Hello all, so here is the first chapter of the third and FINAL part of this story. It seems ages since I first published the first chapter and here we are again. This is decidedly an AU story as it takes place during Season 3 of Robin Hood. It will deal with some events of the Season and will introduce some of the characters but a lot of it is AU.

This story will probably not make sense until you have read the previous two stories, Faith Based Initiative as Book 1, and Internal Displacements as Book 2. This is the third book and will see these characters fight for their happy ending and get it.

This is not one hundred percent historically accurate but the ending will be (mostly). This story takes place within the world of Robin Hood and therefore I hope you all enjoy. If you are looking for the traditional Season 3 pairings then I fear you will be disappointed.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine just this chapter and the characters of Erin.

Please Read and Review and let me know what you think.

There will be some TRIGGER WARNINGS in this story most specifically for sexual assault and rape. Please keep that in mind if you are reading.

There is also a slash pairing in this story. Please do not read if you hold any homophobic thoughts or views. Thank You.

And on a side note, I like so many other Fanfiction Authors no longer receive notifications via email about reviews/PMs etc. So if you do send any it might be a while, if ever before I get back to you. Please keep that in mind for it is not intentional-If anyone has a fix please let me know.


The Growing Good Of The World

Final Instalment in this series—The Outlaws come back from the Holy Lands ready to fight for England but there are many twists and turns before they get their Happy Ever After. Robin/Marian, Will/Djaq, Allan/OFC, Luke/Carter, Much/Kate, some John/Matilda.


Chapter 1-Sex, Birth, Death.

In which the Outlaws are still in the Holy Lands as they plot their next move in the aftermath of the battle to save King Richard's life.


The sun was hot when it came around the small house. At night the weather was freezing but when the sun came in the morning it came with a vengeance that the residents—most of them—had never experienced.

The small house by the port of Acre had been clean when they had entered it some three days after the King had left Bassam's house. The man who ran the place had taken one look at the gold and had ushered them up into rooms uncaring of who slept with who or what they were doing there. As Robin had said in a place like Acre which had been starved of wealth since the invasion gold answered more questions than it posed. They had not questioned it but rather had gone upstairs to the rooms offered and had mostly all fallen into bed.

The wind was changing intermittently and most mornings Robin could be found on the docks trying to wrangle with merchants travelling to England to take them with them. It was a tall order, seven men and four woman and also they had heard that there was a priest of the Holy Orders who also wanted to return to England. Eight civilians was not something that the average merchant ship wanted to deal with. Especially as the wind was running against them.

But Marian didn't care.

She didn't care if they never went back to England. She knew others did. Allan was forever moaning about the sun that was burning his neck. John was desperate to see England once more claiming that he had seen enough of the Holy Lands to last nothing short of a lifetime and Will had agreed with him. Kate was only worried about getting home before her mother realised she was gone but Marian found she didn't care about anything or anyone other than Robin, his touch, his kisses and the simplicity that came with being alive. She was achingly aware of how close she had come to death and she struggled with it sometimes. The image of Guy falling did not go away but she thought that she had done the best thing that she could have done in the moment. Tell him that it was over. Whatever delusion he held was over.

And now she got to live the rest of her life free and clear with Robin.

Of course she was now an Outlaw, so was Erin, if they managed to get back they could just possibly get Kate back safely depending on how much the Sherriff had seen but Luke's cover was certainly blown wide open and he was now an Outlaw too. Even Carter was going to have to be confined to the forest. Even if they did manage to blow open the plot against the King there was an sense that it didn't matter much. Brothers were brothers and royal brothers both loved and hated each other in equal measure. Marian had seen it herself with the sons of noblemen. The problem was they always forgave each other and she suspected that even if Richard did want to send John to the gallows as he was without an heir and with no intention of returning to England there was a very good chance that John would be the next King without even having to wait.

Of course she could not say this to her husband but it was a thought nonetheless.

But she tried not to think of it and instead she spent time with Robin. They explored their own bodies, their own passions and they spent whatever time they could do together. They were not the only ones after all. In those five days where they waited for the wind to change they all spent time doing things that they morally shouldn't do in England. God knows Marian had never needed to know how two men came together but walking in on Luke and Carter that one time had given her a pretty in-depth show of how it worked. Even Allan and Erin were coming down to breakfast with smug smiles on their faces uncaring if they had woken anyone up in the night.

In truth Marian could never begrudge Erin pleasure like that. She had taken the plunge with Allan their first night as newlyweds and had said nothing about it only to tell Marian shortly as they had overlooked the bird cage as Bassam's house that, she had not known it could ever be like that. Marian had carefully not looked at her friend but had taken her hand and squeezed it in a show of solidarity and understanding though she fully accepted she could never understand the horrors that Erin had been through for her to make that statement.

But she was happy. They were happy.

And that was enough. For right now while they didn't have to think about anything or anyone else, about the game of Kings and Queens and thrones and the Sherriff they were happy.

Of course it was going to change.


"I did not think it could be like that" she said softly into the darkness that first night.

"Well that's good" Allan said softly dropping a kiss to her stomach. "Because that is how a man of integrity worships the woman he adores and I intend to do that until the day I die."

