Eight chapters! From here, it's really hard to believe that this story started off as a one-shot. I hope you're all enjoying the read so far. I have to say, it's been interesting. I don't normally write lemons, so writing something like this is a bit of a change for me.

Disclaimer: The BBC owns this version of Robin Hood and the characters therein.

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They took to sleeping every night in the cupboard after that—sleeping with the rest of the group didn't seem quite right when they wanted to be so close to one another, sometimes wanting to make love and sometimes just snuggling up close together. So they decided it was better to sleep in the cupboard, where they could revel in as much contact as they liked in the relative privacy. And for several days, they slept there on the floor, cocooned themselves in their one blanket and Will's cloak and her shawl and hugging each other for warmth.

They were used to sleeping on the ground, but the ground in the forest was much softer than the hard wooden boards of the floor on the ship. Some nights it was hard to find a good place to sleep on the painfully hard floor, and they were constantly shifting as they hovered between sleep and wakefulness in order to try to find a more comfortable sleeping position. It was easier to fall asleep after they were tired from sex, but on the nights they didn't, they became acutely aware at how awkward sleeping on the floor was going to be.

After a few nights of this, Will approached her one afternoon and said that he had something to show her, and began ushering her down into the hold towards their cupboard.

"In the middle of the day?" She'd teased him then. "Goodness, I think that I have created a monster…"

He'd laughed softly and kissed the top of her head, but didn't say anything else as he placed a gentle broad hand on the small of her back and led her forward.

He stood behind her while she looked back at him, suspiciously questioning, before he pushed the door to the cupboard open. When she peeked in, she discovered that he'd somehow tracked down one of the big canvas hammocks that some of the crew and passengers were sleeping in and hung it up across their cupboard, providing a bed off of the hard floor. The two crates had been moved, as well, flanking either side of the hammock to act as step-stools, and a blanket was draped over the hammock.

She had smiled then at his thoughtfulness. Was there anything he wouldn't do?

"I'm getting tired of sleeping on the floor, and I thought you must have been as well," he said as a way of trying to dismiss his action as nothing of particular importance or consideration.

She'd turned around then, stood on her toes, and kissed him quickly on the lips.

Learning to sleep together in the hammock took several nights of trial-and-error. They couldn't have sex in the hammock—there was no way to move around in it without risking dumping each other out of the canvas sling and onto the floor. They could only sleep in it after they were finished, or if they didn't make love at all that night.

Even after they were in place together in the hammock and ready to sleep for the night, it still required some strategic manoeuvring and a bit of getting used to. Any movement at all caused the whole thing to rock back and forth, and there was always that very real risk that they might upturn themselves and land on the floor and hurt themselves, so they had to adopt one position and stay there all night. But even so, it was far better than sleeping on the floor, and once they were used to it, it was much easier and by far more comfortable to sleep this way.

And so the days wore on, melting into weeks as they made their journey across the seas to the port city at Acre. Their days were mostly spent together, practically attached at the hip. But there wasn't really a great deal to keep them occupied on the ship, other than each other's company. Or Allan's. They were still the only two people who had forgiven him, who didn't hate him, and they were as glad for his company as he was for theirs. It was almost like old times, the way the three of them talked and laughed amongst themselves, like the banter they once passed back and forth across the cooking fire in their camp.

Other than that, though, there wasn't much going on.

John had pretty much gone into what could best be described as a state of hibernation—he slept for about twenty hours a day, waking for only an hour or so at a time, just long enough to eat a small meal and take a short walk around the ship and then going right back to sleep again. Djaq knew that frequent and excessive sleeping was a common occurrence in people who were cramped in an unusually small space for a long period of time, especially when they weren't used to it. As long as he was eating and drinking to nourish himself, she'd said, he would be fine.

Robin was still very much in his own little world, adopting his usual position up near he ship's helm or sitting on the bow, watching the flat green-gray water before them with a penetrating, stony expression. It was as if he thought that if he stared ahead hard enough, he would be able to see across the hundreds of miles of sea before them. That he would somehow be closer to his Marian. He responded to nothing, not conversation or comfort or company, and had to be reminded sternly to remember to eat something.

