This story is an attempt for me to get closure. I hated the ending of S2 so I have made my own version of the events the matters that follow.

Due to a twist of fate Marian never arrived in the Holy Land. She is lost in the sea, shipwrecked and assumed dead. Apart from that detail the events in the HL are much the same.

Djaq and Will are in the HL, but reality turns out to be quite different than they expected and Will finds it hard to adapt.

Robin, Much, LJ and Allan return to England with the belief that Marian is dead. Back on English soil the gang pulls in different directions and there is a new tension in the gang. Old enemies and new ones puts everyones lives in jeopardy.

Marian is left to find her way back to England on her own but soon finds out that the road is filled with detours.

Meanwhile King Richard starts the journey home but ends up facing the consequences of his own mistakes on the way.

Expect Luke Scarlett and the German count to make an appearance, as well as a rich gallery of my very own OC:s. The pairings will be canon, R/M and W/D (even though I'm not very fond of W/D and I can't promise that everything ends good between them). I toy a bit with historical fats in this fic, but I'll bend the facts to fit my story rather than bend my story to fit the facts. ;)

Will the king find his way home? Will Robin and Marian be reunited? Will Will adapt to the new life in the Holy Land? Is evil always evil? Is good always good?

This is the prelude, plz comment.

Prelude: Roll the Dice

Famagusta 1192.

It is known to mankind and often acknowledged that fate is a fickle thing. Entire life stories can be altered by the roll of a dice.

It struck Guy of Gisbourne that the town of Famagusta was nothing like he remembered it. The few years that had passed since he last changed ship in this harbour on Northern Cyprus seemed to have brought on a certain air of refinement to the sheltered fishing village. There were still tanned fishermen working bare breasted on the shore, still fishers' wives hanging nets to dry between the simple lodgings, and the place still reeked of fish, rotting seaweed and the brisk winds were still salt and dry under the merciless sun. The dark-haired fishing people spoke rapidly in a foreign tongue, their skin tough and creased like newly washed linen with deep furrows making their features harsh and sharp. Guy hadn't liked these people on his first visit, he found their glares hostile and unsettling and the simplicity of their manners seemed barbaric even compared to peasants. Yet on this visit the fishing village was changing, and the direction in which he saw it alter left him feeling slightly less out of place. There were merchants setting up permanent lodgings between the huts, random outbursts of French or German cut through the streets and lighted it up with colourful dots of European fashions that were rich compared to the coarse clothes of the fishing men. If this were to continue then Famagusta would turn into a vivid Christian town, huddled together around the animated harbour that lay like a magnetic focus point to all activity in the region.

"Famagusta," Vaysey exclaimed and threw out his arms as if he tried to envelop the world. It was no loving embrace, rather one that dictated ownership, and he inhaled deeply. "Ah, feel that Gizzy? The brisk, salty air. I think we shall eat fish today, hm?"

Guy wrinkled his nose and tried not take in too much of the sea breeze. Fish. Again. He did not like fish, hated the taste and smell, and the tiny little bones that scratched your throat as you swallowed. The sickening unavoidable sea-flavour seemed glued to the inside of his mouth, and the salty wind whipped his skin and made his hair dry and threadbare like late summer grass. The winds came in violent thrusts on this day yet didn't give any coolness, throwing up dancing waves topped with wild, surging foam. That was another thing with that damned sea. It rocked and rocked until you felt so sick you could swear your intestines were coming out of your mouth, and even when you reached shore the ground kept rocking beneath you. The sun was scorching Guy's face, the heat cruel and acrid and made him sweat under the suffocating black leather, and his stomach was still in an uproar from the boat ride.

"The wind seems to be rising, my lord," he pointed out as he followed Vaysey along the harbour. The sheriff whistled joyfully as he examined the boxes of fish and the boats secured with thick hemp ropes, finally stopping by a sturdy vessel.

"Not afraid of some measly waves are you Gizzy? Hm?" he asked with a cocked eye brow. "This is the boat that will carry us the last bit of the journey. I have made arrangements with the owner. Do you like her Giz, hm? The alluring 'Sibylla'."

Guy gave the boat a sceptical look. It was made for a crew of four or five men and from the look of it the vessel had seen better days. "Sir, it may be wiser to wait until tomorrow?" he suggested. "We can continue on the St. Joseph, surely it is safer."

