I've recently started rewatching RH and it has made me remember how much I love this series. Last time I rewatched the series I wrote a few flash fics that went with the various episodes. This fic is very much in the same vein - it is set during 1x01 and 1x02. The title is from the OneRepublic song by the same name which partially inspired this. Anyway, I hope y'all enjoy. I would love to have some feedback!
She does not realize how much it still hurts until she sees Robin again.
It is easy to point a bow at him, to defend her father, because it hurts. She never thought she would see him again. He made the choice to leave long ago. It was a harsh reality that most men who went to the Holy Land never came back. She never expected him to come back.
It has been five years. Five years she has spent hating him for what he did to her – for abandoning her for the sake of war and his hunt for glory. He wrapped it in pretty words, saying that he was going for the sake of the king when she knew he did not have to. They were just words, just like all of the other words he had used too woo her.
Marian is no longer a girl who was easily fooled. She is no longer a girl to begin with. She is a woman now; an unmarried woman, but a woman all the same. She has no time for the pretty fancies of her girlhood. There is work to do and there are people to help. There is no time for needlework or any such pleasures. She hates needlework anyway.
Robin shattered her illusions. He said he would be by her side forever. She knows better than to believe him now. He was a fool then and he is as much of a fool now. She can see in his face that nothing has changed.
His eyes are different. Even as he spouts the same drivel that won her heart years ago and he gives her that look that used to make her weak in the knees, she can see that something is different. She does not know what it is and she does not want to know.
She tries to tell herself that whatever haunts him is deserved. She wants to hate him and to wish him the worst because it still hurts. It never stopped hurting. He is the reason she rejected suitor after suitor.
It is not because she has her heart set on a love match. She gave up that idea a long time ago. At first it was because she was still hurting after Robin left her. Then it was because she did not trust any of them. It is not because she still loves Robin because she does not.
She wants to hate him. It would be easier if she could. He is a fool and she will never trust him again.
She cannot hate him. She also cannot watch the Sheriff hang him. He may be a fool and a terrible outlaw, but he is still Robin. She will not trust him and she will not love him again.
The words come out in the dungeon. She does not mean to let them out, but they do. He has caused her so much pain and now he knows some of it. He brushes it off like he always used to. Once upon a time that would have made her grateful. Now she sees the pain in his eyes that echoes the pain in her heart.
She never stopped loving him. But she will never let herself trust him again.