I own no one but my own people

January 20 1941, Sherwood Forest, England

Robin Locksley cried two times in his life.

The first were tears of joy when he watched his son Roland come into the world. The second was the night after his beloved Marian's funeral and he spent the first night in their bed alone.

However, as he looked down at his beautiful boy, unsure when he might see him again? As hard as he tried to hold back, he felt tears sting his ocean blue eyes that he quickly blinked away.

"Daddy loves you, Roland," he whispered to the three year old. "So much." He leaned over and kissed his forehead. "So much…"

"Daddy?" Roland rubbed the sleep he was fighting so hard from his brown eyes that mirrored Robin's wi- late wife. "Why do I have to live at Uncle John's?"

"You know why," he said not unkindly but instead a gentle reminder. "Remember what we talked about?"

The toddler sat up in the bed that practically swallowed the small boy whole. He looked even more smaller than usual.

"You're pretending to be a bad guy to help people."

"That's right. The bad people are… they're hurting people, Roland, a LOT of people. And Daddy has to pretend to be a bad person to help them."

"But why can't I come with you?"

The toddler didn't mean to whine to his father but he was tired and still confused as to why he had to stay with his uncle, not just for a short time when he went away for a week or two for his job at the two letters and one number as per usual but they had packed up his entire room, all of his clothes, all of his toys…

As young as Roland was, he knew that all the packing meant he wasn't about to see his daddy for a very long time.

"My boy, if I could take you I would," Robin told him gently.

His MI6 commander actually had the gall to suggest that his three year old son, his brown hair brown eyed son who was half Belizean, not that they would care about the specific country his mother's family hailed from they would just care that his son wasn't 'pure', join a deep undercover allied resistance operative in the heart of Germany as a prop to sell Robin's story.

He would have faced a court martial for assaulting a superior officer if his coworker hadn't held him back.

"But it's going to be scary and loud and dangerous and it's not a safe place for little boys. That's why I have to go, I have to help save the little boys and girls who don't have an Uncle John to stay with."

Roland sniffed, his lip quivering.

"But…I don't wanna lose you like I lost Mama."

Robin closed his eyes, fighting back the tears that were fighting to fall. He would not let his son see him cry.

"You won't lose me, Roland," he said when he was sure that he could speak without his voice breaking.

"What if I never see you again?"

"You will see me again, Son, I promise. I'll get letters to you as often as I can. Come here."

The two of them hugged, Robin holding the small boy as tight as he could, blinking away the wetness that had gathered in his eyes.

"I love you, Roland. More than anything else on this earth."

"I love you too, Daddy."

"Now come on," Robin said once they had released. "Do you want to hear one last story?"

The toddler nodded his confirmation and Robin made sure he was tucked in nice and tight before he began speaking.

"Once upon a time, in a faraway land there lived a Queen. Her name… was Marian…"

Twenty minutes later Roland was fast asleep again and Robin had made his way downstairs to the living room of his best and oldest friend.

"He'll be fine, Robin," John Little, or as Robin and his mates called the towering large man ironically, Little John, told him. "I won't let anything happen to him. He'll have me, he'll have Will, he'll even have the good Friar."

"If the Germans should invade England," Robin began, not caring for false promises. He had to make sure his instructions were well known. "And they come to Sherwood-"

"They won't."

"If they do, or they find out who I am and they find out where I've hidden my boy… You protect him, Little John."

It wasn't a question. It wasn't a request and John knew it. It was an order from the natural born leader, and both of them knew exactly what 'protecting' the small child sleeping upstairs entailed.

John gave him a curt nod. "I will. You can count on me."

The two men stared at one another before they embraced in a strong hug, clapping one another on the back.

"You're coming back to your boy, Robin," John told him, his usually jubilant voice an octave or two higher than normal. "You hear me? You're coming back to him and you're coming back to your mates."

Robin didn't trust himself speak so he instead choose only to nod, a ragged breath ripping past his lips.

A final slap on the back before they pulled away.

John gave him a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Besides, you gotta come home so I can whoop your sorry ass at darts down at the pub at least once."

Robin laughed his first true laugh since he had been told he was getting this assignment.

"I could come home with two left hands and blind and I could still still beat you."

"You BARELY won when you threw left handed and I'm still convinced you could see through that blindfold."

The MI6 spy chuckled and wrapped his friend in another, less emotional, hug.

"Take care of yourself, Robin."

"Take care of my boy, John."

"Always."

One last cheeky grin from the two friends before Robin turned and headed out into the cold winter night, shivering against the harsh England winds for what could have been be the last time.

—-

March 18th 1943, 65th Infantry Battalion Aid Station, Göttigen Germany

Captain Regina Veronica Mills was one of the only soldiers in her outfit to dread receiving mail from home.

