Choices - A Robin Hood FanFiction - Part I
Based on Richard Armitage's idea of how he would have ended Season 2 - with Guy marrying Marian.
If you are a Guy/Marian shipper, you may like it. If you are a Robin/Marian shipper, you may like it. Or you may hate it since my personal desire was for this fanfiction to work with the series, not defy it.
Most of it plays out between S2 and S3, the very end is set at the end of S3.
If you read this, I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks extended to some under the cut, in grey font. More thanks offered in the same way at the bottom of the last part to this story (part viii).
Spoilers: References to events in S1, 2, and 3.
PG for romantic scenes
PG-13 for violent scenes
"I would have had Marian marrying Guy, and then having Robin pursing her as a married woman."
Richard Armitage, Interview on the Sarah Kennedy Show, BBC Radio 2, October 27th, 2008.
Quick disclaimer: I did not create these characters, some of the plotlines and things the characters say in the first part were written by the authors of the BBC’s Robin Hood . BBC and Tiger Aspect are the bosses of all things Robin Hood BBC and I do not have any association with them other than enjoying the show as an audience member.
"If you kill the Sheriff, the King will reward you. I will reward you. I will marry you."
Marian is trying to manipulate him again, and he hates himself for liking at least part of what she is saying. Visiting her in her cell in the Holy Land, he knows Robin is alive and he and the Sheriff have set a trap for Robin when Robin first visits King Richard. Marian believes Robin died in a barn in England, killed by the Sheriff's mercenaries. He should have more pride. "No. If you marry me, I want it to be for better reasons than the ‘good of England.’” He searches her face for a sign of what he's hoped for so long. He should have stopped long ago. Hope where she is concerned is a lost cause.
"Guy," stepping closer she is stopped by the chain. "Please. You are a good man. I know it."
"Wrong answer. I'm going to kill the King, and if I can't have you the way I want you - then you can hang as the Sheriff likes." Angry, he begins to leave.
"If I'm going to die, I should tell you everything. I owe you that."
That stops Guy in his tracks. He turns toward her, "Sh." He gives a nod and a glance upwards. A nonverbal message that the Sheriff can hear them if they talk too loudly.
Marian lowers her voice, "The Sheriff is evil, Guy. Robin stood for justice. But you follow the Sheriff's every whim. That forced me to be your enemy. I did use how you felt about me to fight the Sheriff. But the more I learned about you, the more confused I felt. I did - I do - care. Which is why I must honor whatever it is we had by admitting the truth - I chose and loved Robin."
Guy exhales as though he's just been hit in the stomach by a delicate fist, then frozen, the wind knocked out of him unable to breathe at all. Even though he suspected as much, he'd never really let himself believe it. But now, under the weight of each word his long held hope is collapsing.
“I could never love a man who always chooses power over compassion. You wondered if I ever understood how you felt. Guy, did you ever once understand what I felt about the injustices you wreaked on the villagers? How do you expect me to feel, Guy, if you kill the King?"
Guy strides over to Marian and holds her by her shoulders. "I've been doing all this for you. Every time the Sheriff humiliated me, I put up with it for you. Every time I had to kill someone who stood between me and you, or between me and the standing I needed to win you, I thought of you. Every time. How did you repay me? You lied to me, you betrayed me, when you tried to kill the Sheriff you stabbed me in the back. All my plans to raise my position so I could take care of you - to keep you, my lady - were for nothing." He runs his fingertips softly along her cheek, "But God help me, I love you more than life." He drops his mouth to her cheek, a tender kiss to wipe away the tear of regret glistening there. Lifting his mouth to move to her other cheek, he repeats this ritual which for him is fast evolving into one of forgiveness for what she has done to him. Her breath quickens on his cheek, so close to his, he cannot stop. His mouth takes hers. The kiss feeds his soul with a light it's been starving for, making him crush her to him to feel in his arms whatever small vestige remains of what she was to him - his only hope. Marian isn't denying him this one kiss, but the pain of her confession - that she is not his - makes him break it off abruptly, breathing hard. There is nothing in her expression to reveal what she must have felt as well. "Don't ask me to give up my ambitions. I must have something to live for since I can't have you."