"Ah, but that will cost us a day."

"We can afford a day."

"Can we? Hm?" Vaysey examined the boat and gave the wood a little knock as if the sound of the hull was all you needed to evaluate a vessel's floatability. It sounded alarmingly hollow and rotten.

"I must insist on this, sir," Guy insisted with a growing feeling of distress. A night on land, a nice bed that stayed in one place - he would even sleep in a stable with the horses rather than sail this boat over a storming ocean! "One day is not worth our lives!"

Vaysey took another look at the vessel and seemed to muse over this conundrum. The boat, so lovingly named 'Sibylla', was no beauty among boats and her crew was no pride among crews. It was a desperate drunken captain willing to carry a boat through a storm, and Vaysey was still slightly uncertain as to weather the day they saved was worth the silver he had to pay for it. There was a rustling of iron and people stepping on the rickety docks, and the two men turned around. "Ah," The Sheriff said. "Our luggage has arrived. Clothes, food—woman." He gave Lady Marian a grin full of crocked, yellow teeth. "Why don't we let lady Marian decide, hm? Giz?"

There was a grunting from Gisbourne and he turned away from the shackled Marian with a slightly uneasy look on his face.

"Let me decide what?" Marian questioned, her voice hostile and irritated. "Knowing you it is a choice between bad and worse if you leave it to a woman."

"Come now, Lady M. I would hardly consider you a woman. Leper perhaps," Vaysey grinned. "So, does the leper think we should travel tonight, with this fine boat, or should we wait a day?"

Marian snorted and looked at the pathetic vessel. "Well if you wait we will waste at least a day but if we take this pile of debris we might never reach out goal at all. Why don't you roll a dice Sheriff?"

"A dice!" Vaysey exclaimed. "Oh I like how you think. A dice, Gisbourne, let chance decide— Well I do not have a dice, but a this will do I think—" He rummaged through his pockets until he found a thick silver coin. On one side there was a head in profile, a big crooked nose and a weak chin, and on the other side a sailing boat. "Now I will flip this, and if it lands with the head up, then we remain here tonight. He looks a bit like Gizzy, don't you think?"

Gisbourne glanced at the picture on the coin that Vaysey held out to Marian, and restrained a sigh. It was some solace to him that the shackled noble woman snorted and looked away, lacking amusement over the insult, but Guy didn't want her pity. It was a poor substitute to love and in this grim setting there was no doubt in Gisbourne's mind. Weather she still held a torch for Robin Hood or not she had never loved Guy of Gisbourne, never returned his affection or mirrored his intentions. The insight made him feel sick, the full range of her betrayal gave him vertigo and his heart plummeted at the realisation that he had been played like a puppet. There were tiny little strings all over his body and they all pulled him back and forth and up and down until he didn't know where he had his own head.

Vaysey threw the coin up into the air a couple of times and caught it again, saw the sun catch the shiny surface as it coiled like a spinning wheel. Then he nodded at Guy with an excited grin, threw it high up into the air and caught it on the back of his hand with the other palm pinning it down. Slowly he lifted the upper hand with the thick, short fingers moving like spider legs and his mouth formed into an 'o' in mocked enthusiasm.

"Oh," he breathed and grinned at the little audience that studied him with different shades of disdain. "Well, we have a winner. It looks like we take the boat this evening. A round of applauds for the alluring 'Sibylla', I'm sure she will be as pleased as any leper to not spend her night alone. Now, now, Gizzy. Don't be like that. You can't win every time, hm?" The Sheriff grinned and inhaled the salty air, tapping Guy's cheek before he clasped his hands and turned to the boxes of fish. "Now, what will we have for supper—fish, fish or fish? Or squid perhaps!"

And thus, not with a roll of a dice but with the flip of a coin, lives were plunged into a new direction. Because the coin showed a picture of a boat and not the silhouette of a man, Lady Marian would never reach the Holy Land and incidentally Sir Guy would never plunge his sword into her belly causing her premature death. As it was fate had something completely different in store for group of Englishmen casting one last glance at the growing village of Famagusta. The wind kept on rising as 'Sibylla' left the docks, and Sir Guy was already starting to feel sick from the horrible rocking as the creaking vessel was tossed from side to side by the growing waves.