Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Author Note: Set post-series.

TO LIVE AND LIVE AGAIN

Marion was grateful when Robert didn't ask immediately. While she was sure she had made the right decision in returning to Sherwood, she still needed time to adjust to life there again. Despite the balm and comfort Sherwood was to her – where those that died were free, she remembered those words and was grateful – this life still sometimes made her ache and tense with remembered grief. But to live without Robert, she had discovered, was an equal pain. Here at least she could love him in kind and they could enjoy every moment they were granted together. They could have Sherwood.

Robert hadn't even been able to attend his father's burial. He had refused his father's last request – to become Earl of Huntington. Robert had chosen the forest and Herne, he had chosen Marion.

His father's death was perhaps why Robert had delayed approaching the subject of their previous intent to marry. Marion had lain beside him and had dreamed of her own father. She had tasked the nuns with telling her father of her flight to the forest. He had visited her at the abbey and had vowed to do so again. It would be the safest way for him to hear such news. Perhaps he already knew.

Marion hoped he didn't curse her name or feel great shame. He had lost his wife, now he had lost his daughter twice.

"Marion?"

Robert was approaching, slowly as though he knew he'd startled her. Marion smiled, the pain of her thoughts lifting as she gazed at him. The sunlight made his hair appear even fairer. It was shorter now and his limbs had been darkened by the sun, his skin harder and worn. He wore a leather jerkin that had once been John's, tied twice around the waist, and there was a dagger with a jewelled hilt at his hip, one that Marian had often carried herself when she'd lived in Sherwood before. Something else she'd left behind.

Robert sat down beside her, their legs touching comfortably. His shoes needed repairing again and there were fresh scars on his forearms. She had missed a great deal. Now, with the sun dappling through the leaves, the wind singing around them, Marion wanted to make a vow that she'd miss no more. But it was not a vow she could keep, nor could any of them.

Robert didn't break the silence; he seemed content to sit with her and as eased in Sherwood as she was. How long had it been since they'd shared such a moment? Marion had returned but Robert's father had died and the Sheriff seemed to have doubled his efforts to capture Robert since. Marion thought of her own father once more. Whatever happened between Marion and Robert, Sir Richard was unlikely to see his daughter marry. The Sheriff would have men watching Leaford Grange.

He would have men watching Huntington too, doubtless waiting for Robert to return, for a last goodbye or to steal a memento of his father or perhaps to reclaim his inheritance somehow after all. Huntington had been loyal to Robert before but Robert wouldn't put anyone there in danger, or aid those there that were more loyalty to the Sheriff's coin. Like Marion, Robert's leaving of his childhood home had been swift and with empty hands.

Amongst the comforting sounds of Sherwood – the running water, the wind in the trees – Marion could hear a bird singing, joyful and uninhibited, and she thought of when she had heard such birdsong before; when Robert had visited her at Leaford Grange.

"He must be in love."

Robert echoed her thoughts, a faint but warm smile on his face. Marion returned the expression, her shoulder pressing to his. She could hold his gaze endlessly without discomfort, the privilege of years, and it struck her in such a comfortable warm moment that perhaps the time had now come, to talk of what they might be to each other. It was a quiet sensation, no sharp sword blow or arrow strike. Instead it was a quiet unfurling, a pebble in a lake. As thought it was meant. It made her smile grow, and think more on Leaford Grange and times past and possible.

"If we had married as we once were, before Sherwood, how happy would my father have been?" she wondered aloud.

Robert's smile twitched and he seemed to give the idea some thought, "You would have married into a great family, well-moneyed and well thought of by the King. And you would have married a man that loved you."

"You wouldn't have known me then."

Robert's smile became something else, something that had existed only between the two of them before. It made Marion's heart feel full.

"The first moment I saw you at Huntington, if it wasn't love it was closer than anything I knew before. Love began there. It would have done the first moment I saw you, no matter who we were."

His hand reached and rested on hers. Marion turned her fingers over to hold his. She fancied she could feel his heartbeat, she could see his feelings plainly matched his words. They matched what lay in her glad full heart too. She nodded.

"We would have married before a bishop or abbot and the Sheriff would have attended, most unhappily."

Robert chuckled and squeezed her hand. "My father would have held a great feast and we would have shared spiced wine."

"There would have been songs and poems and I would have watched you very closely to learn my new husband."

"And to plan how to hide from me, no doubt."

Marion pushed at him but laughed. She tried to think of that time – before Robert, before Robin, before believing her father dead. How would it have been? To be betrothed and married? To join two great families? To live in Huntington?

Out of necessity, Marion had worn white for her first wedding and a crown of flowers, a gift from the forest. Herne had blessed them and later, Tuck had held a ceremony that no one in England would have been able to disavow. Marion could remember her complete happiness, how she hadn't been able to take her eyes off Robin.

Marion smiled at Robert. Loss and pain had washed away who she had once been and shaped who she had become. She would always be her father's daughter but she was Marion of Sherwood now, with or without a husband. Out of everyone she'd known, Robert knew that truth too.

"And how will our wedding be now?" she asked quietly.

It was bold; it would have been scandalous in Nottingham. But Marion knew, amongst the memories, pain and hardship, that she wanted to live this truth with Robert, for however long they were granted. They would live and live on in the forest, something Marion wouldn't ever gain in Leaford or any abbey.

Robert's gaze on her was searching and so hopeful. His desire for her was unhidden and Marion's heart grew fuller still at the thought of this man putting aside all that he felt, pain and love, until she was ready to hear it again and return it in kind. He had waited for her once and then once more, not knowing if she would return such feelings again. Robert's smile broadened and he leaned close to kiss her.

The taste and smell of him had not changed. If anything, it all seemed richer. When they parted, both with bright eyes, Robert drew the dagger with the jewelled hilt from his belt and pressed it gently into Marion's hand, his fingers resting both on the blade and her skin.

"I'd come only to return this to you," he teased merrily, an irrepressible twinkle in his gaze showing his heartfelt joy. "I thought you'd want it returned."

Marion's smile grew and her fingers tucking around his and the dagger. "I do."

-the end