"Pies." A voice with derision echoed around him. A loud smack that meant feet hitting pavement. "Did you know about the pies, Allan A Dale?" Allan spun around, unsheathing his sword. With a clatter, it fell to the pavement, Merry had a hand up in defense.

"No, actually." Replied the other, struggling to keep his composition. Merry's red hair fell in her eyes as she stooped to pick up the sword. He backed against the corridor wall as the blade flashed uncomfortably close to his throat.

"You can't kill me, can you though?" Allan said. "I saved you. I let you out' the castle last time you were here." She stopped too quickly, lowering the sword. Allan stayed where he was, unconvinced.

"I could kill you." She said casually. "You haven't got any moral say so about it." Her accent made the "o" in "about" round out, and he wanted to kiss her, putting all of the harshness of her words aside.

"But you're right, I won't." He relaxed, but she was not finished. She backed him up, pushing the blunter blade of the sword up against the dip in his throat.

"You're going to give me all of the Bella Donna from the castle kitchens. As a thank you." She pushed against him. "For not murdering you where you stand." He couldn't help but notice she still wore the necklace he had given her, watching it swing hypnotically beside the Robin Hood tag on her collarbone. He, with all of the willpower he could muster, shook his head.

'The sheriff catches me and he kills me. Guy too." He said. The sword flashed in Merry's hands, and then the sharp side pushed into his shoulder. Beads of blood began to form there.

"Well, there's the chance that they catch you and flog you. Or there's the obvious scenario of people all over Pitt Street." She lifted the sword, revealing a shallow gash. "Dying." She began to walk, rounded the corner, and he heard the clatter and clash of two guards going down. He turned and watched her step over them.

"And I think it's pretty obvious." She called back, without turning round. "what the right choice is."

"But I've turned, haven't I?" Allan called, determined that this wasn't over, that she wasn't going to leave, and getting angry at all the taunting. "Apparently I don't do the right thing anymore, do I"

Merry turned around, eyes flashing. She walked with unwavering decisiveness and obvious barely controlled anger. She left her sword in the sheath and threw his on the floor, instead pushing him against the corner with her hand softly over his throat.

"I'm still not clear on why you're doing this." She said through gritted teeth. "Was it the money? The fancy new trappings?" She picked at his waistcoat with her middle finger.

"I'm not being funny" said Allan, through equally gritted teeth "I could get out of this easy, but I'm not gonna hurt you."

"Why not?" she spat. "Why, because I'm a woman? Because you're not "all bad?" She mocked him. Allan's anger was dangerously close to breaking, and he finally burst,

"Because I love you!"

Shock flitted across Merry's face for only a second, then she tightened her grip on his throat.

"You remember when I said there was room for redemption?" She asked him, firmly avoiding his gaze, and the subject at hand. She moved her face within an inch of his. "Go get the Bella Donna." She whispered. "And bring it to me here." She let go of his throat and kicked his sword to him.

"You let me go." She whispered, "and despite myself, I'm grateful. Keep doing things like that." She emphasized the "that."

"And not like this." She ran her hand down the shoulder of his black vest. Allan turned toward the kitchens, trying not to look back at her, trying not to think about her not answering him and his outburst. When he gave in and spun to look at her, she and her red hair and her golden brown eyes and her necklaces were gone.

When he came back with the Bella Donna, concealed in an inconspicuous bag, it was a stoic and silent Will Scarlet that watched him carefully from the rooftop, saying nothing as Allan threw the bag up though the corridor roof. When he thought about it after, Allan was sure he saw Will nod. Only just, before he disappeared back into the Pitt Street quarantine. He also thought, when he looked through the barricades, that he saw flashes of red.

But that may have just been his mind slowly waking up to the enormous gravity of what he had done.