Much spent his days alternately trying to initiate conversation with a markedly unresponsive Robin, sulking about the ship, and loudly voicing his fears and apprehensions about returning to the Holy Land and what might await them there. Nobody told him, but whenever he began to talk about the imminent troubles in Acre, they noticed a subtle change in Robin's expression or position—he would sometimes cast a secret sideways look at his former manservant, as if silently telling him to shut up and stop filling his already troubled mind with even more frightening possibilities for the future.

Allan bounced back and forth between Will and Djaq, and the members of the crew and the other passengers who would talk to him. Allan was never comfortable with silence or a lack of conversation. He always had to be doing something or talking to somebody. He couldn't just entertain himself, so the voyage was going to be extremely difficult on him. Moreso than it was for the rest of them, especially when there were so few people willing to associate with him.

Life on board the ship was, in short, astoundingly dull.

But their friend had been right about one thing: at least she and Will had each other.

Two days previous, Robin came out of his shell and called the rest of the group to a meeting to discuss their plans once reaching Acre. They sat in a sort of lopsided circle together, not unlike when they used to gather for meals or discussing plans when they were in the forest. The difference this time was that the pair of them were sitting together, Djaq snuggled up next to Will, with his arm draped over her shoulders and his cloak wrapped around her.

"Acre is a busy port—it won't be hard for a group our size to slip unnoticed into the city," Robin was saying. There was a listless sound to his voice and his face was drawn and pale and his eyes were darkened and hollow. He hardly looked anything like the brave leader they all knew and loved; he was just a shadow now. A very tired, scared shadow.

"Really?" Allan asked. All eyes turned on him. "Even though we're—well, except for one notable exception—even though we're English? I mean… we don't hardly look Saracen enough to be inconspicuous, do we?"

"Acre is a port city, and Europeans of all kinds come through," Djaq said quickly, before anybody could say anything condescending or mean to the man. "English, French, German, everything—as long as we do not do anything to draw attention to ourselves, you being pale-faced will not rouse anybody's attention."

"Are you sure?" John asked slowly. He'd only just woken up for this conversation, and looked ready to go back to sleep already. "We cannot afford for anything to go wrong."

"If I remember right, it's a fairly even mix of Saracen and European," Much said. "And it's busy. We would have to cause a huge scene for anybody to notice us."

"Speaking of scenes," Robin began, looking pointedly at his former manservant with as much intensity as he could manage with his dulled and tired blue eyes. "Remember that we are a team for this. Our success here depends on all of us working together."

The man looked taken aback and frowned. "I know that—"

"This means no dredging up old grievances and no trying to make some sort of a point by ignoring certain people at crucial moments."

Much looked down into his lap; his ears were red. Allan didn't look like much of anything, just sat still in his spot and listened for Robin to continue.

"Hey, I just thought of something," he piped up after a moment. "I mean—you said English people wouldn't be noticed, but what about…" he trailed off.

"What about what?" Will asked.

"I mean, no offense or anything, but what about Djaq? Would we say she's our guide or something? I'm sure they'd recognize a lone Saracen woman travelling with a group of Englishmen as something odd, wouldn't they?"

Robin said nothing; Much looked back down at his lap again and then over at Djaq. After several long, long seconds of pause, she realized that it was up to her to explain this to him—and to Will and John, as well.

"It is not particularly uncommon for some women who are… facing hard times," she gently nibbled her lower lip and tried to figure out the best way to phrase this without sounding completely crass. "Some women find it lucrative to avail themselves to the Crusaders who come through the ports. Or hang around Crusader's camps."

"Camp-followers?" Will asked. She tilted her head back to see his surprised expression, and then shrugged.

