Back at King Richard's war camp that evening, the medical tent had two new occupants. Marian lay on one of their beds, and Robin sat beside her. Djaq was also making herself useful around the area, imparting her knowledge to those who would hear it. Will asked her once if she felt like she was doing wrong by helping her enemy, to which she replied that all she was doing was helping the injured.

"If I let people die when I could save them, I would be doing more wrong than if I didn't. Does it matter who these people are? So long as I'm saving someone."

No one could argue with that.

"How are you?" she asked Robin now.

"I'm fine, thanks," he replied warmly.

"Liar," she said. "You are dead on your feet. You haven't slept in three days, and you barely slept on the ship."

It was true; on the journey to the Holy Land, Robin had annoyed Much and Allan no end as he paced throughout the night. Knowing that they were a day or more behind the Sheriff had aggravated him beyond belief; knowing that they had Marian had frightened him senseless. The more Allan told him of what had happened, the more scared he became. As a result, he had slept for only a fraction of what the rest had managed, even Little John, who was traumatised by seasickness. He had eaten less as well, though he was never a valiant trencherman. In short, he was not in the best of shape and had been running on pure adrenaline.

He shook his head. "I've gone longer without sleep."

"And it was bad for you then," she argued. "Marian will not wake up any time soon. Go and find yourself a bed; she will still be here when you wake up."

He sighed. "As ever, Djaq, you speak utter sense."

"And as ever, Robin, you are ignoring me."

He laughed. "You know me too well."

"Robin," she said warningly. "If you will not sleep, I will drug you to sleep."

"Djaq," he protested.

"I mean it."

"I know you do," he half-laughed. "That's why I'm arguing. Oh, alright then," he sighed. "I'll sleep. But I'm sleeping here."

"Very well," she agreed.

"And if there's any change—"

"We will wake you. But there won't be." She smiled at his stubbornness. "I will go and fetch some blankets. And some food. You need to eat."

"Thank you," he said, and returned to watching Marian sleep.

Allan was his next caller. He still felt guilty, understandably, and slightly awkward around the gang. This included Robin, but he felt a kinship towards Marian that they had somehow struck up in between his betrayal of her fiancé to her ex-fiancé and his saving her from execution along with the latter. Even Robin, who at one point could have easily killed the man, felt a grudging gratitude towards him for his part in mimicking the Nightwatchman.

"She alright?" Allan asked, approaching the bed.

"According to Djaq," Robin replied.

"Cheer up!" Allan said. "She's alive, and you're married, and the King's not dead, and look at her! That's not like earlier, or like last time."

He had a point. Last time (no one needed to define last time) her face had been deathly pale in the flickering torchlight and the seeping daylight from the entrance of the cave. Her lips had been the pink of snow at dawn, barely coloured, and she had exuded a coldness which was frightening to behold. Here and now, after a few hours of recovery, her cheeks were flushed with the heat that her body could still feel, and though her lips were chapped from the sand and dry winds, they were a deep crimson, practically advertising the blood which still pumped round her body, steady and reliable.

"No, you're right," Robin agreed. "I'm just tired. It's been one hell of a day."

"You're not wrong there," Allan said.

A beat, in which they reflected on just how right that statement was.

"Do they know when she'll wake up?" Allan asked.

Robin shook his head. "Djaq doesn't think for at least a day. Apparently it's the best way of healing. And I don't think she's been sleeping well these past nights either."

"No," Allan agreed sheepishly.

Robin decided not to pick up on his tone, or the fact that Allan had told him on the journey that he himself had shackled Marian to the stable wall of the inn in Portsmouth.

"What are the others doing?"

"Well, Will's helping put together an extra tent for us. I think he wanted Djaq away from the others, if you ask me. John's... ignoring me, and helping Will when he can. Much is worrying, but they've got him on food duty to shut him up. Last I heard, he was having a nice chat with someone who he used to know out here," Allan informed him.

Robin nodded, wondering who Much's old friend could be. Though they were in the same place as they had been those short years ago, it seemed to be a world away. He'd been a different person then.

Allan snorted slightly. "Not being funny, but I bet this isn't how you imagined your wedding night."

Some people never changed. "Allan!"

"What? It's true!"

"What is true?" Djaq asked, returning with bedding folded over her arm.

