Feel free to have your mind totally frelled by skipping below the line and going straight to the text of the story.

Quick: What is the best thing to do after writing well-over 500 pages trying to repair the outcome of the Season Two finale? [See "Death Would Be Easier to Deal with"] Well, a week before you are finished posting that fic, before you reach for the rocks to place in your pockets and start eyeing Virginia Woolf's lake...you plunge yourself head-long into imagining something else.
*Though, something that will prove nowhere near as long. (This title should be completed in roughly four parts/sections.)

The definitions:
Uberfiction - I don't know much about the RH fanfic-verse, but in the Xenaverse, this term refers to taking the essence of your main characters and putting them somewhere else (in time or geographically or both). The plot lines may or may not be familiar. The arguments, the interpersonal character interaction always is.

Alternate Timeline - Taking characters and plot from one story and putting it in another time period (see the British version of "Sherlock" with Benedict Cumberbatch now playing on PBS' "Masterpiece Mystery!")

The challenge:
To take Robin and Marian and their troubles/the essence of their stories and characters from BBC's Robin Hood and find another place and time to drop them in and play with them there.

The setting:
Well, it has to be Britain, right? While it's under some sort of internal oppression, right? And Robin must be outlawed, and Marian must be a lady, right? So...

There is a little known (or perhaps little-remembered) piece of history where, from June 1940 to May 1945 certain archipelago of islands north of France, but British Crown Dependencies, and therefore 'British soil', were invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany. Among other evils practiced there were the building and operating of four concentration camps on the Channel Island of Alderney.

It was a time in which the British people were fighting a war that involved long separations from family; soldiers endured (and also practiced) battlefield atrocities; the homefront sacrificed luxury items, and later, even essentials. It was a war that no one thought would ever happen after 'the war to end all wars'. But it was not the Third Crusade. It was World War II.

For the residents of the Channel Islands, their upper government officials and all military withdrawn (even soldiers on leave) by the British prior to the invasion, it was a time of hunger and privation, of an oppressor's vise-like grip on the populace. It was a time in need of, a time ripe for...Robin Hood.

[Because this is not your mamma's Robin Hood, some names have been altered slightly in their spellings and whatnot, but none so that it will be hard to tell who is who. A full listing of characters and their BBC counterparts is posted at the end of the final section.]

First in a series of Four...

Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree
"Don't sit under the apple tree, with anyone else but me...
Don't go walkin' down lover's lane, with anyone else but me,
Not until you see me, not until you see me marching home."

Channel Island of Guernsey - What sort of night was it? Well, don't be cheeky. It was the happiest night of her life, of course. Marion Nighten (The Lady Marion, if you wished to be correct in your addressing of her) stood out by the portico entrance of her island estate and looked (though the night proved starless-moonless, even) for a moment beyond the still-arriving guests she had yet to welcome to her engagement party and wished herself far away.

Out on the dunes, on the water (how long had it been since she had been allowed out on the water, alone?). Further yet, at sea, at whatever latitude and longitude the war officially stopped; ceased to exist.

America itself was not far enough for that; the Yanks had finally entered the fight. Canada's Yukon Territory, she wondered, would that be far enough? Perhaps some as-yet-unclaimed atoll in the fabled Bermuda Triangle? A mystical, hidden island of coral surrounding a luminous fresh water lagoon? Somewhere navigationally impossible to find-an exquisite place to wait for the world to reshuffle its cards and proper order again be restored.

"My darling, you daydream and forget your hostess duties," she heard uncomfortably close to her ear, its timbre resonating at an intimate pitch from her fiance, the German Lieutenant Herr Geis Gisbonnhoffer.

The feel of his guiding (and possessive) hand at her waist was unmistakable. Sometimes she even felt it, lingering on her like a permanent spectre, reminding her of his command of her when he was no longer present. What other 'privileges', what additional access would he now expect that their engagement had been announced and publicly celebrated?

She had not yet had the stomach to tell her frail father, tonight as always in his upstairs bed.

