Title: The Torn Man
Author: Dare
Pairings: Robin/Marian
Rating: PG-13 (nothing much happens besides some smooches, but one of them is barely clothed and they are sharing a bed.)
Timeline: A bit alternate universe, I'd say between 1x04/05. The ending is completely alternate universe.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to the BBC and Tiger Aspect Productions
Summary: It's winter (and in the series, it's never winter) and Robin is shoot by the Sheriff's hunters and ends up in front of Marian's window.

Author's Note: I just finished "Wintersmith" and saw "Hogsfather" by Terry Pratchett and it inspired me to write something about Robin & Marian and the winter that never was in the series. Also, I think the explanation Robin gives about travelling to the Holy Land isn't really an explanation. They could've come up with something more interesting. And fluffy, as you will notice.

Also, please note that: All I know about English I learned from Star Trek(tm). Meaning, my vocabulary is limited to such things as "warp core" and "Commander Riker". If you find grammatical and other errors you can keep them along with my sorry-ness. Posted previouly on LiveJournal.

The Torn Man (1/2)

by Dare

It was a faint, small sound by the window.

A tiny noise, some soft ruffling, like snow falling softly on snow. Marian would not have noticed it, if she hadn't been silently staring at her empty sheet of paper, thinking about how to fill it. Her head turned and she looked over to the window, expecting someone from the forest, smiling smugly at her, but all she could see was falling snow flakes.

Her gaze wandered back to the paper, wondering what to write. My dear Maude, she thought and after a decided pause, she wrote down the words. It didn't make things much better. It was not as if she had nothing to tell, but some things should be left untouched, especially in a letter written to her relatives in the north who still thought of her as a fourteen year old, nice, well-mannered girl, enjoying embroidery before all things.

Part of her protection was to let them believe such ridiculous things, especially since she didn't know if Guy, Vaizey or, even worse, her father would secretly read her letters.

And her cousin Maude was the worst of them all. A voluptuous, small girl with large, dark eyes and a merry smile. Marian loved her and envied her. Loved her, because Maude was such a friendly, wonderful young woman, full of laughter and smiles and a warm sense of humour, and envied her, because she had four older brother who could ...

Marian grimaced.

... who could protect her from everything that was clad in black leather or which was coming out of the woods – she glanced at the window, where no one was to be seen – smiling smugly at her.

The lack of protection had made Marian strong, but she still sometimes wished there was someone else besides her father who could help her without being hunted by the Sheriff. Without having to wear hoods wherever they went. Someone who wasn't really a criminal, hunted by most official representatives of the law. Someone who didn't live in the woods, for goodness sake, and who had similar ideas of hygiene as she had.

Again, a noise from outside. This time, it almost sounded like a sigh, followed by ... the sounds of a squirrel, softly hoping through the snow.

Someone was there, at her window, she knew, and at this time of the year, it most certainly was not a nut-hiding, small animal.

Sighing, she got up and turned to the window. The additional height the change of position granted her also offered her a better view to the window. That was when she first saw the hand.

A white hand, formed like a claw. Formed, as if a crystal ball or an similar shaped object was meant to be placed onto it. Only, that on it's palm, no crystal ball was found, but snow, indicating that this hand had been there for quite a while.

What forced Marian to move was the piercing colour of blood on the blueish skin and the white snow. When she closed the distance, she saw an arm attached to the hand, the fabric covering it was torn, and bloody. And when Marian was able to touch the windowsill, she saw a familiar curved bow there, and parts of a body.

And she heard the panting. Softly, almost non-existent, done with endeavour, coming out of a throat which had been, from the sounds of it, abraded with sand and been cut open. There was also a continuous low, murmuring sound, as flowing water, but she knew, the involved liquid possibly had another colour.

A stone of fear was forming just between stomach and heart and when she looked out of the window, she saw the man leaning against the outer wall or her house, sitting on the ridge which could be abused to enter her room. There were stains of blood in the snow everywhere around him. She could see foot prints on the white cloak covering everything -- and even they were blood-coloured.

And all the while, it was so quiet; the only noise the panting and the snow flakes.

Marian managed to get hold on parts of her mind that hadn't been chased up the hills of her soul.

„Robin?" she asked.

His head just moved so he could look at her. His glance was empty, bleak and devoid of all the emotions which usually drove her up the wall. It was like looking at another person.

One of his eyes was bloodshot and then, she saw the bolt, sticking out ...

Her eyes travelled to other places of his body.

The bolts sticking out of his body.

