Luka stood a little way off with Tomas beside him. Marco brightened immediately when he saw him. He had visited regularly over the past two weeks, watching some of the tiredness slowly leave Luka's face, but it was still good to see him here among everyone else, warmly dressed and smiling as Tomas tried to pull him toward something he had spotted farther down the road.

Sergio noticed them soon afterward and broke away long enough to greet them, although another man was already waiting to speak to him. He barely managed to finish before Jude looked around at the horses, the men discussing them and the Alphas who had immediately begun paying attention to whatever Sergio was explaining.

"We're leaving."

Erling turned toward him. "Where?"

"Somewhere that isn't here." Jude shifted Erik more comfortably against his chest and looked at Luka and Marco. "We're going around the fair."

Luka laughed. "Are we?"

"Yes!"

Apparently that settled it. Marco looked automatically toward Robert. Robert met his eyes and nodded toward Jude, as though there were no question at all about Marco wandering away into a crowd without him. Marco hesitated only another second before following.

It felt strangely daring at first, although Marco knew perfectly well there was nothing daring about three Omegas walking through a fair in the middle of the afternoon. Luka had Tomas by the hand, Jude had Erik tucked against him, and there were families everywhere they looked. Still, Marco remained conscious of the growing distance between himself and Robert until the horses disappeared behind the stalls.

Then Jude found something interesting, Luka pulled Marco over to see it, and he forgot to worry.

They wandered without any real direction, stopping whenever one of them wanted to. Luka bought lemonade from a stall and handed Marco a cup before he could protest, while Tomas received a much smaller portion that he nevertheless managed to spill down the front of himself within minutes. They stood laughing at him beside the road, drinking something sharper and sweeter than Marco had expected while people streamed past them.

Jude discovered the bracelets shortly afterward.

The man selling them had arranged dozens across a cloth-covered table, simple cords and thin chains threaded with polished stones in different colours. A handwritten sign promised luck, health, love and protection depending upon which stone one chose, and Jude became interested with an enthusiasm that suggested he believed every word of it.

"This one is luck," he announced, holding up a bracelet with a small green stone.

Luka leaned closer. "According to the man selling it."

He bought one for himself and, after a serious discussion with the merchant about whether babies required their own luck, another tiny one that could be kept for Erik until he was old enough to wear it. Tomas saw this and immediately wanted one too, which somehow resulted in Jude buying him a matching bracelet and then deciding it would be unfair if Luka and Marco were left without one. By the time he finished, all four of them had bracelets around their wrists. Jude held his arm out to admire his. He looked so delighted with the whole thing that Marco couldn't even tease him.

"We're lucky now," Jude said.

Luka looked at the bracelet Jude had chosen for him. "Good. I was getting worried."

Marco smiled and turned his own wrist beneath the afternoon light, watching the little stone move against his skin.

They continued around the fair, and somewhere along the way Marco stopped thinking about when they ought to return. They looked at pottery and cloth, laughed over things none of them would ever buy, waited while Tomas became fascinated by a stall full of carved animals and then had to convince him that no, he could not touch every single one. When they reached the food stalls again, the smell alone was enough to make Jude slow down.

Marco noticed. "So this is where your luck brought you."

"I told you the bracelet worked!"

Marco was already reaching for the money Robert had given him. This time there was no hesitation. "I'm buying."

Luka started to object, but Marco had spent enough of the afternoon having things bought for him. He ordered for all of them, including a smaller portion for Tomas, and handed over Robert's coins with an unexpected little rush of pleasure.

It felt good. Not because he needed the food, and not because Robert had told him to spend the money. It felt good simply because he could stand there and buy something for his friends because he wanted to.

They ate as they walked, taking the long way back toward the horses after having made almost an entire circuit of the fair. Marco was still holding the last of his own snack when something near the cattle caught his attention.

He recognized Robert's brother first. The man stood among several others beside a row of cattle, speaking loudly enough that Marco could hear the shape of his voice without understanding the words from this distance. His wife waited several steps away, looking thoroughly bored by whatever business had occupied him.

Their children were with them too. The two had wandered toward one of the nearby food stalls and were watching another child eat something sweet from a paper wrapping. Neither of them had anything. Marco slowed. Perhaps he looked too long. Robert's sister-in-law noticed him and their eyes met across the moving crowd.

For one brief moment Marco thought she might acknowledge him. He would have. Whatever had happened at that awful dinner, they were still Robert's family, and Marco had been raised well enough to greet somebody he knew. Instead she turned her back.

Marco's earlier happiness dimmed around the edges. He looked once more toward the children, then forced himself to continue walking.

When they finally made their way back, Marco noticed immediately that Robert was no longer standing with the others. He had moved a few feet away with a man Marco did not recognize, neatly dressed beneath a dark coat and noticeably out of place among the mud, animals and farmers surrounding them. Whatever they were discussing did not seem particularly pleasant. Robert was listening more than speaking, his brow drawn into a frown that remained even when the man said something quieter and reached into his coat to put away a folded paper.

Marco slowed, but Robert noticed him before he could wonder whether he ought to wait.

Jude was already talking about his bracelet again as they reached the other Alpühas, holding his wrist up before Erling had even properly turned toward him. "Look what I found!”

