I know how painful reading italics can be when there is too much so I am giving you full awareness right now that the following chapter is a long flashback that basically fills you in on Casey's life with Guy from the last flashback (which was in italics) to basically my first chapter.

Onward

_________________________

The next morning Isabella introduced herself to the people as the best sheriff that they would ever have and then listened to a man accuse his daughter of refusing every suiter who came to call. The girl, Meg, was obviously headstrong for she claimed her offenses disconcernedly, giving her reasoning for each rejection the moement it was brought up. Casey thought that she would like to know this girl but, just as Isabella took her beneath her wing and announced that she had captured and sentenced Guy, Thornton surfaced from the crowd, claiming his wife and the title of sheriff. Disappearing into the castle with her, Thorton granted Casey the distraction she needed to slip into the dungeons.

She passed into one of the smaller dungeon chambers to see a dark figure laying on the stone bench in the cell directly in front of the heavy door. Moving silently inside, Casey didn't cause him to stir until the door closed behind her with a clunk. Guy sat up, looking around, squinting through the dim light to recognize his visitor.

"Casey?" he said, approaching the bars. "You're back. How'd it go? What's happened?"

"Thornton has just arrived. I think he makes the fourth sheriff Nottingham has seen in the past month. Isabella was trying to make it seem like she was the best thing that had ever happened to the people."

"Does that honestly suprise you?"

"No," she said. "But her face at the sight of Thornton did. She's scared to death of him. He seems rude and extremly arrogant but there isn't a nobleman that I've met who's not."

"Right," said Guy.

"Do you think that he's ever actually hurt her?"

"I think I know my sister. She over reacts about everything if it benefits her. He may have raised his voice to her on one occasion and she can turn it around to make it seem as though he beats her on a regular basis, without technically saying that he ever raised his hand to her."

"She's sentenced you to death, Guy."

His eyes fell and he sighed, dropping his forehead against the bars of his cell. "I know.. the jailer informed me this morning."

There was a noise from somewhere in the near distance that made them look around. However as they stood silently they realised that it was just the jailer scuffling around in the darkness cursing to himself. Casey placed her hand over Guy's as it gripped the bar, chained together with his other hand. He looked back up at her, his eggshell blue eyes connecting easily with hers as green as the trees of Sherwood in the summertime.

"You'll be in real trouble from Isabella if she finds you here," said Guy, blinking the stare from his eye.

"It was just the jailer, he's gone."

"You have been a great help, Casey, when it was the very last thing that you had to do for me. Thank you," he said. Casey looked away from him across the room, trying to force a smile from her lips, but her lips twitched upward. "What?"

"You said that to me once before," she said.

"What? Thank you?"

"Not just the words, Guy. The way you said it. I've only heard it once. We were so young then."

"When?"

"We were kids together. It was just after the fire. You were crying at the river when I came out from behind the bushes, you were angry that I had been watching you. But I talked to you like you weren't, I asked you whether you wanted me to help. You didn't think that I could do anything that would be any use to you at all."

"I remember," he said. "You're only a couple of years younger than me, but I figured that little Maid Casey with her dolls and bouncing curls was to young to understand what had just happened, that you wouldn't even know what to do to help. You proved me wrong."

"I got you those horses. That's when you asked what you could do to repay me."

"You gave me a hug and made me promise that I would smile more often," said Guy. The smallest of smiles creeped onto his lips. "That was all. I guess I never made good to that promise."

"And then you thanked me, just like you did a few moments ago. I still mean what I said though, you should smile because you're quiet handsome when you smile."

Reaching around the bar, Guy pulled Casey carefullt into a deep kiss. They seperated and she slid her hands against the stubble on his angular jaw and sank into his kiss again. All he felt after being numb for hours was her, all he smelt through the murk of the dungeon was her, and all he tasted after a day and a half without food was her. The sound of approaching footsteps, followed by the opening of the door made them seperate taking a few steps from each other, looking towards the group of people that were now gathering around the doorway.

"Lock her up," ordered Thornton, pushing Meg towards the cell next to Guy's. Isabella's eyes fell on Casey as the jailer elbowed through the throng of people.

"What are you doing down here?" she snapped.

Casey thought quickly, pulling the jeweled daisy ring from her finger. "I was just giving him back the ring that I never wanted."

She tossed the ring onto the floor inside the cell, glaring falsley at Guy, though he was watching the small sparkling object. Taking a deep breath, Casey excused herself from thier presence. She spent the next few hours trying to figure out what she was going to do, she considered going to Robin but she knew that he had no desire to help Guy, no matter how much Casey believed he had changed.

"Lady Casey, Lady Casey, wait. Please, wait," called the girl, Meg, rushing up from across the hall.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes, well... not me specifiacally. No, I mean. Isabella realeased me from the dungeons," she said, faliing in step with Casey.