"The men are thousands of miles from home in a strange country, trying to kill other soldiers who are not even old enough to shave—cold and scared and lonely," she said as a way of explaining it away. Another shrug. "As long as we do not give them reason to think otherwise, the dock workers will simply thing I am with you for that."

"I don't like that," he murmured in her ear. "I don't like the idea of you being thought of as… as something like that."

She rested her hand on his knee under the covering of his cloak and squeezed gently.

"It's a cover," Robin reassured him gently. "We should blend in as best as we can, and if that means letting the locals believe that our Djaq is a common prostitute, then that's what we'll have to do."

She felt him hold her a little tighter around her shoulders. It didn't bother her, the idea of letting the dock workers and the city folk think she was nothing but a woman of ill repute following English Crusaders to earn a meal or a few coins, but she knew it made Will extremely uncomfortable. He loved her far too much to even let complete strangers think such a thing about her.

The equivalent of this on her end, she supposed, was the way she knew that all of her people—the Saracens—would look at all of her friends, and not just Will, as simple, disgusting people. The general view of the Europeans by her countrymen wasn't a particularly a good one; the fact that most of Europe was significantly less developed, in just about every way imaginable, than her world was led to a great deal of prejudice by her own people towards them. It was a common perception that Europeans—all of them—were barbarians. She believed this once, too, before she'd actually known any Europeans. Nowadays such thinking bothered her, because she loved her friends dearly, but it bothered her more that they would think it of Will. Will Scarlett, one of the cleverest, most resourceful men she'd ever known; he had a gift for carpentry and woodwork that would surely impress the artisans even here.

He gently burrowed one warm hand under her shirt to stroke her side with his thumb, and she sighed softly.

Robin was still talking, and she forced herself to pay attention to him.

"We hit the ground running," he said. "The minute we dock, we look for the King's encampment—"

"Robin," Will interrupted in quietly cautious tones. "What about…?"

He closed his eyes tightly and turned away from them, rubbing his forehead slowly like he had a tremendous headache.

"We have to save the King before we can look for Marian," he said slowly. It took a great deal for him to say this, for him to acknowledge that there was something that had to be done, something more important than rescuing his beloved. "If something happens to him, we're all dead. With his help, we can rescue Marian from the Sherriff and Gisbourne."

Much reached out and tentatively put a hand on his shoulder, but he roughly shook him off.

"What do we do in the meantime?" Allan asked. "I mean… we can't just dock in Acre and go right for the King's camp, can we?"

"We'll need to find somebody who knows where His Majesty is, and then we'll need some sort of land transportation to get there," Much agreed. "Caravans, camels, horses—anything."

"What's a camel?" Allan asked. His question was swiftly ignored.

"And a place to stay, as well, in the meantime," Will said. "I don't really think we'll be able to walk right onto the docks and immediately find somebody to tell us where the King is and how to get there."

"Good idea."

"What's a camel?"

Again, nobody answered Allan's question, and the conversation continued around him.

"There are inns all over the city," Robin said. "We can find a place."

"In case anybody else has forgotten," John growled, low and threatening like a big angry dog. "We have nothing but the clothes on our backs. Most of the money we had with us went to bartering passage here—I don't think that we can afford to spend more than a night or two in an inn."

She wrinkled her nose.

"He's right," Much sighed. He pounded his fists on his shield. "Dammit! So what do you think we do, Master?"

Robin put his face in his hands. He looked like he wanted to get up and walk away from here and go back to living in his head like he had been for days and leave the rest of them alone.

"I do not think we will have a problem," Djaq said after a pause.

"And what makes you say that?" Much growled, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at her in a condescending manner. Behind her, she felt Will tense.

"My uncle, Bassam, lives in Acre."

Pause.

"Oh!"

"If we can make it to his estate, I think he will not have any problems letting us stay there. For a little while, at least."

"You think he'd let us?" Will asked.

"I am sure of it. He… he took care of me and my brother. After our father died and we had nowhere to go, he took us in. He always said that I was a good judge of character, and he trusts me. I have no reason to think he would turn us away. If nothing else, than because it is the right thing to do—helping weary, penniless travellers."

