"Enjoy your wedding night, Hood," Sheriff Vaisey gloated, after Gisbourne shoved the outlaw into a dark dungeon cell. "After all, it will be your last night on Earth! I'd love to stay and toast the happy couple, but I've no stomach for leper brides. Come, Gisbourne! Let's celebrate Hood's impending death together!" Laughing maniacially at the sound of the cell door clanking shut, Vaisey trippingly led Gisbourne up the dungeon steps, a marriage song on his lips.

"Marian?" Robin's voice called out in the darkness, seeking the woman he believed to be locked up with him.

"It's me! I'm here!" a whiney voice answered, disappointing him. "Robin! I knew you'd come save me!"

Robin's initial disappointment turned to relief, then to bafflement, at finding Kate instead of Marian locked up with him in his cell.

"Kate? What are you doing here?"

"Gisbourne, the nasty bastard, had me thrown in here."

"But why?"

"Why do you think? For collaborating with outlaws, due to us getting married."

"WHAT?"

"But everything's fine now. I knew you'd come, Robin!" Ducking her blond head under his bound wrists, Kate emerged up against Robin's chest, within the circle of his arms, staring hopefully up at him. "Now, how the hell are you going to spring us out of here, so we can have our wedding?"

"Kate," Robin began anxiously, trying to think up a way to extricate the girl from his unwilling embrace. "I swear to you, I'll get us out of here, but there isn't going to be any wedding. What led you to think there was? If I said anything to mislead you, I'm sorry."

Hearing her world crashing down around her, Kate paled under her already pasty complexion. "There will so be a wedding!" she insisted. "Your men told me!"

"Which men?" Robin asked, wondering if he was in the midst of yet another nightmare.

"Allan and Little John," Kate informed him, still wrapped in his bound arms. "Allan swore they weren't fooling! Damn him!" Fighting back bitter tears, she whined, "It was all a joke, and now I'm going to hang for it."

"Shh," Robin said, comfortingly. "No one's going to hang. I won't let anyone hurt you. I swear it."

Kate lifted her face, trying in vain to reach for his lips.

But Robin had no desire to kiss the girl. She already had feelings for him, he knew, but his feelings toward her were purely of a protective nature, as the rightful lord of her village. Trying to lighten the mood, he gently teased, "Why would you agree to marry me? I'm not much of a catch, you know. I'm an outlaw."

"I don't believe you'll save me," Kate whined, her bitter disappointment making her even more unpleasant than usual. "I don't trust you at all, anymore."

"I can't say that I blame you, after what happened. But we will get out, and when we do, I will talk to Allan and John, and they will apologize to you."

Laying her cheek on his chest, Kate closed her tear-filled eyes and wept, while Robin tried to soothe her.

"What will I do?" she asked pathetically, at last.

"I'll clear your name, somehow," Robin promised, "and you can return to your family."

"How will you, an outlaw, clear my name?"

"I know someone who can," he promised. "Shh. Everything's going to be alright."

Robin waited patiently, letting the village girl weep on his chest.

"The sheriff might as well hang me," Kate whined. "My life is over."

"Kate, listen." Gently, Robin tried to offer her the best advice he knew. " 'To every man there is a purpose that he sets up in his life,' " he told her. " 'Let yours be the doing of all good deeds.' "

"What's that supposed to mean?" she snapped, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

"It's a saying...something I read once, that guides me. Trust me, it helps."

"But what does it mean?"

"It means you have an opportunity to find your purpose in life, Kate. Let it be something that benefits others."

"Like the Nightwatchman?"

Robin caught his breath, then broke into one of his incandescent smiles. "That's right," he realized, his heart swelling. "Just like the Nightwatchman."

It's like you were made for me, Marian, he was thinking. Even our purpose in life is the same. Don't marry Gisbourne. Marry me.

He worried about her being the Nightwatchman, worried she'd be captured or, worse yet, shot on sight. She didn't need to take such risks, he believed, yet he was impressed she did. He felt proud to love her.

Kate was still sniveling, but he'd done all he could to try to comfort her. What he needed to do now, was to extricate her from his body, so he could think up a plan to break them both out of the dungeon.

"Are you alright?" he asked her kindly. "Again, I'm sorry, Kate. Someday, a man worthy of you will come calling, and-"

"Right," she snapped, hurt by his rejection.

An awkward silence followed, with Kate seeming in no hurry to duck back under his bound wrists and leave his embrace. Instead, she wriggled even closer to him, once again laying her head on his chest.

With a resigned sigh, Robin patiently waited for her to grow tired of leaning against him. Darting his eyes back and forth over their heads, he tried to think up a plan to escape.

A sudden thud made Kate jump, then clutch at Robin's biceps.

It was in this cozy-looking embrace that the Nightwatchman discovered them in their cell.