"I noticed," sighed Casey.

"But when I was down there I sort of got to speaking with Guy. He's not at all like he seems, like he's supposed to be. I mean, you know the stories. I was suprised."

"Perhaps you should not judge a diamond by its apperance in the ruff as much. Wait until it's cut and you'll see how it truely shines. People are a lot different once you understand where they have come from, what they've been through."

"So you do care for him?"

Casey refused to reply, remembering that Meg was working with Isabella. As likeable as she seemed, Meg was not to be trusted.

"He cares for you and you care for him... I think. How can you just stand around and not even attempt to help him escape?"

"Isabella put you up to this, didn't she?"

"No, Lady Casey. I come by my own will, against Isabella. She is wrong. I want to help your husband. He doesn't deserve to die like this. Whatever the bad things he's done, I'm sure you know thier full extent better than I, he regrets with all of his heart. He regrets it. I just don't think that I can do it alone and I figured that you were the only person in the castle that might be willing to help me save him."

"Why do you care so much? You spoke to him for an hour... maybe. How can you know that he regrets what he has done when you don't even know what he should regret?" said Casey, stopping halfway up the hall.

"You didn't hear him," said Meg, simply. "I have spoken to hundreds of men and never before have I heard a man speak so genuninely. Now you know what I'm talking about, I see it. He deserves a second chance."

After having secured the keys from Isabella's chamber without detection, all Meg required to release Guy was a distraction of the gaurds which Casey took in her stride she lured them away to investigate her claim of a suspicous ruckus down a nearby corridor. Cassey hid just out of sight waiting for Meg and Guy to emerge from the dungeons but less then ten minutes after she had disappeared inside Isabella arrived. Casey attempted to draw her away by knocking something around in a room raising the alarm of intruding outlaws but she let the gaurds deal with it, taking only a handful into the dungeons with her.

The following afternoon Casey stood nervously behind Isabella as she announced the executions of Meg and Guy. He attempts to make Isabella spare Meg's life for she had done nothing wrong. However his pleas are ignored and the executioners axe is still raised. An arrow is shot from somewhere deep in the crowd, knocking the axe from the man's hands as a fight erupts for Robin Hood and his men spring from the crowd. Casey turned to one of the soldiers in Isabella's personal gaurd and drew his sword against him, charging into the fight herself. She cut the bonds on both Meg and Guy and they started off the platform.

She turned from them to defend herself against the gaurds who had approached them from behind and then when she turned agian she saw a man with a spear make a strike towards Guy but Meg pushed him away taking the strike herself in the side. She started to fall as Casey stepped forward finsishing the spearman as Guy took Meg into his arms.

"Take her, Guy," said Casey. She seized the top of his sleeve and heaved him off. "I'll meet you near the river as soon as I can. Go."

He lifted Meg off her feet and was gone as the fighting died down. Robin followed Isabella and Thornton into the castle, leaving the rest of his gang to deal with the remaining soldiers. Casey tossed the sword onto the ground, running her hands through her hair feeling the responsiblity for the events fall onto her shoulders.

"What's wrong," asked Much, coming up to her.

"Nothing," she said, breathlessly. "I need to go."

She felt bad for rushing away from him so quickly after all she had not been able to sneak off to the forest as often as she used to since the constant change in sheriff and action occuring in Nottingham. Still, she had to find Guy and Meg. She would not be able to forgive herself if Meg died. She blamed herself for getting the girl caught up in releasing Guy. Casey realized that she would have done better to have been alone, that way it would have been her life alone on the line for him. It was nightfall by the time she found them, two seconds too late. Meg's head fell and Casey stepped out from the trees.

"You're too late," said Guy, voice cracking slightly. Casey kneeled at his side as he layed Meg's body tenderly against the roots of the nearest tree. "She's gone."

"I'm so sorry," she whispered.

Tears welled in his eyes, all the grief and remorse he had pent up inside burst from him as he started to cry. Casey took him agaist her shoulder holding him close to her, rocking him like a mother would her injured child. She bit back her quivering lip allowing tears to fall silenly down her cheeks. Guy's arms wrapped around her and the past truely disappeared while Casey comforted him.

Two evenings Casey was walking through the meadow, running her hands across the tops of the tall grasses. She smiled, remembering a time when she was no taller than the grass and could disappear completly by sitting down, because her sandy hair blended into the plants like no one elses did. He mother used to tell her how she and the forest were connected for she was colored just as brillaintly with a heart just as resillient. Her mother died in the forest later that same summer, having been abducted by radicals against the Crusades. They demanded that her father refuse to go fight but when he went to save her the radicals murdered her, not believing his claim to stay in England against the king's orders.

