A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed. weaselle, manxcatmom, glad to hear that you're liking the adjustments. sarahmagician, thanks for sticking with the story despite the ridiculous lag in updates. jadey, LadyKate, rohwyn, everybody else: thank you for your kind words and encouraging reviews. They mean so much to me.

Bound Home

Chapter 13

While worldly matters take their turn,
Ancient, modern, to and fro,
Rivers and mountains are changeless in their glory
And still to be witnessed from this trail.
Where a fisher-boat dips by a waterfall,
Where the air grows colder, deep in the valley,
The monument of Yang remains;
And we have wept, reading the words.

-Meng Haoran, On Climbing Yan Mountain with Friends

Her dark eyes are critical. He can feel the measuring, the weighing - his word against her experience. When he finishes telling her the long tale of his life in the years after Marian's death (excepting only Isabella, the ancient wound that is past healing), she studies him for a long moment, and then says into the waiting silence, "That is an exceptional story."

His breath halts. He asks, carefully, "You do not believe me?"

"I do believe you. That story is too complicated and strange to be anything but true."

He feels an insult hiding somewhere in that reply, and frowns, unsure of her and a bit afraid of the judgement that seem to lurk at the turn of her mouth. "Oh?"

He has quickly come to realize that Saffiya is a woman of great frankness, and she does not disappoint him now. "Deception has never been your strong point," is her quick retort. "You are too simple for such an amazing lie."

He flushes with anger, but his pride - so long starved - cannot sustain it. He bows his head in concession, and finds himself instead fighting back a slight smile at her boldness. "I would not fault you for thinking me a liar. I myself sometimes question how this all came about."

"I have great faith in Robin's goodness," she replies. "He does not easily forgive, but when he does, he does so completely."

He looks up at her. "You sound as though you have experience with his forgiveness."

She shakes her head. "Not I – Allan A'Dale."

Guy nods, immediately understanding. And then a thought occurs to him, and he glances at Saffiya, mouth open to speak – but he stops himself. She notices.

"What is it?"

Allan's loyalty to his fellow outlaws was his constant feature, even in his betrayal. Guy knows he felt real affection for his friends, including Saffiya, and he doubts that those strong feelings were not mutual. He cannot imagine that this news will not pain her. "I'm sorry to tell you...he was killed" - she instantly stiffens, and he slows, regretting each word - "not long before the final battle at Nottingham Castle."

The silence that follows is long and terrible. He watches her struggle to keep her emotions masked – it's all in the play of her mouth, trembling and pulling, and in her eyes as they tighten, gaze falling to the floor and then darting about the room in what he knows, from experience, is a futile attempt to find something that will provide distraction. There is nothing. She eventually covers her face with her hands, and he sits quietly, waiting with bone-deep patience for her to gain some mastery over herself.

He does not have to wait long. Only a few seconds later, she lowers her hands, hauls in a breath, and says quietly, as if speaking to herself, "I wrote to them. To Robin and the others – to Allan. To tell them about...and I wondered if they were alright. These have been dangerous times for us all, and I knew, of course, that there was a chance..."

She is stone-faced. Her brow is clear and straight, but underneath it he sees unshed tears, and eyes as glistening and black as the night sky. He is, for the first time, struck by her beauty. The lines of her face are at once strong and delicate. Her skin is browned both by lineage and by sun, and though he once dismissed her as nothing more than a native of some distant, meaningless land, he believes he is truly seeing her now - not as an enemy, not as a foreigner, but as a young woman bearing up under great suffering.

He saw a glimpse of it a few weeks ago, before he understood her enough to know what it meant.

"You tried to tell me something, when last we met," he says softly. "You implied...I'm sorry, it's not my place to ask. I was angry with you, for asking such questions - I wasn't sure what you were trying to tell me..." He trails off, at a loss as to how to explain himself.

She closes her eyes for a moment and gives him a small nod. "I asked those questions because I needed to be sure of you. You understand, I knew nothing of what had happened in England. I did not know for a certainty that your coming back to Acre was not related somehow to Prince John."

"Yes. Of course."

