Love's Labor Lost

A/N Usual disclaimer, don't own, don't profit, etc.

A thousand thanks to LadyKate for her beta skills!

Chapter 1

Marian sat in her room by the fireplace, chin propped on her hands as she went over the day's events. It was long after sunset, long after supper, but she wasn't sleepy. She was surprised, but pleased, that she wasn't having a case of hysterics, as most women – and men too – might after having been brought to the threshold of the gallows.

Guy had risked a lot to save her – the sheriff had almost looked mad enough to kill as Guy was pretending to chase after the "Night Watchman." She hadn't fully realized until then how much he was risking to keep her safe. He could be a better man, she thought, she had seen that today. She wished he would let himself be that better man more often.

And yet, she thought with exasperation, his "rescue" of her had only been necessary after putting her in the situation to begin with.

If only he had let her go when he had caught her in Locksley.

She wondered why he had initially been so determined to see her punished. Was it because of the actions the Night Watchman had taken – defying the sheriff, robbing Guy, aiding the outlaws, or was because this was proof positive she refused to be the plaster saint he seemed to think she should be?

She rubbed her arms, feeling chilled despite the warmth of the fire. She had to admit that if it had been anyone else behind the mask, Guy would not only have killed the Night Watchman, but have made it a very painful, drawn out death. She could still smell the red hot poker he had brandished in her face at her capture.

She grimaced; she shouldn't have gotten caught to begin with. She would do no good to anyone if she was dead.

Dead.

She closed her eyes and took a deep steadying breath, fighting back the hysterics she had been worried about all along.

Yes, she had almost died when Guy had stabbed the Night Watchman the year before, and yet this, simply standing in front of the gallows, and coming out of it without a mark on her, had felt so much worse, so much more final.

She had known in an abstract, rational kind of way that being the Night Watchman could mean her execution, but up until today it had never really seemed to have fully sunk in.

She had to admit that she had enjoyed every time she had gotten away by the skin of her teeth in her escapades, secretly showing off that she was better than the men around her – both the ones who did nothing to oppose the sheriff, and those working for the sheriff who failed to catch her.

"Hello, my love," said a voice quietly, just loud enough to be heard above the crackle of the fire.

Marian looked up with a smile at one of the few men who had opposed the sheriff. Robin was sitting casually on the window ledge, a little grin on his face. Robin, who helped the poor, even if he did insist on doing it so publicly. Robin, who had actually listened when she had explained why she had become the Night Watchman.

"Robin!" she said happily, and then frowned.

"What?" he asked, concerned.

She crossed her arms. "And where were you all day when I told you we needed to help the people of Locksley?" willing herself to stay mad at him instead of rushing into his arms for a kiss as she wanted to.

"Rescuing the Queen Mother from Prince John," said Robin with a rueful sigh.

"What?" she gasped, the unexpected answer knocking all thoughts of anger straight out of her.

Robin filled her in on how the search and rescue of Queen Eleanor had kept him and the gang busy all day.

"So, she's safe now?" asked Marian when he'd finished, wishing she could have been there instead of spending the day trying to justify her actions to Guy.

"Yes," reassured Robin. "On the road to a ship back to the Aquitaine as we speak."

"And she really offered to take Little John with her?" she asked incredulously, trying to fight back a grin at the lighter side of the tale.

"She was quite taken with the 'big bear'," said Robin with a grin of his own, and they both dissolved into a fit of childish giggles, both giving into the relief.

"And," he continued, when they had both gotten their breath back, "her generous donation has already been distributed, much of it going to help the people of Locksley get resettled back in their homes, now that the sheriff's moved out the mercenaries, since there was no point in keeping them here, with the queen no longer Prince John's guarded hostage."

"Good," said Marian.

"The rest are finishing up the food drops. For a laugh, I put Much in charge; see how he handles it, and so I could come here and catch you up on the day's events."

He grinned at her mischievously.

"So, how was your day, my love?" he asked in a jovial voice that clearly said 'top that'.

Marian visibly hesitated, and his face fell.

"Marian," he said in a warning voice, "I asked you not to interfere in Locksley. You promised."

