She really didn't know what to say to him. How to heal his wounds. They went much further than a simple scratch of a blade or, more so, the cut of a knife. These were wounds of the mind and the heart. Hurts from a time long ago, well before she could remember. A broken boy who'd wanted to be something more so desperately. It was a life she couldn't understand, as both he and Robin had told her more than once.
But there were things Marian did understand, more than either of them realized. Yes, some of the things she had done over the last several years of her life were foolish. She knew it, she wouldn't deny it if confronted. But she knew the people of Nottingham. Better than Guy did, maybe even better than Robin. The Night Watchman hadn't been invented as a girl's folly, as a need to be a hero. She didn't stay anonymous for the glory of it, after all. Those people needed her. They needed help and she could give it to them. So why shouldn't she? She knew poverty face to face, in ways neither of them could. Oh, Robin made a good effort. He worked hard in his role as a helper of the poor and the hungry. The overtaxed and overworked. But at the end of the day it was her who most of them knew. Not only in her disguise, but personally. It was Marian who talked people through their suffering, who offered assistance where she could.
So no matter what either of them thought, she did understand pain and suffering. She understood a need to rise above circumstance. What she didn't, what she couldn't understand was the need to take a human life. Something Guy was more than familiar with. Not only hers. She knew the things he did to rise up in power. The people he'd hurt. And the King...well. She didn't regret coming between him and Richard. Even if she really should. Maybe if she hadn't, she'd still be alive.
"You were angry," she said quietly, fighting the shake in her voice. Because she wouldn't cry. Not in front of him. Not out of anger or fear. She just wouldn't. "You were hurt and jealous and I did nothing to make that easier. I don't know how you could...not if you really loved me the way you always claim to." Now she was confusing even herself. She was trying to find an excuse, a reason why he could have hurt her the way he did. Stolen everything from her. There would literally be no trace of the woman she was by the time he was done.
But giving him that was the hardest thing she'd ever had to do. And she hadn't exactly lived an easy life before that.
"You could try thinking for yourself, Guy. Doing what it is you want and not what everyone expects of you. Not me, not the Sheriff. Be you. Maybe that's what I need to see. Maybe I need to finally see the real you to decide if this...whatever this is, this friendship or whatever, stands a chance at working."