Though in his current state of old-age dementia (hurried on by trauma) his days of clarity and self-awareness were few, she had not yet brought herself to spoiling those brief periods by trying to explain and re-acquaint him with how their once-peaceful world here had shockingly re-organized itself.

"Dearest," she addressed Gisbonnhoffer, with a maidenly deference, "I believe I shall step inside and check on the kitchens." She did not wait overly long for his consent.

His answer to her came over the heads of their guests milling about, just beyond the foyer.

"Ja, Liebchen," he used the common language of most of those in attendance. "Do not be too long!"

She saw several among those-her (as she supposed she ought to learn to consider them) guests chuckle good-naturedly at what they saw as his lover's impatience with her absence from his side.

The house was truly decorated beautifully. Flawlessly. It had not looked so remarkable since before her parents' divorce, when her social butterfly of a mother had been in charge of the family's entertaining, which she had always seen to it was lavish and unparalleled.

Certainly, blackout curtains (an ever-present reminder of the war) hung from the floor-to-ceiling windows of the grand hall, obscuring views of the night and grounds beyond, but the interior was lit by candles and the old converted-to-gas Austrian (yes, the guests would certainly like that) crystal chandeliers. Their soft glow engulfed the scene. Glasses of fine crystal tinkled in the occasional toast, servers passing fresh flutes on highly-polished silver platters. More servers for one party than she had yet seen in her life. She wondered if King George and Queen Elizabeth engaged so many domestics at Buckingham Palace. Well, she thought to herself, at least the Windsors paid their staff, rather than simply forced them into their labors.

An elaborate ice sculpture adorned the table of German-preferred delicacies. A band (dismayingly, to her) playing only German music was set up in the largest room, whose furnishing and carpets had been cleared away, allowing for dancing.

She was caught off guard in her reverie by a guest wishing to dance, and was swept by him into the memorized steps before she could protest to him of her current errand.

"Right-o."

Momentarily Marion heard a decidedly non-German voice over her partner's shoulder.

"Mind if I cut in?"

Her partner proved flummoxed enough for both of them. They had only just arrived on the dance floor. In surprise, he handed her over without protest.

"Not tryin' to be funny," the interloper continued, "but she is my cousin. Right, Pet?" He looked to her for confirmation.

She stared.

He did look familiar, but the Nighten family had no relative connections to the islands. This house and estate had only ever served as their summer home, a spot for seaside holidaying. Until the June to July invasion (and her frail father's inability to be moved or safely evacuated) forced them to accept it as so much more.

This new man, her self-professed 'cousin', smoothly replaced the other man, inserting himself into her dancer's embrace, just as the music changed into something more lively.

This new partner was near in age to herself, and though he wore the expected costume of the night (spiffy tuxedos for most of the men), he seemed to wear it uncomfortably, unfamiliarly.

There was something about the knot in the bow of the tie, though, that tugged somewhere at the back of her memory, though she could not seem to lay her finger on exactly what.

Marion cast her eye in the direction of the kitchens, her original destination. Slowly but surely she noticed they were drifting (rather, he was steering them) off the dance floor, out of the house, and toward the raised promenade that overlooked the formal gardens.

Her one eye narrowed as she further examined this new partner. She had learned, since the invasion, to shutter her mouth and hold her tongue when necessary, and she could not be sure if it were safe (or advisable) to question this chap's assertion of their kinship. Times of war made for strange, and sometimes unexpected, bedfellows.

And then, just as they passed (still dancing) through the French doors and the blackout curtains covering their opening to the outside (the doors themselves open in an attempt to let fresh air into the crowded house), she recalled him: Kommandant Vaiser's local islander driver.

"You are more handsome than the last time I saw you, Cuz," she baited him with her words.

Though she was in his arms his interest in her, now that he had her, proved minimal. His eyes scanned the darkened park beyond the stone promenade, as if expecting to find something or someone.

"Yeah, thanks," he replied absently. "Let us hope you are not as heavy," and now he did make eye contact, giving her a grin and an eyebrow raise to seal their joint play-acting.

She did not even see the blindfold coming.

...TBC...