The Good Wife

Chapter Two

The soft sound of the trickling waters is a comforting sound to Marian. In the darkness of Sherwood, her knees clutched to her chest, a thin blanket wrapped around her body and with the dancing moon beams shining down on her Marian feels at home.

She is a woman of luxury, of nobility, she has everything she could everything want and yet all of her luxuries are nothing but gilded prison bars and Marian would chose the cold forest floor and scratchy blanket every time.

Without hesitation.

Marian curls her hair around her finger and she smiles as she feels Robin rise next to her. She looks at him and blushes at the way he looks at her, for some reason, even after all these years, even after having a child together, Robin can still make her feel like the same thirteen year old girl being kissed by the boy she likes for the first time. It's fitting, she thinks, that Robin was that boy.

Robin tucks her hair behind her shoulder and begins kissing her neck. Slowly, sensually. Marian closes her eyes as she relaxes into her lover. Robin caresses her face as he kisses her and lowers her back to the grass.

This is what Marian thinks of when Guy lowers her down on their marriage bed. As her husband takes what he needs from her, she thinks of her lover, of the man she longs to be with, the man she wishes was touching her.

Marian tries to think of a time when she once tried to enjoy her relations with her husband. Tried to take pleasure in his touch and his whispers, she had willed herself to love him, but she could not. It didn't take long for her to take her rightful place in the rebellion, to seek out Richard and his army. Despite the fact that they had evaded capture, even to this day, it had not been difficult to locate them, all she had to do was ride through Sherwood and wait.

It had taken all day. Just sitting on her horse and wandering through the thick greenwood, she didn't dare call out in case they were slightly less friendly beings lurking in Sherwood's dept, but eventually her patience had been rewarded. Out from the trees appeared Much and a fellow she now knew as Little John.

Little John had not trusted her. She could see it in his eyes the second he had made himself known, holding his staff menacingly and looking down at her with his intimidating height. Much had not exactly given her a warm welcome either, he felt betrayed too of course. If anyone slapped Robin, a thousand miles a way Much would still feel his pain. And Marian had betrayed Robin, she had broken her word to him, she had married another, married a man he detested. Much felt that as much as Robin.

"I want to help."

This apparently wasn't the right to say.

"Help?" Much exclaimed, "Help! You want to help! You married Gisborne! Gisborne! He's the worst thing going, he's as bad as the sheriff! Worse maybe! Yeah, worse! And you married him! Married!"

"I understand that Much, I had no choice I had to protect my father-

"Everything is a choice, everything we do, isn't that what you always say?"

She hadn't heard him approach, hadn't seen him in the shadows. But she shouldn't have expected too, people said he was a ghost, said he could walk through walls. She should have known he would be close by, he and Much were always together.

Suddenly he was around her, his body close to hers, she could feel his eyes on her, striping her of her well created façade, seeing through her wall of carefully crafted expressions and chosen words, everything that prevented her from falling apart.

"You married Gisborne, you had a choice and you made it the second you stepped into that church."

"And now I am in the perfect position to give you what you want." She snapped finally looking at him, meeting the eyes of the man she loved for the first time since England had crumbled with the aid of her new husband.

"What I want?" he said with a patronizing grin crossing her arms over his chest, "And what exactly is it that I want?"

"Richard back on the throne. Guy trusts-

"Guy?" Robin spat the word with a hallow laugh.

Marian closed her eyes, Robin was not making this easy for her but she supposed if the situation was reversed, neither would she, "He trusts me, he thinks I'm his meek, obedient wife who worships the ground he walks on, I can get any information you need, everything you need to stop the sheriff and remove John and restore England."

Robin looked to Much and Little John who seemed to be very aware that they were caught in a spat between two former lovers but were trying there best to hide it.

"Why should I trust you? How do I know that you're not Gisborne's meek, obedient wife and this is just a lovely honey trap?"

"Do you think I'm capable of that?" she asked feeling tears build in her eyes that she pushed by, she wouldn't show weakness, not to anyone, not even Robin.

"I didn't think you were capable of what you've already done." He whispered before sighing and looking to the ground, "You want to help us?"