"What if he doesn't live there anymore?" Much asked. "What do we do then?"

She snorted. "Bassam would not leave that house if it was on fire," she said. "His birds are there, and his life is there. He would not have left."

"So it's settled then," Robin said. "We get to Acre and look for Bassam's house. Then find the King."

"For goodness sake—what's a camel?"

"A horse with bosoms, Allan!" Djaq bellowed, tired of hearing that question.

Silence.

Across from her, she saw a smile come over Robin's face—slowly at first, and she wasn't sure if he was getting ready to yell at her or do something else. It wasn't a full smile, and there was still a gaunt hollowness behind it, but it was still a smile. Then it widened, and for the first time in weeks, Robin Hood actually laughed.

It was something.

After that, began to storm for days at a time, forcing everybody to spend time below deck if they didn't want their only clothing to get soaked through with rain. The water had become choppy, making more cases of seasickness for Djaq to remedy and filling her days with green passengers and sick when she wasn't with Allan or Will.

For now, though, the two of them were alone in their cupboard and quietly dozing together, the hammock swaying from side to side as the ship rocked. The faint light of early morning seeped in through the little porthole high on the wall, greenish-yellow in colour from the previous storms, giving the little room an eerie, ghostly glow.

She was nestled in Will's embrace, on her stomach with her arms pillowed on his chest and her head turned to the side, listening to his heartbeat; he absently stroked her hair, his other arm around her back. It was silent but for the gentle creaking around them and the soft sounds of their breathing. He was warm under her and his legs were wrapped around hers, and the cloak and blanket were draped over her, keeping her comfortable and warm amid the chilly air. They were bare, but they hadn't had sex the night before—they just wanted to sleep together, feel their bare bodies pressed against each other.

This peace was nice—just touching him was nice.

She turned around and planted a little kiss to his chest, just over his heart, and he tightened his hold on her. He was smiling dreamily and his eyes were closed. He buried his fingers in her hair and gently stroked down her back with his fingernails, and she sighed. She kissed him again and again, warm and slow little kisses on his chest, nuzzling him affectionately. She pulled herself a little further up and continued mouthing kisses on him, biting his nipple and startling him so badly he almost fell right out of their perch. She giggled and kissed it, soothing away the sting.

"Don't do that!" He gasped.

"Why not?" She giggled. "You do it to me all the time."

"I—I… well, that's—uh…" He looked almost guilty as he garbled his words and blushed a vibrantly pink colour.

She laughed softly again at him and kissed his shoulder, and he relaxed. Then she moved her hands down to his sides and tickled him vigorously. He yelped and squirmed in place, trying to make her stop or to get away from her hands without actually going anywhere. He gripped both of her wrists in one of his hands.

"Don't do that, either!" He scolded.

"You are very ticklish," she purred, grinning.

"Yes, I am!" He jolted when she freed her hands and tickled him again. "Stop that!" He begged. "If you keep tickling me, I swear I'll dump us both out of this thing!"

And odd mix of growling and laughter rumbled up in his throat as she tickled him again. He grabbed her wrists a second time to make her stop, and this time held them tightly so she couldn't escape. When she realized she couldn't free her hands, she loosed a disappointed sigh.

"You are no fun at all," she grumbled. She flexed her fingers on his chest, just to irritate him.

"Hey, come on!" He pleaded. "How do you like it?" He pulled her arms up and used his free hand to tickle her side, in an attempt to 'get even' with her, but she merely grinned.

"It will not work on me," she drawled. "I enjoy it." She kissed his shoulder again, and then his neck—as far up as she could reach.

After a moment, he released her hands and let her inch up his torso so that she could comfortably rest against his shoulder with her face in the crook of his neck and her arm looped around his shoulder; he kept his arm around her back and his other hand went back to gently stroking her short dark hair. For a long while, they just lay like that together, warm and snug and still.

It was Will that broke the silence.

"Djaq?"

