She was more than late.
Other days she had joined him at the second trap (never beyond the third), and Robin lingered past what was reasonable, listening for her bird-light step as he tied and retied the lines.
His fingers wore deep groves from the constant press of the wire. His wrists ached. He did not look up, not once, and he did not miss the watchful contempt of her companionship.
Still, he wondered.
He contemplated leaving her some game (he did not wish to be deemed thief again) or a sign of sorts, questioning her absence, but to what end?
The woods would reclaim any kill he left unattended, and Regina was well-armed, sharper-sighted than even he – she would not thank him for his help when he offered no more than scraps.
He walked away, whistling, but the tune fell flat (it was not a lament) and wasted among the spires of trees.
…
He returned the next day, no longer concerned with adhering to the schedule she had decided, and waited longer at each trap, sweating into his hands, into the groundcover, as the sun reached its full height.
The light of every passing hour mocked his patience, and Robin was forced to concede that his continued hunt was serving no purpose. He had meat enough for his men, and for the needy in the village, and it was high time that he made himself useful elsewhere.
A rabbit lay snared on the last decline of the ridge, blood beating so madly he could feel it through the wire, and Robin stayed his hand, freeing the creature with the very knife that would have claimed its life on another day.
It bolted, and he thought run fast (oh, foolish heart) as he watched it disappear in search of its own kind, in search of safe ground.
Perhaps it would find its way to her.
…
His men had never been tidy, but the rate at which things around camp were going missing was becoming ridiculous.
Sacks of grain and coin seemed to move of their own accord, spitted fowl vanished before it could be laid over the fire, and he had lost a half-dozen new arrowheads in the last week alone.
It wasn't simple carelessness anymore, he was sure, but none of the men would confess to taking a bit more than their share or to being more selfless than necessary when distributing goods to families in need.
"Something's not right, Robin," John had taken to saying, shaking his head woefully at the state of things. "The men have been hearing strange things these nights, and I'd wager there's more to it than too much drink."
"Aye," Robin had sighed back every time, and left it at that.
Truth be told, he had felt the strangeness himself: a vague sense of warning that settled over him in the hours before dawn, when the quiet remained unbroken but bore the subtle edge of restlessness that worried him so.
He did not intend to be stalked within his own camp.
"Don't set a watch tonight," he ordered as they circled for supper that evening. "I'll take it myself."
The announcement set off a chain of whispers around the fire, and Robin scowled as he heard Will not-so-discreetly grouse, "And the first man to wander out of his tent for a piss is gonna get his cock shot off for his troubles, innit?"
"Are ye volunteering, Will?" John called from his seat, and Robin sought a more peaceful place to enjoy his stew as the conversation devolved into a mess of insults and jokes about codpieces.
Ale flowed, the fires burned low, and men began to retire in twos and threes before Robin selected his post for the night: a towering oak set behind the circle of tents. It wasn't the best vantage point, actually, but it would hide him well, and he was curious to see what would wander into camp if there were no obvious reasons to fear discovery.
It was a gradual process of settling. Even tucked into the widest fork of the tree, the bark bit through his clothing and his quiver lodged uncomfortably against his shoulder blade. He'd hardly be able to draw his bow if it came to that, but, then again, he wasn't planning on shooting anything out-of-hand.
He had brought a length of flax to twist into new bowstring while he waited, determined not to be lulled by the sounds of men turning in their sleep below. It was its own kind of lulling – the rhythmic work of his fingers over the threads, the moonlight that cast everything in shades of blue, the occasional whip-crack of a log falling to pieces in the embers they had left, but it was one Robin was used to, one that kept his senses alert even as his mind started to drift.
He had given up his last piece of beeswax and forgotten to borrow another from John, and eventually his hands tired of spinning, so he tucked the half-finished string into a pocket and sat quietly, breathing through the ache of his back and thighs.
Another branch snapped, a sharper, thinner sound than fire made, and Robin tensed, watching the treeline to his left to see what (no animal was this incautious) emerged.
Wind ghosted over what little exposed skin it could find, raising goosebumps, and then it was gone, an exhale that seemed to calm the entire forest.
His pulse slowed, the tension eased out of his limbs when he could no longer sustain it, and he thought that perhaps he had been mistaken after all.
And then: a peek of a small, hooded figure inching inwards, dappled by light and shadow and wholly familiar though everything about her appeared canted slightly, as if he were watching her through darkened glass.
