InsaneJournal

It would have brought the Sheriff great pleasure (if that broken shell was still capable of such a thing) to know just how often he remained on Marian's mind. A month ago she'd gone to see him in hopes he could answer for the things he'd done to her (made her do) (pushed her into) but he'd been nothing like the man who'd held her as captive. If Marian wanted a sense of closure for what had happened for all she’d done then it wasn’t to be found with him.

This time last year (or, the year before last now that they'd entered the new year), Marian had been with him. That December she had been upstairs while the boys were down below. She had been watching them suffer, bringing them food, alternating between a warm dull bedroom and a cell down with them. It had been a terrified camaraderie when she sat beside them in cells, and a completely different kind of dread every time she'd been upstairs.

December had been watching her boys get worse and worse. December had been Will Scarlet's leg and Will Stutely's back growing steadily more infected. December had been Marian handcuffed in wet underwear to the bars while the Sheriff pressed against her, moments away from making her live with the knowledge that Tuck and the Wills had seen her violated.

This December- free, safe, home- had been difficult for Marian's psyche, but she'd been able to push through it. She'd gotten out of the house a lot, she'd been going on job interviews, she'd been (to the outside world) a fully functioning adult human woman.

But December had passed and the Christmas decorations across the city had been put away and now it was January.

January felt harder, because January had been Arizona. January was the slow breaking down of her walls by the Sheriff, the switching of tactics to make her complicit. January was eleven days of demonic torture she would always wear the scars from, scars that didn't even cover everything that had happened. January was sitting politely in a room with Prince John while he pretended he wasn't watching her with his own hungry eyes, while he asked if she and the Sheriff were going to have a baby. January was a long blurred line between holding the Sheriff in absolute hatred or in true affection, and a knowledge that as long as she stayed her family was safe.

It seemed such an easy (difficult) trade: the sacrifice of her own freedom and identity for the lives of the Merry Men.

That had been her January and it had seemed so much longer than four measly weeks.

It shouldn't matter. It was just dates on a calendar. And yet thinking that it had been a year made Marian think of all the ways she hadn't recovered yet felt she should have. So many times she had been taken in the last five hundred years- by the Sheriff, by Guy, by John, occasionally by other parties not part of their mythos- and yet not one of those times had she been broken down like the Sheriff had managed this time around. He had put time and impressive work into absolutely destroying Marian the woman so he could have Marian the concept.

He'd managed to get the woman anyway, flesh and blood and feeling everything.

For the last few months, on and off, Marian had been having sex dreams about the Sheriff. She wished that she could say they were nightmares, but when Marian woke up from each of them her body pulsed with arousal that almost seemed more powerful than the revulsion.

That was actually far worse than nightmares. Marian would have preferred to wake up screaming or crying, Robin wrapping his arms around her to keep her safe. It wasn't as though those nightmares had stopped (although she had them much less frequently), but these new worse dreams were taking over.

Marian knew, logically, if she approached it all rationally, that they didn't mean anything. They didn't mean she loved the Sheriff. They didn't mean she wanted to have sex with him. They were just... processing still. She hoped. God, Marian hoped this was some progress in processing because all it felt like to her was backsliding.

Fucking January. What a bollocks month! Everything was cold and wet and it got dark so early! Rubbish month. Cold and wet and dark, of course she was moodier and more difficult and more easily upset! That was just normal. This cold weather had everyone sitting in their bathtub crying quietly and hoping the shower would disguise it from their wonderful partner making dinner in the other room.

Bloody January. Marian jumped over a puddle in the back alley, looking around before she slipped her key into the lock and let herself into the Fox. Inside she ​moved around the downstairs traps with ease, just as they'd all learned to do. It only became a problem when Art changed them, but she'd asked him to stop doing that, and to especially stop doing that in the middle of the night.

Thinking about Art made her think about the other guilt and discomfort that had been eating away at her for the last week. It was a different guilt than the usual 'maybe I went too far with the Sheriff and if Robin ever finds out he's going to be angry, just like he was with Guy'. That was, after all, a guilt that could wait and never be addressed. This other guilt, the one about all the things she'd said on Will's post, couldn't really be ignored.

She hadn't said anything else to Will since then, and although she'd apologised on the post, Marian knew that wasn't good enough. They were right: she never should have said anything. All her emotions and fears were so close to the surface right now, and she should have at least taken some time to think about it. Marian loved Will. The last thing she'd ever wanted to do was hurt him. She believed with her whole heart everything that she’d said, but saying it could do nothing but bring hurt.

Marian opened the apartment door and let herself in, putting the grocery bag down on the table and smiling over at Robin sitting in front of her computer. "I hope you're finally learning to play Wolfenstein 3D," she teased, knowing that he was definitely not over there shooting pixelated Nazis.