Robin's silence angered Regina more than his defiance, and the fact that it was accompanied by a surliness that clung to her uncomfortably like humidity in July made it even worse. He didn't look at her, didn't answer her, his gaze going as limp as his body when she helped him with the bedpan, his refusal to eat frightening her to the point of fury.

"Let me try," Henry offered one afternoon when she'd slammed out of the bedroom with his untouched dinner rattling atop his the wooden tray. "Maybe I can get him to eat."

"Nobody should have to beg him to eat," she fought back, slamming the tray on the kitchen table loudly enough she hoped he could hear her through the walls that separated them. "There are people starving because of this war, thousands of soldiers dead and dying, but he decides that it's more manly to pout than to accept the fact that he's going to have to live with one leg."

Her chest heaved at a rate that matched her pounding pulse.

"He's grieving, Mama. I think we should just be patient."

Patience was not one of her strongest virtues by any stretch of the imagination. And Robin's silence became even more stifling, wearing her patience down until it was frayed and threadbare.

"And I think he needs to stop acting like a child and be thankful for the life he has."

The words were yelled loud enough she wondered if President Lincoln himself had heard them.

Weeks blurred into a muted tapestry as patched skin glued itself together in an artful menagerie of scars. Fever stayed away, thank God, but apathy had taken its place, its smothering presence dissipating only a fraction when Henry when would pay Robin a visit. He'd borrowed a copy of The Three Musketeers from Doc Hamilton, one he read from aloud as best as he could. There were times Regina heard the soldier's voice supply a word Henry couldn't manage, her heart skipping a beat every time as the gesture reminded her far too much of Daniel. So she tried to avoid hovering by the door when these reading sessions would take place, but her feet betrayed her on a regular basis, prompting her to sneak the book from Henry's bedside at night while he slept and pour over the words as if they were golden contraband. She lost herself in a world of French intrigue and courtly manners, wondering if the escapades of d'Artagnan and Milady were a bit too grown up for her son to be reading, unable to reel in fantasies that began to sneak into her own private thoughts and broken dreams, fantasies involving herself and a certain soldier who frustrated her to no end.

Then one day, Robin began to speak to her again.

At first, there were only one word greetings followed by gravelly thank you's and husky goodnights. She'd nearly jumped the first time she'd he'd whispered Good morning, sloshing coffee she'd brought to him on her hand and swearing under her breath, nearly springing out of her skin as he took her injured hand within his to make certain it was alright. She'd bolted from his bedside like a frightened hare, wondering just what in God's name had gotten into her. Whatever it was, it wasn't good.

Her bed felt lonelier that night than it had in years. She cursed the man in the other room for no other reason than that she could.

It was Henry who finally convinced Robin to eat, a once Herculean task her son had assumed with the easy nature of his father and accomplished with little fanfare but much satisfaction. Henry was making inroads she seemed incapable of doing, a fact which bothered her on one level but relieved her on another. Robin's manners were more polite towards her now, although his demeanor remained stiff and guarded, and he watched her in a way that made her uneasy, a way that made her aware of her stubborn hair and ragged dresses, a way she tried to shove aside at night when a pillow was all she had to fill her empty arms.

Had Marian been beautiful, she wondered? By God, she was acting like the empty-headed heiress her mother had always wanted her to be.

He askd her to cut his hair and shave him one day, a process she completed through sheer determination, unwilling to allow herself to entertain notions of how his beard would feel brushing against her skin, of how his eyes would be accentuated once unruly hair had been shorn and combed.

Dear God. He looked even better than she had imagined. He thanked her, nodded with respect, but there was no smile to be given, only a hasty aversion of eyes, a reminder of this waltz they'd somehow perfected, a dance she'd tired of weeks ago but didn't know how to stop.

She'd never been very good at dancing, much to her mother's chagrin.

A week later, Doc Hamilton arrived with more enthusiasm than she'd witnessed from the man since the war had broken out. He toted a large sack over his shoulder, one that caught both her and Henry's attention as soon as he walked in the door.

"A piece of luck, Mrs. Mills," the older man stated as he turned to hang up his jacket. "A colleague from Pittsburgh was on his way to deliver these to the wounded soldiers, so I spoke up and let him know that I had a patient who lost his leg in battle. He had one delivered to my office less than an hour later along with a note instructing me to take good care of our captain."

