Work Text:
He leaves England the day after King Richard's return. Much begs him to stay, for the King, for the country, for the people of Locksley, for him, but he can't. He can't. He's fought so hard and so long, and he's given so much that there isn't enough left of him anymore. He can't stay and celebrate this victory that has cost him so dearly.
"You look after Locksley in my stead," he tells Much, gripping his shoulder and drawing him into a hug. He knows that Much will be a good master, just as he knows that the task will distract Much enough to miss him a little bit less when he's gone.
And then, he goes. He doesn't stick around long enough to witness the Vasey's execution, or the trials for the Black Knights, who are rotting away in the dungeons.
"Justice will be served," the King promises. Once, the idea would have thrilled Robin, but justice is only a hollow term now, bent out of shape and devoid of meaning. Whether Vasey lives or dies makes no difference, his death cannot unspill all the blood that has been shed in his name, or right any of the wrongs that have been committed over those last few years. Nothing can bring back the dead, and nothing will.
His only regret is that Gisborne isn't there to join Vasey and his fellow conspirators on the gallows, but no one has seen the man for months and months now, and Vasey spits the name out with contempt and calls him a cowardly traitor.
"We'll track him down," John says, but Robin shrugs and tells him it doesn't matter. It's not exactly a lie.
* * *
He sails to the Holy Land, like he did three years ago. Out at sea, the stars look different than they used to, but when he mentions it to the captain, the old man chuckles quietly and says, "The stars are always the same, my friend. It must be you who changed."
It must be him indeed. He looks up into the sky and stares at the stars, which used to be bright and warm and friendly. The stars stare back, hard and cold and hollow.
Shivering, he wraps his cape tighter around himself and thinks of happier times.
* * *
Children's laughter greets him when he visits Will and Djaq. Will is not so scrawny anymore, and his skin is tanned, and Djaq's hair is longer. They welcome him with open arms, their friendship as warm as if they'd parted only yesterday; their greeting as excited as if their last meeting had been decades ago.
They want to know everything that has happened in those past months and years, and he is only too happy to share meaningless little anecdotes about Much and John and Allan that make them smile.
Soon, though, the comfort of their home no longer feels secure but oppressive, reminding him of all the things he will never have. The urge to get out of there grows with every passing hour, until he excuses himself and all but flees from their home.
* * *
He visits Marian's grave early in the morning. It's still pleasantly cool, and the sun has not yet attained its harsh glare. Kneeling down in the dirt, he feels an iron fist closing around his heart and it's as if he cannot breathe. It's only when his vision blurs that he realizes he's crying, the first tears he's spilled since they left this place. He never thought about why he was coming back before; he just figured he would travel wherever the roads and seas would lead him.
But now, looking at the foreign soil that holds the body of the only woman he ever loved, he thinks that his journey was less aimless than he believed. That this is what he's here for: to see her, to mourn, finally, properly.
"It wasn't supposed to end like this," he tells her, between sobs, and he grabs a fist of pale soil from her grave, watching as the wind carries it away.
Minutes pass. Hours. When he stands and dries his eyes, he knows that there will be more tears to spill another day. He isn't done mourning yet. Perhaps, he never will be.
As he turns to go, he notices the flowers. Red and white and so very beautiful and fragile on the barren ground, too fresh to be older than one night. Marian, he thinks, would have liked them.
* * *
Will and Djaq don't ask him where he's been, but the kindness in their eyes and the way Will instantly draws him into a hug tells him that they know anyway.
"Thank you," he says. "For the flowers. It's good to know someone has been tending to the grave. That she isn't forgotten."
They share a quick look, and there's something about it that makes him uncomfortable.
"We would never forget her. She was the bravest woman I ever met," Djaq says solemnly, and his stomach unclenches.
* * *
He knows that the flowers cannot possibly from Will and Djaq when he returns to the grave the next morning and finds them replaced by fresh ones.
He stands and stares at them until the reds and whites bleed into each other in front of his eyes, and he can't (doesn't want to) think about what it means. Who'd bring flowers to the grave of a woman who was a stranger to this land? He tries to reason it away. Maybe someone heard of her, maybe Djaq told people, maybe— Empty excuses, feeble justifications he doesn't believe himself.
With a surge of anger, he crumbles the petals and throws them away, replacing them with the ones he brought along.
It's only when he arrives at Will's house in the afternoon that he regrets the rash impulse. Marian deserves all the flowers in the world, no matter from whom they come. If he's moody and irritable that night, neither Djaq nor Will mention it.
* * *
He expects to find his orchids gone the next morning, but they're not, though they're brown and wilting. Next to them, fresh lilies and roses are scattered on the grave like specs of colour on the ugly brown soil.