Erling examined it with the solemnity Jude apparently expected.

"Luck!"

"You paid money for luck?"

Jude's expression suggested this was a deeply stupid question. 

Robert’s conversation ended soon afterward. The stranger shook Robert's hand and turned to leave, only to stop when he saw Marco approaching, after leaving Jude and Erling to their new luck. 

"Ah. This must be your husband."

Robert's expression changed in a way Marco couldn't quite read. The man smiled and offered Marco his hand. "A pleasure. Aleksander Adler. I'm an attorney in town."

Marco returned the greeting politely.

"And it's lovely to finally meet the new owner."

Marco's smile faltered for barely a second. New owner? He assumed the man meant something about the marriage, although it was a strange way to put it. Perhaps Robert had told him about bringing a new husband into the household, or perhaps the expression meant something slightly different here. Marco's Polish was much better than it had been in spring, but there were still phrases that did not translate neatly in his head. Whatever it meant, Robert offered no explanation.

The attorney said his goodbyes and disappeared into the crowd, leaving Marco watching him for another moment before Robert stepped closer and slipped an arm around his waist. The familiar touch was enough to distract him. "Had fun?" Robert asked.

Marco's smile returned. "I did." He remembered the little paper wrapping still in his hand and opened it to show Robert what remained inside: a few small fried balls of dough, their warm centres filled with dark, caramelized sugar. "I bought these."

Robert looked into the paper.

"For everyone," Marco added, a little proudly. "With the money you gave me."

Something softened in Robert's face. Marco picked up one of the remaining pieces and held it toward him, and Robert leaned down and took it directly from his fingers, chewing while Marco watched expectantly.

"Good?"

Robert nodded with a quick smile. 

Marco took one for himself and settled more comfortably beneath his arm, his new bracelet shifting against his wrist as he reached for another.

By then, the attorney's strange greeting had already begun to slip from his mind.

Above him, Robert's frown had not.

They stayed longer than Marco expected.

There was always something else to see, another stall somebody wanted to visit or something warm and sweet being sold that Jude insisted they ought to try before leaving. By the time music began somewhere near the square, the afternoon had already started slipping toward evening, and a loose crowd gathered around the musicians.

Marco and Robert stayed at the edge of it. Erling and Jude did not.

Marco heard Jude laughing before he found them among the dancers, Erling spinning him around with enough enthusiasm that Jude nearly collided with another couple. Neither seemed particularly concerned. Jobe stood several feet away with Erik in his arms, watching his brother and Erling with such a grave expression that Marco laughed before he could help himself.

Nearby, Sergio had one arm around Luka while Tomas sat on his shoulders. They weren't really dancing at all. The music was far too quick for the slow way they swayed together, Luka tucked against Sergio's side while Sergio occasionally bent his head to say something to him. Luka smiled every time.

Marco stood close enough that his shoulder rested against Robert's arm and watched them all. He didn't need to dance. He was happy simply being there. That feeling remained when they finally climbed back onto the wagon and began the journey home. Marco was tired, pleasantly full and a little cold, his new bracelet hidden beneath his sleeve. The lights and music disappeared gradually behind them, but he found himself smiling whenever he thought about some small part of the day.

By the time he and Robert reached their own house, neither of them wanted a proper dinner. Marco cut bread and cheese while Robert put away the few things they had brought home, and they ate standing together in the kitchen, still talking about the fair between bites. Robert went outside afterward to check the animals one last time.

Marco watched him cross the yard through the window. He was still smiling. The feeling had not left him by the time they went upstairs.

It was quieter now, stripped of the noise of the fair and Jude's laughter and music following them through the streets, but it was still there, leaving him almost restless beneath his skin as he changed for bed. He kept thinking of Robert beside him all afternoon, of the money pressed into his hand without conditions, of his arm around Marco when he returned, of sharing the last of the sweet dough between them.

Marco had expected so little when he came here. That was what caught at him now. He had not travelled east imagining love or friends or afternoons spent wandering through a fair with money in his pocket and nowhere he was required to be. He had wanted somewhere safe enough to stay. After twelve years of marriage, even that had seemed like asking for rather a lot.  Somehow, he had received all of this instead.

When Robert climbed into bed beside him, Marco looked at him for a moment before moving closer and kissing him. Robert kissed him back easily, one hand settling at his waist, and Marco felt another little surge of happiness at how ordinary that had become. He kissed him again before Robert could pull away, his hand sliding around the back of his neck as he pressed closer. Robert responded almost immediately. It didn't take long before Marco could feel how affected he was, and that brought a flush of pleased warmth through him. Robert wanted him. After everything Robert had given him, after the patience and the gifts and the ridiculous chickens and today, Marco could give him this.

He wanted to.

Perhaps the wanting was still tangled up with obligation in ways Marco did not know how to separate, but lying there with Robert's mouth against his, he didn't examine it very closely.

Robert drew back eventually, breathing harder. "Are you sure?"

Marco smiled and nodded. He was nervous, of course. That was hardly surprising. It had been a long time, and memories lived in the body even when one did not invite them in. He could be nervous and still do this. Robert kissed him once more before moving over him.

Marco opened his legs. His heartbeat quickened when Robert settled between them, but he ignored it, reaching for him instead. This was Robert. There was no reason to be afraid of Robert.