Her eyes rounded at how he'd called Robin their captain, this enemy soldier who'd been making her life a living hell and every nerve stand on high alert. But that line of thought ceased the moment he withdrew the prosthesis, an expertly carved wooden leg infused with what appeared to be iron and leather where it would attach at his knee.

"A thing of beauty, isn't it?"

The thought of restoring what was lost was bubbling up from inside him, the doctor's eagerness infectious as Henry stepped forward and stroked the smooth maple. She stood in awe of it, reaching out but almost afraid to touch it, as if it were a holy relic rather than an artificial leg.

"Robin will be so happy," Henry gushed, grinning up at Doc Hamilton before locking eyes with her. She smiled as quickly as she could, wondering if he would be or if the contraption would shove him back into a lifeless existence that allowed for neither speech nor emotion. She didn't think she could stand it if that happened.

"Don't you think so, Mama?"

Her son's bright hope was too beautiful to extinguish.

"I hope so, Henry."

She'd leave the extinguishing to the man behind the bedroom door. And by God she'd rip him into shreds if he let her son down.

She declined the offer to go in with them, fearing her presence would only reminded him of the fact that she'd bathed him, helped him urinate, emptied his bedpan and wiped shit off his bottom. No-it was better that she stay away when Doc showed him the prosthesis for the first time, better he not be reminded of his lost dignity while receiving what would replace his lost leg. No wonder he had difficulty speaking to her. If their roles were reversed, she wondered if she'd be able to look him in the eye.

But by God, she wanted this to work. She wanted it so badly it terrified her.

There were no yells, no cries of panic that seeped through walls or wafted under doorframes as she waited for what seemed like hours. Rather, the sound that greeted her was one she'd never expected, one that somehow shocked her senseless.

It was applause, followed by the unmistakable sound of her son's laughter.

"Mama," Henry cried as he burst into the kitchen. "You gotta come and see this. It's a perfect fit!"

Her heart was pounding in a way she couldn't decipher, nearly making her legs wobble with its force as she crossed the short distance from one room to the other. She arrived nearly breathless, only to be frozen into place by the view standing-yes standing in front of her. He seemed taller than she'd anticipated, thinner than he should be, but he was there-just in front of her-standing. Standing. Dear God in heaven.

She hadn't realized she was crying until Doc Hamilton passed her his handkerchief.

"He looks rather dashing, doesn't he, Mrs. Mills?" the physician stated, nodding his head in approval.

Something fluttered inside of her, something girlish and whimsical, something that had no business beside the bedside of a recovering Rebel soldier who'd been hell to treat and had taken to haunting both her waking and sleeping thoughts. But she tingled, nonetheless, the unbearable lightness she felt increasing in both speed and intensity when a dimple managed to peek through the scruff on his face and seek her out from where he stood.

She wiped her cheeks in embarrassment, wondering just how pink her face had become, wondering why it bothered her so much to let him see how much this affected her. But when she finally dared to look up again, she saw something she'd thought had died back at Gettysburg, something he'd buried forever when he'd awoken without a lower leg.

A smile. An actual smile. His dimples nearly knocked her over this time.

"What do you think, Miss Regina?"

Her eyes flew open at the sound of his voice, her lips moving before speech could catch up with her thoughts.

"I think it's wonderful."

Her voice sounded foreign to her own ears, and she felt as though she were disembodied, as if she were watching this scene play out from outside of herself as her body began to entertain thoughts that were completely inappropriate and not exactly Christian.

He nodded in return.

"So do I."

She smiled back before turning to flee to the relative safety of the barn, pressing her face into the cool, rough wood of the walls, scared senseless by a new awareness that struck her in too many places at once. For Robin Locksley was no longer simply a patient, a mere houseguest, a wounded enemy who aggravated the living daylights out of her and tempted her to use language that would have made Daniel blush.

He was a man-a man who had reminded her of the fact that she was still very much a woman, a man she would have to touch in one way when she now longed to touch him in another.

God help her.

Henry helped him practice with his new cane, careful not to wander too far until Robin could familiarize himself with the sensation of balancing on something he couldn't feel. Regina noticed when he would wince, wondering if parts of his wound hurt when pressure was applied by the prosthesis or if he were simply afraid of falling. If he was in pain, he said nothing, but rather bit his lower lip as a means of summoning his determination. She decided he'd probably much prefer it if she were to let him test his new boundaries with as little interference as possible, so she made her way back to the kitchen and out to the barn, keeping an ear open for any sounds of distress that her son and their captain couldn't handle.