Robin felt for the branch below him, barely testing his feet on it before he dead-dropped the rest of the way. He landed hard, the momentum carrying him to his knees, but even stumbling he was in no danger of losing her.
She heard his approach, clearly, since she made for the trees, but his legs were longer and she wavered – he was desperate to catch her, and she was desperate in another way, one he didn't see until she flinched under his hand.
"Regina? What are you –"
She turned into his touch, the hood falling back as she swayed against his arm, and he could see that she was barely keeping her feet. Her lips parted but nothing came out, and then her eyes were rolling back to white and she was crumpling.
He dropped his bow in time to get his arms around her and hefted her over one shoulder, and he could feel the fever kindling in her despite the layers between them. She was a slight woman, but muscular, and already he could tell she was too light against him, starved from whatever sickness had befallen her, and he tried not to think of the interluding days that had led them here: he, drifting, and she, burning.
He pinged his hand against the taut side of John's tent, their old signal, and the man's snores abruptly ceased.
"…Robin?"
"Bring Tuck, quickly," he said without looking back and continued to his own tent, laying Regina over his bedroll as he struck life to the lantern in the corner and blinked hard into its unshuttered light.
She was still but for the rise and fall of her chest. Robin went to her, kneeling, and brushed a hand across the dry heat of her forehead. High, but not mortally so, he thought and hesitated a bit more – counting her breaths, trying to will them into regularity – before he began to unwrap her furs, bringing in more air.
They were damp with sweat and something darker, and by the time he was done freeing Regina's arms, his fingertips were marked with blood. He followed the trail back to the crook of her arm and peeled away the sodden cloth there, feeling his face tighten, his teeth grind, at the sight of torn flesh.
Perhaps she had tried to bleed out the infection herself, or wanted to obscure the original wound (it was animal, this act, though he knew of no beast that branded its enemies save the Dark Queen – it was inhuman, still) but the ragged cuts needed stitching and more, if they were to beat back the red lines reaching upwards for her heart.
He sat solemnly, sometimes sweeping his thumb over her forehead when she – he, damnably – needed soothing, until Tuck arrived with his bag of medicines and steered him aside, asking for room to work.
"What does she need?" Robin asked, wanting to do more than pace.
"Goldenseal, roots and leaves. Clean water."
He set John to stirring up the ashes to boil water while he gathered the plants (and lavender and calendula besides) and returned, hovering at the flap of the tent until Tuck dismissed him with a curt thank you.
He joined John at the fire to warm his hands, but the heat was unwelcome, nauseating in the context of the night. He fell to pacing and had two fistfuls of slender cedar branches to cut into arrows when Tuck fetched him back.
Regina would be fine, he said, given rest and time and a bit of luck. He left herbs and instructions for various teas and balms, pausing after each one for Robin's nod of comprehension.
Robin waited for the questions to start – how did he know this woman, what had she run from? –and he had the answers for none of them, but Tuck simply slipped out into the darkness, trading rumors with John over a drink by the sounds of it.
Robin pulled a low stool to Regina's side to resume his vigil (there was no sleep in him), finding the flowers in his chest pocket and twisting their stems into a hapless little bouquet to nestle by her head.
A ward, of sorts, or a peace offering.
(An invitation to stay.)
Curls of wood piled at his feet as he worked, straightening each branch and whittling notches for the fletching. His gaze wandered to Regina less and less as he built to a rhythm, and it took far longer than normal for him to realize that she had awoken at some point, watching and waiting for him to catch on.
Her eyes were clearer (they had color now) and held nuances of pain and wariness in their depths, and he answered the question she couldn't ask.
"You fainted straight into my arms," he said, keeping his concentration on the knife in his hands and making his voice as light as he could bear. "You know, you already had my attention. You didn't have to go to such extremes."
She said nothing, but he thought he heard the hitch in her lungs, the breathless break in her armor that meant – well, he would not guess about those things. Not with her.
"You could have come to me."
That one stuck on its way out, because she had come, just not in the way he wanted her to.
She shifted on the ground, twisting away from him, and it was only then that he saw she was crying, pulling into herself when she couldn't find the strength to escape her nest of blankets.
In him, in delirium, in memory – did it matter which? – she recognized something terrible.
