Hi, so here is another chapter. I apologise for the lateness but work has been insane recently and this was the first chance I got to publish. I hope you all enjoy anyway and i will do my best to bring you the next one sooner rather than later.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine just this chapter.

Please Read and Review.

And as always TRIGGER WARNINGS for this chapter and this story.

Faith Based Initiative

Chapter 16-Flowers Grow Out Of My Grave

John (despite his misgivings) attempts to talk to Allen. Marian takes tentative steps to being who she was once. Djaq attempts to try telling Will her trauma of the cave and Erin takes a bigger and bolder step than she intended to when she ends up in town.

Erin had woken curled around her blanket her hands shaking and her jaw aching as she had tried to keep the nightmares at bay. She had wanted nothing to do but stay there beneath the covers waiting until the next blow or the next pull at her leg or the jeering from the guards. It took her a few moments to realise that she could hear birdsong and then when she opened her eyes she saw green trees and sunlight and she once again had the joy of realising that she was away from that horrible dark place and free of the men.

She stared upwards pulling the blanket around her. She had taken to wearing her dress and boots to bed. Marian assured her that at some point they would find her nightclothes (though Djaq never used them and Marian was in one of Robin's hard washed shirts that came down to her upper thigh) but Erin found she was comfortable in her dress and boots. She tied up her blonde hair with a hairpin of Marian's and stood up.

The pain in her knee shot back up and she winced. Matilda had said the pain would remain for a while but it seemed in the cold air of morning that it got worse. She staggered over to the jugs were the water was and she poured herself a cup as she went to sit outside. She liked sitting outside the camp with the leaves crunching around her boots. Erin liked walking through the forest. She liked freedom.

After she drank her cup of water, slowly and savouring each cool drop on her throat she went to the small sub camp sections hidden either side of the main camp. One she had been told was where they held supplies and then the other one was a small outside privy where you could relieve yourselves. Erin was not entirely sure how it worked but she knew she was grateful for it. Will had told her that it had been set up when Djaq had joined the camp as when it had been found that she was a woman she had refused to relieve herself the normal way the lads did as she considered it unclean. Marian agreed with this and Erin wondered just how much Will and Robin had prepared the camp for females when it was clear that both of them were besotted with the two women who had been trapped in the cave with her.

She looked around. John, Will and Much were already gone for a hunting trip they had planned the day before. Marian was still asleep her hair a mass of brown curls beneath her covers and Robin was nowhere to be found. Allan too was asleep and she paused at the mouth of the camp watching him silently.

Erin wouldn't lie to herself (once when escape had seemed like something she could have done once) she had promised herself that she would go where she wanted and what she wanted to do right now was to walk.

She wanted to walk into the woods and she already knew the path to the stream. But she walked past that towards the outer parts where the forest ended and the village began and paused. She suspected she still must look a fright with her eye still bruised and her neck. It would be clear to all and everyone that she had been hurt and she did not know if this town…Locksley…Marian had said was friendly or if they would let her eat an drink without money. She thought about asking for Matilda but she did not know where she lived or even if she was in the town. She did not know if these people would betray her or not and the thought made her press her back against a tree and wish for the safety and security of Allan.

She did not know what it was about him that made her want him so close by. But she knew out of all of the men that she was residing with he was the one who made her feel safe and the other day (for it was hard to keep track of the time in the forest) when they had been in the little hollow in the earth she had felt safe.

There was a church opposite and Erin decided to go there. Her belief in God was not as strong as others but she supposed she had survived her ordeal and she should light a candle for that at the very least.

She did not kneel to pray simply because her knee hurt to much but she did light a candle and gave thanks for her survival. When she left she felt a little more peaceful than she had done when she had arrived which Erin supposed was the point. She saw as she was leaving a group of children playing with some hard cloth that she supposed made up a ball and she watched as the wind blew off the grass and sent the smell into her face. It was lovely she thought standing there and watching the world carry on. Instead of going back to the woods Erin followed the sound of chatter and watched people in the village going about their daily business. She took a seat on a stone bench and watched in silence. She was half hidden by a bush and she could watch the day to day lives of people in relative privacy.

Her eyes focused on a group of women that were by the well chatting and laughing amongst themselves. She wondered if she had ever been like that. For a long time her whole world had been that cave and she found she did not remember life before that. She thought she might have had a village like this to call home and girls like this to call friends. She couldn't remember when she was taken or where. She didn't know how old she had been. All she remembered was blood and death.

Erin wondered if that was all she had left. After all what did she have to offer to a group of outlaws. No education, no fighting abilities, no domestic skills.

Inevitably her thoughts drifted towards Allan and she leaned back a little so that she was resting against the stone wall still hidden behind the bushes. She found that she was thinking of him with increasing regularity now as the days went by. It was almost like they were being pushed together at meal times or at night when the outlaws paired off to have conversations. Sometimes she just liked to sit there and take it all in and most of the time Allan would be there a comforting presence at her side sometimes talking, sometimes not but there with a smile and a cup of tea when she wanted it.

