Running Errands -open-

[Rose Barns]

Anne watched him as he looked back and forth, apparently waiting for someone or something. She wouldn't be surprised it he was in league with some peasant gang, or with Robin Hood himself! except for the way he had spoken about Robin, she doubted it. "Wait," Anne whispered as she limply grabbed his arm, but his hand trailed out as he left her alone in the alley.

Anne didn't know if she should stay put or wait for him to come back, but if anything, it would be best to disappear. She looked down the alley way and found it was a dead end. If anything she shouldn't stand so close the the entrance, just in case they had been followed by guards. Anne moved down, past broken carts and discarded things to the end of the short alley, where she found a crate and sat down. From there, she waited quite impatiently for Jake to return, though she didn't know why she was putting so much trust in him.

[jakeplatt]

As he got closer to the market, it became clear why they hadn't been followed. The Sheriff's voice was drifting lazily out from the podium he stood at. It was some proclamation or other, no doubt making their lives even harder than they already were. God, how Jake hated that voice.

He turned and headed back the way he'd come, suddenly panicking when he couldn't work out which ally it was he'd left Anne in "Anne!" He called out, as loudly as he dared, given their recent escapades "Anne!" God, he thought, I really hope that's her name. Turning a corner, he calmed down, instantly recognising the crooked entrance to their former hiding place. Anne, however, was nowhere to be seen.

"Anne, are you in here?" He called softly into the gloom. He couldn‘t see anyone, but she might still be in there. He hoped she was. On getting no audible response, he stepped in, pushing his way through the old barrels and crates, further back than they'd been before until-

"Oof!" Colliding with someone for the second time that day, Jake lost his footing and sent both the mystery person and himself crashing to the ground.

[Rose Barns]

Anne finally heard his familiar voice, though it sounded a bit distress, as if he forgot where he had left her. "Oh great," she said softly to herself, though she was smiling. She really did like Jake, despite everything, and at the moment found him more amusing. She stood up and made to call out to him, but then she heard someone crashing through the obstacles, making his way to where she stood. Anne had a quizzical look on her face, but that was completely wiped off as he came colliding into her and she landed into a pile of a bag of chicken feathers. At least her landing was soft, but now someone was on top of her.

Anne looked up to see Jake on top of her. This would have been nice if it weren't for the circumstances. Anne shifted a little under him, trying to get a piece of wood to stop poking her shoulders. Anne was afraid that Jake would feel terrible for knocking her over a second time, but if he saw the goofy grin on her face and hear the start of a laugh in her throat, then he should know that she was not upset or angry at all.

[jakeplatt]

Jake couldn't move. It was Anne. He'd gone and walked straight into Anne. Oh god. And now they were one the floor. Oh god. Oh really god. His cheeks were blazing red and felt so hot you could probably fry an egg on them - if the chicken ever escaped form the butter churn of extreme discomfort to lay one.

He felt Anne wriggle slightly under him and his voice box let out an involuntary squeak. Then Anne started giggling. Oh god. god god god. Now she was laughing at him. God! Well, it was no use saying anything to God, the old codger hadn't done anything for him in the past, there was no reason he should start now.

His mental outburst at god brought Jake slightly back to his senses. He cleared his throat "Er, I should, um, get up" He mumbled

[Rose Barns]

"Hmm, you think?" Anne said with a smile. "It's alright. It's been fun running into you," she said truthfully. Anne propped herself up on her elbows as she waited for him to stand up. Luckily the bag of chicken feathers hadn't exploded. Perhaps if he ran into her again they wouldn't be so lucky.

"I think you are more accident prone than me," she said again. "It's refreshing." She could tell he was a little distressed with the recent turn of events, and he had just started to open up!

[jakeplatt]

If it were possible, Jake blushed even harder at what Anne said. It'd been fun being run into by him? Well that made very little sense. Either she was strange enough to enjoy people running into her or- well or something else. But that was highly improbable. Highly. And infeasible. And impractical. And impossible. And many other words beginning with im. or in, for that matter.

Jake pushed himself up and scrambled to his feet before his mental babble could take hold. He shook his head, trying to clear it of the runaway thoughts. It's a good thing he hadn't been talking at the time or Anne really would think he was odd. He could talk a load of absolute rubbish at times. Emma always said it was part and parcel of being a creative genius, but there were times when he wished he wasn't a creative genius and talked sense once in a while. Now was definitely one of those times.

"So, um" He started, sticking his hands in his pockets and looking around the alleyway, making sure not to meet Anne‘s eyes. Maybe he shouldn't have said anything, he wasn’t entirely sure where the conversation was going. God, for someone who aspired to be a poet he certainly knew how to mince his words.

