Fic: Love is in the Greenwood (Robin Hood, 1/3)
Title: Love is in the Greenwood
Author: lotusflower85
Rating: R
Characters: Robin, Marian, gang, Robin/Marian, very slight Will/Djaq
Setting: Post-season 2, but AU, so no major spoilers.
Words: 7,713
Summary: Love is in the greenwood, dawn is in the skies. Marian deals with the unexpected challenges of marriage and children.
A/N: Written for the Robin/Marian ficathon at saythewordsthen. The request was by songandsilence and was: Futurefic with fluff/angst, Rob/Maz and babies, rated above PG. Split into three parts as it became much longer than I originally intended, but is meant to be one fic.
**************************************
Love is in the greenwood, dawn is in the skies,
And Marian is waiting with a glory in her eyes.
- Sherwood, Alfred Noyce
***************************************
King’s Camp, Acre
Marian wore flowers in her hair the day she married Robin Hood in the Holy Land, small blossoms that gleamed a pure white under the eastern sun. She didn’t know exactly where Much and Djaq had found them, but they’d disappeared just after dawn and returned with a handful of the blooms from a species she didn’t recognize. Djaq had helped her arrange them in her hair while Much sobbed and claimed sand had blown into his eyes.
By the end of the day she was married; had stood before the King, his Crusaders, Robin’s Outlaws and said her vows. Celebration overtook Richard’s entire camp that night - the wine seemed to appear from nowhere and in unlimited supply. Only Djaq did not partake and Will refused as well at first, until she told him firmly that the best way to respect her faith was not to pay it lip service. Allan and Much drank together and insulted each other in that way they had between them, but by the end of the night were singing and laughing together. Marian wondered if they understood each other at last, or at least had found some common ground, with her and Robin married and Will and Djaq making their intention to stay in Acre known. Little John drank cautiously and talked somberly with the older Crusaders, glad to have a conversation with someone his own age for once, to share his disapproval of ‘the children’ with. Carter sat by himself, drank steadily and for a while Marian watched him in silence until Robin came to sit beside her.
“I think I’ll ask him to return with us,” Robin told her quietly as he followed her gaze to where Carter sat. “It’s difficult,” he continued, his face troubled. “To have to kill when you’ve decided not to.”
“He saved the King - saved all of us.” Marian answered softly, and took Robin’s hand. She regretted Gisborne’s death, had felt pity to see Carter run him through with cold steel, even a little ashamed as he had seen her standing above him as he died, disbelief and sorrow as he had seen her, truly, for the first time. At Robin’s side. At least, in the end, it had been quick, and a part of her was grateful that it had been Carter who had finished it, not Robin - not her husband who would have to live with the guilt. His dreams were troubled enough.
But it was no dream that night - it was real, the sand between her toes, the laughter in her ears and the anticipation beginning to form in the pit of her belly. Marian took Robin’s hand and led him away from the crowd, to the small tent Richard had ordered cleared out for them. The moment they are inside Robin’s hands were on her face, his calloused fingers tracing her cheekbones, her jawline, and finally, her lips.
“We could have died today,” he said softly, his fingers moving down her neck, over her shoulders and then across her back.
She shivered and pressed herself closer to him. “But we didn’t,” she reminded him.
“No. And we are married.” There was a wonder in his voice, almost disbelief. “It’s no longer improper to do this…” he pulled her tight against him, and she could feel his fingers pressed lightly into the small of her back. “Or this…” he kissed the hollow of her throat, and Marian arched her neck to give him better access.
“Or this…” his hands ran up the sides of her body, over the small bumps of her ribcage, over the sides of her breasts where he halted momentarily but did not stop, over her shoulder and back to the top of her spine, to the ties of her dress. Marian turned around and lifted her hair away from the area to allow him to undo the laces. She shivered again, even though the air that hit her bare skin was dry and hot. Robin kissed her shoulder and pushed the sleeves of her dress down her arms, Marian helped him, and the outer layer of the garment fell to the floor.
