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kate barlow,
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Though dead, Guy sleeps. Though he sleeps far better than he used to in life, he is not untroubled by nightmares. The old familiar demons.

Somewhere between the realisation and decision that he would not be going back to sleep that night, brought him to the stables well before dawn, where he has been sitting with his back against the door of Marian's still unnamed stallion's stall.

The stallion has been taking little notice of Guy's reminiscences.

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"I was, at times, when necessary." Although perhaps more brutal than strictly vicious perhaps. "But you're mistaken if you believe I was the only threat in Nottingham."

Though in the end, it turned out that he had been the most deadly threat to Marian.

"And I would marry her now, if I lived and she would have me."

Guy turned, in part to keep his eye on her.

"A shame?" He snorted with laughter. "I got better than I deserved."

"You're damn straight y'did."

Her senses are keyed to every inch of his presence. The way the shadows shift, the sound, the silence — watching him even while her back is turned, ready to draw on him if he so much as breathes in a way she doesn't like.

"I know there's other threats in Nottin'ham. But none of 'em set fire t'my friend's house, or stand by while she's treated the way she is."

She turns, fixing her glare on him.

"What sorta man threatens a Lady in one breath, an' claims he'd still marry her in another?"

It's perhaps lucky that Guy does not breath then.

"I may have burnt down her home, but you're mistaken if you think I stood by and did nothing - though I take it you've heard all this from Marian?"

The question is half-accusation and half-statement. Kate could only really have been told any of this by Marian - Guy had not seen any other from their shared world for months before he died and not at all since.

"A lot went on she didn't know about - though I'm sure there was enough that she knew that she wasn't supposed to."

Guy smirked at her glare. "Once again, I was never the only threat in Nottingham. Do you really think the Sheriff wouldn't have left Marian to rot in a cell, or worse, without anyone to make him decide otherwise?"

She barks a laugh, sharp and high enough to startle one of the horses.

"What good's savin' her from a cell when y'take away her home? You're jus' esteemin' one cell t'be greater than another."

She looks at him, seconds stretching without her notice. She doesn't acknowledge his question, but his smirk pulls a scoff from her lips, face wrinkling in disgust.

"D'you honestly think y'deserve forgiveness?"

"It may be a cage, but at least it's a cage she has the ability to escape from." Though he had not know the extent of it at the time.

Briefly, he wonders whether she would have had less faith in him if she had been trapped in a cell and if that might have saved her in the end.

Too late for that now though.

"Forgiveness?" He snorted with a stifled laugh. "I expect the Door to open on the fiery pit when it arrives - it's what I had thought to see long before now."

She shuts her mouth. Slowly. Lady Marian isn't exactly forthcoming when it comes to sharing the details of her life in Nottingham, but Kate knows enough to find Guy repulsive. It's just that she wasn't expecting him to say these sorts of things.

She wouldn't mind hitting him a few more times, but he succeeds in quieting her long enough to think.

"Y'knew, then? That she could escape, if she wanted to?"

Edited 2012-05-16 23:46 (UTC)

"Not at first," he admitted. "Later, I had some suspicions."

Her father had been the Sheriff at one time though.

"She's lived there before, things happened that I couldn't quite explain without Marian being able to escape..."

Guy shrugged.

"...but I was always a little blind when it came to Marian. Later, after other things happened, I knew."

After he found out that she was the Nightwatchman.

"Looking back...well. It's always clearer."

It doesn't make a lick of difference, then. Looking back, things are always clearer. He did what he did with little excuse in Kate's mind.

"You regret it, then?"

Still, she has to ask.

"The things y'did to her?"

"Yes."

He sighed.

"If I had not come into her life, she would have..." Guy does not finish that particular sentence. He will not, unless Marian hears it first.

"I regret a lot of things, but most of all the things I did to her."

She narrows her eyes.

He has a lot to answer for, as far as Kate's concerned. But remarks that trail off like that hardly lead where you expect them to, in her experience. It makes her wary.

"Y'should."

Her voice is quiet, still. Harsh. As unforgiving as the sun-baked desert to a new sprout.

"She deserved better."

Guy's jaw clenches at the tense of Kate's last words. The woman cannot know, but it still hits too close to home.

He is silent for a long while.

And then.

"Yes."

Well, goddammit all to hell.

Kate was kind of looking forward to getting a few more shots in, but now he's gone and taken all the fun out of it.

She lets out a slow breath, lowering her angry eyes.

"You're from her future, then?"

He shrugged slightly. "As she is from my past."

Not that it really did much good, in the grand scheme of things.

"Does she know?"

That he's here?

That he visits her stallion?

"That you're dead?"

"Yes," he answered both. Mostly. "Well."

Guy shifted from one foot to lean on the other.

"She knows that I am dead," he continued. "Though I suspect only because she has physical proof of that."

The memory-sensation of her hand pressed against his chest where his heart used to beat still burns with the fire and warmth of her vitality.

"The rest...I do not think she is convinced of."

He can't blame her though. They have never really believed each other's word. They have never really spoken much truth to each other.

"Physical proof?"

Her anger is melting into wariness.

Lawmen are all the same. They get a taste for power, think they can do whatever they like, and have the gall to be surprised when folk don't take them at their word.

"What is it she needs convincin' of? That you're sorry?"

She scoffs.

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