[Rose Barns]

Anne stood up a few seconds later and shook out her skirt and hair before sitting back down on the crate. She wondered if Jake had taken the joke, but she guessed not. Now she felt like the idiot as she sat there, wondering what to say. It was difficult to find the right things to say. Anne looked up at him, trying to see if he was formulating something to say. She was unsure, so she quickly thought something up.

"So, I take it no one was following us?" she asked looking down the alley. She hadn't heard anyone following him back, so she guessed they got off easily.

[jakeplatt]

"Oh!" Jake suddenly realised he hadn't given Anne the progress report. In his hurry to find her and their subsequent near-inappropriate encounter it had quite slipped his mind. He wasn’t sure how, he could feel the bread in his pocket as a constant reminder. Not in a bad way, though. Well, a slightly bad way, he still felt embarrassed, but he'd committed theft in board daylight and gotten away with it! It was stunts like that that'd get him into Robin Hood's gang!

The way Anne was looking at him brought him back down to earth. They were in a dark, cramped alley having just run for their lives, and the only reason they'd got away was because of the Sheriff's immaculate timing. It was foolishness to get such ideas. Stick to poetry, Jake, he told himself.

"Um, no, the Sheriff seems to be giving some kind of speech." He mumbled feebly, sighing inwardly. How entirely un-heroic. ‘Go on, say something else!’ the pesky voice in his head insisted. Well, he couldn’t make things any worse, he supposed “Looks like we gave them a run for their money, though” He added, and attempted to smile.

[Rose Barns]

"Oh, that's good," Anne responded with a smile. "Well, if we're not in danger, then perhaps you can walk me home?" she asked. "Just in case they do find out there is a missing loaf of bread, or I run into outlaws," Anne said, coming up with an excuse. "I would feel safer with someone there to protect me," she added with a smile. She could tell Jake wanted to be heroic in some ways, and she could understand that. It was cute and admirable, even though it may cost him his life someday.

Anne remembered that she had not gotten the items her mum had asked for, but it wasn't dire. It could wait until tomorrow, and she didn't feel comfortable going back to the market place, especially since the Sheriff was there. She didn't want to risk her own life. "Would you mind?" she asked, meaning walking her home. For some reason Anne didn't want to part with Jake without guaranteeing that they'd see each other again. She had taken a liking to him and thought that if they got past his initial awkwardness and shyness, then they could become friends, and perhaps one day … well, she wouldn't go there.

[jakeplatt]

"W-walk you home?" Jake asked, incredulously, his cheeks flairing up again. God, he hoped she wouldn't be able to see how red he was in the dim gloom of the ally. Walk her home? Well, he could probably do that. Just about. As long as he didn't send her flying to the ground again, it couldn't go too badly. Could it? Probably, knowing his luck.

Jake had to almost physically hold his chest back from puffing out when Anne said she'd feel safer with someone to protect her. The sensation only lasted a moment, though, as the compliment almost instantly turned sour in his mind. Fat lot of use he'd be if they were attacked. He didn’t have his bow on him, though he doubted it would be much use if he actually had to use it. In all likeliness, he’s impale himself before the guards even had time to realise he had a weapon and save them the bother of doing it themselves. He was a poet, to a fighter. And he needed to remember that.

But the way Anne looked at him when she asked if he'd mind melted any resistance he may have put up. If she felt better with him there - god know why she would, but apparently she did - then he'd feel bad leaving her. And he wasn't the kind of guy to leave a girl on her own in a perilous city. Well, Nottingham wasn’t that perilous, not really. But, he thought, this bloody alleyway was, their slight accident earlier proved that. Not the kind of guy to leave a girl in a perilous alleyway, then. He kicked half-heartedly at one of the heaps of indistinguishable wooden remains, half out of irritation, half out of the awkwardness he felt at the situation. What bread of moron leaves half broken crates in a perfectly good alleyway, anyway?

"Uh, sure." He managed, before realising he probably hadn't said what he intended to "I mean, no." That wasn't right either! "Wait. I mean, I don't mind. I'd love to walk you home." Well that was a garbled mess if ever he heard one.

[Rose Barns]

Anne raised an eyebrow and cocked her head to one side as she watched him debate with himself. She did that as well, though normally in private. Sometimes she would talk to herself out loud, though not in an odd, insane way like she was a lunatic, but when she was alone she would say things. If someone would come across her though, they might think she was strange, but then who wasn't strange? Each person was different and had differences that would constitute as strange to someone else. In fact Jake's strangeness wasn't too strange for her and she liked it. Anne was confused when he said sure and then no. But a smile came over her face when he finally answered.

