Title: To Live, To Love, To Lose
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Four of the women Much has loved, and lost.
Author's Note: This was ridiculously fun to write. I may have to return to it in the future and add a slash section.
I.
The first time Much falls in love he is fifteen and this is the first thing in his life that doesn't involve Robin.
She doesn't know he exists, but that's fine. He is content to watch her as she moves through the village, balancing her basket on her hip, smiling and laughing with the other girls she encounters.
At first, he has no idea who she is. It takes a week for him to discover that she is the wife of the Nettlestone blacksmith, come to Locksley to stay with her new sister-in-law while their husbands are gone to York to attend to their dying mother.
He might feel some guilt, but he doesn't know the Nettlestone blacksmith. And any man foolish enough to leave behind a wife that beautiful deserves what he gets.
Robin remains oblivious to Much's plight. The younger boy is far more interested in escaping his daily lessons for rides through the forest or target practice with his new bow. And he insists Much accompany him, when Much would much rather stay in Locksley, haunting the village.
Unrequited love, Much learns, is far more painful than he had imagined.
Eventually, after what seems like months but must really have been only several weeks, Much garners enough courage to smile and say hello to the woman. When she smiles back at him, his knees almost give out.
Every day after that, he makes sure that he is able to see her, at least once. They never exchange anything more than smiles and nods, maybe a few words, but he lives for those moments.
Finally one day he works up enough courage to talk to her. He is so consumed by the urgency of his emotions that he can barely walk straight as he makes his way to the cottage where she is staying.
She is kneeling in the vegetable plot, hair held back by a brown kerchief, dirt smudged on her nose and cheeks. She has never been more beautiful to him.
She smiles and stands when she sees him standing there. As she opens her mouth to speak, Much steps forward, rushing to get his words out.
"I love you." He says earnestly.
She laughs, but smoothes a palm over his soft cheek before withdrawing it.
"No you don't." She says smiling at him fondly. She turns then, going back to gather her gardening things before heading back into the cottage.
"I do! Really!" He cries, still standing, watching the door shut firmly behind her. He can hear her voice inside the house, talking with her sister-in-law, laughing. At him, he thinks.
II.
Her name is Mary and she comes to Locksley with her mother when Much is twenty. They have come to work for Lord Hugh; Mary as a housemaid, her mother as housekeeper.
At first, Much hardly notices Mary. With her brown hair and dark clothes, she blends into the walls as he passes her in the halls. He rarely eats meals with the other servants, spending most of his time with Robin outdoors, so he never sees her at the communal dinner table.
By the time he does notice her, several months after her arrival, it is only because she has taken to starring at him. Robin is the first one to notice and he is delighted by his friend's embarrassment, an emotion Robin is not overly familiar with. Mary blushes a deep red when she is caught watching him. It is then that Much first thinks her pretty, with her usually pale cheeks darkened and her blue eyes downcast.
After that he starts eating with the other servants.
She is quiet and charming and thinks the world of Much and it is far too easy for him to fall in love with her. She is soft and sweet and he is her first kiss. For the first time in his life, Much feels like he is an adult, like he could contemplate a life as something other than Robin's playmate.
She is his first fumbling attempt at intimacy when late one summer night, they climb into the stable's loft and lie down in the sweet hay.
She shudders in his arms and it is then that he knows he loves her, as she buries her head against his neck, sighing softly before wrapping her arms tightly around him.
The rest of the summer is spent sneaking secret moments away from her mother and from Robin. He knows her body better than he knows his own and each night they talk of how, once Much has saved enough money, they will marry and make their own home in the village.
When the fall comes, the stables become too cold and Mary meets him in his room, on the other side of the house from the room she shares with her own mother, who is a mercifully sound sleeper.
Her brown, soft limbs of summer turn to white, sharp angles by November, and they poke at him awkwardly as they lie together. Much laughs at first, telling her that she's wasting away with love for him.
By December her skin is grey and loose, and she is more skeleton than woman. He makes no jokes now and she hides from him, hating the shock and fear she sees in his eyes.
The physician, who Much demands Mary see, clucks his tongue and exchanges dark glances with his apprentice when he visits her sickbed. He takes Much aside after and tells him that which Much has been dreading. He cries afterward, thankful that Robin has had enough sense to leave him alone the past few weeks.
She dies before Christmas and fires have to be lit to thaw the ground before her grave can be dug.
As the last of the dirt is thrown onto her coffin, Much can sense Robin at his side. Robin, who had laughed at his friend's infatuation only months before, is now silent and more compassionate than Much had anticipated. He throws a brotherly arm over Much's shoulders, a calming pressure, a reminder that he is not alone in this world.
Much decides then that he will never fall in love again. That pain like this cannot be worth it.
III.
His resolution lasts for four years, until he meets Anna. He meets her at Nottingham Castle on market day. She's working at her father's booth, selling…well, Much can't actually remember what it was she was selling. He'd been standing across the road, bartering with a leather worker over a new belt when he'd caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye.
She was prettier than Mary and taller and more adventurous and far more flirtatious and he felt guilty immediately for feeling attracted to her.
She tosses her red hair when she seems him approaching her booth. Much can't believe that a woman who looks like her could possibly be flirting with him, but as they begin to make conversation it becomes increasingly apparent that she is.
After that, he comes every week to Nottingham on market day, heading straight for her booth. He spends the whole day there usually, helping at the end of the day to load her family's goods into their cart. In between arriving and leaving the market, she always finds time to slip away with him, into the dark alleyways where they find so many other young lovers like themselves.
He doesn't love her in the way he loved Mary. He doesn't want to cherish her or protect her or spend his life with her. But he loves her vitality, the way she makes him feel alive, how she makes him forget to feel guilty, how she reminds him that he is young and that there are still so many things he has yet to experience.
When he tells her that he is going to the Holy Land with Robin, she merely smiles and kisses him goodbye.
"Say a prayer for me in Jerusalem." She says, winking at him.
He prays for her. And for Mary.
IV.
Marian is the one person he always knew was off limits. Even before Robin and Marian knew it themselves, he knew the two were betrothed. All the servants in Locksley knew. And he watched them grow up together and fall in love with the fondness of an older sibling.
And then he watched Robin break Marian's heart when they left for the Crusades and from then on, nothing was sacred.
When they returned, Robin wasn't the only one struck by Marian's new found maturity. She'd grown from a pretty child into a beautiful woman, and a spirited, kind one at that.
He hadn't meant to fall in love with her. Before they had returned, he had fully expected her to fall right back into Robin's arms. He had thought that a year after their return, Robin and Marian would have been long married, residing in Locksley, as they should have been years ago.
But nothing went according to plan after their return. Robin and Much live in the forest, Marian remains a maid in her father's house and no one knows when any of this will change.
Somewhere between being jealous of Marian and feeling sorry for her, Much realizes that he loves her. Not as his master's sweetheart, not as a girl he has known since childhood, but as a woman. As someone capable of stirring feelings in him he had thought long dead.
He will never do anything, of course. Whatever he may have to offer Marian, that can be nothing compared with Robin, who she loves, try how she may to convince herself otherwise. He is fine with that, he tells himself. Robin will make her happy. Yes, he might not always be faithful, might ignore her one moment and suffocate her with affection the next, but he is what she wants.
Sometimes, Much learns, love is about making someone else happy and making yourself miserable.