Waiting
(oneshot, the gang's POV)
I promise, I am still working steadily on The Lute Maker's Daughter and its sequels, which is my main project at the moment. This is an idea that popped into my head today, and I wanted to write it out while it was still fresh. I don't know what it is about Robin Hood that fills my head with so many fic ideas (and the perseverance to write them). I have written fics for other stories before, but never with the kind of fervor I've had for Robin Hood lately. Anyway, the following story is AU, and it regards Robin's hopes for King Richard, and the gang's perspectives on them. It's set pre-second season.
As always, reviews are appreciated (constructive criticism as well as complimentary). I hope you enjoy!
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It was Robin's favorite subject for wistful campfire conversation, a story that never changed, and never got old (at least to Robin and Much). King Richard, the fabled hero of the people of England, was coming home. Sooner or later, he insisted, King Richard would stand on English soil again, and all the wrongs the country had suffered would be put right again. It was a story told with a far away smile, eyes staring into the darkness as though watching his dream unfold.
The others would hunch around the fire, the same way they did every night, tiredly trying to dry out their sodden clothes and warm their ever-chilled bodies, chewing on the tough meat of a scrawny rabbit or a rough chunk of stale bread. Sometimes they would listen, most of the time they would let their attentions wander, dreaming of their own homes and families (if they had any).
They understood that Robin's hope for the king's return was what kept him strong, kept him fighting. King Richard meant Robin's own homecoming, a restoration of his birthright, and marriage to the woman he had loved since his earliest memories. The association had grown in Robin's head, until King Richard, Sovereign of the Bloody Crusades, had become King Richard, Champion of the People. All Robin had to do was wait for him, and hold down the home front until the waiting was over.
He would never understand, not really, the weight this put on his men. None of them, save Much, had anything to gain from the King's return. Of course, they knew it was for the best, knew that England would prosper again, but with a slight nagging guilt they also knew that fighting for Robin Hood was what gave their lives meaning, more meaning than some of them had ever known. The end of the war meant the end of this family, and so while Robin waited with hope, the others waited with dread.
Allan, ever the rogue, didn't see one king as much better than the other. His life had always been a struggle to find the next meal and he didn't see that ever changing just because of some wealthy noble who didn't care a damn about him. To Djaq, Richard would never be anything but a butcher, and his return would leave her with no recourse but to return to the blood-soaked sands of her homeland, devoid of living friends or family. John's family was already lost to him, and he was gradually becoming aware of his age; it was too late to start again. And Will… Will was just angry, angry at fate and Vaysey and the government, all the forces that had taken his mother from him and forced him to grow up too soon. What would happen with all that anger when he no longer had a target?
So it was with a strange mix of grief, guilt, relief, and immeasurable loss that Robin Hood and his men received the most important news they would ever hear:
King Richard was dead.
The waiting came to a halt with a chilling suddenness. Vaysey, all crocodile tears and barely-hidden glee, made the solemn announcement on a gray day in Locksley. God rest his soul, England weeps for him, rest in peace, etcetera etcetera, lah de dah de dah… It had taken all of the gang's efforts to restrain Robin, keep him from planting an arrow in the Sheriff's throat right then and there.
On King John's coronation day, Robin had been in the worst temper any of them had ever seen. He had shouted at them, drawn his sword on the guards unprovoked, and struck Much across the jaw. Djaq suspected that he had been drinking. This was the effect loss of hope had on a man like Robin. So much waiting, so much suspense, and it had come to absolutely nothing.
What was there to do, but keep fighting? There was no longer any future in it, only a present, the knowledge that if they didn't keep fighting, no one would. The poor were still hungry, the evil still in power, battles still to be fought in an already lost war. They kept fighting because… because they couldn't do anything else. Because the moment they stopped, the last true spirit of England would die. And so Robin Hood and his men became the ghosts of Sherwood, a constant certainty that would never die, but never rest either.
Still waiting, but not knowing what for.