“Everything that happened,” Robin was saying, “it was my fault. I shouldn’t have left before, and I didn’t mean the things I said.”

“Yes you did,” she laughed again, “but you figured out you were wrong. That’s better than most can say.”

“Too late.”

“It’s never too late to do what’s right.”

His cheeks dropped, his features gave way to reveal something rare and real beneath. “I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome back.”

Frankly, she agreed. There were plenty of grudges she could hold over him, but they all seemed so childish compared to the day’s need for basic humanity. Nothing was more important than the invisible something beneath it all, that nameless connection they had always felt.

“Tragedy has a way of washing the past clean,” she said softly, and Robin agreed.

“I really am sorry for leaving.”

“As you said.”

“Not just now, but all those years ago.”

He had never apologized for that before. After Vivian’s death, after Edmond disappeared, after their families had been shattered by violence, Robin had vanished. Marion had been left to deal with the grief of it all. She had become the daughter that Walter of Locksley needed to keep his sanity. She never complained about it, but it should never have been her burden to bear. The gravity of those years felt remarkably lighter with that one simple admission, that Robin knew he should have stayed.

“What you’ve done here,” he continued, “how you’ve helped these people, what you and my father accomplished, it’s really quite remarkable.”

“Remarkable?” she joked. She wouldn’t let him get away with that understatement. “It’s ‘able to be remarked upon’? Oh, thank you.”

“It’s amazing,” Robin corrected himself, and drew in close to her. Her hands found their way around his waist. “I want to help in any way I can.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re back,” she whispered as he leaned into her.

“I’m not going anywhere this time.”

And the fiercest woman alive would have gone teary as they kissed. It wasn’t their first kiss, they had played this game for decades. But in the past, it had always been in regret, in frustration, in a futile what-could-have-been that they knew couldn’t last. This was the first time they seemed to be on the same page, where they were headed in the same direction. Two arrows with the same target, if she could allow herself the ham-handed symbolism. Robin held her head with both hands, they pushed their foreheads together and laughed.

Eventually she tugged at his doublet. “Do you really think William’s such a threat?”

“I know he is,” Robin’s voice dropped. “He means to hunt us down, every one of us, straight to the gallows.”

“You know him better than I do,” she admitted, “but he was kind to me. He kept me safe, got me out of the city.”