He was the first man she had ever felt safe with and she wanted…

Well that was the thing wasn't it? Erin was still not sure how to want—anything.

A scream pulled her out of her thoughts and she sat up peering around the bushes and what she saw made her heart stop. There was a man on a horse pulling a girl onto the back of it and Erin knew that horse, she knew that man.

He was fat and bald with one eye sealed shut with a bandage that she knew was filled with pus and stank of the stuff. He was cruel with a whip and hard with his hands and he enjoyed screams of pain and most of all blood.

Erin should know.

She had his handprints turning yellow on her inner thighs after all.

She curled backwards away from sight. God if he saw her…

She was going to be sick.

What to do…what to do?

She could run. She knew she could run back into the confines of the forest and find Robin Hood and he could do something. Or she could let herself be seen and see if that saved this girl from a fate that she knew made death look pleasant. Or perhaps the girls friends could round up the villagers and they could do something about it? All of those ideas sounded reasonable but she knew that they would take too long or cause too much pain and Erin would be damned if she went back inside that cave again. Certainly she did not plan to go back alive.

He was not riding far away, she though watching peeping round the bushes. He was not even bothering to put the horse to gallop and she stood on legs that were even more unstable and ducked down until she was at the side of the house where the screaming girls had ran away from.

Peering round the side of the house Erin could see that he was heading towards what looked like an abandoned barn and she wondered just what kind of power this particular knight had, had that let him do such a thing in broad daylight without any fear or recriminations.

She stopped by the table and grabbed the stone blade, it was sharp and gleaming, a well polished knife and though she did not know what she was going to do she knew she had to do something.

Erin paused. She had feeling that she was being watched and she turned her eyes finding a high vantage point where the forest looked down towards the village. She thought she saw a person standing there in red but when she looked again there was nobody. It was perhaps a flicker of madness, after all she had no idea what she was doing going forwards when every part of her was screaming to go back, but then she took one step forwards and another and another and she was following the trotting horse across the village towards the barn on the outskirts and listening to the screams of a girl that were abruptly cut of the second the door closed.

John had been fishing. Well Allan and he were supposed to be fishing but Allan had caught several already and was already in the process of gutting them. Much could do it but he preferred the fish come to them clean and John suspected that Allan was rather enjoying the process of gutting something with a sharp blade right now.

He really did not want to do this but God knows (and he said that reverently) that nobody else was going to. This was the downside (as he knew through experience) that came when you lived alone in the forest as men and women came to join you. Of course there had been Djaq but for John she had looked like a man and had acted like a man even after they had known she was a woman. Marian and Erin had been very different cases. Coupled with the feelings that were running high throughout this camp well…John was a married man. He knew enough to know that things could go wrong with the fairer sex at the drop of a branch on the water.

"How fairs Erin this morning?" he asked. Allan paused his knuckles white on the knife and then he carried on not looking up.

"Don't know" Allan replied shortly. "She was gone when I woke up. Djaq thinks she's been going for walks through the woods to build up strength in her leg"

"And you don't like that" John surmised.

"Well" Allan said looking up and frowning. "The last time she went out she nearly got caught!"

"And that's why your like this?"

"Like what?"

"Like you've got a fishing rod up your arse lad. Because she could get hurt? Or because she could leave you?"

"What—?"

"Allan" John said with a tone that he knew he had once used with the children around the village.

"Lad do you really think we are blind? Erin is not an outlaw. She is not tarnished by us because nobody knows about her yet. She can walk to the village and have a drink and a laugh and a dance and not have to worry about the Sherriff and his soldiers. She can go out from this forest and live a normal life. And that's what bothers you."

"And what if it does?" Allan said and when he gritted his teeth and looked at John like that it was not hard to imagine him as a teenager staring down authority. There were moments rare though they were but there were moments when John was reminded that he was living now with four relatively young men who were not so far out of their twenties and in the case of Will not far out of their teenage years.

"What if…look you've got your own business right and so's Much and then there's Robin and Marian and Will and Djaq and I'm not being funny John but it's lonely and—"

"You shouldn't force it" John cut across him. "Allan she's—"

"I know" Allan snapped back. "Jesus, John you think I don't know what state she's in. I spent half a day with her underground and I could feel the terror coming off her—you think I—I know alright. Doesn't change how I feel does it? Besides, you and I both know that the Black Knights won't let her live to tell the tale of her survival so she's in the same boat as all of us"

John supposed that was true.

"If it helps matters" he said finally turning back to his fishing rod. "I think she likes you the best out of all of us"

"You think?"

"Oh yes" John said his eyes on the water. "Any fool with a brain can see that, which is why only Marian, Djaq and myself have picked up on it I suppose."

He kept his eyes on the water but he could feel Allan smile.