Refusing to do anything remotely resembling panic, she half-climbed, half-leaned out of her window, grabbed Robin and stemmed, dragged and pushed him up her wall and into her room, where he collapsed against her as graciously as a fainting donkey.

„Robin?" She leaned towards his face, touching his cheek. „Robin!"

He was so cold, she realized, and his skin was so hard, almost frozen to a thin layer which was swimming on the soft flesh of his face.

He couldn't. He wouldn't. She was not going to allow it.

„Robin!" she hissed, shaking him. Panic was rising within her like a large, hot balloon.

„Ghmmm?" he mumbled, barely awake. She wasn't able to meet his glance, but at least, the mumbled sound was a sign of life.

She dragged him over to her bed, but didn't manage to get him in. Leaning against the side of it, his hands laying useless at the sides of his body, he legs spread v-like, his head rolled to his chest and stayed there. Marian wasn't sure, if he had lost conciousness again, but something was stopping him from falling over and she took it as a good omen.

Carefully, she inspected his wounds.

Three bolts: one sticking out of his upper left leg, one in his upper right arm and one just under the left side of his collar bone. The blood was frozen to his skin and fell, with growing warmth, off, like red snowflakes, forming little red dots on her carpet.

The little, generally impatient and, when it came to Robin, out of a broken heart, particularly angry voice which usually stopped her from showing the affection that she sometimes, rarely, in recent times not at all (really), not even a bit, felt for him, dictated her a short list, titled Things To Be Done (Quickly):

Undress him. Clean up his wounds. Get alcohol to disinfect them. Pull out the bolts. Disinfect the wounds again. Sew them up (if necessary). Put clean bandages on them.

Also (and the tiny voice was quite snappy, when it added another thought) she should get him somewhere warm.

Her father would never allow him to stay under the Knighton roof, since Gisborne still weaselled around her, and the Sheriff's men where practically everywhere. The fact that the other day, three of Robin Hood's men had been hanged, didn't help either.

So the fireplace downstairs was out of question.

But ...

Marian glanced at the clean sheets. There was still her bed.

She looked at Robin, torn, bloody, muddy, cold, wet and several other things she tried not to think about. She noticed that, besides her ever-present anger for him that filled her with a red, hot view whenever she saw him, there was a substantial amount of worry, fear and something warmer, more fundamental and currently unnamed. She tried not to think about it and pushed it away.

"Robin," she tried. "Robin?"

An incoherent mumble answered her.

"I'm going downstairs to get some alcohol and something to clean and bandage your wounds. But you have to stay awake, you hear?" she asked in sharp, piercing tone. She hoped to get through the fog of blood loss, exhaustion and coldness which currently clouded his mind.

He didn't even look at her. His eyelids fluttered and wherever he was, it was not Marian's room in Knighton Hall.

"Robin!" she grabbed him by the chin and repeated the words he had directed at her ever so often in the past. "Look at me. Look at me!"

His eyes, having even more than usual the cool, blueish colour of the winter, surrounded by red what should be white, focused on her after several tries. He had to concentrate.

Concentrate.

"Robin," she hissed. "Do you know where you are?"

She almost saw his mind, blocked with icicles and frost, working. "Kngten?" he asked.

"Yes, Knighton. I'll try to warm you up but you have. To stay. Awake. You understand?" she asked. She could see the rime on his beard melting from her warm breath – and he, when he should be worried about his life or if his limbs were ever going to work properly again when she was done with him – seemed to realize it too. Her warmth and closeness and ... other things. The ghost of a smug smile appeared on his lips.

The tiny, angry voice, the tiny spirit of a sixteen-year old girl being left alone five years ago, grew even angrier at him. She was angry that even in such a situation he found first and foremost the strength to ... annoy her.

There was another word, shorter, more meaningful, which stumbled down a dangerous road right into her mind, but that was completely out of question.

"Stay. Awake," she advised him, got up and left the room.

Robin, his head half resting on his shoulder with ice hanging on his eyelashes, feeling miserable, felt all his extremities burn with a thousand needles, while they came back to life. His toes still felt like large chunks of a very frosty Massif Central, but they were coming back.

At least, he hoped so.

When he listened for Marian's return, he realized along with the thousand needles the pain was returning too. Thick, thundering, vibrating like a bell in his entire body with every beat his heart did.

He didn't remember much. Riders, clad in grey and dark blue, hounds, the barking. Their large, black shadows in the white forest, their giant horses dancing anxiously in the snow, the large breaths of warm, wet cloudy air emanating from their nostrils.