Then Robert began undressing him.

Marco had expected that part. What he hadn't expected was that Robert undressed himself at the same time. It was such a small difference that Marco almost felt foolish for noticing it. His old Alpha had generally remained clothed until there was some practical reason not to be, leaving Marco increasingly bare beneath him while he still looked entirely himself.

Robert didn't. For every layer Marco lost, Robert seemed to lose one too. It should not have mattered, yet it did.

Even so, Marco became increasingly aware of his own vulnerability as the blankets and clothing ceased to offer much protection. His breathing shortened. Robert noticed the colour in his face but apparently mistook it for excitement, because he smiled faintly and kissed him again.

Marco kissed him back. He could do this.

Then Robert reached toward the bedside drawer. Marco watched him take out a small container he had never noticed before. "What's that?"

"Oil."

Marco frowned.

"It'll help."

Help with what, Marco had no idea. He almost asked, but Robert seemed to consider the explanation obvious, and Marco didn't want to make this awkward now. He had already told Robert he was sure. Robert apparently noticed his confusion anyway.

"Marco, it's a muscle. And you haven't been..." He stopped, looking momentarily uncomfortable himself. "Well. You haven't done this in a while."

Marco stared at him. His old husband had certainly never discussed muscles with him, nor any oils.

The first unfamiliar touch between his legs startled a sound out of him, and Marco jerked so sharply that Robert stopped at once. "Sorry."

Marco's face burned. "No, I—" He swallowed. "You surprised me."

Robert remained still. "We don't have to."

That again. Marco looked at him, at the concern that had replaced whatever desire had been on his face only moments earlier, and forced himself to relax back into the mattress. "I said I want to."

Robert searched his face before continuing.

Marco tried to let himself settle. Some of what followed was familiar enough to awaken old apprehension in his body, the expectation of discomfort arriving before anything had actually hurt. But Robert was patient to the point that Marco almost didn't understand what he was waiting for. Whenever Marco tensed, Robert slowed. Whenever his breathing caught, Robert gave him time.

And gradually something strange happened. The discomfort Marco had prepared himself for never properly arrived.

There was pressure and an unfamiliar stretch, enough that his body wanted to tense around it at first, but without the sharp sting he remembered. Given time, even that began to change, his body adjusting instead of fighting against what was happening. Marco was suddenly much too warm despite the cool night outside.

When Robert finally drew back, a sound escaped Marco before he could stop it. His hand flew over his mouth and he wished the mattress to swallow him.

Robert's expression, however, held none of the amusement Marco expected. If anything, he looked pleased.

Marco's face grew hotter. Perhaps Robert's strange methods were not so strange after all.

Marco had touched Robert like this several times by now. He knew the weight of him beneath his hand and the little changes in Robert's breathing that told him when he was doing something right. Having Robert's attention turned entirely on him was something else.

Another sound escaped him, and Marco immediately looked away, fixing his eyes on the ceiling because looking at Robert somehow made everything more embarrassing. Robert's touch on his penis remained patient and deliberate, never giving Marco quite enough time to recover before another unfamiliar wave of pleasure followed.

Nobody had ever touched Marco like this. That realization came with an ache he didn't want tonight, so he pushed it away and concentrated instead on Robert: the warmth of him, the weight of his body beside Marco's, the way he kept watching Marco as though every small reaction mattered. When pleasure finally overwhelmed him, it happened so unexpectedly that Marco cried out.

For several seconds he could do little more than breathe. Robert came closer again, and Marco caught him by the face and kissed him, still trembling with the aftershocks of something he hadn't known his own body could give him. "Robert..."

"You're okay, darling. You're okay."

Marco closed his eyes. Robert leaned over him, brushing his mouth against Marco's neck, and the tenderness of it almost made Marco lose his nerve. So he acted before he could.

He reached between them and drew Robert closer, making his intention unmistakable. Robert stopped immediately and looked at him, but Marco didn't let himself reconsider. He had already decided. Robert had been patient with him, had given him pleasure without asking for anything in return, and Marco wanted to give something back. He smiled, although his heart was beating much too quickly.

Robert searched his face once more before moving closer.

Marco braced himself. He knew what came next. The familiar pressure arrived as Robert lined at his entrance, and with it the stretch his body remembered well enough that his hands tightened against Robert automatically.

The pain would follow. Marco waited for it.

Robert moved with maddening care, giving Marco time to adjust instead of expecting him simply to endure it as he pushed in. The sensation remained intense enough to steal Marco's breath, but the sharp sting he remembered never came. Even when Robert finally settled against him, Marco was still waiting for the moment when pleasure would become something to tolerate.

Marco stared up at him, almost confused.

Robert bent to kiss him. And Marco, still nervous and exposed beneath him, wrapped his arms around his Alpha and kissed him back.

When Robert began to move, Marco's breath caught again. He waited for the pain.

It seemed impossible that it would not come eventually, even as Robert found a rhythm and the unfamiliar pressure began to turn into something else entirely. Marco kept expecting the sharpness he remembered, the moment when he would have to grit his teeth and wait for his body to become bearable again. Instead there was only pleasure.