"I do."

Robin looked at her for awhile, weighing her up, measuring her recent betrayal of him against what she could do for England and for his cause. He looked to his men who had not moved since they had appeared to Marian, "Lads?"

"She is a Gisborne." Was all Little John could say of her.

"It's your choice Master."

"Prove yourself. What do you know?" Robin asked her.

"Guy knows you're hiding here, the sheriff is borrowing men from the Lords of the shire and from King John, he's planning on cornering off every section of the forest, searching it methodically for your camp and leaving guards in every sections so your movements are always restricted and he forces you into one place."

"He's told you this?"

"Yes and I've seen the map, I can make a copy and give it to you, that way you know their movements."

"Alright, tonight and if this pans out I know I can trust you." He said as he, Much and Little John began to disappear back into the forest.

"Wait! How will I find you?"

"I'll find you." He said as he disappeared back into his new home. It took seconds for Marian to call Much back to her and ask him to make sure he was the one who would always hear her information, she wanted to be his informant. She didn't exactly trust herself alone with Robin.

She returned to her husband and found the map in his private study, made her copy and returned to the forest and delivered it into Much's waiting hands, with Robin watching from behind him.

"I love you," Guy whispers as their love making ends and he lies next to her, his eyes drooping with sleep.

Marian knows she should respond, assure him of her non existent love, continue to solidify her position as his wife and as such a spy for the rebellion but she can't, not now. It's bad enough that she must share her body with the man who has crushed her dreams and hopes a thousand times over, a body that does not belong to him, but those words, those three little words that mean too much, the words that only Robin should hear, she can't say them, not tonight, she's given too much.

Guy is asleep within moments. The Outlaws struck again, stole money that was intended to buy the loyalty of Leopold of Austria to John in the instance that Richard should – will – regain control. The Fake King fears Richard's army, he fears the Prince of Thieves, he fears Robin Hood and this theft has only caused his fear and paranoia to grow. He takes it out on those who are most loyal to him, Guy and Vaisey, they too are now suffering under his tyrannical rule but they make their peace with their exhaustion by reminding themselves that John gives them power, Richard would give them a noose.

Once she is satisfied that Guy will not awaken, Marian moves from his bed and with a shiver slips on a silky gown to shield her naked body. She looks at her sleeping husband and in an unspeakable thought thinks of how easy it would be to kill him now.

Marian tried to have faith in him once, tried to believe that his obvious feelings for her would awaken some dormant goodness in him, but it's been years and her faith has weakened. It was impossible for her to keep it strong when even after Lucy's birth Guy could so callously order the death of children. The birth of her child has caused her not to hope for someone to miraculously change their ways, Guy has chosen his path and it is one of evil. Her hopes for him to become a better man could not change that.

Everything is a choice, everything we do. He made his choice, she had made hers and for that choice she must leave him alive even if at times his actions make her fear for her child's life.

Marian leaves the bedchamber and walks down the hallway to Lucy's bedroom, her three year old daughter is sleeping soundly, her dark hair sprawled out on her pillow. Marian smiles and sits on her daughter's bed as she strokes her long hair and she thinks back to when she gave up trying to resist Robin.

She'd been a spy for months, providing information that always helped the outlaws and make The Fake King look like a fool in front of the Lords. She'd always travel to the lake in the forest, speak with Much and Robin, sometimes even Little John who had grown to trust her. One night when she had made her way to the lake, Much or Little John were not there.

It was only Robin appearing out of the darkness like the ghost the people claimed he was. The fear she felt in her stomach was so consuming she almost turned and fled, afraid of what might happen with no buffer between her and her former fiancé.

"Where's Much?" she asked trying to appear nonchalant.

"Not here," he said leaning up against a large oak tree, "And neither is Little John." He finished knowing exactly where Marian's line of questioning was headed. Marian closed her eyes, Robin always said she could see into his soul, did he not realize that he could do the same to her?

"Why are you so afraid to be alone with me?"

"I'm not," Marian said more forcefully then she intended, more defensively.