She moves away from the bed and takes wandering steps in the middle of the room. Her face is still tight, haunted. "So you have come here to for Marian," she says, and though the change in subject throws him, he does not think of lying.

"Yes."

Again she nods, and looks at the door, and then at him. Her voice is very quiet. "Take me to her."

The request shocks him, repulses him. He swallows back an immediate refusal. "Why?"

"Please."

Her stare is heavy. Another silence hangs over them, but this time she is the one waiting, and he is the one struggling to control his emotions. He pleads. "It is...difficult for me. Being there."

She says nothing, but continues to hold his gaze until he feels like a coward, and grows angry with himself for his weakness. He drags himself to his feet. He cannot help glaring at her with something like accusation – how dare you put this burden on me – but she is now looking very lost, and he finds himself lowering his eyes and moving to the door, opening it for her, ushering her out into the sunlight.

He didn't expect her to talk, but when they pass the city gates, she hugs herself and says, "You think me strange."

Unnerved by the nearness of what is about to happen, he bites out, "Honestly? Yes."

"Stranger than you making peace with Robin Hood?"

He clenches his jaw, dreading every step through the sand. "I suppose not," he allows. "But does it please you to see me shaken? Do you do this to see me suffer for my crimes?"

"No. It is not my place to punish. Judgment belongs with God."

"You mean you have never wished to take your revenge on me, or the sheriff - or on the men who have conquered this city?" he asks, incredulous.

A gust of wind whips through their loose clothing. She pulls her thin scarf up over her mouth. "Of course I have," she replies. She glances up at him as the wind dies down. "But revenge is a fire that can burn only so long as you feed it." Another gust. She drops her gaze.

Saffiya is several inches shorter than he, and with her head bowed all he sees is the expanse of her hijab and her hand clutching the end of the cloth to keep it over her face. She is very small, he realizes. Fine-boned, but he cannot recall ever thinking her fragile. "You sound like the friar," he finally says.

She looks up. "Who?"

"The one who rescued Robin and joined in his fight. Friar Tuck."

"These friars, they are holy men?"

He shrugs. "If there is such a thing."

"You do not believe in God?"

He swallows, and feels grit in his mouth. "No, I do. I must." He shakes his head. "But my faith is hardly strong. It cannot be so surprising. You must have seen many men lose their way here."

"For different reasons," she replies with a knowing look.

They are approaching the graves. Dozens of wooden stakes pierce the sand, casting thin shadows in the rich, golden light of late afternoon. "So why are you bringing me here?" he asks again.

"I want to be sure of you."

Guy stops and turns to face her. She meets his eye, mouth once more set in a determined line that he is coming to understand is a fixture. She is stubborn, and brave, a combination he is too familiar with – it reminds him of Marian. But the Saracen has no trace of the deceit which so constantly marked Marian's behavior. Her manner is all blunt honesty and openness.

"Am I supposed to know what that means?" he asks after it becomes clear that she will say no more.

She looks away, gaze landing on Marian's grave, and begins to walk toward it. He falls into step with her. "You will," she says.

They reach the nondescript patch of sand and stand in silence. He doesn't want to be here with her. His skin itches. It feels like an intrusion into his private world, a world where only he and Marian exist, a world that has brought him pain and solace in equal measure. But he cannot ask Saffiya to leave. She brought him here for a reason, and he intends to give her the time at least to say what she must – he owes her that, if not for saving his life, than at least as a sort of repentance for doing her so much wrong in Nottingham. He looks back on those days with real sorrow. He didn't blink twice when the sheriff took Saffiya prisoner, knowing what brutality awaited her if she was disobedient – didn't lift a finger. And how did she repay him? By bringing him back from the brink of death, and asking not for a single word of thanks.

He finds it easier to look at her than at the grave, but he cannot hold her eye when she turns to gaze up at him.

"I did not know her well," Saffiya says. "She was a woman of many secrets."

He stares at the distant mountains. His throat constricts. Secrets – yes, Marian had many. "She never gave over to me," he says, unable even in this moment to stop dwelling on past cruelties.

He can practically feel the Saracen picking her next words.

"She loved Robin."