He steps away from her. "He's going to execute you, Marian, for trying to kill him. He wants you to live long enough to see King Richard dead, then he's going to execute you."
"So, as you kill King Richard, you will bring on my death as well."
Hearing her voice say aloud the awful fact that her life is in his hands, the feelings that compelled him to save her from the Nightwatchman's noose once before will not allow him to remain silent now. He must prod her, to see if she might agree. She does think Robin is dead.
He lowers his voice to a quiet enticement, "You know what we could do to stop him."
Marian knows this proposal by heart. He's done it twice before. Only this time, it's different. This time he knows she loves Robin, that she exploited his feelings to help Robin. What he must feel for her to be willing to help her now. Maybe she didn't understand him after all. But he's still the Sheriff's assassin.
Guy, reading the face he's memorized in dreams, "You still refuse me? I promise I want only to keep you safe."
Marian cannot speak. She loves only Robin. Contemplating another man, especially this one feels like a crime.
Just as he had spoken to her with such tender care as she had wept over her father's body, "Please, Marian."
“Never.”
What will happen to Marian when he kills the King may be more than he can carry. "Guards!" Once the guards are close by, Guy gives his order in low voice, "Get Lady Marian anything she needs."
"So, how is our prisoner?"
Sullen, Guy answers the Sheriff, "Whinging as usual."
"Why am I not surprised. Gizzy! I have good news! I have just heard from our little spy that Robin and his gang may not be dead yet as they are dying slowly. Tied up in the desert. What do you say? Shall we take our old leper friend out to meet her maker? I do like the idea of the two lovers being so near and yet so far - as they fry to a crisp. Slowly. I would have the guards set up our chairs and wine complete with dais and watch the show if wasn't for our rendezvous with King Richard."
"I will marry her. By force, if necessary." What the Sheriff has told him as given Guy an idea. It’s worth a try.
"I'll sing at your wedding."
Lying to the Sheriff about turning in for the night, Guy has found the little spy who takes him that night to where Robin and the gang are strapped to poles in the desert.
"There's no time for niceties, Hood. Marian is in real danger. I need your help." He motions the guards to take flasks of water to each prisoner.
"I'm listening."
Wishing it wasn't so public as the gang is all there, Guy scans the lot of them before he continues because everything he does, even suffering the humiliation of admitting what he's about to say, is for her. "Before we left Nottingham, Marian tried to run a sword through the Sheriff."
"What?" Pride in her swells with a sudden fear, "Has she been hanged?"
"No. She's with us. Not for much longer, though. I've bought her some time tonight by telling the Sheriff I want to marry her -"
"-You're insane," Hood despises Gisborne for even thinking it, and much more for saying it.
Guy is impatient with the interruption, "She won't say yes, I've tried. But the Sheriff agreed so quickly, it was too easy. I don't trust him. We have to convince her to marry me tonight."
Echoing another, "Never."
"It's the only way to save her life! We must make her understand this is the only way."
"Not you, Gisborne. I'm sure she'd rather die than marry you. I'll honor her wishes."
"If we do things your way, everyone you care about dies." With a scathing tone, "So much for being Lord of the Dance, Hood."
"If you care so much why don't you get us out of here and let me be the one to protect her!"
"And lose everything I've fought to get? I will have power."
"Fine. Tell me what you have in mind. I'm just curious to hear what a lowlife like you can come up with."
Guy stares at Robin with open hatred, "I want you to write a letter telling her you know she has to marry me to survive. Tell her you understand. If you write the letter, I'll make sure King Richard lives long enough to set you free from here. After that, it's business as usual between you and me."
"But she'll be married to you."