"Nothing," Allan said quickly.

She laughed. "Nothing? If nothing is true then this is a very strange world."

"Thanks," Robin said, taking a bedroll from her and laying it out beside Marian's bed.

"Much will bring some food over," she told him. "He wants to come and see you anyway. And I don't think they wanted me near the kitchens. I heard someone saying I was sure to poison something," she laughed.

Robin sighed, but Allan laughed too. "Must've been someone who's tried your cooking."

Even Robin smiled at that. The one and only occasion Djaq had tried to cook for the gang, Much, Will, Allan and John had ended up bedridden with food poisoning. The major surprise was that Robin escaped unscathed. Djaq theorised that it was because he had fought off such a bad infection before that even her cooking couldn't hurt him now.

"The soldiers aren't being too racist, are they?" Robin asked.

Djaq sighed, exasperated. "I can look after myself. And no, they're not. Matthews is telling everyone that I can be trusted."

"I think he fancies her," Allan said conspiratorially.

"Will doesn't like him," Djaq added.

Robin chuckled. "Will Scarlett, jealous. What have you done to the poor boy?"

"Who are you to judge people for being jealous?" Allan asked.

Everyone realised that he had put his foot in it at exactly the same time. No one wanted a reminder of Gisbourne at this moment.

"Sorry," he muttered.

Robin shook his head. "Don't be."

It was the closest to forgiveness that Allan had come so far. Somehow, he realised that it would be best not to push it. Losing the gang's trust had been such a rapid change that gaining it again would no doubt be a long and slow-moving process. It would be difficult for Allan, who had always favoured the easy route, but he had learnt the lessons of this latter way of living. He would make it.

"Right, then, I'll just..." He gestured to the tent entrance.

"See you later," Djaq said, saving him the trouble of finding an excuse to disappear before he made another mistake.

"Yeah. See you later," he echoed, and disappeared.

"It's nice that you're getting on again," Robin said.

Djaq looked a little shamefaced, as though she'd done something wrong, but Robin shook his head.

"No, I actually meant that. He needs someone to be nice to him. I know I'm going to have trouble with that."

"Let him talk to you," Djaq advised him. "He told me all about his time in the castle, and it helped. He was stupid, but he knows he was. And he did try not to do too much wrong. When they were going to the camp, he wasn't even going to come to the new camp. He was going to go to the cave, because Gisbourne saw us defend it before."

"Really?" Both scepticism and guilt laced his voice. He hadn't even considered this when they'd first moved to intercept Allan and Gisbourne.

"Yes. He was really upset when he realised we didn't trust him even that much, and neither did Marian, because he realised that it looked like he couldn't be trusted at all. He never wanted to be completely evil, but he felt like he was, that day."

Tired as he was, Robin couldn't find the energy to argue with Djaq's words, and so found himself thinking about the truth of them. Most interesting was the idea of Allan's own perception of himself. He remembered how Allan had blown off comments about his conscience before, and how it seemed in hindsight to be overly defensive. Will had been right: Allan had had a hard time living with himself.

"Will said he'd make another tag for him, sometime. He wouldn't say when. And he's already made another one for Marian," Djaq smiled.

"She never did have one," Robin said absently.

Djaq sat down beside him on his makeshift bed. "You two need a very long talk about what you are going to do now."

"I know," he agreed, and rubbed his face hard with his fist, a habit born of frustration. "It seems like we can't go a week without having yet another complete haul-over of our lives."

"Your life," she corrected, quietly. "And I need to talk to both of you, too. Don't decide anything until you've spoken to me."

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Why?"

"There are things I need to tell you, but Marian needs to know, too. I'm going to wait for her to wake up before telling you."

"And you won't change your mind on that, will you?" Robin said.

"No," she agreed with a smile. "So just remember that."

"I will," he promised.

It was at this point that Much entered the tent, bearing a plate of something and looking around with nervous eyes. He had spent far too long in, if not this tent, one very similar, waiting for Robin to wake up, talking to him in his fever-bound madness. Too many men had died around him as he waited for his master to wake up. Being back in the Holy Land was not doing Much any favours.

"Master!" he said, spotting him and Djaq over in the corner, which was the most seclusion Marian could hope for in the communal battlefield hospital. "I brought you some stew. It's goat," he admitted with distaste, handing the dish over.