"I know," she said testily. "And I didn't," she said defensively. "The, uh, Night Watchman did," she said, avoiding his gaze.

Robin rolled his eyes. "Very clever," he drawled. "You do find the most creative ways to throw yourself into danger."

"That's the pot calling the kettle black."

He smirked. "No, I'm just your normal, middle of the road, outlaw hero," he said with pretend humbleness. "You're the one with imagination when it comes to fighting for justice," he told her with real admiration in his voice.

Marian tried not to smile at his praise and felt a flush come to her checks.

"But," he continued, "since you are here in the castle's guest chambers rather than a guest of the dungeons I assume things didn't go too badly."

She glanced at him, surprised. It appeared word hadn't gotten out too far yet of the Night Watchman's capture and escape.

"What happened?" he demanded at her uneasy glance.

"Guy found out I was the Night Watchman," she admitted.

Robin's eyes narrowed angrily. "What did he do?"

Marian told him. When she had finished recounting her day of captures and escapes Robin surprised her by simply taking her in his arms and holding her for a very long time.

Then he kissed her and Marian was surprised to feel slight wetness on his checks. He broke off the kiss and she looked up to see tears standing in his eyes.

"I almost lost you today and I didn't even know it," he said huskily. "If I lost you… I… I don't know what I'd do."

"You would keep fighting for England," she said as bravely as she could, trying push down the lump in her throat that had formed. "That's what we're doing Robin. Fighting for the people and King Richard and for England."

He put both hands on the sides of her face and looked at her for a long moment. "Which is why you wouldn't come back to the forest with me if I asked, would you?" he asked resignedly. "Because you want to stay here and see what information you can learn."

"You need someone here to find out what Guy and the sheriff are up to," she told him.

She knew Guy thought she was staying for him. She sighed inwardly. She reminded herself of how badly Guy had wanted to hurt her to try and lessen the guilt of giving him such false hope.

Robin nodded sadly at her words. "But can you least promise me to be careful?" he asked after he kissed her on the forehead.

"Guy burned my Night Watchman's outfit," she snarled. She seethed at the recollection at how casually Guy had tossed away what had been so important to her, as if it was nothing. "Which I'm afraid puts a bit of a damper on my current heroics."

Robin chuckled as he kissed her again. "A naked freedom fighter would be quite a sight to behold."

Marian tried to hit him on the side of his arm but instead somehow wound up embraced in an even tighter hug than before.

They melted into a long kiss. She remembered the kiss she had shared with Guy, and how much more desperately he had responded; she wondered what it would be like to have such complete slavish devotion from a man.

She hastily pushed the thought away. She slipped her hand between the fastenings of Robin's shirt, pressing her hand against his warm skin, wanting to melt right into him completely, reminding herself that she was Robin's and he was hers, and there were no others.

Robin responded to her touch by beginning to pull at her vest's fastenings, and then hesitated, stopping to look at her closely. "Are you sure?" he asked her.

Marian nodded. "Yes," she said, determined. "Robin, I don't want to wait any longer."

She would have gone on about how she had almost died that day, which had put rather a lot in perspective, but Robin held her lips captive with his, which made talking difficult.

They tumbled into her bed, and, for an all too brief a time, forgot about everything else except each other.

Several weeks passed quickly.

Marian was only able to see Robin a handful of times, meeting in hallway corners and behind market stalls, exchanging a few words on current plans for thwarting the sheriff, she telling him any scraps of information she had managed to glean that day, he telling her about what the gang had done recently.

All of their meetings had to be hurried, with no more than a few sentences exchanged and a quick kiss.

He took the risk of sneaking into her room again one night. She tried to scold him about the danger he was courting, but it was hard to make her words sound sincere when she was giving him a welcoming kiss.

They had reluctantly woke in the pre-dawn hours so Robin could sneak back out, despite his laughing assurances to her that he could think of no better place to die as she had pushed him out of the bed.

One morning, Marian awoke, feeling groggier than usual.

She got up and dressed, pausing to steady herself for a moment by placing her hand on a table. Black spots danced for a moment before her eyes, but they quickly passed and she dismissed it all as having stayed up too late the night before, waiting to see if Robin would be able to join her that night.