"In name only. I won't keep her against her will. She thinks you died in the barn. By giving her your letter, I am going to tell her you're alive before I marry her. When she's safe, I'm going to give her the choice. Me or you. I give you my word."
Robin has always had a nagging fear that some part of Marian's heart has belonged, or wished to belong to Guy. That little jealous part of him wants this one final test of Marian's devotion. If she comes back to him, she was always his. If she chooses to remain with Guy, then Robin's jealousies will have had a basis in truth, and he'll...he'll...he doesn't know what he'll do. But one thing's for certain. Like Guy, Robin cannot let Marian die if it is in his power to save her. "I'll write the letter."
"I'll have word sent to King Richard you were framed."
After Robin hands the letter to Gisborne, a guard reties his hands to the post. "The Sheriff's not stupid. When we're free, he's going to figure out how King Richard learned that we are innocent."
"I'm going to do this thing. Then, I will kill the Sheriff. Prince John will give me Nottingham and more power than you ever thought possible for a lowlife. As for you, you can rot in hell."
After reading Hood’s letter, Marian still doesn't believe Guy, that he will keep his word to save Robin. Refusing to let her willfulness be the end of her, Guy gets a priest at dawn, and a chain with handcuffs. He informs the Sheriff he is going to force Marian to marry him with no further delay.
Guy strides into her cell with the priest already chained to one cuff. The Sheriff follows in disbelief, arriving in time to hear Guy inform Marian, "You're going to marry me, or you die. And this - " Guy clasps the other cuff to Marian's wrist, "- is to keep you from killing anyone once you're out of here, Lady Gisborne. At least until I can beat some good behaviour into you."
The Sheriff hoots. He loves it when lepers are stunned into their proper places.
In a whisper the Sheriff cannot hear, Guy pleads for her life. "In name only. Please say yes, Marian, and live." He slips his hand from her wrist to hers, to guide her to face the priest, but in the process he puts in her hand the key to the handcuff. At the sensation of the warm metal in her palm now covered with his, she looks at him wide-eyed. It's true. This is all just to save her life, none of Guy's usual tricks and deceptions. In name only. With this friar chained to her, she and Guy can never be alone. With this key, Marian is not Guy's prisoner, she is free. With Guy's protection, she can return to Robin. If she wants to.
Marian marries Gisborne, praying for Robin's life the whole time. "You may kiss the bride," says the priest. The kiss pleases the Sheriff to a tee. Guy is obviously forcing the leper who is squirming while she suffers through it.
The next day, Carter frees Robin and the gang. They rush to save the King. What Robin doesn't know is that the new Lady Gisborne was put on ship for England, chained to her guard, a priest named Tuck.
The plans to kill King Richard go awry, everyone rides back to the village for a little urban warfare, the Sheriff shoots the King in the back with an arrow, Guy proves his loyalty by trying to finish the job, but it's Robin who stops him with a fight, during which Guy admits he's sorry to see Robin alive; he never sent word for Robin's rescue, of course. And now Robin knows it. Outnumbered, the Sheriff and Guy take off on one horse, the King commends Robin and apologizes for ever doubting him, and S2 ends with Guy married to Marian but not with Marian, Robin able and willing to get her back, Marian able and willing to be reunited with Robin and the cause, and Guy for some reason being a gentleman about it the whole marriage in name only thing (because he really does hope for Marian's love first, a real marriage later, the ol' evil softy).
___________________________________________
And that would have been the end of it, except at this point, my two dear friends who got me started with this said, “More!” with stipulations as to what they wanted to happen next. So, there is more. There is also an end.
Update: October 21st, 2009. I've found the interview which sparked this story. If you would like to listen to it, you can find it here.
Thanks to Corinne from Holland for posing the question how would Richard Armitage have ended Series 2, to Sarah Kennedy's Radio Show host for that day, Richard Allinson, who relayed that question, and to Mr. Armitage for offering the alternative quoted above. Many thanks to www.richardarmitageonline.com for maintaining such a great collection of interviews. Took me a while, hunting through RA interviews for 2008, but I found it. :)
If you are a Guy/Marian shipper, you may like it. If you are a Robin/Marian shipper, you may like it. Or you may hate it since my personal desire was for this fanfiction to work with the series, not defy it.
