Hi, so here is another chapter, I hope you enjoy this one, I am going to keep this note short and sweet and therefore I hope you enjoy.

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The Growing Good Of The World

Chapter 3-Unforgettable

As the Outlaws go back to England, Tuck is introduced to the camp, the Sherriff returns to the castle to prepare his next move and Kate slinks home to her mother but knows that she is on borrowed time.

Returning to England was a strange experience. Once they were back on English soil for the majority of the Outlaws it was back to normal almost. It had been raining and Will had turned his face up to feel the cold drops and had declared that he was home and he was never leaving again. Luke had all but jumped in a puddle like a child. Even though they were wrapped up warm against the chill there was a definite glee in the air to be back on English soil.

All but for her. All but for Djaq who foolishly had turned on her heel to look over the horizon and feel the salty spray on her face. She wasn't naïve enough to think that she would ever go back to her homeland again. She loved Will and Will loved her and she knew that while both of them would have been prepared to go to their own country with the other they had to be here. Here was the one place where they could do the job that was asked of them. They could save the King, save England, maybe bring about peace for the Holy Lands and it was that and that alone that had her back in this country with the cold and the horrible food and the provincial medicine.

It was for this reason and for this reason alone that she was back. If she could get peace back in the Holy Lands, if she could help bring that peace around then her sister and the hundreds of other men, woman and children like her wouldn't have died in vein. Even now it was hard not to imagine Gisella with them. Even now it was hard not to imagine that flash of red and that smile and that knife fight. She had burnt those knives with her sister and she had taken only the small curved one for herself. But if she could get peace in the Holy Lands then that was the best legacy for Gisella. She might fade from memory, she might stay confined to the shadows of the world but if she could get this for her sister then that would be something.

A lasting peace, Christians and Muslims treating each other as friends and brothers and sisters rather than enemies and she thought that she was going to put one foot in front of the other and carry on for that and that alone.

And so she shot one last forlorn look over the ocean as if she could see the faraway country she had once called her own and the two little dark haired girls who had sat with their mother, played with their brother and listened to their father when the world was good.

"Are you alright Djaq?" came a polite voice and she turned to see Kate looking at her. She was holding out a canteen of water and Djaq drank it letting the water cool her throat and then she passed it back. She was not alright, she was not alright at all but she was not going to say it. She didn't know how to feel at this moment never mind put these feelings into words. It was something that she was sure she would have to figure out on her own.

"Yes" she said finally. "Thank you Kate"

Kate flashed her a small smile and then turned to struggle up the embankment to where the rest of the Outlaws were waiting from them. Will slung a hand around her waist and she rested her head on his shoulder and let him carry the weight of her as she walked down the road towards the first main town that they would come across—Robin knew the route—and it didn't matter….Will would carry her for a while.

Will would carry her through all of it. She knew. It came with loving someone as much as she and Will loved each other.

It took another week to see Nottingham on the horizon.

"Well" Robin said after he had scouted the location of the Sherriff's castle. "He's back. I spoke to a serving maid and she told me as much. He's in a foul mood, he's locked himself away and there's an envoy on the way from Prince John but the castle kitchens are not making a feast"

"That means he's not staying the night" Erin said sagely. "Even if there's a hint that a visit may turn into an overnight stay they make sure that there is food ready to be cooked."

"The King must have sent a letter to Prince John and the Privy Council" Carter said from where he was sat in the sun—Carter, Djaq and surprisingly Kate were all lounging in the sun where they could claiming they missed the heat of it on their skin.

"Probably" Robin said ripping some grass between his fingers.

"Anything about Kate?" Much asked and Kate who was sat on the ground cracked open one eye from where the sun was on her face listening intently.

"Nothing so far, no warrants for her arrest and no arresting of her family or interrogating or anything. I mean he only got a glimpse of a blonde woman during the fight and to be fair I think he was focused on Gisbourne. So I think you might be okay Kate"

"So what do we do now?" Marian asked her hand on her husband's shoulder.

"We make camp and we get a good night's sleep"

That was the Brother Tuck, or was it Friar Tuck? Either way that was him and he spoke with an authoritarian tone that was coated in a gentleness that Erin thought only came from a man of the cloth.

"We do need to sneak into the town at some point Robin too. And we need to do it fast and quick. We need supplies, were pretty much depleted when it comes to food and drink we took it all with us, we need to restock weapons and Marian and Erin are standing in the only clothes they have"

That was Allan and Marian nodded her head at this, the white dress had become so dirty that even hard washing couldn't save it and it had now become a kind of cloudy grey colour. Erin's blue dress was splattered with mud and sand and God only knows what else. There was a brown stain on his wife's clothes that Allan was pretty sure were blood. In their rush to get home they had not stopped certain that someone was going to stop them.

They had been on a race to get back and now they were neck and neck with the Sherriff and Robin was willing to bet that neither side had a so much as thought about what they were going to do next.

Typical.