Marian leant back against him as Robin’s arms went around her. His fingers were rough, but thankfully clean (she had insisted on that) and she closed her eyes as they brushed against the skin of her belly. It took her several moments to realise he was holding his breath. She turned around boldly to meet his eyes, which were veiled heavily. “You’re not nervous are you?” she asked, a little disbelievingly.
“No,” Robin replied quickly, but there was a hitch in his voice he could not conceal.
Marian gave him a teasing smile - his sudden bashfulness new to her. “It’s not as if you haven’t-”
“I know,” he cut her off, face flushing ever so slightly. “Just…never with a wife, before. Well, my wife, anyway…”
Marian gave him a sharp look. “There are certain things your wife does not need to know about your scandalous past,” she told him, and lightly smacked his shoulder.
“Well, this is different,” Robin explained seriously.
“I am still the same person I was a few hours ago,” Marian drew close to him and put her arms around his neck. “I am still the same person who willingly followed you to that place by the river in Sherwood, so no one could find us.”
Robin looked smug at the memory. “True, but…”
“There is no difference between the woman who loved you in the forest and the wife that loves you now.” A mischievous smile crossed her face. “Except that your wife will allow you to do more to her.”
He kissed her in response, hard, his arms going around her, long fingers sprayed across the bare skin of her back. She deepened the kiss, letting out a muffled moan as the warm pressure of his tongue pressed against her own. Her hands grasped his hair where it curled at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer. His lips travelled down her jaw, placing scorching kisses on her skin and began to examine the place where her neck met her shoulder. She could feel the scratchiness of his beard but it was not unpleasant, instead added to the intensity of the feelings coursing through her.
Marian ran her hands down his back to his hips, trying to find the easiest way to untuck his shirt from his trousers. Robin looked up at her with a cunning smile. He stood up straight and released her, arms hanging still at his sides so she could remove the garment more easily, but making no effort to assist her. She briefly considered walking away and leaving him alone with his smugness, but the desire to see his bare skin overpowered that thought. Now with unimpeded vision, Marian pulled Robin’s shirt free from his belt and yanked it skyward. Robin obligingly raised his arms and finally, did help her drag the cloth over his head and toss it aside.
His eyes gleamed as he pulled her to him once again, and this time Marian gasped at the feeling of his bare skin against her own. Later, she would remember to trace the scars that lined his torso, to kiss every one and make him tell her their origins but for now she didn’t want to explore. Robin seemed to sense her urgency and pulled her back towards the bunk that had been prepared for them, removing the rest of her dress as he went. Then he pressed her down onto the course sheets, his welcome weight covering her immediately.
But then Robin stopped kissing her and seemed preoccupied with something else. “Oh, dear.”
“What?” Marian asked impatiently. She was beginning to feel unbearably hot, and she wasn’t entirely sure it had to do with the searing desert air but more to do with the body that was so intimately pressed against her own.
Robin lifted her slightly, and pulled something from underneath her shoulder. It was one of the flowers Much and Djaq had found, but not one of the blossoms from her hair.
“It seems someone went to a good deal of trouble to put all these here,” Robin said, and Marian followed his gaze around to where dozens of the blooms were scattered across the makeshift marriage bed. “And you, my love, have squashed them,” he continued. “Shame, really, they are beautiful.”
Marian looked at him disbelievingly. After years of chasing after her, worrying for her, fighting for her, they were finally married and about to consummate it…and he was concerned about flowers? “You should be telling me I’m beautiful,” she told him, a little irritated.
“You know I think you’re beautiful,” he said, his attention back on her. “You’re beautiful,” he declared and kissed her lips. “..and charming,” he kissed her clavicle, “…and exquisite,” he kissed the place between her breasts, “…and fierce,” he kissed her bellybutton.
“Fierce?” she asked, her voice growing breathy as his hand skirted up her calf.
“Mmmm,” Robin murmured in reply, mouth occupied with the skin of her belly before moving further downward as his hand hasted its journey up her leg.