"Better than squirrel," Djaq ruled.

"It's not squirrel!" Much exploded.

A soldier in the next bed with a leg half-hewn off leant on his good side to ask them, in less than courteous language, to keep the noise down.

"Sorry!" Much whispered. He shivered. "I don't like this place," he muttered.

"Neither do I," Robin agreed.

"Does anyone?" Djaq asked.

Once again, no one had an answer. Djaq had a habit of doing that, of making a statement so simply obvious that no one could reply to it, and at the same time lending it a gravity and wisdom that proclaimed it as completely and utterly true. Will had much the same gift; he said little but conveyed more than should be possible in so few words. They made a brilliant pair.

Robin dug into the stew, discovering that he actually was hungry. It reminded him of days back in the wars, when he had felt like he could never eat another bite again, then discovered that his body was far more prosaic than his mind. Whatever befell him, his stomach would always want food, and his throat would always want water. He could never decide whether the reliability was disgusting or a blessing.

"Djaq!" came a soft call. Matthews, who it seemed was gaining a newfound respect for Saracen science, was asking for her help.

"No rest for the wicked," Djaq grinned, standing up.

"You love it," Robin said.

She turned back with an innocent expression. "Did I ever say I didn't?"

With that she hurried off. Much took her seat, his eyes still flickering around the room anxiously.

"Are you alright?" Robin asked Much, softly.

Much looked confused at the question. "Me? Of course!"

"No, I mean really. It's bad enough for me being in the Holy Land at all, never mind in here," he gestured at the tent. "It must be worse for you."

Now, Much looked shocked, and Robin felt guilty. That Kaleela night of Djaq's had really brought up a few home truths, and it was still being proven how true it was. He really had abandoned Much to deal with his demons alone.

"It's alright," Much shrugged. "I'm trying not to think about it. And it all turned out alright in the end. And Marian's alright, too, so... it's alright."

Robin smiled slightly. It was so typically Much. He complained about the trivial things, and was never the best person to have around in a crisis, but if he really had to deal with something, he did. And he would follow Robin to the ends of the earth.

"Eat up," he said now. "You need to eat, you know. You haven't eaten anything in, well, in days."

"You sound like Djaq," Robin smiled, dutifully scooping up some more food.

For a while they sat in companionable silence, a feat that might have seemed impossible to anyone who knew Much, but not to Robin. Much could be quiet when he wanted to, though that in itself didn't occur often. For now, though, what Much wanted was for Robin to eat, and he would do that faster if he didn't have to maintain a conversation. Nevertheless, as soon as Robin finished, the silence was over.

"Well, I'm glad you ate that, you really needed it," Much decided.

"You definitely sound like Djaq."

"It's true! You never eat enough, you know. It's ridiculous, out of all of us you use up the most energy, or maybe John, but you eat less than anyone. Even Djaq eats more than you."

"No, she doesn't."

"Alright, maybe she doesn't, but she doesn't skip meals like you and go wandering off through the forest! So in total, you probably eat less."

"Probably," Robin concurred, and yawned.

"And you're tired! You never sleep, you don't! How many times have I woken up at midnight and you're fletching arrows or just sitting there, wide awake? I've told you that bad dreams get worse when you're tired, but—"

"Much," Robin interrupted. "You're right. I'm tired. And I'm going to get some sleep."

"Brilliant! You need it. Otherwise you'll just get more tired, and that's no good to anybody—"

"I mean now," Robin laughed. "Would you mind clearing off my bed?"

"Oh!" Much jumped up. "Sorry, master. Goodnight, master."

He turned around and scuttled off, but Robin called him back.

"Much!"

He turned back with wide eyes.

"Call me Robin. You've called me master for too long."

To his surprise, Much frowned. "I don't know. I'm used to calling you master."

"Well, get used to calling me Robin. You're not my servant, Much."

"No," Much agreed proudly. "I'll get used to it. Goodnight, Robin."

"Goodnight, Much."

Before he went to sleep though, he couldn't resist stroking Marian's cheek and kissing the ruby that adorned her left hand, and whispering, "Goodnight, Marian, my wife."

Only then did he lie down and go to sleep.