His hands moved restlessly over Robert, from his arms to his shoulders and finally around his neck, because he needed something to hold on to. Robert was breathing hard above him, his hair falling untidily across his forehead, and Marco stopped caring about the sounds escaping him. There was nobody here to hear them anyway. For a little while there seemed to be nothing beyond this room, nothing beyond Robert and the warmth of his body and the impossible realization that Marco did not have to endure any part of this.

Time became difficult to measure.

Eventually Robert leaned closer, breath hot against Marco's temple. "Darling.. I'm about to.."

Marco nodded and tightened his arms around him. Robert touched him again, and Marco's body responded with humiliating ease. Pleasure rushed through him for a second time, so quickly that he cried out and buried his face against Robert's shoulder.

Robert followed soon afterward, losing the careful rhythm he had maintained until then as he held Marco close.

Marco braced himself once more.

Surely now.

His body remembered enough to know what should happen, and when he felt the unmistakable change between them, another little thread of fear wound through the haze of pleasure.

The pain would come now.

It had to.

But all Marco could feel was Robert collapsing carefully against him, trembling and breathless, both arms wrapping around Marco as though even now his first instinct was to hold him.

"Darling," Robert managed.

Marco waited.

Robert's breathing gradually slowed against his neck.

Still Marco waited.

Nothing hurt. The realization came so quietly that it almost undid him.

Robert finally lifted his head. His face was flushed, his hair damp against his forehead, and there was none of the distance Marco remembered from afterward with his old Alpha. Robert reached for him instead, taking Marco's face between his hands as though he needed to see him.

Marco looked up at him. All the happiness he had carried home from the fair was still there, but now it hurt somewhere behind his ribs.

"I love you."

Robert went very still. Then his expression softened, and he brushed his thumb over Marco's cheek. "I love you too."

Marco's eyes filled before he could stop them. This time, when Robert gathered him close again, Marco didn't wait for anything else to happen. He simply held on.

They were late getting outside the next morning.

Not terribly late, Marco told himself. The sun had barely cleared the trees when Robert finally pulled on his boots, and there had been mornings during heavy rain when the animals had waited longer. Still, Robert had usually been outside well before Marco came downstairs, whereas today Marco followed him into the kitchen and somehow neither of them made it any farther.

Robert kissed him beside the table first. That should have been the end of it. Marco had smiled when Robert pulled away, Robert had looked at him in that quiet way that now meant something entirely different to Marco, and then Marco had kissed him again. Some minutes later he found himself backed against the kitchen counter, one hand curled into the front of Robert's shirt while Robert's mouth moved from his lips to the side of his neck. Marco tipped his head without thinking, laughing softly when Robert's stubble scratched him.

Then a cow bellowed outside. A second complaint followed, louder and considerably more offended, after neither had moved.

Marco began laughing properly against Robert's shoulder. "She's angry with you."

"She's always angry with me."

The cow called again as if objecting to the accusation. Robert finally lifted his head. His hair was still untidy from bed, and Marco had the absurd thought that he would happily stand here until every animal on the farm came to the kitchen window personally to complain.

Robert kissed him once more, quickly this time. "I have to go."

"I know."

He still held Robert's shirt for another second before letting him go. Robert disappeared through the back door, and Marco remained against the counter listening to his footsteps cross the yard. He touched the side of his neck where Robert had kissed him and smiled to himself before forcing his attention toward the work waiting for him.

The morning passed pleasantly after that. Marco tidied upstairs, changed the bed linen, before dealing with the kitchen. He found himself distracted more than once, although he refused to examine too closely why making the bed had suddenly become such an embarrassing task.

By late morning he had done enough to justify abandoning the rest until later. He had been meaning to see Luka, but Jude's house came first along the road, and Marco decided he might as well stop there before continuing.

He knew something was wrong before he reached the door. Jobe was sitting on the step tying one shoe, his small travelling bag beside him. Erling was farther out by the wagon, checking something near the harness, while Jude stood a few feet from his brother with Erik against his chest. Jude looked miserable.

Marco slowed. "You're leaving?"

Jobe looked up. "Yes, I should."

"You don't have to," Jude said immediately.

Jobe finished the knot and straightened. "...This is exactly why I didn't tell you until this morning." Jude said nothing to that.

Marco had seen enough of the brothers together over the past weeks to understand what was happening. Jobe had already delayed his departure more than once. Jude had known he would eventually go home, had spoken about it as though he understood perfectly well that his brother had a life elsewhere, and now stood beside the wagon looking as though sheer unhappiness might convince Jobe to reconsider. Jobe picked up his bag and looked at Jude. Then he put it down again and hugged him.

Judging by Jude's reaction, this was nowhere near the first goodbye of the morning. He wrapped one arm around his brother while keeping Erik safely between them, pressing his face briefly against Jobe's shoulder.

"I'll come again."

"You'd better."

"I said I would."

"I know."

Jobe pulled away, only for Jude to catch his sleeve and hug him once more. Erling, to his credit, waited by the wagon without commenting.

Eventually Jobe managed to climb aboard. Jude stood beside Marco with Erik held close as Erling took his place and gathered the reins. Jobe waved. Jude waved back. Then the wagon began to move. Jude kept watching until it disappeared down the road. Only then did Marco realize that he was crying.

There was no dramatic breakdown. Jude simply stood there with tears slipping silently down his cheeks while Erik, perhaps objecting to the mood or merely hungry again, began crying too.

