Episode 2x01 "Sisterhood"

The night's deliveries to Merton hadn't taken as long as she expected.

Her horse stabled, she climbed the house outside her bedroom window and lighted in as silently as possible. Her father would not be surprised to have her gone out as the Nightwatchman, but she did not tell him when she went more often than she did. It gave him less to worry about, and the less he was worried the less she had to spend worrying about him, and his possibly reactions or actions, in turn.

Walking across the room, the pale light from down stairs cast through open door and a large shadow in it. Knowing the door had been closed when she left and her father wouldn't stand in the shadows, Marian's lips quirked into a smile even ash she didn't stop. She walked toward her bed, pulling back her hood, and then pulled off her mask, tugging the down the cover over her cheeks and mouth.

Pulling her hair free, she announced, "And that's all I'm taking off until you go away," before walking on to light the candles on the mantle above the fireplace.

It was followed by a quick laugh and slow swaggering steps forward into her bedroom. "You're a spoil-sport, Marian." He stepped up behind her and she wonder what would come next, knowing Robin it could be anything. Especially given the last few weeks. But it was followed with a more neutral, business like tone. "What do you make of this?"

She looked up, managing to catch the object through at her in mid air. Her fingers tensed, but her palm stayed half-open, cradling the ring that she longed to crush under her heel already. "The sheriff’s insignia?" Marian toyed with it, looping the tip of her thumb inside the band and she looked up expectantly. That could not be all. He wasn't that daft.

"We took it off a women on her way to Nottingham today. And she had men." Her eyes followed him, as she turned to light other candles in the room, wondering where this would end after the details. It wouldn't be beyond him to ask, or beyond him to not recognize the reminents were burned beyond use. She looked instead at the stick she was lighting with or the ring in her hand. "They were well trained. It was like a military unit."

His movement cast a shadow on the wall when he made an exaggerate arm movement. "And she's been granted the sheriff’s insignia."

Marian, still looking at the ring, began to frown. "And what does that mean?"

"I don't know," he said, more quietly, more confidingly as Marian blew out the stick and set it down. "I was hoping you or your father might know."

Marian resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him. Sweet though he could be sometimes she wondered if he considered the ramifications of the choice she'd made. She kept her voice soft, walking back toward him. "I get the feeling we're not too welcome in corridors of power."

"Good." She looked up at him, a reluctance there that had nothing to do with him. "Come and join my gang."

From one impossibility to the next. Marian looked down once, face only half blanked, as the weight settled again from both directions. The forced air between her lips made a quiet almost-laugh. She turned away, saying, "In your dreams."

"Wait."' Robin said, taking her arm and pulling her back, pulling her so that she was only inches from him again. "Listen."

He leaned in, one hand caressing her check and ear, and kissed her. Nothing like the kiss on horseback or a number of the ones between then and now. Yet somehow its soft and sweet nature, nearly chaste, impatient nature, still caused her heart to rush at the same time as it caused it to sink. "Did you hear it?"

"What?"

"That kiss spoke volumes," he said, whispering now, leaving his hand tangled in her hair.

"Did it?" Marian asked, watching his face. "And what did it say?"

He pulled her in, closer this time, into his arms until she was resting against him. Where she went gladly, feeling like some part of her that couldn't relaxed even without her admission to the action. Her eyes closed and she let out a quiet breath, but as he spoke into her hair she watched the ground with some sadness. "It said Marian wants to come and join your gang."

"Really?" She gave a small laugh against his shoulder, eyes focused with intensity on the wall far from them. And the pain somewhere, without a location, inside her at the request. "That's not what I heard. What I heard was a little voice saying--" Marian pulled back from him, away from his arms, the warmth and shelter and rest they offered. Away from them she could look into his eyes, squarely and still keep her expression between stern and mocking. "--abandon your home, abandon your father, give up any hope of a normal life, and take up arms with a man who thinks resistance is about showing off with a bow."

He pulled back stung, and while she regretted hurting him, she could not regret her words.

Or their truth.

"That's not fair."

"And to do what?" Marian asked, letting him take more steps back, to move in more space, because it was easier for both of them. "To wait for a king who, lets face it, may or may not make it home."

He started laughing. That--and his insufferably wide grin suddenly--was far more infuriating than any tart response she had expected to her dressing down. Annoyed, she blurted, "What?"

"So you have been thinking about it then."

Marian blinked, and looked down, her mouth tugging into a rueful grin.

From the window suddenly came the sound of thudding hooves and a horse whining, and Robin dashed to the window first, Marian close behind him. He leaned inward where she looked from a few feet back heart icing over as she spotted in the flickering light of a handful of torches Gisborne leaping off his horse and the guards who surrounded him.

Episode 2x01 "Sisterhood"

After a long night of waiting Marian and her fathered were summoned before the Sherriff.

When they were lead in by the guards he was playing with a bird cage full of birds, looking away from them. But he started as neither of them was speaking. It'd even been a few hours since they'd spoken to each other more than a handful of words. How to handle the loss of their house and everything else, anything that meant anything.

"Ah, the sanctimonious old fart." He looked over finally, smile cruelly curling. "And her father."

He walked toward them, chuckling under his breath. "I gather you've been careless with your wood fire."

"You know full well that is not the case," Marian snapped.

He was unruffled, but sat on the middle area of a perch where he hawk rested. "Tell me, who's side are you on: mine or King Richards? The real world or the old world?"

There was pause, where Marian simply glowered at the manipulation, before her father replied, "Yours."

The sheriff laughed picking up a skull on the same seated area. While speaking he pulled a tooth loose from it. "Come alone. We both know that’s not true. Don't we?"

"I believe in justice." Her father started, and she saw the anger fill the sheriff's face even as she felt a surge of pride at his words. "I believe in the rights of the free man."

"Who cares what you believe in? Hmm?" The Sherriff asked, crossing his personal space and standing right before him, nearly face to face. "I have a plan and I will not tolerate dissent." He emphasized it by shoving the tooth into the preexisting gap in his upper row of teeth. He gave a dismissive laugh, stepping back from them. "So. You are under house arrest. Here. In the castle. Until I can find some use for you."

What was left of Marian feeling, seized cold. "My lord Sherriff, I must protest--"

"You must!" He seethed, turning back to her in the doorway.

But Marian rolled on. If she could just-- "My father is unwell. He must be allowed t--"

"One more word out of you, missy," The Sherriff broke in. "And your father will never be unwell again!"

He turned away from them at the same moment Gisborne arrived. They spoke about another person arriving as Marian had moved her gaze to Guy. She had to bite back the bile that filled her as unbidden the images of him setting fire to the draperies and the house came flooding through her mind. To be set aside. To be shoved aside. To be locked away.

For any moment but this one.

"Guy!" She called out, the desperation in her thoughts far more important than her pride or feelings.