We Can Love Again

The Merry Men

There was a knock on his door once again. Robin got up to answer it; he was surprised Regina was back- a good kind of surprised. It had been a long night since she last came over.

When he opened the door, though, it wasn't Regina who was there.

"Hey Robin, haven't seen you for a while." A large, hefty man said with an inviting smile.

Robin smiled back, allowing him and the rest of the men in.

"What have you been up to?" One of the men asked, taking a seat among the others in his living room.

"I've been working on fixing the horse pen in the back." Robin lied with a surprising amount of smoothness to it.

"Hi guys!" Roland came in the room with a wide grin on his face, excited to see his dad's friends again.

"Nice to see you Roland," Little Jon said, moving over on the couch to allow the boy some room as he climbed up. "You're looking happy this morning."

"I am happy," Roland let out a giggle.

"Well we missed you, lad." Everyone joined in an agreement, all sending the four year old good hearted smiles.

"So what do I owe this pleasant surprise?" Robin asked, trying to backtrack in his mind where he had last left off with his merry men.

"We're going on a run tonight, don't you remember?" One of them said, "we've been planning this one for weeks."

Robin sighed. He completely forgot about that.

"Right, that's tonight," he muttered, already feeling stressed out. He would have to find someone to babysit his son, and somehow he would have to get the message to Regina.

"Now, King Author's fort will be pretty tough to get out unseen, but if we come in from the south side we have a pretty good chance at getting away."

"I scoped out the area," another one of them said, "it's not that big, the woods will be our ally in this one. The problem is, his army will have weapons near or even on them when we come."

It felt like an eternity since he last visit with his men; he did miss this, planning their escapades, feeling the rush that came with it. In all honesty, though, being caught up with Regina nearly erased his mind completely of all his duties as the head of the merry men.

"We need that crown," he told his group, "do you know how many weeks we could feed the people down at the village for?"

Everyone gave collective murmurs in agreement.

Just then, there was a knock at the door once again. Robin's face immediately froze- impeccable timing. Roland was up and running towards the door before he could even blink himself out of his in total shock.

The door swung upon and there stood Regina and Henry, both their expressions turning extremely guilty as they glanced around the room.

"Oh, sorry, didn't know you had company!" Regina said, flustered, "Henry and I can come back later."

"Mom, those are the merry men! I want to meet them!"

She shot her son a threatening look at his outburst.

"Regina, you have to stay!" Roland sided with Henry, giving her a sad look with his eyes.

"You should, it'll give you a chance to meet this group of mine." Robin said in a pretty convincing tone.

Regina still looked extremely doubtful, but she let Henry tug her through the doorway.

"I knew it was a girl! I knew it!" Little John exclaimed victoriously, "there's no way you can be this absent minded without there being a girl in the picture."