Guy squeezes his eyes shut. When would that truth cease to pry him apart? "I know," he says, and then clears his throat and opens his eyes. "She betrayed me." He feels for a brief, insane moment that Marian will hear him, and will rise from the sand to drag him down, to bury him for his accusations. He resists the urge to take a step away.

"How?"

He turns an astonished look on Saffiya, and bites out, "You mean you do not know? Did Robin not tell you how she used me to her own ends? She lied to me, again and again. Playing the angel..." His lips twist into a bitter frown. "And I fell for it. She made me hope..." He rubs at his face, suddenly exhausted. "Why did you bring me here? What do you want from me?"

"You loved her."

He does not answer. The truth sticks in his throat. "You keep coming back here for a reason," she continues, "so tell me – why did you do it? Why kill the one you loved?"

Always the same question, always. He knows he is close to tears, but he is powerless to stop them as they well into his eyes, clouding his vision. "I never meant to," he finally says. "I never wanted...it happened in an instant. She was so near, and my blade - She promised me everything, and then she just-" The old anger flares again to life. It burns him, swallows him whole, as the memory of that day plays in his eyes like flashes of sunlight on steel. "It had all been a lie, and she laughed at my pain. She laughed." He shakes his head, twists his hands together to stop them from trembling. "I was never good enough."

"Did you try to be?"

It is a terrible question. He makes no attempt to avoid the blow, being far too familiar now with the truth. Head hung low, he answers. "No. No, not nearly enough."

She puts her hand on his shoulder. "Do you ask her for forgiveness?"

Her touch is gentle. He draws himself out of the daze of the past, and sets his face to the sun, still bright as it sits low in the late afternoon sky. He remembers all the hours spent in this exact spot, weeping and cursing, hating and begging, lost and scouring the heavens for some sign that Marian was listening. "Yes," he replies.

Her hand moves down his arm, catching his fingers briefly - "Then Allah, at least, forgives you." - and then her touch is gone.

Before he can summon a response, she nods her head at the western sky and says, "Now I can show you."

To her surprise, he recognizes the name. He stares at the grave marker for a long moment, and then drags his eyes to hers. They are tight, sincere. "Your husband."

"Robin spoke of us?"

He nods, smiles sadly. "Much often lamented the loss of Will Scarlet's carpentry skills. They talked about you both." He pauses. They both have their gazes set on the grave. It is just like Marian's, plain and indistinguishable from the rest of the desert land. She hears Gisborne shift on his feet. "How long...?"

Yesterday. A lifetime ago. She feels the loss start to pull and burn in her chest. "Last summer. A fever took him after a short illness."

Gisborne surprises her again when he touches her sleeve, meets her eye and says, "I am sorry."

She holds his gaze, seeing complete sincerity, hearing it in his voice. She is still wondering at Gisborne's transformation into a man of honor, a man capable of fighting alongside his former sworn enemy. She is even more amazed at Robin's capacity for forgiveness. But she supposes she is seeing now what Robin must have seen – a man broken apart by his crimes, a man who wanted to be something better. A man ready for a change.

She wonders what Will would have thought of this.

"No one here knew him," she says, the words tumbling from her lips without any conscious thought to form them. "They saw Will only as a foreigner. And he had no friends among the other Englishmen – he converted to our faith, and I think they considered that a betrayal. When he died, it was only I who mourned. The others...did not understand us. They did not know him, else they would have grieved as I did."

"I'm sorry," Gisborne says again.

She closes her eyes against the burn of tears. "Thank you."

The sun has begun to set. She feels a coolness in the air. When she opens her eyes, she sees the sky turning red, and the sand reflecting it back in soft shades of pink.

Gisborne remains at her side. The sun has nearly reached the horizon when he breaks the silence. "I would like to know more about him, if you'd tell me. Men of honor deserve to have their stories told."

There is a twinge in her heart, painful and deep. "That's why you brought me here, why you came for me," he says with quiet certainty. "Because you wanted to know if you could trust me with this. Because you know I'll understand. Marian...and your husband."

She stares up at him, mouth set against the grinding heat of old grief.

He bows his head and she runs her gaze over his black hair, his furrowed brow, and hears him murmuring, echoing, "What thoughts, what dreams..."