She had laughed a little but he had been so secure in that knowledge that she had known that he was speaking the truth and it made her fall in love with him a little bit more.

"Integrity? Bit of a big word is it not?"

"Well...you live with Much long enough you eventually begin to speak like him"

And with that she did laugh until his kiss came down on her again and it turned into a sigh of sheer unfolding pleasure.

It was in the Holy Lands Erin felt like she was able to say goodbye to the ghost girl in the white shirt.

She didn't understand why it was there and then that she felt comfortable letting go of those scars, of that past, of the pain and misery and the anger that had consumed her for so long but she had thought that she was ready. With Allan, as his wife there was a new identity. She had a new name, she had become a woman, a wife, a lover and the ghost of the girl who had flinched everytime a man came near her was gone, lost somewhere in this far off land that she knew once she left she was never going to see again.

It didn't happen gradually, one night she crawled out of the bed that she and Allan were sharing, wrapped a blanket around her naked body and went and stood on the balcony drinking in the moonlight. It was there that she remembered what Gisella told her all those months ago in her little cottage on the edge of town where she had helped Erin fight.

"One day you might wake up and not seek revenge like me. You might wake up and be happy. You might want to put it all behind you because what does it matter? You don't run away from it, you will live with it forever. But if you can put it behind you and focus on your happiness then you are by far a braver and a better woman than me"

So consumed with what was going on at the time Erin had shrugged off that little nugget of advice but now she wished she could tell Gisella that she was right. That one could live with the trauma and find happiness again. That it didn't have to define you and that the girl who had been robbed of her name, her dignity and her spirt could and had reclaimed all of them.

But as she stood there listening to the sea crash against the waves she thought that Gisella…her friend…had understood. She had always understood and she too was some place where she couldn't be hurt, some place where the sea crashed against rocks and wall and created a soothing sound and some place where all the pain faded away.

And with that the girl who was robbed of her name went back to her husband and Erin A 'Dale was born.


She was not the only one who sometimes struggled to sleep. Djaq had too been sat watching the sun come up that morning that Marian and Erin had been asleep.

Something had woken her and driven her from her husband's side and she sat on the edge of the steps leading down to the docks watching the sea and feeling the wind on her face.

"Djaq?"

Turning around she saw Will stood there. His hair was deliciously rumpled in sleep and she saw that he was wearing his shirt. They had not yet fully become man and wife simply because her grief for her sister had been too much at the time, it had consumed her and Will being the wonderful man that he was had never judged her for that rather had held her while she cried herself to sleep and told her over and over again platitudes she did not deserve but he clearly thought that she did.

"Will" she said and he sat down next to her on the rock.

"The wind's changed" she said by way of a greeting. "Robin will be glad. At last we will be able to sail"

Will said nothing for a moment.

"Are you glad we are leaving? Or our you sad?" he said finally. Djaq shook her head.

"I am not sad" she said truthfully. "There is too much pain here, too much loss, too much suffering. I want to forget this place and all that I have lost. Besides…I had just begun getting used to English winters, I am not ready to go back to the Holy Lands and their weather changes"

Will said nothing for a second.

"I never thought I would say this" he said finally and very slowly. "But I do miss the English rain, everything here is so unnaturally yellow and also…the sand."

He said it the way one would say a curse word and she could not help herself but start laughing. It was a foreign sound even to her but the look that he gave her was enough to melt her heart all over again. He had never said anything about the loss of her sister but he knew enough to know that he had been suffering with her. Not for Gisella who she knew that Will had always considered more of a threat than anything else but for her. For the loss of her sister and what it meant after just finding her again. Djaq loved him for it though she couldn't speak about it.

Perhaps once she was rid of this place, her family all confined to ashes she would be able to talk about it.

Maybe one day soon, maybe one day in the distant future.

But one day of that, she was sure. History could not forget Gisella, or Djaq her brother or her father or her mother, or the countless men, woman and children that this war had torn apart weather it be physically or mentally. She would not let it.

That was her vow. To herself and to her God. They would stop the taking of the English throne and then she was done. She would live the life of normality that so many of her people had wanted and were denied by forces outside of their control.

"I love you" she said to Will. Soon she would have to tell him that once this was over she never wanted to pick up a weapon again but that could be reserved for later when they boarded the ship and this place was just a memory.

"I love you too" Will said taking her hand in his. She leaned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes and like Marian, like Erin, and for the first time since her sister's eyes had closed, Djaq Scarlett leaned on her husband and allowed herself to think for the first time about the simple joys that came with life, like wedded bliss.

Somewhere in whatever beyond was beyond this life she knew her sister was pulling that face she reserved for lovesick talk and instead of the usual heartbreak she felt a smile tug at her lips instead.

And little things like that she found, made all the difference in the world.


And there you go, I hope you enjoy this first chapter, this story like the previous two will be twenty two chapters long and I will update hopefully sooner rather than later.

Next Chapter-The Outlaws sail from the Holy Lands back to England. A couple and an almost couple share a moment. Robin and Marian meet a monk who wants to help them in their fight.