Marco quietly took charge. He got Jude inside, put water on and made tea while Jude sat at the table with Erik. By the time Marco set the cup in front of him, the baby had settled, although Jude had not entirely managed the same.

"He'll come back," Marco said.

"I know." Jude wiped beneath one eye with the heel of his hand. "That's the stupid thing. I know he will." Jude stared down into his tea for a while before speaking again. "I just miss him already."

There wasn't much Marco could say to that, so he didn't try to make it better. Jude sniffed and adjusted Erik against his chest.

"I'm glad I've got you, at least."

Marco looked at him. Jude gave him a small, unhappy smile. "At least I'm not alone in this world, right?"

Something tightened in Marco's chest. Only yesterday he had stood in the middle of a crowded fair surrounded by people who had somehow become familiar to him. This morning Robert had nearly forgotten his cows because he couldn't stop kissing Marco in the kitchen. Now Jude was sitting across from him with red eyes, trusting Marco enough to be miserable in front of him. A year ago, none of these people had existed in Marco's life.

He reached across the table and put his hand over Jude's. "No," Marco said softly. "We're not alone. Not at all."

Jude turned his hand beneath Marco's and held on.

Marco nearly walked straight past them.

He had come into town for Luka, carrying a short list folded into his pocket and thinking mostly about whether the shop near the square would still have the particular thread he wanted, when raised voices reached him from farther along the street. That in itself was not enough to make him stop. Arguments happened in town, particularly on market days, and Marco had learned quickly that standing around to watch two men shout at one another was considered perfectly acceptable entertainment by a surprising number of people.

There was already a small gathering outside Toni's office.

Two men waited near the door with papers in their hands, apparently there on actual business, while several others had slowed down for no reason except curiosity. The shouting came from inside, loud enough that even through the open door Marco caught a few words about land, a will and something that had apparently been done months ago.

He lowered his eyes and intended to pass. Then he recognized Robert's brother.

He was standing inside Toni's office with another man Marco had seen only days ago at the fair. The attorney. His neat dark coat was unmistakable, although today he looked considerably less pleasant than he had while shaking Marco's hand and calling him the new owner.

Marco's stomach tightened. He did not know what was happening, and every instinct he had acquired over years of living around angry men told him that ignorance was presently an advantage. Whatever argument Robert's brother was having with Toni and the attorney belonged to Robert's family. Marco had no desire to become part of it. He quickened his steps.

He had almost passed the office when somebody shouted.

"You!"

Marco stopped before he could tell himself not to. Robert's brother appeared in the doorway, his face flushed with anger, and for one bewildered moment Marco thought he might merely demand that Marco fetch Robert. Then the man came directly toward him.

"You."

Marco took an involuntary step backward.

"What are you really?"

He barely had time to understand the question before fingers closed hard around his upper arm. The street seemed to change around him. The people who had been watching from a comfortable distance fell quieter, and Marco's body reacted much faster than his mind did. He tried to pull away, but Robert's brother tightened his grip.

"What are you doing?" Marco managed.

"Are you in on this?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying!"

The grip on his arm shifted, and Marco's heart began beating painfully fast. Somewhere at the edge of his vision he noticed a familiar boy standing near a cart on the opposite side of the street. One of Sergio and Luka's older sons. Marco could not remember which errand had brought him into town, and there was no time to wonder, because the boy stared at them for one frightened second before turning and running.

Robert's brother gave Marco's arm a violent shake.

"Did you know?"

"Know what?"

"Don't stand there pretending you're stupid. Did he tell you before he brought you here? Was that the agreement?"

Marco tried again to wrench his arm free. "Let go of me. Please, let go!" The words came out less steadily than he wanted.

Toni was outside by then. "Enough." He caught Robert's brother by the wrist and forced his hand away from Marco. "You will not put your hands on him."

"He signed it!"

"That doesn't give you the right to assault him in the street."

Marco stumbled back the moment he was released, one hand closing around the place on his arm that had been grabbed. His breathing had gone shallow. He was aware of people looking at him and hated that almost as much as he hated that he had no idea what any of them were talking about.

Robert's brother pointed at him. "He signed the papers."

"What papers?"

Nobody answered immediately. Marco looked from Toni to the attorney and then back to Robert's brother. "What papers?"

"The sale," his brother-in-law spat.

Marco stared at him. Toni stepped closer, positioning himself partly between them. "Marco—"

"Tell him," Robert's brother interrupted. "Go on. Tell him what he bought."

"I didn't buy anything." he said, nbut they weren't listening. "I didn't buy anything," he repeated, quieter now.

Robert's brother laughed, although there was nothing amused in it. "You own his house."

For several seconds Marco could only look at him. Then he almost laughed himself, because the statement was so absurd that there had to be some misunderstanding. Robert's house was Robert's house. Marco lived there because he was Robert's husband. Robert had told him it was his home too, certainly, but that was different.

"What?"

"The house," the man said. "The fields. Both lots. All of it."

Marco turned to Toni. He wanted Toni to correct him, but Toni did not. Instead he took a slow breath and said, "The contract was signed. It's all according to law."

The attorney had stepped out of the office now, perhaps deciding that whatever privacy the matter had once possessed was beyond saving.  "The contract itself is truly valid. There is no question of that."