He leaves them where they are, this time. In fact, he refuses to touch them as he replaces his own, and he can almost imagine Marian rolling her eyes at him for that. The idea is enough to bring back memories that make him choke.
"I miss you so much," he tells her, and when a breeze brushes his tear-stained cheek, he imagines that it's her hand.
* * *
Life goes on. The rainfall sets in, announcing a change of seasons.
He still lives with Will and Djaq, who refused to speak with him for a day the one time he tentatively announced plans to find his own place.
Little Dan turns two. Djaq falls pregnant again. If it's a girl, she says, they'll call her Marian, and Robin laughs through the haze of tears. They are happy tears, though. He still misses Marian every day, but the ache is dull and blunt now, not hot and sharp as it used to be.
He visits her grave every morning. Not a day passes that he doesn't find fresh flowers on her grave, nor does he ever arrive without flowers of his own, orchids he buys from an old man who only half-jokingly refers to him as his best customer. It's merely the colour that varies. He used to bring white ones, but nowadays they're blue or pink or yellow. They never last long – orchids are too fragile, especially in this climate – but it doesn't matter because he'll be back the next day.
He never mentions the flowers again to Will and Djaq, and they never ask. But sometimes, when he stays out longer than usual, they seem edgy, and are always glad to see him home before night falls.
* * *
They meet the only way they ever could meet: halfway.
On the fourth anniversary of Marian's death, Robin remains at her graveside, waiting. At least, that was the plan, although his courage to see it through starts to leave him around noon. The sun is high in the sky, he's thirsty - it would be stupid to stick around until nightfall. It's not that, of course, not really. But he left his weapons at home so he wouldn't get tempted, and he thinks that might have been a bad idea. He also thinks (knows) that he's not ready for this yet. That, maybe, this is one of the things he'll never be ready for.
He turns to go when a lonely figure appears on the horizon, and then, he cannot leave. Just stands, rooted to the spot, his hands clenching painfully into fists.
Gisborne looks different. Older, wearier, the black leather gone, replaced by pale green linen. He doesn't appear to have shaved in weeks. If Robin had run into him on the street somewhere, he probably wouldn't have recognized him. It makes him wonder what he looks like himself, to someone else's eyes.
There's a rigid nod of acknowledgement, and Gisborne says, "I thought today might be the day."
"What day, Gisborne?"
"The day you get it over with. Have your revenge." He says it so casually like he's been preparing for it all along, and just like that, something inside Robin snaps and uncurls and there's an anger he hasn't felt for years. It's hot and ugly and it makes him feel so alive.
"You killed her," he hisses, not so much an accusation as a bitter, furious statement of fact. He says it again, and again, until he screams it, and suddenly he realizes that his fists are pummelling Gisborne. Flowers scatter to the ground like blood and snow, and Gisborne staggers away from the blows, but otherwise seems unwilling to defend himself.
At some point, Robin loses his balance and falls, dragging Gisborne down with him more by accident than by choice, and maybe that's why he's sporting spectacular bruises when he comes home that night, despite the fact that Gisborne never actually raised a hand against him.
"What happened? Are you hurt?" Djaq frets, and runs off to find a salve to put on him.
"I'm fine."
Will looks at him with dark, serious eyes. When he begins to ask, he doesn't get further than an "Is –" before Robin interrupts him.
"No. No one is hurt." Not beyond a few bruises, anyway. He recalls Gisborne's expression when he realized that Robin wouldn't kill him, the way he almost seemed… disappointed, and he wonders whether it wouldn't have been kinder to snap his neck. But then, Robin can't find it in him to extend any sort of kindness to the man who shattered his world.
Not yet, anyway.
* * *
Now that he's confronted Marian's killer, something should change. Something should shift, and he should be a different man. He should feel freer, less burdened. He should find it easier to let go.
Nothing like that happens. Things stay the same as always. His anger at Gisborne remains, but it's just as dull and shapeless as everything else he feels.
He doesn't stop taking orchids to Marian's grave every morning. He never intentionally seeks out Gisborne anymore, but sometimes, occasionally, when one of them is late and the other early, or when Robin forgets the time and stays out too long, they meet. Sometimes, Robin fires volleys of accusations like arrows at Gisborne. More often than not, though, there's only silence.
* * *
He finds Gisborne in a tavern, one day, drunk out of his mind and halfway into a fight with some other patron. Before he can think about what he's doing, he's at their side, grabbing for Gisborne’s collar and dragging him away.
Gisborne clumsily slaps Robin's hands away. "If you won't kill me, then leave me the hell alone," he rages.
"Are you that keen to leave this world and travel down to hell, Gisborne?" Robin mocks.
If looks could kill, this one would. "I killed the woman I loved. What do you think?"
