WHEN THE STORM IS THROUGH
Inspired by the song from Anastasia, At The Beginning…
Robin/Marian. The generic story, through the years, with a twist. Threeshot.
Because I LOATHE Isabella.
A/N: I have also made a Robin&Marian video with the same title as this fic, to the same song... my first EVER video, so please check it out! I'll put the link on my profile ;)
IV.
Love is a river I want to keep flowing…
It had been almost a year since he'd been back now, and so much had happened, with the new Sheriff, with Gisbourne, Robin turning outlaw, his gang in the forest… so clearly not what she'd wanted out of her life, but with him beside her again, it was something close to good, anyway.
She'd denied him her love, denied him everything, when he'd returned, still fuming, still hurt beyond repair. She didn't think he would ever fully appreciate how difficult it had been for her after he had left, with nothing but a letter and his child, his illegitimate, impossible child growing inside her. She'd only been eighteen, and her father had been away a lot in that year, and it was Tess, her maid, that had organised it all, much to Marian's loathing, to whisk the baby away the moment she was born, a beautiful baby girl Marian had named Ysabel after her mother the second before the baby was wrapped in a cloth and Tess had run with her, from the manor, from Marian's life.
The ache had been deep, the pain had been terrible. She hadn't known it was possible to feel quite like this about anything. She'd spent her days recovering locked in her room, trying to think straight, try to formulate a plan to find her daughter and run away somewhere, but she'd known it wasn't possible from the moment Sir Guy of Gisbourne and the Sheriff Vasey arrived in Nottingham, and everything she'd ever known began to crumble. For the sake of her father, and the sake of her own sanity, she was able to push everything into a chest in the corner of her mind for a while, the name Ysabel was never let through her lips again, except in her sleep, when she would cry. She was tough; everyone had known that since she'd been the resilient girl not crying at her mother's deathbed.
She was tough, up to a point. Because the news that Robin of Locksley had returned from the crusades a hero… that nearly killed her. So she denied him everything, drew up a wall between them, and she vowed that she would never let herself love him again.
But a love like that… it doesn't leave with anger, it doesn't even leave with hate, though it took her almost dying to fully realise that. The night after the failed wedding with Gisbourne, the night after she'd finally kissed him again – she hadn't known she was craving it, missing him quite so much until she was drowning in him again, that night… he climbed through the window of her bed chamber. She hadn't known he was coming… but she'd been expecting him, and she couldn't even make sense of that to herself. She'd felt his arms snake around her where she stood by the opposite window, and his lips just above her ear, whispering things, whispering to make her forget. They shed their clothes quickly, and afterwards; as he lay, spooned around her, she cried lightly, and he whispered to her, "I love you, I'm sorry, forgive me," until she slept.
Things were better, now they knew where they stood, but nothing was easy anymore; from the moment he'd left, everything had shifted. Nothing in either of their lives would ever be simple again. He was an outlaw, she was treading dangerously courting with Gisbourne also… and sometimes she thought she could see a flicker of good in his eyes, whereas other times she was truly afraid of what she saw in them. She hadn't told Robin about Ysabel… it seemed that was the only thing she could hold over him… she would be ruining her own happiness to still hate him now, but there was still the blame for everything rooted in her heart with him, and she could withhold this one last thread from those years apart from him… and it wasn't a box she wanted to open, anyway, when everything was starting to fall back into some sort of shaky place.
V.
I'll be there when the world stops turning…
Right now she was sat among the leaves on the floor of the forest, and her father had died. Robin had brought her straight out here, straight to his camp, and then he'd gone back into Nottingham – saying something about loose ends needing to be tied up, and she was sat on her own, finding it impossible to be with any of the rest of the gang. She pulled her knees up to her chest, and couldn't help thinking for the hundredth time that if only he hadn't left her, none of this would ever have happened…
He sank into the leaves beside her, pulling her close, pressing a kiss to her hair. In private….completely in private like this, that was when she noticed how much they'd changed the most. They weren't eighteen and twenty-one anymore, that was a start, but it was more than years that had changed them. It was pain, and secrets, and lies, and other people, and denial, and that one big thing looming over her… the daughter he didn't know he had. But for now, when she was hurting, and his arms were around her, holding her tight and close and warm, she didn't have to be the toughened, strong woman she'd become after everything life had thrown at her. She could just be Marian, and he could just be Robin, outlaws and Sheriffs and fathers aside, and for a few short moments… she forgot herself.
He was stroking her hair, and she was crying… when had she started crying?... her tears soaking into his clothes, and she was fisting the back of his shirt like a child, holding onto him for dear life, because whatever he had done, however broken she'd been when he'd left… that didn't matter, not right now. Her father was dead… she was an outlaw too, and he was the only thing holding her steady. She pulled back, wiping her eyes viciously, cupping his face in her hands. She was done crying.
"Don't you ever wonder what might have been?" she whispered, holding his gaze with her reckless blue eyes.
His grimace told her his answer: Every single day. But he returned her stare defiantly.