"Tuck is right Robin" Marian whispered. "Kate has to get home, we all need to sleep, even the Sherriff cannot come after us yet. If he didn't see Kate then he doesn't know that we are home and perhaps Prince John will deal with him for us. He not only alerted the King to the plan but caused massive political instability in the process. With the King and the council now aware that he was plotting—it might be easier for the Prince to blame the entire thing on the Sherriff as a renegade noble kill him, have him replaced and then…then it's a whole different game to play"

"We don't know that yet" Tuck said finally. "I think we should all go back to the camp, I will head to town and escort Kate back, if her mother asks I will say she stumbled into the house that I was staying at and we prayed for better times"

"Sounds boring enough for my mother to believe it" Kate muttered letting Much pull her to her feet.

"—And we will get supplies. While we have the element of surprise we should use it"

Robin eyed him shrewdly. He knew that John trusted him, Marian and Much both liked him and he knew that Carter, the consummate solider whose opinion counted for more than most though he hated to admit it, was warming up to him as well. Marian patted his arm and Robin nodded. They were all tired, all exhausted and all of them needed to have a plan in place. The stakes were higher now and that meant that they could not go storming into the castle and hoping against hope that the guards were so inept nobody would realise what was happening until they had gotten out again.

"Alright" he said sensing defeat. His gang was bigger now, his gang was better now and they had to do this the right way and they had to find a way to survive.

And he needed to sleep. Even Robin knew he needed to sleep.

"Tuck take Kate back and get some supplies, just get us something we can cook easily, nothing to complicated"

Tuck nodded. Kate stood up and as she kissed Much everyone pretended to look elsewhere. Much kissed her back gently and then she was gone and Much turned his face a picture of pleasure and then he caught Robin, Will and Allan all beaming at him.

"Oh shut up" he said blushing.

"You trust him with the money?" Carter murmured.

"I do" Robin said as Carter swung himself to his feet. "Oddly enough I really do think that I trust him"

Carter raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

"Come on" Robin said slipping his hand around Marian. "Let's go back to camp, I for one need some hot water and a hot meal and my bed for the next week"

Kate watched Tuck bound back up the hill at a pace that she didn't think he was capable of sustaining but he did.

And it was over. The wonderful adventure was over and all she had to remember it was memories. Now she was back at the little village in the little house in the little shire in England and her life was back to normal.

She supposed she should be glad that she had managed to live through it but she wasn't. She was bone achingly tired and more than a little melancholy and something in her ached for Much and his quiet steady companionship. Of course what her mother would say about that she wouldn't like to guess. Her mother who had her husband and her life and even the names of her first born children picked out for her no doubt would be waiting with her needlework at the nearest fire she could get and Kate wanted to be grateful for the steady love that she had in her family but she didn't have it in her just at this moment. She wanted to be back out there sword in hand fighting for what she believed in. She had seen the Holy Lands, she had felt the sand between her toes and had seen all that woman were capable of and when she thought of Marian, of Erin, of Djaq of the Woman in Red she thought that she wanted more than to be the small wife of a small husband with small children.

She knew what she wanted.

Now how was she supposed to go and grab it?

"Hello sister"

"Matthew" she said dropping her pack and hugging him. "Is all well?"

"All well" he said and if noticed Kate clinging to him a little more tighter than she usually did then he didn't comment on it and Kate loved him even more for that.

"Mother well?"

"She misses you, bemoans that she has to do twice as much work but you know that's mother through and through. She's never going to admit that she misses you but she did"

"Did Aunt Constance write by any chance?"

"Kate Aunt Constance can't write you know that. Besides the two of them hate each other. She's only let you go to see her for the past two months because the priest wrote to her. And there's been no letters from him either. Plague apparently, ran through the city like wildfire, you are alright are you not?"

"Oh yes" Kate lied easily. "I am fine brother, the plague passed us by. But you know how it is in the summer months."

"I do" Matthew said picking up her pack and steering her gently but firmly towards the door of her house. "I know that nothing would happen as well though I am pleased that you have kept your temper. Anything with Aunt Constance is always unforgettable and not in the life changing way."

Kate resisted the urge to laugh. Unforgettable was one word for it. But Matthew was still talking and therefore she pulled her head out of her thoughts in order to listen to the end of his sentence.

"—And I know that much has to be done in order for us to survive this winter. And what come after that as well"

Kate thought of Much, of the Holy Lands and the King and what was coming next for England and for them all. What the majority of people thought was happening and what they didn't and how sooner than later it was all going to collide and crash together and then where would they be?

"You have no idea brother" she said grimly and with that she took a step forward away from the forest and the wonderful glorious adventure that she had been on and the past that she had been a part of and towards the future, whatever that hell that might look like.

And there you go, I hope you enjoy.

Also as I said in the last chapter I am back at work now so updates might be a bit few and far between for a while.

Next Chapter-The Sherriff begins his last plan by selling the men of the village to the Irish. Kate suffers a personal blow and Carter gets jealous.