Author's Note: Short piece. Just a little brain child that came from nowhere...enjoy, if you can! :) It's just that Guy was in a very dark place at the time, and the little girl was beautiful and bright and actually very calm...just got me thinking. And that's never a good thing.

Guardian Angel

He can barely breath, even with his neck slung recklessly over the edge of the bed. Lungs struggling to rise and fall under his chest, his soaked chest, such a thin barrier between a sword and his heart. Only a sheet of bone between life and death, although he's not sure which is inside him, and which is outside.

It seems like everyone around him is alive; everyone is breathing, watching the world around them unfold with open eyes, and they enjoy it. They enjoy life. They thrill with every sorrow, every hardship, every joy…life beats them down, and they just get stronger.

How can that be?

Life is ash. It's poison…it's hell. And he can't die. He doesn't have the courage to.

Because this is where Marian lived. She's gone to heaven, he knows that. But if he dies, he'll go to hell, and he'll never see another thing that can remind him of her. This is Locksley manor. He can hear her toddler feet as she patters through the house, squealing at Hood angrily and dragging along a shocked Isabella. While Guy stands beside his father and Lord Malcom and listens to them talking, like a dutiful son should, while every fiber in his being only wants to run and play with the three little ones.

Echoes of her voice, shadows of her face…they float through his dreams…because she's dead. He killed her. And yet the entire world can move on, can live on,

Except for Guy. Time passes him by. Because he killed Marian. Nausea bubbles up in his abused stomach, and yet he swallows it all down. He can't relieve himself. He doesn't deserve it. Every pain, every misery, every demon must stay right where it is, in his brain, his heart, his belly…because they belong with him. They're only waiting to claim him forever, a soul who's already lost.

His hands burn and claw into themselves…because they did it. He did it. He destroyed the one person that was everything for him, destroyed her because he was angry. Unspeakable regret, horror, self-loathing…Marian…his sword pushes forward…stop…her beauty, her purity, extinguished…my angel…dissolving into sand and blood…no…And all his red-rimmed eyes can see is her face …oh God…she's dying again…her voice…calling out in anguish one last time…Marian…

"You have to stop."

His eyes snap open. His breath sucks in sharply, burning his extended throat as he stares around wildly.

The voice is a girl's, light, quiet…there's an endearing lisp on certain words, the quality of a child whose grasp of its mother tongue is still influenced by baby talk. It is innocent but calm, and that calm seems to spread over Guy like a blanket.

He's unprepared for the figure that appears to float upside down in front of him, sharply outlined by fire. Homespun dress that is dyed an odd, bright purple…hair spilling down her shoulders, framing her face in a red waterfall. She's smiling; her friendly brown eyes twinkle down at him.

Without asking, without warning, a small, cool hand settles on his soaked forehead. He doesn't flinch, like he did from the friar's touch earlier…he stares at her. With that touch, with the sight of her…all the demons seem to simmer away, frothing madly at the edge of his consciousness, but only at the edge. He's not drowning in them anymore.

She's the girl from the village earlier today. The one he used to shield himself from Robin's wrath. And she can still speak to him, look at him, touch him like this? Although he can barely breathe, he whispers, "you afraid of me?"

She giggles. Gisborne blinks. "No," the girl replies, wiping black, greasy strands away from his forehead. "I'm glad Robin Hood didn't kill you."

The world, upside down as it is, seems to drop from underneath him. Had he even heard correctly? "What?"

Her tiny thumb traces the bridge of his nose. "It's not over, Guy…there's so much love and goodness in this world that even your sins can't stop them. And they want you. Like the lost sheep…" she kneels on the floor, cradling his head in her hands. And he still can't move. Her face is so close to his.

"Don't give up…you will find a way." And then, soft as a falling rose, she kisses his forehead.

And then she's gone.

Gisborne blinks, then gasps as all the misery, as if trying to make up for lost time, rages alive inside him. The demons, the smoke…Marian…oh God…had he even seen the girl? Or was she another dream…another insane fantasy his dying mind spat out in its revolution against nature.

And then his hands are full of sand, red, wet sand…and he's digging, he's trying to reach Marian…but he finds only bones. And he forgets he ever saw the little girl, his guardian angel.

FINIS