Most of it plays out between S2 and S3, the very end is set at the end of S3.
If you read this, I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks extended to some under the cut, in grey font. More thanks offered in the same way at the bottom of the last part to this story (part viii).
Spoilers: References to events in S1, 2, and 3.
PG for romantic scenes
PG-13 for violent scenes
"I would have had Marian marrying Guy, and then having Robin pursing her as a married woman."
Richard Armitage, Interview on the Sarah Kennedy Show, BBC Radio 2, October 27th, 2008.
Quick disclaimer: I did not create these characters, some of the plotlines and things the characters say in the first part were written by the authors of the BBC’s Robin Hood . BBC and Tiger Aspect are the bosses of all things Robin Hood BBC and I do not have any association with them other than enjoying the show as an audience member.
"If you kill the Sheriff, the King will reward you. I will reward you. I will marry you."
Marian is trying to manipulate him again, and he hates himself for liking at least part of what she is saying. Visiting her in her cell in the Holy Land, he knows Robin is alive and he and the Sheriff have set a trap for Robin when Robin first visits King Richard. Marian believes Robin died in a barn in England, killed by the Sheriff's mercenaries. He should have more pride. "No. If you marry me, I want it to be for better reasons than the ‘good of England.’” He searches her face for a sign of what he's hoped for so long. He should have stopped long ago. Hope where she is concerned is a lost cause.
"Guy," stepping closer she is stopped by the chain. "Please. You are a good man. I know it."
"Wrong answer. I'm going to kill the King, and if I can't have you the way I want you - then you can hang as the Sheriff likes." Angry, he begins to leave.
"If I'm going to die, I should tell you everything. I owe you that."
That stops Guy in his tracks. He turns toward her, "Sh." He gives a nod and a glance upwards. A nonverbal message that the Sheriff can hear them if they talk too loudly.
Marian lowers her voice, "The Sheriff is evil, Guy. Robin stood for justice. But you follow the Sheriff's every whim. That forced me to be your enemy. I did use how you felt about me to fight the Sheriff. But the more I learned about you, the more confused I felt. I did - I do - care. Which is why I must honor whatever it is we had by admitting the truth - I chose and loved Robin."
Guy exhales as though he's just been hit in the stomach by a delicate fist, then frozen, the wind knocked out of him unable to breathe at all. Even though he suspected as much, he'd never really let himself believe it. But now, under the weight of each word his long held hope is collapsing.
“I could never love a man who always chooses power over compassion. You wondered if I ever understood how you felt. Guy, did you ever once understand what I felt about the injustices you wreaked on the villagers? How do you expect me to feel, Guy, if you kill the King?"
Guy strides over to Marian and holds her by her shoulders. "I've been doing all this for you. Every time the Sheriff humiliated me, I put up with it for you. Every time I had to kill someone who stood between me and you, or between me and the standing I needed to win you, I thought of you. Every time. How did you repay me? You lied to me, you betrayed me, when you tried to kill the Sheriff you stabbed me in the back. All my plans to raise my position so I could take care of you - to keep you, my lady - were for nothing." He runs his fingertips softly along her cheek, "But God help me, I love you more than life." He drops his mouth to her cheek, a tender kiss to wipe away the tear of regret glistening there. Lifting his mouth to move to her other cheek, he repeats this ritual which for him is fast evolving into one of forgiveness for what she has done to him. Her breath quickens on his cheek, so close to his, he cannot stop. His mouth takes hers. The kiss feeds his soul with a light it's been starving for, making him crush her to him to feel in his arms whatever small vestige remains of what she was to him - his only hope. Marian isn't denying him this one kiss, but the pain of her confession - that she is not his - makes him break it off abruptly, breathing hard. There is nothing in her expression to reveal what she must have felt as well. "Don't ask me to give up my ambitions. I must have something to live for since I can't have you."