"There is every question!" Robert's brother snapped. "It was Father's property!"

"It was property held by Robert Lewandowski at the time of the sale."

"Because nobody had found the will yet!"

"Which does not alter the chronology."

The attorney's voice remained irritatingly level.

Krzysztof Lewandowski's will, he explained, had not been brought before the court until months after his death. There had been questions about its authenticity and witnesses to be found before it could be accepted. It had now been confirmed as genuine, and yes, it named Krzysztof's two acknowledged sons as heirs to his remaining property while deliberately excluding Robert.

But by the time the will had been produced, the farmhouse and the two parcels of land at issue no longer belonged to Robert.

He had already sold them.

To Marco.

Marco heard every word. He understood remarkably little of it.

"The property cannot be returned to an estate merely because the deceased intended it to form part of that estate," the attorney continued. "At the time the matter was settled, Lewandowski had already disposed of it through a legally executed sale. Reus is the registered owner."

"He's his husband!"

"That is irrelevant."

"He arrived from God knows where and married him that same day!"

"Also irrelevant, I'm afraid."

Robert's brother looked ready to strike somebody. Instead he turned on Marco again. "So that's what you are."

Marco's fingers tightened around the folded list in his pocket. He still couldn't make himself speak. The man stepped closer, although Toni moved with him immediately.

"Does it feel good?" he asked Marco. "You came here with nothing, and now you're a rich whore because my brother needed somewhere to hide Father's land. How convenient, he even found somewhere to hide his cock in!"

"Leave," Toni said.

Robert's brother's mouth twisted. He looked Marco over once, slowly and deliberately, then spat into the dirt beside Marco's shoe.

Marco flinched. Toni stepped forward, but the attorney caught Robert's brother by the shoulder and steered him away before the situation could become worse. The two disappeared down the street still arguing, Robert's brother's voice carrying after them while the small crowd that had gathered suddenly discovered reasons to look elsewhere.

Marco remained where he was.

His arm hurt. It was such a stupid thing to notice.

"Marco."

He looked at Toni. "Would you like to come inside?"

The street around them had begun moving again. The little crowd was dispersing now that there was nothing left to watch, although a few people still glanced over their shoulders as they went. Robert's brother had disappeared with the attorney, leaving behind nothing but the ache around Marco's upper arm and the ugly wet mark in the dirt beside his shoe.

Marco nodded.

He followed Toni inside and sat where he was directed, his hands settling uselessly in his lap. For several minutes, nothing happened.

Marco had expected Toni to explain. Perhaps he had expected himself to demand an explanation. Instead he sat staring at the edge of the desk while the same words moved around inside his head without arranging themselves into anything he could understand.

Unfortunately, Toni had no opportunity to make sense of it for him. The argument had delayed everyone waiting outside, and the first man through the door was already complaining before he had properly crossed the threshold. Toni apologized to Marco and returned to his work, and Marco remained in the chair while one person after another came to the desk.

He barely listened. Once, he remembered Luka. He was supposed to be buying something for Luka. The thought seemed so absurdly ordinary that he nearly laughed.

His arm still hurt.

He rubbed it and remembered Robert's brother asking whether he had known, whether he had been involved from the beginning. Marco had been frightened then, too frightened to understand what the man was accusing him of, but now the questions returned with every passing minute. In on what? Known what?

The attorney at the fair had called him the new owner. Robert's mother had made that strange remark about the house and then looked at Marco as though she had discovered something amusing when he didn't understand. Robert's brother had known. The attorney had known. Toni obviously knew.

Marco seemed to be the only person who did not.

Eventually the office emptied. Toni closed the ledger in front of him and looked toward Marco, his expression tired and troubled.

Marco finally found his voice. "What did I sign that day?"

Toni hesitated. That frightened Marco more than an immediate answer would have. "When Robert brought me here," he continued. "The day we registered everything. What did I actually sign?"

Toni opened his mouth. The door flew open before he could answer.

Robert came through it so quickly that the door struck the wall behind him.

He was still dressed for work. There was dirt across one knee and down the front of his trousers, his shirt clung damply between his shoulders, and he was breathing hard enough that Marco knew immediately he had run at least some of the way. His eyes swept across the room before fixing on Marco.

"Marco."

He crossed toward him.

"What happened? The kid said—he said my brother grabbed you. Where is he?"

Marco looked up at him. For one awful second he felt relief. It happened automatically, before everything else could catch up. Robert was here. Robert always made things simpler. Robert would explain what had happened and take him home, and perhaps there would be some reasonable answer to all of it. Then Marco remembered why he was sitting there.

"What did I sign that day?"

Robert stopped. The relief disappeared as quickly as it had come.

"What?"

"The papers." Marco's voice sounded strangely calm to his own ears. "What did I sign, Robert?"

"...Not here."

"What did I sign?"

"We'll talk about it at home. Come."

Marco stared at him. Robert stepped closer, but he did not touch him. There was nothing of an angry Alpha in his face or voice, none of the authority Marco had spent years learning to obey before it turned into something worse. If anything, Robert looked frightened.

That should have reassured him. Instead it made the cold feeling inside Marco spread.

"Please," Robert said quietly. "Come home with me. I'll explain everything there."