Of course, the fact that her fingers twitched with the desire to touch the man had nothing to do with her decision to let Henry guide him rather than she herself. Nothing whatsoever.

He ate dinner at the table with them that night, clearly uncomfortable in the hard, wooden chair yet polite in a manner she'd never witnessed as he served himself a small portion of stew. Conversation was stilted, but it existed, stopping and starting with awkward jerks and delays, but continuing in spite of the rough journey. She felt his eyes on her constantly, and she caught herself staring back at him at the most inopportune of times, the thick tension their little game was brewing making her barely been able to finish her meal.

"I'm really glad you decided to eat with us tonight instead of in your room," Henry stated, receiving a glare from her for speaking with his mouth full.

"Well, I decided it was time I stopped acting like a child and started being thankful for the life I have," Robin uttered, casting her a look that was undeniable. Her arm froze in route to her mouth as words she'd yelled in anger were recited with a gentleness that nearly did her in.

They said nothing else to each other through the remainder of dinner.

"It was your son, you know."

The words tumbled out of him later that night as she helped him remove the prosthesis, her hands quivering in a manner she refused to entertain.

"What was?" she questioned, the hoarseness of her tone matching his. He cleared his throat, jerking as the leather slid away from his upper leg, making her wonder if the material chafed his skin.

"He said he was proud of me," Robin uttered, drawing a quick breath that broke apart on its way inside. "When I let Doc Hamilton try it on me." His chin trembled in the candle's low light, his body casting misshapen shadows on the wall behind him. "I've acted like a horse's ass, have sat around and moped while the two of you have worked harder than any two people I've ever seen, but Henry stood before me and stated that he was proud...of me."

The final sentence was no more than a whisper, a product of profound disbelief, yet each word seared into her skin like molten fire.

"That's because he is," she returned, choosing to stare at his wound rather than into his eyes. "So am I."

"Then you're both better people than I'll ever be."

A dull roar pulsed between her temples as she watched his fingers toy with the fabric of his nightshirt.

"I have a son, too."

Whatever response she'd been formulating died on her lips at his simple declaration, her heart beating an arhythmic tattoo that made her chest ache. His eyes met hers directly, and she found she could not have looked away from him, even if her house had fallen down around them in a pile of wood and stone.

"I couldn't imagine letting him see me like…" He paused, looking down at the stump now raw and exposed to her, gesturing towards it as he licked cracked lips. "Like this."

His face reddened, she could tell even in the dim light, and she felt his pulse accelerate under her hand where she still touched the exposed flesh just above his wound.

"But when Henry...when he said what he did, well, I thought for the first time that maybe, just maybe, my Roland might be able to see me as his father, not a man to be pitied."

She leaned into him on instinct, her hand moving towards his cheek as if instructed to do so by an invisible force. He shuddered when she made contact, sending shivers down her spine as his beard scratched the surface of her palm.

"I don't pity you," she stated, her forehead now nearly touching his own.

"I know," he whispered. "Thank God." Something strained to break loose inside of her.

He was sweating, but it was not perspiration that dampened his cheek. Her fingers brushed tears away before she realized what she was doing, the salt from his body marking her in ways she couldn't bring herself to consider at the moment as she crawled up beside him on the bed and cupped his face between her palms. She then drew his head into her breasts, feeling him clasp on to her as if she were a raft and he a man lost at sea. He wept then, and she let him, allowed herself to absorb his sobs, to take in his grief, to be baptized by the aftermath of a war neither of them had wanted until they were wrapped up together in a mass of tangled limbs and emotions on top of the mattress.

She couldn't bring herself to move, so she laid there, the skin of his chest hot and damp through Daniel's shirt, the material now smelling only of Robin, imprinted by the here and now. He told her of his life in Virginia, of his parents, of a kind-hearted, benevolent father who died when Robin was but thirteen, of an emotionally distant mother who now looked after her only grandson while his father was away fighting a war in which he believed there would be no true victors.

She told him of her father, of her fascination with medicine and his joy in teaching her as much as he could of his profession, of her mother's insistence that she do something better with her life, of her own rebellion and marriage that led to a simple, happy life before her husband died of smallpox leaving her and her son nearly destitute.