He steps away from her. "He's going to execute you, Marian, for trying to kill him. He wants you to live long enough to see King Richard dead, then he's going to execute you."
"So, as you kill King Richard, you will bring on my death as well."
Hearing her voice say aloud the awful fact that her life is in his hands, the feelings that compelled him to save her from the Nightwatchman's noose once before will not allow him to remain silent now. He must prod her, to see if she might agree. She does think Robin is dead.
He lowers his voice to a quiet enticement, "You know what we could do to stop him."
Marian knows this proposal by heart. He's done it twice before. Only this time, it's different. This time he knows she loves Robin, that she exploited his feelings to help Robin. What he must feel for her to be willing to help her now. Maybe she didn't understand him after all. But he's still the Sheriff's assassin.
Guy, reading the face he's memorized in dreams, "You still refuse me? I promise I want only to keep you safe."
Marian cannot speak. She loves only Robin. Contemplating another man, especially this one feels like a crime.
Just as he had spoken to her with such tender care as she had wept over her father's body, "Please, Marian."
“Never.”
What will happen to Marian when he kills the King may be more than he can carry. "Guards!" Once the guards are close by, Guy gives his order in low voice, "Get Lady Marian anything she needs."
"So, how is our prisoner?"
Sullen, Guy answers the Sheriff, "Whinging as usual."
"Why am I not surprised. Gizzy! I have good news! I have just heard from our little spy that Robin and his gang may not be dead yet as they are dying slowly. Tied up in the desert. What do you say? Shall we take our old leper friend out to meet her maker? I do like the idea of the two lovers being so near and yet so far - as they fry to a crisp. Slowly. I would have the guards set up our chairs and wine complete with dais and watch the show if wasn't for our rendezvous with King Richard."
"I will marry her. By force, if necessary." What the Sheriff has told him as given Guy an idea. It’s worth a try.
"I'll sing at your wedding."
Lying to the Sheriff about turning in for the night, Guy has found the little spy who takes him that night to where Robin and the gang are strapped to poles in the desert.
"There's no time for niceties, Hood. Marian is in real danger. I need your help." He motions the guards to take flasks of water to each prisoner.
"I'm listening."
Wishing it wasn't so public as the gang is all there, Guy scans the lot of them before he continues because everything he does, even suffering the humiliation of admitting what he's about to say, is for her. "Before we left Nottingham, Marian tried to run a sword through the Sheriff."
"What?" Pride in her swells with a sudden fear, "Has she been hanged?"
"No. She's with us. Not for much longer, though. I've bought her some time tonight by telling the Sheriff I want to marry her -"
"-You're insane," Hood despises Gisborne for even thinking it, and much more for saying it.
Guy is impatient with the interruption, "She won't say yes, I've tried. But the Sheriff agreed so quickly, it was too easy. I don't trust him. We have to convince her to marry me tonight."
Echoing another, "Never."
"It's the only way to save her life! We must make her understand this is the only way."
"Not you, Gisborne. I'm sure she'd rather die than marry you. I'll honor her wishes."
"If we do things your way, everyone you care about dies." With a scathing tone, "So much for being Lord of the Dance, Hood."
"If you care so much why don't you get us out of here and let me be the one to protect her!"
"And lose everything I've fought to get? I will have power."
"Fine. Tell me what you have in mind. I'm just curious to hear what a lowlife like you can come up with."
Guy stares at Robin with open hatred, "I want you to write a letter telling her you know she has to marry me to survive. Tell her you understand. If you write the letter, I'll make sure King Richard lives long enough to set you free from here. After that, it's business as usual between you and me."
"But she'll be married to you."
"In name only. I won't keep her against her will. She thinks you died in the barn. By giving her your letter, I am going to tell her you're alive before I marry her. When she's safe, I'm going to give her the choice. Me or you. I give you my word."