Casey sighed. She disliked being connected to the forest most of the time. When the sun shined it glittered with hope and light with the knowledge of Robin Hood's exsistance in every tree, but at night it was dark and lonely... lifeless. Yet that is when she came to it the most, that was when it had drawn her to it so many times.

"Shouldn't you be at home, little noblewoman," said Guy, breaking from the foliage.

"Guy," she said. He opened his arms to her and lifted her off her feet with his embrace. "What's happened?"

"Quiet a lot actually," said Guy. He then explained everything Casey's father had told him Robin the previous night. Casey listened intently, a single line of concentration appearing on her brow.

"My father and your mother?" she said, when he was finished. He nodded. "I always wondered why they were so friendly, but a son between them is a bit much."

Guy smirked at her light humor. "Robin and I are leaving for York tomorrow morning."

"You two have come to a truce?"

He nodded. Casey smiled.

"You have truely changed, Guy," she said.

"It was you, Casey. I need... I need to ask you something," he said. He took a deep breath and raised Casey's hands in his. "I want you to marry me."

"I already-"

"Not because you were ordered to or becasue you feel obligated to say yes or because for any reason other than your will. I want you to want to marry me. I want it to come from your heart. Just forget the ring that you threw to the ground in the dungeons. Casey, tell me if you want to marry me," he whispered.

"Yes, Guy, I want to marry you," she said, leaning closer to him.

He released her hand and pulled the dark silver ring off his right hand, slidding it onto her left ring finger. "This was my father's ring. It's got the Gisborne crest on it but I want you to have it as a proper wedding band."

She wrapped her arms around his neck, running her fingers through the strands of dark hair at the nape of his neck, kissing him. She felt him pull her closer, holding her against him, losing himself in her. They broke apart and Casey looked down at the ring.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It's going to take a bit of getting used to that's all," she said. "How long do you think you and Robin will be gone to York?"

"As long it takes to find and free this brother of ours, Archer. A few days, I'm sure. I'll come to see you the moment I get back."

He kissed her again before they turned away from one another. Casey headed back for Locksley manor while Guy started back towards the outlaw's camp.

The next day Casey enjoyed watching Isabella squirm as she tried to decode the reasoning behind the sudden alliance of Robin and Guy, she even turned to Casey for her opinion. Finally, she sent word to the sheriff of York, putting a large price on thier return alive. Casey was not bothered, Robin had larger somes on his capture, though they were less specific. Isabella set off with her troops later that day but returned in less than an hour having been thwarted by the outlaws Robin had left behind. She was assured of thier safety when a messanger arrived as Casey was leaving for home requesting that Isabella come to York to retrieve the body of her captain.

She was sleeping lightly when new wieght on the bed made her wake up. Guy was leaning over the bed, the arm that held his torso at the specific angle was the wieght that had woke her. She smiled as she stretched her body out, yawning.

"You found me," she said.

"In my bed," said Guy, in a deep whisper.

"You are an outlaw. Nothing here belongs to you anymore, Guy," she teased. "How were your adventures in York? All I've heard is Isabella's side of the story."

"I doesn't even matter," he said, sitting next to her on the edge of the bed. "The boy right up and left once we'd freed him, the ungrateful little..."

Casey sat up, fiddling with the ties on his shirt around her neck. They fell away revealing a little of his bare chest. She looked up at him only to find that his eyes were already on her. She brought him towards her, kissing him, surrendering everything to him.

She woke the next morning, laying on his chest. She pulled the blanket from around thier hips to her bare shoulders, watching as Guy took a deep breath and slowly opened his eyes, looking over at her.

"Good morning," he said, smiling. She repeated his words, snuggling herself closer to him, feeling his arms wrap themselves even farther around her.

"Don't you think the others will wonder where you've been all night?" she asked.

He nodded. "Though I don't think you'd appreciate me telling them."

"I really wouldn't."

"What was that?"

The sound of a horse reached them from outside the window that Guy had used as his entrance. Normally the sound of a horse's whinny would have meant nothing had it not been accompanied with the sound of Isabella speaking with one of the serfs. Both of them sat up quickly, thier hours of bliss over.

"I'm sorry, but Lady Casey is sleeping," said the serf.

"Then wake her," ordered Isabella as Casey and Guy pulled thier clothes back on.

"Lady Casey does not-"

"Fine, if then I'll wake her myself."

"She's coming," said Casey.

"Good, then she won't see me leave," said Guy as the footsteps drew closer. She followed him to the window, accepting his brief kiss. "I love you."

The knob on the door turned, forcing Casey to close the one shutter of the window before she could reply. Isabella entered just as Guy disappeared from sight. Casey's heart beat so rapidly that she could not even listen to a word that was coming from her. Not that she cared. She loved him.