"Really? Then why did you ask Much to always be the one to come see you? You should have waited a bit longer if you hadn't wanted me to hear."

Marian turned from him and cursed herself silently, she made her request to Much without even checking if Robin was still close by, with all this talk of ghosts she had just assumed he would have disappeared the second the trees hid his retreating form.

"Because I know we would argue."

He laughed. "Marian there hasn't been a day since we met when we haven't argued and you've always seemed to enjoy them. Marian, if I deserve anything it's the truth, why?"

Marian felt the familiar catch in her throat she knew that if she looked at Robin she would lose her composure, she would finally let herself feel what she had forced under the mask of Lady Gisborne, she couldn't allow that. She couldn't but yet…

"I don't want to get hurt."

"What?" Robin asked with a hint of anger in his voice, "You think I would hurt you?" she felt him move from the oak, heard his footsteps as he came closer to her, felt his hand on her shoulder as he turned her and forced her to face him, she felt the tears finally be released, "You think I'd hurt you, hit you?"

"No," she said her voice breaking, even in the darkness of the night it was now obvious that she was crying, emotions she had tried to hide fighting their way to the surface. "It hurts Robin, every time I see you…it hurts, it hurts so much and I can't stand it, I can't stand being near you, not touching you and then going back to a house I should be living in with out, to a husband whose look and touch I can't stand, seeing you hurts, knowing everything we lost, hurts…it just hurts."

Her face was sprayed with tears, her voice hoarse, Robin brought his hand to her face, she moved backwards, he followed, "Robin…" she pleaded, "I'm married."

"Stop me," he said, "I've seen you fight, I know you can, just stop me." He moved her back against a tree, he took her tear streaked face in his hands and he kissed her, hard, passionately, hungrily, lovingly. Marian kissed him back.

It was the first time in a long time that she felt something, something real. She was married, she wanted to be true to her vows but they were vows made under duress, under a falsehood, they weren't real, her marriage wasn't real.

Robin was.

Her hands were in his hair, she was kissing him back with equal fury, somehow their positions had changed, he was against the tree now, she was clawing at his clothes, he at hers. Marian suddenly didn't care anymore, not about her appearance, her façade, her husband, there was only Robin and the knowledge that she loved him, wanted him, needed him.

A good wife would feel shame or regret but Marian felt none of those things, she is not a good wife.

She looks at Lucy with love and gently brings her hand to her stomach and a sweet touch to the new life that is growing inside. Robin's child. Guy shall not suspect the gap in the dates, he is too prideful to ever think that someone else could have fathered "his" children. He is a fool.

But then again so is everybody else.

Lucy stirs and her eyes open and she greets her mother with a tired smile.

"I'm sorry my darling, did I wake you?"

"No mommy," she replied sleep coating her voice, "I had a dream."

"A bad dream?" Marian asked worried.

"No, a good dream, it was about daddy, he took us away from here and all the bad men." She said with child like belief that her dream would one day become reality, but Marian knew that Guy of Gisborne would never take Lucy away from this heinous place.

"Oh, that's a lovely dream," Marian said with a sad smile.

"When's daddy coming for us?"

Marian's brow furrowed in confusion, "What do you mean?"

"When he visits me, daddy always says he's going to us away to a better place, away from Guy and the mean sheriff." She says dozily.

The fear rose in Marian faster then ever before, had Robin really risked everything?

"And do you talk to him?" Marian asked trying to mask the fear in her voice.

"No, he thinks I'm asleep, I just listen."

"Have you told anybody else about this Lucy?"

"Just you mommy," she yawned and before Marian could press her daughter any further Lucy was asleep.

Marian frozen with fear stayed in the bed for the rest of the night. Robin had never told her that he visited Lucy, not once and now Lucy knew about him, knew the truth about her father, she was three years old for God sake, she could tell anyone.

She could tell Guy.

She had to find Robin.

RHRHRHRHRHRHRH

I feel that I should point out that as I am writing this, I am unbelievably sick and medicated so if there are mistakes that's why.

Also thanks to the people who reviewed this story, your encouragement really made me want to write a second chapter so review again and we'll see how I go with three.

Anna.