She berated herself for acting like a ninny, moping and pining for her beloved like a helpless damsel in a troubadour's tale.

She walked into the Great Hall where most of the castle was already seated at the morning meal, breaking their fast.

"Marian," said Guy with a polite nod, a small, hopeful smile on his face. Allan lurked behind him, wearing an expression of someone who wished they were somewhere else.

"Ah, our leper friend," said the sheriff cheerfully from where he sat at the head of the table, happily munching on a roast chicken thigh as he talked. "So glad you could join us. A clue. No."

She did her best to plaster a smile on her face as she faced Guy. They had argued the day before. Or rather, she had tried to argue with him on the behalf of the Locksley villagers. He had ended the debate before anything could be honestly said by curtly reminding her that he wouldn't be able to always save her from the sheriff's wrath if she was caught again defying Vasey's actions, but then attempted to charm her with soft words of how she could do anything she liked in Locksley if she was lady of the manor.

They had parted as it felt they always did these days with both of them making promises, with Marian suspecting Guy's promises to be as empty as hers. But she had to go on pretending, knowing the only way to do good was to be in the midst of the fray.

And she had to smile through this awful headache, she thought to herself ruefully.

As she smiled, the black spots danced across her vision again, and she felt herself go light, as if she was floating.

"I feel," she began, but didn't even make it to the word 'dizzy' before she felt a rush of blood beneath her skin and everything went completely black as she lost conciseness.

Guy rushed forward as Marian sank to the floor. He knelt down to where she lay, crumpled in a pathetic heap on the ground. He picked her up with trembling hands, barking orders to anyone in shouting distance for someone to fetch a healer from town, and that there had better be someone brought in with all speed.

The sheriff was making some sarcastic comments about the leper finally getting leprosy, but Guy ignored him. He vaguely registered Allan in the background giving orders to soldiers on which places to check for the nearest healer as he carried Marian out of the Great Hall back to her chamber where he laid her reverently on top of the blankets of her bed, like a marble effigy on a tomb.

She looked so young and innocent with her eyes closed and her breath slow and shallow. He wondered for the thousandth time what it would take to be able to fully win her heart.

Guy sat in a chair next to the bed and held her limp hand, occasionally stroking her hair as he pondered how long it would be before he could call her 'wife'.

He had saved her from her misguided quest as the Night Watchman, and she had been grateful, he was sure of it. That had to be a start. She had chosen to stay in Nottingham instead of going back to that convent, surely that was a sign. She wanted to be near him, she must feel something, surely.

She'd been more cheerful lately, and he'd caught her smiling at nothing in particular when she didn't realize he was watching her. She would always put on a somber expression or a polite cultivated smile when he approached her, but he was sure she just needed a bit of coaxing to be herself around him.

Not long later an old woman carrying an assortment of bottles and dried herbs appeared in the doorway, arguing with the guards who had brought her about her fee.

"I'll have you know every minute I'm in the castle on whatever fool's errand you've dragged me here on, I'm losing paying customers," she was saying querulously, but shut up when she saw Marian on the bed. "Ah, so this is the lady who's taken sick, is it?" she asked, unnecessarily.

"Make her well," ordered Guy in a deep growl as he rose from the chair.

The woman sized him up, clearly taking in the worth of his clothes. "My fee's ten pounds, my lad, plus expenses. Half up front," she said brusquely, holding her knurled old hand out. Guy reluctantly placed a gold coin on her withered palm. "I said half," she said sourly, looking at the single coin with a frown.

"You get the rest when she's recovered, and only then," growled Guy in a voice that suggested there would be no haggling over this.

The woman shrugged in acquiesce. "Is the lady your wife or your sister?" she asked with gossipy curiosity as she hobbled to the bed.

"She will be my wife," he growled.

The woman merely nodded as she grabbed a lighted candle from beside the bed and retrieved what looked like the root of some plant or another from a pouch at her waist and held it under Marian's nose. She used the flame of the candle to light the plant root.

A sharp, pungent order immediately penetrated the air. Marian gasped as she awoke, her eyes roving about the room in confusion.

