Current mood:	written
Current music:	Together We Will Live Forever - Clint Mansell
Entry tags:	fic, guy/marian, robin hood

Fic: Purgatory; Guy/Marian; PG13
Because denial IS indeed a river in Egypt….. Spoilers for the Robin Hood season 2 finale. This is my way of coping.

Robin Hood; Guy/Marian

Life is a choice. Marian learns to live with hers.

Unbetaed. All mistakes are my own. Quote from The Secretary

Purgatory

Who's to say that love needs to be soft and gentle?

Marian retches violently. The vomit is clear and mucusy, and tastes of bile. Aynna’s fingers pull the sweaty strands of hair away from her face. She pushes Marian back onto the sleeping mat and brings a beaker of water to her lips. Marian doesn’t really feel like drinking, her throat is too sore, but she knows that Aynna won’t give up until the beaker is empty. She can feel the water in her belly and the cramps beginning again. Marian turns to her side, curling around herself.

Throughout the day her fever dreams are only interrupted by heaves and more bile. She begins to think that this is her punishment for betraying everything she has ever known, for being so selfish, for wanting the wrong things. Aynna brushes Marian’s hair, and sings in her ear. Marian doesn’t know the words, but her fevered mind follows them none the less. Slowly the walls of their tent begin to darken and she knows that night is near. She sees Sallah’s shadow on the canvas, and then he steps inside. Marian watches as he greets his wife gently, and curls again as her body spasms with another cramp, or is it jealousy, Marian doesn’t know.

“It is nearly sundown. We must prepare for the night.”

Sallah’s voice is much more accented than his wife’s and Marian still strains to understand him. Aynna forces Marian’s body to unclamp and begins to move the dressings from her side. The cut itself is very shallow but it bled profusely and has not yet healed completely. Her body had shut down with the potion and had been unable to heal. The cut had remained untreated for two days. Aynna tuts, and presses the skin, and spreads her ointment. Marian clenches her teeth and bears the pain.

She still retches through the night. Aynna wakes every few hours to force more water into her. Near dawn Marian finally falls asleep, but only after Aynna is satisfied that she will not suffocate in her sleep. She dreams about the sand, and about the cool Jerusalem night, and of the warm body inside of her own. She wakes up crying and coughing. Aynna is by her side in an instant. Marian wonders if she has slept at all.

Aynna infuses bread in camel’s milk for Marian, and with sheer strength of will Marian manages to keep from vomiting it up. It takes her nearly three hours to finish the small bowl. The desert winds make the sloped ceiling of the tent pillow and move. Marian lies on her sleeping mat and watches the play and move of the fabric. She can hear Sallah moving on the outside, on the lookout.

Marian stands by the entrance, the door flaps grasped in her fists. She looks out into the horizon until tears fall. Marian tells herself that it is just the light that is making her eyes bleed. Sallah tells her to rest, to go back inside, but resolutely Marian stays by the door. The sun hangs low in the sky when a small black dot appears in the edge of the desert. For a while Marian thinks it as a mirage, a trick played by her sore eyes and groggy head. But slowly the dot grows and Marian’s grip on the tent canvas tightens.

She begins to limp from the tent. The gash on her side tightens and pulls with each step. The heat from the sand shimmers around her and she can hear Sallah shouting behind her, but Marian hears none of it. The riding party begins to take shape, and Marian quickens her steps, mind numb to the pain in her side. She can nearly see the riders now, their heads and faces covered in scarves. Marian begins to run, her breath a painful gasp in her chest. The riders stop and dismount at the sight of her. One of them begins to run. His feet kick up a cloud of sand. She collapses into him, wheezing and dry heaving. Tears stream down her face and she can smell him under the sweat and the desert wind that clings to his clothes.

Guy

She moans his name. He rips the scarf covering his face aside, and then he is kissing her. They kneel in the hot sand and Marian’s knees burn. She sobs and swears into his kiss, hands violent and merciless on his coat, pulling the fabric.

He carries her back to the tent. In the night Marian listens to the sand moving in the desert. She stretches her fingers out into the air seeking out the cool night. She gasps softly, as not to wake the others, as Guy moves inside of her, and Marian finally forgives herself.