Disclaimer: Not mine. RHBBC belongs to the creators, BBC, etc.
So, I found this while I was looking through my flash drive and decided I should post it. It's definitely not my best, but it's not that bad. I wrote this like a year and a half ago or so while rewatching S1 and it's been sitting for a while. Anyway - enjoy!
He had been gone a long time.
It was not just the five years that he had spent in the Holy Land. He had missed so much of the lives of the people he cared about. Marian, Edward, Dan Scarlett, Will and Luke. People had died and he had not known.
Boys had grown up while Robin was away. People had changed. Things had gone wrong. But things had gone right, too. Marian was yet unmarried, the Scarletts were safe and mostly whole…
But Robin was not happy. He was being blamed for Joderic's murder. He had been beaten by a masked figure who had kicked him hard enough to disorient him.
He was not used to being beaten. He did not like it. After years of being the best, of fighting for his life, he did not like to be the one who was on the ground with the wind knocked out of him. He did not like taking the blame for someone else's actions.
The Night Watchman was a mystery. There was already a contradiction in the story. He never hurt a fly? Then why was Joderic dead by his hand? A peaceful freedom fighter killing an innocent man. It did not make sense.
But it made sense when the Sheriff blamed him. It made sense that the miller and his family had said that it was him. But Robin hated it.
Marian proved to be even more infuriating. Though, it had probably not been the best idea to hit her with an arrow, even if he had not shot it hard enough to actually hurt her. It had only managed to make her angry…which only resulted in a verbal lashing.
He deserved that, he supposed. After all, he had left her to go fight. He had been gone for five long years. Five years that he had had no contact with the people he had once cared so much about. Five years without seeing Marian.
She did not know that he had yearned to see her again every moment he had been gone. He was not going to tell her, but he had missed her. Everything he had done had been for her, even if she did not realize it.
Things had changed while he was gone. But he hoped that that would remain the same. He hoped that she would be willing to wait until King Richard returned and his name was cleared. He hoped that she would be able to forgive him.
Even if a lot had changed in the last five years, Nottinghamshire was still home. And he still loved it, even if the people of the shire did not love him.