Then neither he nor she could say no more, and Marian pressed herself back into the rough material of the blankets which mimicked the scratchiness of his beard against her inner thigh. She gasped and called his name until she could take no more, and pulled him back up the bed, urging him to stop teasing and just finish what he started.
He obliged eagerly, and while there was pain, it was dulled by the exquisite beauty of unity she felt with him at that moment. He buried his face in her neck and whispered unintelligible things and Marian felt him everywhere, setting her nerve endings on fire as she ran her hands over his sides, his back, through his hair, wanting to feel every part of him that she had been denied before.
At the moment of culmination, she could barely feel anything but the utter bliss of it all, and yet somehow, as he called out her name and held her more tightly that he had ever done, she felt an overwhelming sense of relief…and hope.
*************
Outlaw’s Camp, Sherwood Forest
Marian did not venture far from the camp to find solitude, but far enough away so she could no longer smell the offensive eggs and salted meat Carter had been eating for breakfast. Yet still her stomach did not obey her commands to be still, and she retched in the foliage until she was spent.
Much found her eventually, and it did not take him long to notice her whitish pallor, the sweat that dotted her brow, her slumped shoulders and her hands that cradled her head.
“Marian?” he asked, “Are you ill?”
“No,” she answered without lifting her head. “Go away.”
But he sat down beside her, thankfully, on the opposite side of the tree from where she had been sick. “I noticed you didn’t eat breakfast,” he said. “Yesterday either…or the day before that,” he added thoughtfully. “And you usually eat even more than I do…so you must be ill.”
“Truly, your deductive reasoning is amazing,” she said dryly.
“No need to snipe.” Much sounded a little hurt. “I would take offensive, but for the fact you are ill - ”
“I’m not ill,” Marian raised her head, exasperated. “I think…” she took a deep breath, and steeled herself. She might as well tell Much, she reasoned, now that Djaq was no longer with them, he served as best he could as physician. “I think I may be…with child.”
“Oh,” Much looked startled. “Oh.” He shot a look to her midsection, then blushed, then flustered some almost-intelligible words of congratulations, while giving her an awkward hug.
If she weren’t so worried, Marian might have found his reaction comical. “You don’t have to pretend to be happy for me if you’re not,” she told him, careful to keep accusation out of her tone.
“I am happy for you,” Much replied a little too quickly. “Just surprised.”
“You know sometimes Much, I get the feeling you don’t like me,” she said, allowing herself a small smile.
“Of course I like you.” Much looked a little affronted. “I love you. I mean, you and Robin have been a little insufferable since we returned from the Holy Land, practically living in each other’s pockets…I almost miss the arguing,” he added wistfully. “It was certainly preferable to all the sickening looks you give each other now - and your ‘walks’ in the forest…” he checked himself, and laughed nervously. “But I’m happy for you,” he corrected himself.
“I’m not sure I’m happy for myself,” Marian stared at the ground, her brief levity dissipating as the reality of her situation once again sank in. “What am I going to do with a baby?” she asked him, a little desperately. She ran her hands through her hair and shook her head anxiously. “I don’t know how to be a mother…I can’t be responsible for another life like that.”
“Hush, Marian,” Much whispered soothingly, and placed an arm around her shoulders.
Marian shook him off and rose, pacing the forest floor. “I mean, the only person I can imagine being a worse parent than me - is Robin.” She laughed humorlessly. “No,” she corrected herself. “He will be wonderful at it.” She remembered the way he had held the baby he had found in the woods, how it had quieted whenever he got near it, how he played with the village children who worshiped him and felt a small stab of resentment that he was so skilled at everything he attempted, while she had worked and struggled for everything she had achieved. It was irrational and unfair to her husband who could not help his luck and natural, God-given abilities. But she still felt it, in that uncharitable section of her heart she tried to keep in check.
