Ranger's Apprentice; The Final Pieces

AU...

Different RA book 12 plot where Will is strangely ... okay with Alyss' death. He acts kind of numb during the funeral with no body, and while everyone was trying to cheer him up, they find that he's not really in need of cheering up. They decide that he must still be in shock. He doesn't talk, doesn't work, and barely eats. Will then suddenly took off the standard few weeks for a death, and when he came back he seemed normal, then continued with work as if nothing happened.

While everyone else grieved, Will worked his ass off, acting as if it didn't matter.

They find it odd, that Will, who was so in love with Alyss, would feel nothing when she died. and died prematurely, at that.

Halt is suspicious, but whenever someone tries to ask Will if he's okay, they are brushed off, and Will leaves for days at a time, often not telling others where he's going. He never comes back drunk, or with any extra injuries, so no one is worried that he might be going down the wrong side, but they are still concerned as to if he was all right. But eventually, they stopped asking, because they'd rather deal with Will hiding a secret, rather than Will hiding himself.

A few years pass, and there's a case that no one can solve. Both Will and Halt have looked at it, but neither can puzzle it out. And it's mandatory that they eventually have to figure it out.

Will hesitates, but then says that he knows someone who might be able to help. He brings Halt and Horace, and eventually they get to a small inn, at the very edge of araluen territory.

When they walk in, they find that the entire place is run by a woman. But it's not a brothel, just a regular bar, run by woman. And Will goes directly up to the bar, everyone yelling their hello's to him. He pauses at the bar where a woman with short blond hair with a slightly disfigured face (fire burns?) stood.

And that's when Horace and Halt realized why Will wasn't upset at Alyss' death.