He spoke to her of Marian-the daughter of a slave and a white man-an educated and free woman who worked as a seamstress and made dresses for his mother, a woman whose eyes and spirit bewitched him from the moment he met her. He told her of how they came to Pennsylvania to marry, of how his mother had disowned him until his wife had died in childbirth and he'd returned to his native Virginia, a broken man with a son his mother couldn't turn away, even if she refused to acknowledge the truth of her grandson's biology.

He'd waited as she'd absorbed it all, sighing audibly into the room when she breathed, "I'm sorry you lost her. I know how hard that is."

She gazed at a spot on the ceiling illuminated by the candle's flickering halo, pressing her back into his hand as his fingers drew pathways across her spine through the fabric of her dress.

"I know you do."

He was watching her so intently she couldn't breathe.

Her thumb reached out instinctively and traced his bottom lip, memorizing its contours, marvelling at its softness. Then his mouth drew it softly inside his lips, and she closed her eyes as he kissed it, sucked air into her lungs as he pressed himself up on his elbow so he could kiss her temple, her forehead, her ear, her cheek. When his mouth finally brushed hers, her mind ceased to function, and she allowed herself to be sucked into a vortex of pulsing sensation and feeling, wrapping her arms around him until they were body to body on his bed. She opened her mouth to him, and they tasted of each other, losing themselves in a wave of life that had escaped them for too long.

Touches moved from hesitant to desperate, kisses from gentle to those of two starving for what only the other could give. Hands began to fist into clothing, needing to feel what lay underneath, wanting to explore what remained hidden from the other.

"Are you certain about this?"

He'd drawn back just enough to allow them space to breathe.

"You could certainly do much better than…"

He broke off then, his insecurities staring back at her in a manner that hurt. She rolled out from under him and pushed herself up from the bed, swallowing down any misgivings she might have as bindings were unlaced and her dress slowly nudged from her body. She felt wanton, somewhat wicked, and completely and utterly alive, the tingling of her skin only accentuated by the coolness of the air brushing against it. Her hair was released from its confines only after she stood bare before him, and she gave him a moment to simply stare at her, to take her in, thinking it only fair since she'd seen his naked body on far more than one occasion.

But not like this. Never like this. Her legs shook violently beneath her.

"God," he breathed, almost panted. She then moved to stand in front of him, guiding his hand to her breast, stifling a moan in her throat as he rubbed and cupped her nipple. "You're breathtaking."

"So are you."

"Regina," he uttered, his expression almost pained as he reached for her other breast, teasing it as thoroughly as he had the other. She was drowning, completely and utterly submerged, her lungs to the point of bursting even as she refused to come up for air.

Her hands made quick work of his sleepshirt and drawers, moving them gently over flesh and air until he was as naked as she. He was hard for her already, pulsing and alive in a way she'd never seen him. They both remained silent for a moment, simply staring as the candle cast shadows in a way that now seemed erotic.

"And you don't...you don't mind…"

He looked down towards his leg, biting his lower lip, trembling in both fear and anticipation of whatever she would do next. Her hand went to his stump deliberately, tracing its curvature, rubbing it's newly formed scars, blocking out thoughts of the surgery that took it from him and choosing to see instead the marvel of a man who'd lost it.

"I don't mind."

He drew her into his chest, nuzzling his mouth in between her breasts, kneading her bottom until the ache between her legs pulsed raw and primal. They maneuvered themselves back on the bed, skin to skin, mouth to mouth, need to need. She rolled on top of him, allowing him to bury rough fingers in her hair as she eased herself back on to his hips, teasing him with her body and a smile that felt as natural as breathing.

"I'm not quite certain how to do this," he confessed. "To make love to a woman properly when I...I have only one leg."

She eased herself down his body, cupping his stump, kissing the flesh above it, spurred on by his body's jerk and the staccato hiss that flew out of his mouth. Her mouth worked its way back up the planes of his skin, kissing his thighs, the coarse hair around his penis, his stomach and scared chest, until she found herself nose to nose with him, their lips a finger's width apart, their eyes locked firmly into the other's.

"I'm sure we can figure it out," she breathed, rewarded by a kiss that signaled the end of all conversation as she took him inside of her body.