"That's better," cackled the old woman. She turned over her shoulder to say to Guy, "I'll need a cup full of Burgundy wine after it's been brought to the boiling for a count of ten and no longer with a leaf of basil dropped in. It's vital to getting the lady back on her feet," she ordered.

Without question, Guy rushed from the room to the kitchens to oversee the order.

The old healer looked back to Marian with a conspiratory grin missing quite a few teeth.

"There now, that should get rid of your over anxious young man for a bit so we can have a little talk about your health without him glowering over our shoulders."

Marian smiled back nervously, still not completely sure what was going on.

"Now, I hear you had a bit of a faint this morning, eh poppet?" asked the woman, taking Marian's wrist to feel her pulse.

"I just was a bit dizzy," said Marian defensively. "I was simply overtired. I just, er, haven't slept well recently."

"Indeed," said the woman, gazing deep into Marian's pupils with a professional gaze, and then began to gently poke at Marian's abdomen. "Tell me if this hurts," she instructed as she prodded about.

She undid the lacing at the bottom of Marian's vest to get a look at the skin of her stomach. "Nasty scar you got there, duckie," she cackled, tracing it with a bony finger, "should have come to me when you got that cut. I've got a lovely cream for making sure scars don't appear, only forty shillings."

She began asking questions about Marian's general health, firing off question after question about how Marian's body had been behaving lately.

She made Marian spit into a little bowl and examined it, then took a few drops of blood from Marian's finger with the smallest of pen knives and tasted it judiciously.

She looked in Marian's mouth as if she were a horse for sale and then began prodding at her with her bony fingers again. She poked at Marian's throat and neck, still asking questions, and then, moving downwards, gave a jab to Marian's breasts. Marian flinched back as she winced tightly in pain.

"That hurt?" asked the old woman sharply, jabbing her again in the same spot.

"Yes," hissed Marian in pain, surprised by how tender her breasts were.

"Do they normally hurt when you get your monthly course?"

"No."

"And when was your last course?" asked the old woman.

"Well it was-" she was about to say 'last week' when she suddenly realized that wasn't true. How could she have been so busy, even with all the sneaking about she'd been doing lately to try and overhear the sheriff's plans, to have overlooked that? She counted the weeks since her last course on one hand, then with shaking fingers on the other hand.

The realization hit her like a physical blow and she gasped. She looked up with round eyes at the healer grinning down at her with a knowing leer.

Guy walked in without knocking, the cup of freshly boiled Burgundy wine in hand, going as fast as he could without spilling. He frowned at the scene he walked into. Marian was trying to clutch at the woman's arms, begging her over and over, "no, no, no, don't tell him, please!"

The woman was waving her off and making shushing noises, trying to calm her down. "Its all right dearie, everything will be fine, plenty of women get a bit frightened and they come out of it fine in the end," not listening to whatever Marian was trying to say.

The healer looked up at Guy's arrival. "She seems determined to be silly about the situation, but most first timers are. I only hope you can be the sensible one of the pair."

"Silly?" asked Guy, wondering what on earth could be happening to make the healer pronounce Marian sick with 'silliness'. Marian was the least silly woman he knew. Stubborn, misguided and willful, yes, but not silly.

The woman went on, smiling wickedly, "And any date you've picked, I'd move it up if I were you young man to as soon as possible. Today, preferably. I'm sure no one will raise their eyebrows too much if the baby arrives eight months rather than nine months after the wedding."

"Baby," repeated Gisbourne dumbly, not quite able to process what the woman was saying. But that would mean– And his brain suddenly stopped working before he could finish the thought; instead the same half finished sentence kept circling around and around his head as his face went stone still with shock.

"Don't worry," the old woman went on obliviously, "everyone understands if engaged couples get a bit carried away. But she's in good health and once she gets over the initial illness I think she'll progress the rest of the way fine with your child."

Guy blinked, once, slowly. He then shook his head back and forth in denial. "I have never touched her," he said, stunned.

The woman raised both her eyebrows as her eyes glanced back and forth at the two of them: Marian's face was pale and frightened, Guy's face was slowly hardening into an expression of pure rage.

"Oh," she said knowingly in the sudden quiet of the room. "Oh, I see," she said, sounding very amused.