"You once told me that what's past is past, Marian. That's how we have to live now. Only for the present."
She took his hands. "Don't you ever think what it might have been like, Robin? If you hadn't gone to war?" she took a deep breath, and the scene started to play out before her eyes. "You would be Lord of Locksley right now, and we… we could be married…" she smiled slightly at the thought. "It's been five years… there could be a little one running around in our courtyard, a little girl with dark hair and brown eyes… and a little boy…"
There was a wistful look in his eyes as he joined her. "A little boy called Edward."
Still, no tears. She thought she might be dried up from crying. "And you would have stopped the Sheriff before he even started, and Gisbourne, and my… my father would still be Sheriff of Nottingham and Much would probably live in a cottage in Locksley with a wife and children, and…"
"Every summer we would ride down to Nottingham to stay with your father for a week or so, and little Edward and our daughter. And then the King would return and there would be no revolution to greet him, and everything would be as it should have been…"
There was a silence as they both considered.
"I made a mistake leaving you." He said gently, and he squeezed her hands. "I was looking for fulfilment, for glory, and to prove I was worthy of you. What I didn't realise was that it was selfish."
She entwined her fingers with his. "Every single day I wondered where you were. I hoped you were somewhere far enough from the fighting not to be hurt, hoped Much was taking good care of you, prayed you might be on your way back. But at night I used to dream you were lying dead in a ditch somewhere and I would cry myself back to sleep."
He cradled her face in his hands. "Every night before I went to sleep I would whisper your name on the wind." He murmured, pulling her closer. "I would picture your face and know I had made a mistake, and hope to God that one day you would forgive me and take me back."
And although the dream, with Ysabel running across the fields, was still strong in her mind, she kissed him through her tears. "I forgive you." She whispered, "I take you back…"
And months later he buried her in the Holy Land.
VI.
Now here we stand, unafraid of the future…
"Bel! Come in here!" the voice called, and Ysabel collected her skirts and hitched her little brother Daniel onto her hip.
"Coming, Mother!" she shouted back, checking the fastening on the end of her braid and stumbling back towards their small village house in Papplewick. She was the blacksmith's daughter, so although their village was poor, at least her family had a half decent living. She put Daniel down in the yard with her other brothers and sisters and opened the door into the dark cottage. Her mother and father were sat at their small table, with a woman. The woman looked as though she was better off than them, at least her clothes did, but her face and eyes were sad, and she was painfully thin. Ysabel looked at her parents, and both their faces were grim, and her mother's eyes were shining.
"Sit down, Bel." Her father said, and she'd never heard his voice quite like this. It was dark, sad, angry, almost. She took a seat, looking curiously across at the woman opposite.
"Ysabel, my name is Tess, and seventeen years ago I was the only handmaid to a respectable young Lady in Knighton, near Nottingham." Her voice betrayed her own sadness. "She… she was going to be married, to her childhood sweetheart, the wedding was planned… but he had to leave, he had to fight in the crusades. Your… my mistress was distraught, it was horrible, but the worse shock came weeks later when we realised she was with child…" Tess took a deep breath, and the lines in her forehead eased a little. Bearing this secret had taken a toll on her. "I… she was young, you have to understand, and she… she didn't know what to do. I took control, because she couldn't afford this to get out. We said she was sick, and kept her inside, until her daughter was born… I loved my mistress, and it hurt to see her hurting, but I knew more of the real world than she did, and I knew she could never keep the little girl, so I gave up everything I knew… I took the baby the moment she was born and ran away with her, brought her to a family I knew would take care of her." She took another deep breath, her eyes searching out the young girl's eyes. How well Ysabel had grown up.
"I could never go back to my mistress, she… she loved that baby, she would have forced me to take her to her daughter… I was out of work for two years, practically a beggar, but I had to keep the child safe, because if she was reunited with her mother things would become dangerous. I watched your...her from a distance... the baby's father returned, and they were almost happy... she never told him about the little girl, I think it hurt too much. I was then employed by a young French Lord, and have spent the last fourteen years out of the country." She looked between Ysabel's parents and then back to the girl. "When I returned to Nottingham last week, I heard the terrible news. My mistress was killed a long time ago, over in the Holy Land, not long after I left for France." Tess clenched and unclenched her fist on the table. Ysabel merely stared, counting years, counting chances.
"I heard from a friend of mine who was my mistresses new maid that she vowed, after a while, that when all the trouble with the Sheriff and Prince John was over, and England was stable again, and she could marry her child's father and live happily in the manor… she would find the girl, she didn't care if she had to go to every village in Nottinghamshire to find her. But she died before the trouble ended… and I feel it is my duty… as the only person who knew where that little baby was taken… to tell her the truth, now."
Ysabel raised her head, her heart thudding at the base of her throat. "I… that baby was me, wasn't it?"
Tess looked briefly between her parents before nodding slowly. "Your mother was Lady Marian of Knighton, Ysabel. And your father… your father was Robin of Locksley… you probably know the name-"
And Robin Hood's daughter breathed his name.
A/N: Again, please review!