Much rose, took three strides towards her and engulfed her in a fierce embrace. He held her so tightly she almost couldn’t breathe, but it was comforting all the same. He didn’t speak, or give her any comforts because he was not the right person, nor did he have the right words to say. He just held her which - inexplicably - calmed her down.
“Please don’t tell Robin,” she asked him, her words slightly muffled against his shirt. “Not yet.”
She knew that would be difficult for Much, who had never kept anything of significance from Robin his entire life, but she needed to tell him herself. And she needed time. Much nodded, giving his silent consent, and placed a brotherly kiss to her brow. Whatever their past differences, whatever conflict they had experienced in the past over Robin was gone in that moment and, for the first time, Much was her friend in his own right.
***************
Trip Inn, Nottingham
They were both in cloaks that concealed their faces and seated in the far corner of the Trip Inn when she decided to tell him.
“Robin,” she spoke quietly, so not to be overheard. It was a pretence, since most of the patrons knew who they were already and would not breathe a word against them, but she was more cautious lately than she had ever been. “I can’t go on the mission tomorrow.” He looked at her curiously - she had never backed out of anything before; usually she insisted on being on the front lines. “I’m not afraid,” she continued, “for myself anyway. The risk is too great…for the child I am carrying.”
It took him a moment to comprehend her words, and when he did, a shadow crossed his face. “Are you sure?” he asked.
She nodded. “I saw a physician in Locksley.”
Robin sighed and leaned against the table, the knuckle of his index finger between his teeth in contemplation. “We should have been more careful.”
Marian wasn’t sure how she had expected him to react, but it hadn’t been like that. “Perhaps,” she replied, perplexed. “Our timing is imperfect.”
“It’s not that I don’t want this, Marian,” he said earnestly. He reached for her hand and took it in his own. She noticed it was shaking slightly. “I can’t deny I hadn’t thought about it, when all of this was over and we returned to Locksley. But it is dangerous. You are so strong, Marian...” He took a deep breath and gripped her fingers tightly. “…but my mother was strong, also.”
She hadn’t forgotten that Robin’s mother had died in childbirth, along with his stillborn younger brother. Marian just hadn’t realised he had carried that fear around with him. She squeezed his fingers in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture, but wasn’t sure how to respond to him. She didn’t begrudge him his doubts - she had experienced plenty of her own. “I’ve never known you to be afraid of anything, Robin,” she told him softly. It was not a reproach, but rather hoped it was an encouragement.
Robin withdrew his hand from hers and ducked his head so that his hood concealed his face. “I’m afraid of everything,” he said so quietly she almost couldn’t hear him above the noisy patrons drinking their ale and laughing inanely. “I’ve almost lost you twice now,” he continued, and she knew his thoughts drifted back to the cold, dank cave in Sherwood and the hot, unforgiving desert in the Holy Land. “I can’t help but think that this time our luck is going to run out.”
“You’re Robin Hood,” she smiled wryly and tried to be light. “Your luck never runs out.”
“No,” he disagreed, and raised his head, his expression one he had never shown her before - fear etched deeply into his face. “Not Robin Hood, not even Robin of Locksley.”
Marian shifted around the table until she sat beside him, and took his face firmly in her own. “But you are my husband,” she told him firmly. “Robin.” She kissed the lines in his brow, the ones that had formed over the past few years from hard living and constant, agonising worry. His burdens were etched into his face, in his clenched jaw and tense, pursed lips - so she kissed those, too. Marian had decided long ago to be both his strength and his soft place to fall -she would always be there to watch his back in a fight, and hold him when the nightmares came - to balance ferocity with tenderness. She had come to understand that if she could do that as a wife - she could also do it as a mother.
He kissed her desperately, and she chose to ignore the calls from the pub patrons who noticed them. Her hood fell back to her shoulders and he touched her cheeks, her hair, her sides, until he stopped abruptly at her abdomen. He pulled away, but Marian brought his hands back and covered them with her own.
“I don’t know what this all means,” he said, and finally smiled as he looked at her belly.
Marian laughed. “Neither do I.”
Onto Part II