Hello and welcome! This will be a multi-chapter fiction based around one night, just one. I promise angst, fluff and lemon. Let me know what you think : ) Hope you enjoy!

And it continues...

EDIT: Some shameful typos, tututut, not like me at all. Must strive harder. Hope you enjoy!

Nocturne (In The Night)

Chapter 3: Floating and Falling

Marian

The transformation of Guy's face almost made Marian forget her thoughts on Robin. She had been steadily forgetting him during the night, but his face and their experiences persisted. What insisted against the guilt she felt was the overcoming desire for Guy. A symphony of all of his deeds, all his stormy looks, shimmered through her mind. His efforts to change, to be a better man... she believed them. She also believed she could help.

And she believed she could be proud.

Revulsion, swift and merciless, drowned her heart for a second as she saw- in her mind's eye- the wrath in Guy's eyes when he had entombed her home in flames; when he had stabbed a defenceless man; when he had practically pawned her off to that foreign count with such malicious delight-

This? This was what she had longed for, what she stood naked before? The spontaneous confidence she had had a moment ago when she had wanted to prove her capability as a wife- as a woman!- slithered away and she cowered back, although Guy had not made an advance. He just lay there, propped up on his elbows, staring at her with... awe, it seemed like.

When she flinched, he sat up, eyes intent on her stomach. His gaze burned more than the warmth of the fire by her ankles.

But, fast, memories of a Guy before Robin had returned, glowed softly in her mind.

She recalled how he had sat- his index finger touching his lips as he concentrated on the Sheriff's words- at a long table in the Great Hall during a grand supper three summers ago. She had been sitting a seat away from him and heard these words:

"Would it not make more sense, my Lord, to be kind to them. Would they not work harder for it?" Vasey had laughed.

"You would have them walk all over you, Gisbourne! They are not there to love, but to labour. These are peasants, Gisbourne and deserve as much as they are."

"Nothing!" a Baron had called over, in jest.

"Exactly, Wilbur, exactly! No, no, no, no, no- they will not have more than a quarter acre more and as for those cows, two to them and sell the rest for profit. If you want power, Giz, like me, then you need to command it. No compromise."

Marian knew for a fact that there had been three cows in Locksley Farm the next day and it could only have been Guy who had arranged it.

What had turned Guy so cold since? His pursuit of Robin. And of her. And had she helped that? No. She had solicited seduction and then spurned him. How saintly was that!

Marian looked down at the floor, thinking deeply, so distracted by her many thoughts that she almost forgot she was naked and that Guy was still staring...

Had he not brought her that horse? That horse she loved and fit her so well? Surely that was not coincidence. And he had saved her from that tree, that fire, despite the pretence it truly was...

She had lied, teased him, wounded his men, humiliated him in front of his province... hit him at the altar! And how he had had his revenge...

When he had tried to bed her after her father's death, she had been disgusted by his advances and yet, who was to say that he had not just been trying to comfort her, to distract her?

In all truth, she had secretly been very entertained by the banter they created whenever she was trying to fool him... she anticipated it. He could match her in slyness, in wit and could she really blame him for his distrust after she had been- admittedly- cruel herself?

Why had she agreed to marry him this time... it was a plan between Robin and her so she could feed better information to him and quicker. Guilt gripped her shoulder blades. She'd never really given Guy a chance to prove himself. He was trapped, himself... and now he said he had pledged his allegiance to the Queen...

For her?

Robin. Her love. She loved him. There was no doubt of that. He had been there with her always, had excited her and loved her even when he wasn't there...

She vaguely remembered Guy from her childhood. One memory stood out.

She had been running. She had fallen. She had cut her knee. She had been very young, only about four, which would have made Guy thirteen and just before she had been about to cry, he had scooped her up, appearing from nowhere, from the ground, brushed the dry dirt from her dress and smiled...

So kindly.

Then he had gently pushed her towards where her father was talking with a farrier.

Later, whilst she was having supper with her father and her mother (who had died when she was ten), there had been a knock at the door and when a maid had opened it, there stood Guy, in that navy cape of his. So serious. Marian couldn't remember exactly what he had said, but it was something like

"I just wanted to make sure the little Lady of Knighton's leg had been amputated well." He seemed so serious that Marian and her parents did not catch on straight away that he was joking, but once her father did and he laughed, Marian and her mother giggled too.