"Thank you," she said, standing up from the crate. She moved slightly forward, but was unsure whether he'd actually follow her out of the alley. Well, truth was she doubted anything bad would happen to her and if he didn't follow, then maybe it was her turn to ran through the alley and knock him over. Finally she made her way through the broken carts to where the alley cleared and opened to the street. She turned around to face Jake, a smile on her face. Anne was really smiling too much, but she couldn't help herself.

[jakeplatt]

Jake was momentarily puzzled as she hesitated before leaving. Should he be doing something? Helping her from the crate? Clearing a path? Bowing? "Oh! Sorry!" he said eventually, realising he was in the way. He stood aside to let her pass, managing to get his foot caught in one of the snarled piles of old wood and stumbling backwards. His arm shot out to the wall to steady himself, and he felt a warm pain as it connected. Lifting it away, once he'd freed his foot, he could see blood beading on a shallow graze at the heal of his palm. The wound was more to his pride than his hand, but it still stung a bit.

However, despite the slight pain and the shock of falling, Jake found he was unusually aware of Anne as she brushed past him when leaving the ally. He realised he was blushing again, even though he hadn't done anything stupid this time. Well, he had just tripped into a wall, but he was fairly sure that wasn’t why he was blushing. Strange.

Making sure he didn't injure himself - or Anne, for that matter - again, he stepped cautiously out of the ally and blinked slightly. The street seemed startlingly right after the gloom they'd been in "So, um, it's this way isn't it?" He asked, turning and looking up the street in the opposite direction to the one they'd come. He was fairly sure that was the way to Locksley, but he didn’t go there often and was feeling slightly disorientated from their sudden flight, so he could well be wrong.

[Rose Barns]

Anne didn't notice Jake's stumble at all. Nor did she notice the small scratch he had acquired, but she wouldn't, unless she were to hold his hand, which was unlikely at the present. Once Jake made it out of the alley, Anne nodded at his comment. "Yes, this way to the gates." The market was gated to keep riff raff out, though it did a poor job at that. Robin Hood was always able to get in by throwing on a cloak with a huge hood. Still, it was the castle's initial defenses if it were to be attacked.

Anne started walking, hoping Jake could keep up. It wasn't a fast pace, though she was in a hurry to get out of the city and at least onto the roads. Though they hadn't been caught earlier, she didn't want to be harassed by a guard for anything. The sun was already past it's peak and by the time she'd get home, the sky would be a soft pinkish hue mixed with the clear blue. By the time Jake got home, the sun would be almost done setting. She hoped he didn't mind that he would be getting home probably a little later than he expected.

[jakeplatt]

Anne set off at a pace faster than Jake had expected her to, so he had to jog to catch up with her. Well, so far, so good. He hadn't done anything too stupid yet. As he fell into step behind her, he almost reached out and took her hand the way he'd take Emma's in town, to make sure she was safe, but stopped himself just in time. He had done it - well, almost done it - automatically, it just felt like the right thing to do, but this was Anne, not Emma. He'd known her for all of five minutes, he couldn’t go round grabbing her hand out of the blue like that.

'Ah, but you already have' He thought to himself. He'd grabbed her as he'd run out of the market place. Had he really done that? It seemed so surreal, like something from a dream. He never went round grabbing people, it wasn’t in his nature. But he'd grabbed Anne, hadn’t he. He raised his hand to cover half his face, then ran it through his hair. God, it's been an odd day. He'd just come in to town with Emma for some bread and now he was leaving with Anne.

That stopped him dead in his tracks.

Emma.

He'd forgotten Emma.

Oh God.

[Rose Barns]

Anne was walking when she noticed Jake had stopped dead in his tracks. She turned around to face him. "Jake?" she said, looking at him. "Is everything alright?" she asked. Anne hadn't noticed him go for her hand, but if she had, would she have then grabbed his hand? Anne wasn't generally a forward person, and on second thought that probably would have made Jake feel uncomfortable. Anne wasn't good at flirting and had no idea how a woman and man got to the point of marriage. She was naive and not having an older sister or a close female friend who knew these things made it difficult for her. God, Anne was a silly little girl.

Anne walked back toward Jake. She had been so informal with him now that she realized it. She had rested her head on his shoulder, though for breath, and they had touched hands twice, no thrice by now. She had run into an alley with him! And he had stolen food in front of her!! Anne was confused by his behavior. She didn't know what he was thinking half the time and they had only just met. Human relationships were odd.