White-hot rage burns in Robin's veins at how Gisborne makes this all about his pain, when it's Robin who lost his wife. He gives Gisborne a push that sends him staggering backwards against the wall. "Yeah, well, maybe I think death is too easy for you. Maybe I don't think you've suffered enough."
And Gisborne laughs and spreads his arms. "You think I haven't suffered enough? Look at me! There's nothing left of me."
The fury drains out of Robin, replaced by frustrated exhaustion. "There's always something left to go on. Or so people tell me." The funny thing is: he's never believed it before. But now, speaking the words himself, for the first time he just might.
* * *
When they next meet, it's at the graveside. Gisborne is shaven, for the first time, and the difference is startling. He looks so much like he used to, but at the same time, without the beard, it's plainly obvious how much he's actually changed. His face is gaunt, and there are dark shadows looming under lifeless eyes.
It's morning, so he shouldn't be here, and that fact makes Robin assume that he's got something to say. But Gisborne remains silent, and eventually, Robin loses patience. "Well? What is it?"
"Marian," Gisborne says – and of course it's about Marian! What else could it be about? And still, hearing her name from Gisborne's lips makes Robin want to reach for his sword and bury it deep in Gisborne's heart.
Instead, he grinds his teeth and waits, and Gisborne finally continues in a tone that's dark and dead. "That day. The day she died. The day I killed her. She said she loved you. That she'd rather die than be with me and that she would be your wife. I— I didn't mean to kill her. I was so angry, and then." He stops himself. "I never wanted this. Even when I knew she'd betrayed me, I thought that we would go home and I'd marry her and that one day, she'd come to love me."
Robin's fists clench a little harder and he has to force the words out. "So what? You think that the fact that you didn't want her dead makes it alright? That I forgive you?"
"No."
"Then what? Why are you telling me this? Were you hoping that I'd get so angry that I'd kill you after all?" He's shouting now, and it's vibrating loud in his ears.
To his surprise, Gisborne raises his voice as well. "Bloody hell, Hood, that's not it. I just thought you'd want to know how she died. I thought you deserved to know." He shakes his head and turns away, leaving Robin bemused and frustrated, his rage once again evaporated too quickly with nothing left to replace it.
"Don't call me that," he says quietly, almost automatically, without realizing it.
Gisborne turns back. "What?"
"Hood. Don't call me that. Robin Hood is no more."
Robin Hood was a hero who lived in Sherwood Forest and fought for the poor and for England. Him, he's just a man in a strange land who's trying to learn how to say goodbye. No one has called him Robin Hood for a long time.
"Don't be stupid. You will always be Robin Hood," Gisborne tells him grimly, before he walks away.
* * *
In the Holy Land, time passes slower than it used to in England. Or maybe it's the lack of fighting, the lack of a purpose in his life, which slows the hands of time.
Djaq's daughter is born in the summer, a year after Robin came here. She names her Marian, like she promised she would, and maybe it's the name that drives Robin out of the house and into the tavern, or maybe it's that he cannot bear watching Djaq and Will and their children be a family when his only chance to have one of his own died in the dust almost five years ago.
He gets so drunk that he forgets his name or where he's from. He doesn't forget Marian, though, no matter how hard he tries.
* * *
He wakes in a strange bed in a foreign house the next morning, and the very first thing he thinks is, 'I'm late to visit the grave.'
His head aches like blazes, and he thinks he must have got into some sort of fight, because his right hand looks bruised, and it hurts when he tries to move his fingers. Later, he'll have to ask Djaq to work her magic on it. Now, though, he has flowers to buy.
He winces as he rolls out of bed, and finds Gisborne leaning in the doorway, arms crossed in front of his chest, watching him with something that could almost be amusement. It's the first time since they met here that Robin has seem something akin to a smile on the other man's face. He feels he should begrudge Gisborne that almost-smile, but oddly, he doesn't.
Gisborne doesn't offer any sort of explanation as to why Robin is in his house, whether he ran into Robin in the tavern, or if Robin has sought him out. There's the onset of a bruise on Gisborne's jaw, though, and Robin has an inkling of what happened to his hand.
"I need to get to Marian," Robin says. "I'm late." Even as he speaks, he realizes that it sounds ridiculous. It's not like a dead woman is going to be mad at him for putting the flowers onto her grave a few hours later than usual.
Yet, Gisborne seems to understand. "I know. I bought your flowers."
When he motions to a bunch of yellow orchids lying on the wooden table in the next room, Robin is so dumbstruck that he actually thanks Gisborne.
* * *
He avoids Gisborne after that because, while he cannot remember much of what happened in the tavern, he figures that Gisborne probably saved him from doing something stupid, or at least from making an arse of himself, and he cannot bear the idea that he might be in Gisborne's debt. Even if he knows that nothing Gisborne could ever do would be enough to balance the scales.
