They didn't speak. Sure-footed in the dark, clouds obscuring the moon, Robin led her towards the grand old oak beneath which so many of their youthful encounters had taken place.
It had been one of his favourite places, before it became theirs. He'd taken her there the first time, Marian remembered, because she'd been trying to climb a different tree, one which he'd shimmied up with annoying ease. Her own efforts – hampered by skirts – had seen her storm off in frustration, heading back towards Knighton. She'd had enough.
"Marian, I'm sorry – I shouldn't have laughed." Robin had caught her up, apologetic, teasing a smile from her. "Come on, I know somewhere it'll be easier. I'll show you."
This oak, with its gnarled and pitted bole, with a handily-placed knot or two that gave footholds just where she needed them, while Robin waited on the branch above to clasp her arm and pull her up, this had been the perfect spot. Up on its lowest limb, a wide and sturdy branch where they could either lie, top to tail, or sit in the cusped-out hollow where it adjoined the trunk..... this was where they'd spent many hours, as their friendship became something more, as they became sweethearts, lying beneath its spreading foliage, sharing kisses and mostly innocent caresses.
This was where Robin had asked her to marry him. Even in the dark, Marian could remember where the entwined hearts were that they'd engraved in the trunk, intoxicated by the sweet elation of the moment, and the almost surreal joy with which they'd hastened to tell her father.
Marian ran her hands over the ridged hearts. Her memories, carved into this living tree.
Here, too, was where Robin had told her he was leaving.
Her fingers skimmed across the bark. Her happiest moments, and the most painful; this oak had witnessed them all.
"Do you know," she said, leaning back against Robin, his arms around her waist, "I was so angry with you after you left that I often thought about obliterating these hearts."
"Why didn't you?" he asked softly.
"I just couldn't. It was too final. Worse, even, than returning your ring. While these hearts were still here, I felt that we were still somehow connected. That even if...."
Marian paused; old hurts. She'd been wrong to bring them up again, after all that had just been said.
"What?" Robin asked, stroking soft circles on her belly. The sensation made it hard for her to concentrate.
"....that even if you didn't mean the things you'd said, I had. To gouge these out...it would have been to deny our love. And I couldn't do it."
"My love, I'm so sorry," he murmured against her hair. "I should never have left, I know that now. I learned it long ago. But there wasn't a moment....."
...she turned in his arms, her hands on his waist....
"...not a single moment, that you weren't lodged in my heart...."
"I wish," Marian sighed, "that you had told me this when you first got back."
Robin gave a wry chuckle.
"Well, I might have done, if I hadn't had an arrow pointing at me."
Guilt swamped Marian; they had both made so many mistakes. Foolish ones. She'd spent so long pushing him away, instead of showing what was truly in her heart. Protecting herself, afraid to show her love, afraid not only because she couldn't trust him not to hurt her, but because she knew that she could lose him at any time.
But she couldn't lose what she had never had.
"We've wasted so much time," she said. "Kiss me, Robin. I don't want to waste another moment."

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Enemy of My Enemy
FanfictionBeset on all sides by lies and betrayals, Guy of Gisborne must look for allies in unlikely places. A Season 2 AU.