He himself, running, his feet getting heavier with every step done, the snow clinging to legs, the coldness stinging in his lungs, the thin sound of air getting ripped to pieces ...

... he himself getting ripped to pieces, as something hit his arm, his leg.

His clothes were wet, because ... ?

Wrinkles formed on his forehead as he nudged his brain, forcing it to work. Memories rose from misty depths, bringing white and grey pictures with them.

Him, running. His feet getting heavier. The coldness ... and then ... oh. Yes.

He grimaced, not only at the memory, but also at his heart making an extra beat which re-vibrated through his entire body.

Him ... jumping into the river, where the third bolt hit him from above.

Damn the Sheriff.

Damn him.

Marian returned. She was carrying blankets, clothes, a bowl with hot water, white pieces of fabric and an constantly disapproving look on her lovely face.

His thoughts and his conciousness had more or less returned, but it didn't help to move his oppressed body. Also, he was still sitting on the floor and a reddish puddle was forming around him.

Marian placed everything she carried on a stool, knelt in front of him and said: "I can't believe I say that, but ... please undress."

The smug smile instantly appeared on his face.

Her tone made the weather outside look like a tropical location in the Holy Land when she added: "I'll help you."

She stripped him out of his clothes until nothing was left but his underpants. Then, she inspected the bolts. "They don't seem to be very large."

She opened a bottle of wine, wetted a white cloth with it and began to dab his wounds. Robin grimaced but didn't manage to say much. His teeth still seemed to be frozen together.

"I have never seen so small bolts," Marian continued, ignoring his mumbles. "I guess it's your lucky day. Otherwise you would've looked like Saint Sebastian."

Qas Ferengi, the Frankish Bow. If you have enough assistants a crossbow, such as the one that wounded me, can shoot up to three missiles in a minute. Given the fact that I was hunted by half a dozen men, I am indeed lucky not to look like that Swiss speciality it's makers incredulously call cheese, Robin thought.

Out of his mouth came a mere "Hmghl," followed by exhaustions afterwards. Everything was exhausting, even thinking, so he restricted himself to merely watching Marian who tended his wounds with such a serious and concentrated expression, he could have just ... done something which would result in a sharp blow from Marian's side.

Sitting there in front of her bed, half naked, brought back parts of the coldness and though he tried to suppress it, his teeth started clattering. Marian look up at him at the sound but said nothing.

She held his glance, while her hands did something unidentified with his wounds and just when he tried to summon enough strength just to tell her how striking she was, a sharp pain ripped through his body when she removed the first bolt.

He howled in pain and then, collapsed slowly and fell. Marian supported him, tried to make him sit up, while talking softly to him, but Robin was having none of it. His head started to spin, his heart beat was a painful, strong drum in his ears and what blood was left in him, rushed through his body, pressed against his eyes from the inside and made him see excruciating violet and blue stars. He almost drowned again in unconsciousness and was brutally ripped from it, when Marian plucked out the second bolt and then, the third one.

He didn't remember much of what happened afterwards. He was moved, slowly, deliberately and with lots of struggle. Then, he got to lay on something soft, like a cloud, and was covered with it, too. His teeth still clattered and his hands clung to something small, warm, soft, dry he couldn't quite identify.

He was laying in a bed, he realized, but he still felt cold. Comfortable, yes, but still cold and a tiny bit lost. There was some shifting and someone sighed, quite impatiently, he realized. He blinked, but saw nothing more than the ceiling of Knighton Hall and suddenly, his view was obscured by Marian's face.

Her strawberry-coloured lips formed words he didn't understand and one of her dark strands of her touched his cheek. He was so fascinated by the sight of her lips moving, he merely stared at them and took an effort to touch them, but a warm, smaller hand caught his own, enclosed his and prevented it from making the contact.

Robin felt such a bewilderment then; he tore his eyes from the lips and met her glance. Sparkling, sapphire-blue eyes. She had the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen and he saw the anger, the hurt and the loneliness in them – all the things he was responsible for. And somewhere in the back, something else, glowing in the darkness, which had not quite emerged yet.

Marian still talked to him, but the words didn't reach his almost shut-down brain. He realized he was tumbling back towards sleep and before everything went black, he said something, told her something.

The strawberry lips ceased to move, parted just ever so slightly and he could see her perfect white teeth behind them. Her eyes were wide, confusion and bafflement in them and she never looked more beautiful.

The sight was perfect and he would have, no matter the consequences, kissed her then, but unfortunately, this was the moment he fainted.

Something in the back of his head muttered Typical! and finally, everything went black.

End (1/2)