He dropped to the ground beside her, letting her struggle in his hands (she tired too quickly) until he could settle her again. She was limp and spent and yet her eyes would not leave him, and he discovered his voice once more, word catching after word until he was telling the kind of stories all children knew (there was a clever wolf, and lonely). He kept talking, long after sleep claimed her – talking as he rearranged the blankets around her, talking as he gently cleaned the tear lines from her cheeks, talking in nonsense and metaphor and confession-whispers where she could not (help but) hear it.
There were things she must know, things he needed to tell and tell and tell.
His voice began to break near morning, his men already rattling out of their tents with less-than-hushed greetings, and John brought him a cup of pitchy coffee without comment.
He spent the rest of the day hoarse, traveling from Regina's side to the fire and to the woods more often than he wanted, and he felt the stares of his men, the interrogation that never came, and blessed them for knowing that this was not the time.
He paused in a bluebell wood to pick new flowers, muttering, "One of Tuck's balms," when they looked at him in askance, only for them to start gathering their own handfuls and for Will to slip off somewhere and bring back primroses, shrugging as he offered them to Robin.
"Good for, uh, chafing, yeah?"
He tied together another small bouquet, laid it above Regina's pillow (oh, foolish heart) with the first, his own little row of sacrifices – of askance.
He had to laugh at the expression on John's face when he stepped back outside: the camp was transformed, winking with bluebells in every corner, and he had never met a spring, a wakening, such as this.
…
It was two days of Regina pretending to be unconscious every time he came to her, and two days of waiting until she was asleep to check her wounds and cup her forehead and watch her slowly regain color.
He learned to leave the necessary teas at her side and walk away, collecting the empty cups later.
He learned her tastes too, and apples became an afternoon routine for them: he would sit against the center tent pole and slice an apple in his hand, cutting away seeds and core and dividing the segments between them. He set her portion carefully on the ground and pretended not to see the hand that crept over for each one as they ate in silence.
On the third day she surprised Robin by pushing up on her elbows and accepting the fruit straight from his hand, letting her fingers rest in his for a moment before pulling away.
She surprised him even more by sitting up fully (and he shifted against the pole to make room for her, flexed every muscle in the hands that still couldn't hold her as he yearned to, as she leaned into his shoulder for support) and selecting another apple. She took the knife from his unresisting grip and peeled the skin into a long, unbroken snake, halved what remained, and flicked the seeds out before giving him his share.
"I'd like…" she began, looking down at the apple skin in her lap, worrying at it until it tore, and then faltered, as if there were too many wants to name.
"Fresh air?" he supplied, gesturing outside, and she nodded, dragging herself upright and away before he could help, and he felt the loss (deeper than heat) immediately.
He caught her in the doorway and raised the flap for her, and she blinked in the sunlight, her whole face scrunching as she took everything in.
Someone had been renewing the bluebells every day, and little enclaves of dandelions and wild garlic had sprouted up among them, and Robin wondered what meaning his men had ascribed to each of them to explain their presence. The few that remained in camp kept a respectful distance or retreated into their tents, and Regina and Robin were left alone with the fire.
She sat on a low, wide log, sinking down with the kind of boneless gravity that suggested she found even a few steps taxing. He sat next to her, left bare inches (he could count them, the small measures that kept them separated) between her leg and his.
"Your men like flowers."
"Superstitious lot, they are," he said, chuckling fondly. "Perhaps that's why we've been having such luck with rabbits this week."
She hummed in acknowledgement and reached out to snag a bluebell that had fallen out of its bunch, winding it thoughtfully between her fingers.
"You should take care on the eastern border," she said, and he did not miss the way her hands clenched or the shiver that jostled her shoulder into his. "The…animals are venturing further afield, becoming more bold."
He tucked the ends of his cloak more firmly around her, stilled her hand from shredding each bluebell head into pulp and held on (she didn't protest), wondering at how small she was, and how unbreakable.
"I shall."
…
The next morning his collection of hapless bouquets was gone, and she along with them.
He awoke to her blanket tangled over his legs and imagined the warmth in it was hers (theirs), just now gone.
He had known, he had known all along how this would end.
But there was something beside his bedroll, a disturbance in the flat plane of dirt as if something had been written and rubbed out, again and again.
She did not leave words but an arrow pointing north, and in all the thousand thousand ways of the world, this was all the direction he required.
(I'd like you to finish your story.)
(I'd like you.)
(I'd like.)