God, she had loved her mother... so beautiful, so elegant and fine-featured, so gentle and almost taller than her father... Marian remembered how warm her hugs had been and her blossom-like scent.

"I've brought a remedy from my mother for the cut. Should let it heal well." Guy had attempted a smile then.

"Oh, thank you, Guy. Come in!" her father had invited.

"No, no. Thank you, sir, but I must head back home." And he passed a vial to the maid, bowed slightly, then left.

"Such a sweet boy. Such a hard life." That had been her mother's measure of him.

Standing in Guy's chamber sixteen years later, her mother's words echoed in her mind repeatedly. She remembered how the Gisbourne's house had been on fire, how there had been a few casualties, but she did not know who and then he had disappeared for much over a decade.

Something hot above her hip shocked her out of her reverie: Guy was kneeling before her, his mouth on the cicatrix of that near-fatal wound. One hand rested on her stomach and the other held the side of her hip. He was so warm. She quivered, vulnerable and weakened by his gentleness but tense with her thoughts. He pulled back and kissed the spot again, his tongue pressing tenderly over the exact location.

She couldn't move. It was like she was in a dream and the sensations caused by Guy's presence and his position felt like floating and falling at the same time. He did have an incredibly dramatic presence, both in aura and body. He was overwhelming. Her heart was racing again, dangerously, as he stroked his fingers round her hip and abdomen- causing a ticklish shiver- and pressed the pads of his fingers around the scar like a fence, leaning in to kiss it once more-

"I can't." Two tears dripped from her eyes. "I can't. I can't." Her voice was no more than a whisper.

Guy went rigid. She saw a small muscle in his shoulder tense as he sank down, arms dropping.

"I'm sorry. I can't do this. I... I..."

"Marian, you're going to kill me," Guy hissed, his breath chilling her shins. "You're making this impossible. We. Are. Married. This is my right." He bit the words out. Marian gripped both her forearms and nodded, teary and angry for it.

"I don't know you! You're so many people, but you've done so many... committed so many sins. I don't think I can redeem you. It's too great a power and I-"

"I don't care if you don't redeem me, or if you think you won't. I know. I know you already have. If you weren't you, have faith- I... I wouldn't have controlled myself thus far."

"You've killed-"

"Haven't you?" Guy immediately interrupted, glaring up at her. The Dark Angel was before her now, half his face in shadow and the other bathed in caramel light. She gasped soundlessly and glared back, covering her breasts with her folded arms. She was, in a tiny part of her mind, surprised that Guy made no move towards a more intimate area. They glared for a long, long moment, before Guy rumbled out a sigh and shot past her leg, grabbed her shift and threw it up at her to cover herself. Then he stood up with such ease and speed Marian flinched before slipping back into the shift. Guy had stormed out of the room before she could say anything more. She heard him stomp through her little chamber and then through the door she had entered through after the banquette. She stared at the bed in a daze.

She could run. She could run and find Robin and hide.

But her heart plummeted at the thought. Why had she really married Guy? Purely for advantage. No. That was a lie she had told herself and Robin. Secretly, she had always hoped she could help Guy become who he wanted to be, to free the Guy he had been before he'd lost love or any chance for it. She was his chance. She wanted to be. She wasn't scared of him- not entirely. She was scared she wasn't strong enough to make a lasting difference. But she missed him. She wanted him. She couldn't deny it and Lord knows Robin would begrudge her enacting her wifely duties but didn't he put his duties as England's Hero and Saviour above her? She didn't hate him for it, England needed him.

And Marian needed...

She flew through the room, through the little chamber- where for a second she spied herself hours before, standing there so nervously- and then whipped through the second door expecting Guy to be gone down the stairs. But he was there, standing over a basin of water, with his hands clutching the table beneath it, on either side.

"Just go, Marian," he snarled, turning his head away. His hair dripped. "Go!" he barked.

"I'll not be commanded."

Guy breathed out a low laugh and shook his head.

"No..." he whispered. She moved behind him, glided, and admired his back, gilded with sparse candlelight. His position of Master At Arms and his life sword training and horse riding had gifted him with, it had to be said, a magnificent specimen of the male body. It was only Robin's speed that allowed him to win and the backing of five other men and Djaq.

Now she was in awe. Her eyebrows drew together as she caught sight of a few long scars that veered off his spine. Her fingers explored. Guy sighed slowly and bent further over, but he did not move beyond that.