She felt his chest vibrate as he murmured her name. She was giddy and woozy as she answered him with a vague hum. He took it to mean she was paying attention and continued.

"What's after this?"

She pushed herself up. The question was vague but it was voiced with enough gravity that suggested he was thinking something important.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean… what happens later? After all of this, when we're back in the forest?"

Pause.

"We can't go back to the way things used to be. Not after… not after we've had this."

"Things are going to change," she agreed. "There is no doubt about that."

He nodded. "But it's just—how? How will everything change?"

"I suspect we shall be sharing a bed," she offered wryly. "And sneaking off into the forest when we have a few minutes to spare. It would certainly give Much something to talk of 'honey' about."

He laughed softly, but half-heartedly. "I just meant what was in the future for—us."

She stayed quiet, hovering over him and looking into his eyes. Conflict and confusion passed over his face, as if he was debating whether or not to tell her something; she could think of no words of her own that would help him, so she waited for him to speak.

He looked away from her and fidgeted. "How might things change if… if we were… married?"

Djaq tried to keep her face straight, but the widening of her eyes immediately betrayed her surprise.

Married? Had he just… was that a proposal? She wasn't sure if she trusted her own ears or her own comprehension at the moment.

She hadn't thought much if at all about the more distant future with Will Scarlett—anything beyond their trip to Acre and the mission that awaited them seemed implausibly far away. She was, until this second, perfectly content to just worry about now; to think of the future no further than tomorrow or perhaps the night ahead of them, of feeling his skin on hers as they settled into their cupboard for the night.

Thinking of this more distant possibility was almost frightening. Exactly how distant was this? Surely he didn't mean to suggest that they should marry as soon as possible, did he? With their mission in Acre just on the horizon, and a world of trouble with Gisbourne and the Sherriff always on their minds, it certainly didn't seem an appropriate time or place for a marriage. Particularly not one between the poor English carpenter and the Saracen physician born to privilege—people of two different worlds.

But she didn't not want to marry him. To the contrary—now that she thought on it, she couldn't imagine not being with him for as long as was possible. Whether they married or not, she wanted to be with him.

"Look," he said softly, cutting into her thoughts with his gentle voice. He looked at her now with a shy little smile that made her heart flutter. "I don't mean we leap up on deck and have he captain marry us as soon as we have our clothes on. I just meant… someday. When we've finished our business in Acre, after we've rescued Marian and saved the King, and when we've sorted out the Sherriff and he and Gisbourne aren't a problem anymore. Once we're back home. Would you—would you marry me?"

Pause.

"I would get down on one knee, but I don't want to turn you out of bed for that."

Pause.

The smile on his face began to falter. She tried to reassure him with some kind of answer, but she couldn't remember how to make her voice work. In that one instant, she'd forgotten the entire English language.

She snapped her mouth closed with a click! and swallowed a few times to remoisten her throat before she tried to talk again. She could only form two words.

"Oh, Will," she sighed, burrowing her face in his neck and hugging him around his naked shoulders. She was somewhere between laughing and crying. Once she calmed down, she kissed the side of his beautiful long neck and then moved to his lips, kissing him over and over again, smiling against his mouth.

"Djaq—" he only got her name out between her kisses.

"Yes, yes, yes," she whispered. "Of course I will."

"What—really?" He actually sounded surprised.

"Of course, really. I am completely sure of this—I love you. I never thought of marrying anybody before you."

She settled back down against his chest again; he turned his head to the side to look at her and kissed her forehead.

"Good," he whispered. "Until then—stay with me. Always."

She nodded slowly into his neck. She was sleepy now, her eyelids heavy and her head fuzzy. "Always."

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Will proposed! Djaq said yes! This chapter ended so disgustingly sweetly that it could melt your socks! I've been assured that the ending isn't too schmaltzy, but it's so syrupy sweet that it might make your teeth rot right out of your head.

My favourite bit was Djaq's way of explaining to Allan what a camel is. Can you think of a better way? Me neither.