Marco looked toward Toni, but again, the man said nothing.

"Please, Marco."

There was something desperate in the way Robert said his name, and Marco obeyed. What else was he going to do? He stood, thanked Toni automatically because some habits survived even when the world seemed to have shifted beneath him, and followed Robert outside.

Robert stayed beside him all the way home. He tried to speak several times. Marco heard his name, an apology that never seemed to reach its end, once a quiet insistence that there were things Marco did not know yet.

Marco said nothing as he walked. The road home had never seemed particularly long before. Today every familiar turn irritated him. He knew that tree. He knew the broken section of fence farther ahead. He knew where the road became rough after rain and where he needed to watch his footing. Over the past months he had learned this place so thoroughly that he no longer thought about any of it.

His home. That was what he had called it. When the farmhouse finally appeared, Marco looked at it differently. The yard, the barn, the fields stretching beyond it. The kitchen window he had cleaned two days ago. Somewhere behind the house were the chickens and the coop Robert had built because Marco had been frightened of them. Apparently it all belonged to him.

Robert opened the door and Marco went inside. He didn't remove his coat. He walked as far as the kitchen table before turning around.

"I'm here now."

Robert closed the door behind them.

"Marco—"

"Now what?"

Robert looked exhausted already.

"Why am I the owner?" Marco pressed regardless.  For several seconds Robert seemed to be deciding where to begin, and Marco's stomach twisted at the realization that there was enough to explain that Robert had to choose a beginning.

"My father—"

"He's not your father."

Robert flinched. Marco had never thrown that at him before. He had never even thought of doing it, the words had come out before he could stop them.

"No," Robert said quietly. "He wasn't. But the property was complicated long before he died. He had tried to change things. There were questions about what would happen once everything was settled, and after he died I knew my brothers would fight me for every piece of it."

"So you sold it."

"Yes."

"To me."

Robert nodded. When nothing else came, he gave a disbelieving little shake of his head. "Why me?"

"Because I needed someone outside it."

Marco's heart seemed to slow. Robert continued, each word sounding as though it cost him something. "Everyone here knew my family. Anyone I trusted in town could be connected back to them somehow, and I didn't know who would talk or what my brothers already knew. I needed to make sure the house and the land couldn't simply be taken while the rest was being settled."

"So you looked for someone."

Robert's eyes came back to him. "Marco—"

"Someone they didn't know."

"It wasn't only that."

"But you did." Four months Marco had spent thinking himself clever for choosing an Alpha so far away that nobody from his old life could easily reach him. All that time Robert had been looking at the same distance for an entirely different reason. "You wanted somebody your family had absolutely no connection with."

"I wanted a husband."

"You wanted someone to put the house under."

"No. Darling, please."

"That's what you just said."

"It isn't."

Marco sat because suddenly standing required more effort than he had. "So you married me to save your property?"

Robert's face tightened. "That's a horrible way to put it."

Marco stared at him. "But is it wrong?!" Robert was silent for a moment and Marco's eyes burned.

"Hm? Is it wrong?"

"I wanted you here, Marco."

"That isn't what I asked."

"I know."

"Then answer me!"

Marco had never spoken to him like this. He knew it even while the words kept coming. Some frightened part of him expected Robert's expression to change, expected the room to become dangerous because Marco was questioning an Alpha, contradicting him, refusing the explanation he had been given. Robert only looked stricken.

"You never told me anything," Marco said. "Your mother knew."

"Marco—"

"She knew. She stood in this kitchen and talked about this house, and when I didn't understand, she looked at me as though I was stupid. That attorney knew. He called me the new owner right in front of you."

"I know."

"Your brother knew enough to nearly pull my arm off in the middle of town!"

Robert's eyes dropped immediately toward Marco's arm.

"Don't."

Marco's voice broke despite his effort to keep it steady. "...Besides, we're married. Does it even count?" Marco asked, the thought occurring to him only now, when he was desperately trying to make sense of something that seemed to grow more complicated every time Robert opened his mouth. "They could still take it from you, couldn't they? I'm your Omega. If everything I have belongs to you anyway, what difference does my name make?"

Robert's expression changed in a way Marco immediately disliked. "It doesn't work like that."

"Then how does it work?"

Robert pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down, rubbing both hands over his face before he began. "The transfer was completed before our marriage was registered. You owned the house and the two lots in your own right before you legally became my husband, and marrying me afterward didn't change that."

Marco stared at him. "Before we were married? We signed both papers the same day."

"We signed the marriage documents, but I didn't have Toni submit them immediately. I waited until the transfer was finished."

"How long?"

Robert hesitated. "About eight weeks."

Marco felt the blood drain from his face.

"Two months?"

Robert rubbed both hands over his face before looking at Marco again. "I needed the transfer finished before we were legally married. While you were still Marco Reus, with no connection to me or my family, the house could become yours without anyone arguing that I had simply moved it into my husband's name to keep it away from my brothers. Once the transfer was finished and your name was in the register, Toni sent in the marriage documents. Marrying me afterward didn't change what was already yours."

Marco stared at him. "So you left me unmarried for two months."

"I delayed the registration for a month."

"You left me unmarried."

Robert's mouth tightened. "Yes."

"And you knew I thought we were married."