Either Gisborne is equally reluctant to see him, or Robin is just lucky, because they don't run into one another for weeks. It's the longest they haven't met since their fight at the graveside.
But when the fifth anniversary of Marian's death comes about, Robin finds himself at Gisborne's doorstep shortly after sunrise.
"Hood. What are you doing here?" Gisborne asks brusquely, obviously surprised to see him, and Robin shrugs.
"It's five years today."
Gisborne's voice is sharp and tinted with bitterness and self-loathing. "You don't need to tell me that."
Robin holds up the flowers. "I thought we could do this together. Maybe without the fighting, this time. And afterwards, we get drunk." He winces at his own words, hating that it sounds like he's offering Gisborne an olive branch when all he wants is some company today. He thought of asking Will or Djaq along. He knows they loved Marian, too, but their grief is different to his, and he doesn't want someone who merely understands. He needs to share this misery.
Only for today.
* * *
"You know, Hood, I've known you for almost twenty years now. But sometimes, you still surprise me," Gisborne says, later.
The mention of those long-gone days makes Robin uncomfortable, unsure of how to reply, so he latches onto the one thing he does have a response to: "I told you not to call me that!"
Gisborne rolls his eyes. "Robin, then."
Robin blinks. He expected Gisborne to call him 'Locksley' or, better yet, not call him anything at all. His Christian name sounds strange coming from Gisborne's tongue, and he almost tells him not to use that either when Gisborne speaks again.
"Might as well call me Guy, then. Not like the title is worth anything here. Or ever was, even before. Besides, Marian would have liked that."
In his drunken mind, Gisborne's (Guy's) reasoning actually makes sense.
* * *
The weather changes, seasons turn, and little Marian speaks her first words. Back home in England, it's Christmas, and Robin feels restless.
"Maybe I should return to England. Maybe it's time," he says, one evening at Marian's grave. It's the first time he's voiced the thought.
Guy snorts. "And what, exactly, would you be returning to?"
It's not an unreasonable question, but Guy's mocking tone angers Robin. Guy is a little more himself these days – or at least, he acts like he is, and Robin doesn't like it. "My home. My friends. People who need me," he snaps.
"You have friends here."
Robin sighs and runs a weary hand through his hair, absently realizing that he desperately needs to get it cut. "Yes, and I love them dearly. But they have their family and they don't need me."
Guy looks at him oddly, a frown on his face.
"What?" Robin asks, still irritable.
His question is met with more silence, until he eventually gives up waiting for an answer. He tells himself it was probably not worth hearing anyway.
* * *
"You are our guest for as long as you like," Djaq says when he tells her about his plans. "But if your heart is calling you home, then you must go."
There's so much warmth in her voice that he knows she means it, and it's not just a polite way of trying to get him out of their hair.
The thing is, he's not sure whether his heart is calling him home. He's not sure his heart is calling him anywhere. If it weren't for the fact that he's alive, he'd be unconvinced that his heart was still beating.
"I don't know what to do."
"If you are not certain, then that means that you have unfinished business here. Then you should stay," is the advice he gets from Djaq.
* * *
That night, Guy turns up on their doorstep. Will instantly reaches for his sword, and Djaq's voice is brimming with outrage when she asks him how he dares to come to this place.
Robin finds it ironic that he has to be the one to calm his friends and prevent them from avenging Marian's death in the way that he refused to do before.
"What do you want?" he asks, aware of Will's eyes burning into him.
Guy may be sober enough to have found their house, but he's drunk enough to let go of his rigid control, the one that made him hold his tongue earlier. "Don't go back to England. Stay."
And Robin opens his mouth to tell him that he did, in fact, decide to stick around, except Guy won't let him speak, he presses on, stringing the words together quickly, as if he cannot keep them inside for one second longer. "I need you. You're my last tie to Marian, you and those bloody flowers on the bloody grave, and if I lose that. If I lose you, I…"
And that's so incredibly fucked up – and what's worse, even, is that Robin gets it, and it's part of why he's staying. Not for Guy, but because leaving the Holy Land would mean leaving Marian behind, again, and he can't do this. Because, when it comes down to it, there's only him and the grave and the flowers and Guy that is left of Marian: shared grief and pain and guilt and memories, and rigid, stupid graveside rituals.
Guy's hand closes around the back of his neck in a firm grip, not threatening, just seeking comfort or maybe trying to give it – Robin isn't sure which.
"It's okay. I'm not going anywhere," he says, roughly, and when he's drawn into something that could almost be a hug, if it were gentler and if it were anyone else but Guy and him, he doesn't resist and finds himself holding on just as tightly.
End