Robin has always had a nagging fear that some part of Marian's heart has belonged, or wished to belong to Guy. That little jealous part of him wants this one final test of Marian's devotion. If she comes back to him, she was always his. If she chooses to remain with Guy, then Robin's jealousies will have had a basis in truth, and he'll...he'll...he doesn't know what he'll do. But one thing's for certain. Like Guy, Robin cannot let Marian die if it is in his power to save her. "I'll write the letter."
"I'll have word sent to King Richard you were framed."
After Robin hands the letter to Gisborne, a guard reties his hands to the post. "The Sheriff's not stupid. When we're free, he's going to figure out how King Richard learned that we are innocent."
"I'm going to do this thing. Then, I will kill the Sheriff. Prince John will give me Nottingham and more power than you ever thought possible for a lowlife. As for you, you can rot in hell."
After reading Hood’s letter, Marian still doesn't believe Guy, that he will keep his word to save Robin. Refusing to let her willfulness be the end of her, Guy gets a priest at dawn, and a chain with handcuffs. He informs the Sheriff he is going to force Marian to marry him with no further delay.
Guy strides into her cell with the priest already chained to one cuff. The Sheriff follows in disbelief, arriving in time to hear Guy inform Marian, "You're going to marry me, or you die. And this - " Guy clasps the other cuff to Marian's wrist, "- is to keep you from killing anyone once you're out of here, Lady Gisborne. At least until I can beat some good behaviour into you."
The Sheriff hoots. He loves it when lepers are stunned into their proper places.
In a whisper the Sheriff cannot hear, Guy pleads for her life. "In name only. Please say yes, Marian, and live." He slips his hand from her wrist to hers, to guide her to face the priest, but in the process he puts in her hand the key to the handcuff. At the sensation of the warm metal in her palm now covered with his, she looks at him wide-eyed. It's true. This is all just to save her life, none of Guy's usual tricks and deceptions. In name only. With this friar chained to her, she and Guy can never be alone. With this key, Marian is not Guy's prisoner, she is free. With Guy's protection, she can return to Robin. If she wants to.
Marian marries Gisborne, praying for Robin's life the whole time. "You may kiss the bride," says the priest. The kiss pleases the Sheriff to a tee. Guy is obviously forcing the leper who is squirming while she suffers through it.
The next day, Carter frees Robin and the gang. They rush to save the King. What Robin doesn't know is that the new Lady Gisborne was put on ship for England, chained to her guard, a priest named Tuck.
The plans to kill King Richard go awry, everyone rides back to the village for a little urban warfare, the Sheriff shoots the King in the back with an arrow, Guy proves his loyalty by trying to finish the job, but it's Robin who stops him with a fight, during which Guy admits he's sorry to see Robin alive; he never sent word for Robin's rescue, of course. And now Robin knows it. Outnumbered, the Sheriff and Guy take off on one horse, the King commends Robin and apologizes for ever doubting him, and S2 ends with Guy married to Marian but not with Marian, Robin able and willing to get her back, Marian able and willing to be reunited with Robin and the cause, and Guy for some reason being a gentleman about it the whole marriage in name only thing (because he really does hope for Marian's love first, a real marriage later, the ol' evil softy).
___________________________________________
And that would have been the end of it, except at this point, my two dear friends who got me started with this said, “More!” with stipulations as to what they wanted to happen next. So, there is more. There is also an end.
Update: October 21st, 2009. I've found the interview which sparked this story. If you would like to listen to it, you can find it here.
Thanks to Corinne from Holland for posing the question how would Richard Armitage have ended Series 2, to Sarah Kennedy's Radio Show host for that day, Richard Allinson, who relayed that question, and to Mr. Armitage for offering the alternative quoted above. Many thanks to www.richardarmitageonline.com for maintaining such a great collection of interviews. Took me a while, hunting through RA interviews for 2008, but I found it. :)