"I don't think you should be doing this Marian"

"Robin that argument didn't work when we were ten it won't work now. The Nightwatchman has been gone for too long, it's time an appearance was made."

Robin wanted to make an offer that he could go in her place but he knew Marian well enough to know how well that would go down and wisely kept his mouth shut.

"You don't think Gisbourne might think something of it?"

"Guy doesn't know. Besides he think I'm dead remember."

There It was again. Guy. And the easy fondness that crept into her tone when she mentioned it. Not for the first time Robin wondered how prepared for a married life with the man she had been but he shook that thought out of his head. She was here. She was alive. That was enough.

Marian had dressed in an old pair of his trousers that were too snug for him (damn Much's cooking even in the middle of a forest) and an old shirt and she was currently moving a pair of swords around trying to find an easy way to grip them without opening the wounds on her hand.

"Even so you need time to heal."

"I have been in bed for nearly a week Robin, I don't even do that when I am sick or even when I was stabbed and no offense but your decor leaves much to be desired"

"What's décor?"

That was Will who was carving something out of the open camp which Robin suspected was Erin's bunk. Soon after he knew he would carve Marians. Marian had no scruples with sleeping either with him or on the floor but Robin had imagined both her father and her mother's reaction (and everyone who knew her agreed that Lady Kate was more frightening than her husband).

"Decoration…scenery…the sky above Will."

Will still looked bemused.

"Just make the bunks good Will" Djaq called the first time she had raised her voice in jest since she had been taken.

"Erin and Marian will not care"

Marian flashed her a wink and then whirled around. Robin blocked the blow. Marian winced as the pain hit her ribs and she gagged on the pain.

"Dammit" she swore standing up and feeling the pain against her ribs increase.

"Ma—"

"Robin no…I know what I am doing" she said finally standing back upwards.

"Just come at me again. And again. And again. I need to be able to fight. The Sherriff has taken much from me but I will be damned if he is taking this from me."

And Robin was powerless to disagree with it.

Marian swung her swords again and then…then they were fighting.

Djaq watched as she sat with the bowl on her lap. It had been Much's suggestion that she start going through the herbs that they saved for medicine and seeing what they needed or even if they needed more. She had chosen to sit next to Will who was carving out Erin's bunk and Djaq noticed with a small smile that he had placed it closer to Allan's than his own.

"Did Allan tell you where to place that?" she asked. Will turned to look at her looking bemused.

"No. But she's always here—besides it's nice. Allan deserves someone. Also if his snoring annoys her he might stop. He's never done that for me"

Djaq laughed, she could not help herself and she was rewarded with a glowing kind of smile she had seen from Will (and enjoyed) many times before.

She winced a little as her head throbbed and went back to sorting out the herbs. Matilda had seen them restocked and also added some more that Djaq did not know but she also knew that the sources of spices that she had managed to bring with her (not to mention that Much had also taken back with him) were low and she knew that she would need more.

"Are you sure that you are alright?"

That was Will again looking at he with such concern in his eyes that she found she had to look away. She to tell him everything because she knew enough from her previous experiences that if she did not she would drown in emotion. Besides. Will did not care for her in the same all encompassing way that she cared for him. He considered her (and he had told her several times) that she was 'One of the Lads'. If that was the case then surely he would not mind.

"Can I talk to you" she asked ignoring his earlier question. Will turned looking at her with those soft eyes and the dropped his axe back onto the wood he had added this morning. It wobbled a bit but stayed steady and Will gave a rather smug smile.

"Of course" he said sitting down and still smiling. Djaq bit her lip and then plunged into what she knew was going to be one of the more harder conversations of her life.

"It's about the cave…I…I want to tell you what happened. But…"

"Djaq—" Will said with a soft smile. "You can tell me anything you know. I promise you nothing is going to change between us."

Even though the words were comforting they were not exactly what Djaq had wanted. She had wanted things to change between them but she knew that there was a good chance it would change for the worst. But she believed that everything should be out in the open and she wanted this relationship…the most important relationship that she'd ever had outside of the one with her brother and sister to be honest (as best she could) if nothing else.

"They err…they made me do something Will. Something even the slavers didn't make me do"

Will didn't say anything but Djaq noticed that his hands were balled into fists and his knuckles were white. She did not want to guess at what his emotions were but she had gotten this far and she would be damned if she did not continue.

"Djaq" he said softly over the shouts of Marian and Robin who were still clearly sparring.

"Whatever it is you can tell me. I will help you through it" and then he took her hand and Djaq watched as he folded their fingers together as if it was natural. It was that, if nothing else that gave her courage.

She opened her mouth and began to talk.

And there you go, I hope you like this chapter, stay tuned and I will bring you the next one.

Next Chapter-Erin confronts her past. The Outlaws realise something is wrong and a ghost reappears on the horizon. TRIGGER WARNINGS for next chapter.