"I did."

Marco looked away.

"Marco, I wasn't waiting because I wasn't sure about you. I wasn't deciding whether I wanted to marry you. I had already decided that before you ever got off that train. I knew I wanted you here, and I knew I wanted you as my husband. But I also knew that if I waited a few weeks, I could make sure they couldn't take this place from me. I thought I could get it done first and explain it to you afterward."

"You thought you could use me first and explain it afterward."

Robert flinched. "Yes. I suppose that's exactly what I did."

For two months he had lived in this house believing himself married when he had not been married at all, and now he thought of those first weeks with a sickening clarity that made Robert's voice fade into the background: sleeping beside him every night, waking beneath the same blankets, cooking his meals and washing his clothes, going into town beside him while people looked at the new German Omega Robert Lewandowski had brought home. Marco had introduced himself as Robert's husband. He had thought of himself as Robert's husband. All the while, somewhere in Toni's office, the papers that would actually make that true had apparently been waiting because Robert had decided it was more convenient for Marco to remain unmarried.

"Marco?"

He looked at Robert without answering. Robert seemed to mistake that for permission to continue. "The important thing is that it worked. The property was already yours when the marriage became official, and it remained yours afterward. My brothers can't simply take it because you're married to me now."

"Mine," Marco repeated faintly.

"Yes."

"You mean you can't take it back?"

Robert hesitated. "Not simply because I want to."

Marco looked around the kitchen, at a house he had spent months thinking of as Robert's, then slowly back at him. "So if I told you to leave this house—"

Robert went very still. "It would be your right."

Marco wished he had never asked. He didn't want Robert's house. He didn't want his fields or the legal right to throw him out of the home in which he had grown up. Marco had come here because he wanted a husband, and now even that simple certainty had been spoiled by the knowledge that for the first two months Robert had allowed him to believe in a marriage that did not yet legally exist.

Robert was speaking again, telling him that the delay had never meant he did not intend to marry him, that the marriage documents had already been prepared and that he had always meant to submit them as soon as the property was secure, but Marco could barely follow the explanation because his thoughts had gone somewhere much uglier.

He had lived with an Alpha without being married to him.

The shame of it settled over him so suddenly that he felt hot beneath his clothes. Nothing had happened between them then, he knew that, and Robert had hardly touched him beyond the occasional hand at his back, but Marco had still slept in his bed, kept his house and presented himself to everyone as his Omega. His father would not care about the distinction. His family would not care that Marco had believed himself married, or that Robert had eventually made it legal. They would hear only that their widowed son had travelled east and spent weeks living under an Alpha's roof without any lawful bond between them.

He should leave, and for a moment the thought came with such force that Marco nearly stood, only for the obvious question to follow immediately behind it. Where could he possibly go?

Jude would take him in, and so would Luka; Marco knew neither of them would hesitate for even a moment if he arrived at the door with his things. But then he would have to tell them why he was there. He would have to admit that he had not even known when his own marriage became legal, that he had spent a month sleeping beside a man who was not yet his husband because Robert had needed his name unattached for a property transfer.

Going back to his family was worse. Marco could already imagine his father's face if he appeared at the door and confessed that he had warmed an Alpha's bed for weeks without being properly married to him. It would not matter that Marco had not known, just as it would not matter that Robert had slept beside him without demanding anything. His father would hear shame, the rest of the family would hear scandal, and Marco would once again become the problem nobody wanted in the house.

There was nowhere to go, and the realization left him sitting very still while Robert continued trying to reach him from across the table.

"Marco?"

Marco couldn't answer. He did not know what he was supposed to say to any of it, and he no longer knew whether he wanted Robert to keep explaining or simply stop talking altogether.

Then a cow bellowed somewhere outside, so loudly and so strangely close to the house that both of them turned toward the door. Robert closed his eyes and swore.

Only then did Marco remember that Robert had been working when Luka's son came running for him. He had apparently done exactly what Marco himself felt like doing now: abandoned everything and run, leaving the animals halfway through whatever he had been doing without even securing the gates behind him.

Another indignant bellow came from the yard.

"Please stay here," Robert said, already rising. He looked toward the door and then back at Marco, plainly torn between the escaped animal and the possibility that Marco might disappear the moment he left the room. "Please, Marco. I'm begging you, just stay where you are. Let me put her back and then I'll explain everything properly."

Marco said nothing, and after another desperate look Robert had no choice but to go.

The moment the door closed behind him, Marco went upstairs, pulled his travelling case from where it had been stored and set it on the bed. For a few frantic seconds, leaving seemed so obvious that he opened the wardrobe and reached for his clothes before the same question that had stopped him downstairs returned.

Where? There was nowhere.

Eventually he pushed the empty case back beneath the wardrobe. He could not leave tonight, but neither could he lie beside Robert as though nothing had changed, so he stripped his pillow and blanket from their bed and carried them into the small room across the corridor, which had mostly been used for storage since his arrival. Marco had changed the linen there only a few weeks earlier, never imagining that he would be the next person to sleep in it.

By the time he heard Robert returning through the yard below, Marco had made up the narrow bed.

He closed the door and turned the key.

In all the months since coming to this house, even when Robert had still been almost a stranger to him, Marco had never locked a door against him.

Tonight he did.