Not from her friends back home in Storybrooke, those letter she waited with baited breath to find out how her hometown was doing. But every mail call the officer prayed that the private would hand her nothing with her mother's address at 108 Mifflin Street in Storybrooke Maine written on the front of it.

Cora Mills had forbidden Regina to enlist. She had gone so far as to threaten to have the sheriff throw her in jail until the war was over and knowing Cora as well as knowing her deep seated connections, it wasn't an empty threat.

But after what happened to her Daniel? She didn't care what her traditional mother thought of her. She owed it to his memory to fight.

They were going to be married when he returned from Europe. He was a nobody in her mother's eyes, a waste of fresh air and space. Daniel Colter worked in her families stables as a lowly stable boy but Regina could not have loved him more and vice versa.

So when he showed up one day in his uniform to inform her that he was shipping out, she had thrown herself at him, crying and begging him not to go.

He kissed her and told her that everything would be alright, that he would come back to her and the day he stepped off the train they would go to the nearest courthouse and marry at once.

Daniel gave her a saddle ring as an engagement ring with a promise that a ring worthy of her would be the first thing he bought with his first check.

Regina told him that she wanted no other ring than the one he had given her and the two sealed a promise of an engagement with a heated kiss that led what was supposed to be the first night together out of an eternity.

Seven months to the day he left for Germany she got the telegram that those who have people fighting overseas pray they never get.

Daniel was gone. Their future together turned to dust with a single round fired from a German pistol.

The day after his funeral Regina marched to the nearest Women's Auxiliary and told the first woman she saw wearing a uniform that she wanted to enlist.

They didn't allow Hispanics to enlist at all period, much less Hispanic women. Even though she was a mix of Hungarian Russian and Irish on her mother's side, her father had come from Puerto Rico so in the eyes of the United States Government that had disqualified her from service.

But she, at her mother's insistence that her daughter be well educated, if only for the sake of landing an equally intelligent high class husband, was one of the few women who was not only jumping at the chance to defend the country that treated her like a second class citizen both in regards to gender and her race, but she spoke both perfect German and perfect Spanish.

So when they allowed Hispanic men into fight, they needed the women who spoke their language to help save them and that was how Regina found herself waiting for mail call in ankle deep snow dreading her name being called.

Every letter from her mother, when it didn't contain various people who Cora knew who could get her home or transferred stateside, was full of tales of women her mother knew from the Storybrooke Country Club who had married some rich CEO or lawyer or Doctor and was reminding Regina just how old she was getting and if she didn't find a way back home she would be an old maid and no acceptable, see rich and powerful, man would want anything to do with her.

Regina shivered slightly as an icy wind nipped at her exposed facet. She pulled her Army issued coat around her tighter as she waited to see if she had any correspondence from home, unwanted or wanted.

"Blanchard, Mary Margaret!"

Second Lieutenant Mary Margaret, or 'Snow White' as she was both kindly and not so kindly known to those in her unit due to the fact that when she had ordered a copy of 'Gone With The Wind' to play for the troops one night and thanks to an administrative mistake, her group somehow ended up with a copy of the animated musical while the local school ended up with the Oscar nominated classic, raced to the front of the line from her spot in the crowd.

While everyone, sans Regina, was excited about mail call, the annoyingly optimistic Snow was extra enthusiastic due in part that her equally coyingly sweet husband David wrote her from the front lines and they all knew just how long it took for mail to reach back even to a post relatively close to the action such as this.

When the other nurses, admin, and auxiliary workers shared letters their spouses or sweethearts wrote them, it was usually raunchy and risqué, earning wolf whistles and laughters at the obscene contents.

David and Snow though? Regina didn't even think either one of them even knew what a penis was for much less wrote about how he was going to use it when he saw her again. They were adorable and innocent and sweet, she was a school grade teacher turned Army Administer, he was a farmer turned Soldier, both of them from the same small sleepy town of Storybrooke Maine that Regina was from. They were the all American couple.

God Regina hated them...

"Greene, Zelena!"

"Pardon, darling," the red headed captain

, who was Regina's best friend on the base but also her biggest headache and motivator, wanting to turn everything into a competition between the two of them, said as she brushed by her to retrieve her mail.

The 65th Medical Outpost was shared by not only the Americans but by the 108th British Medicinal Regiment as well. Zelena was a Nurse, one of the better if not THE best one on the base and even though it killed Regina to say that outloud, she was even better than her.

Regina blew some hot air into her hands to try to warm herself before she felt a clap on her back.

"Where we at?"

Regina raised a brow at the blonde woman standing behind her.

Staff Sergeant Emma Swan, like usual, was in her dark grew coveralls and was covered head to toe in motor oil, grease and had this automotive smell about her that was completely offensive to who they referred to as the 'Queen of the base.'

Even out here in the cold German winter Regina's makeup was always perfect, her hair always had the perfect amount of lift, and even when they were out in the field she choose to wear the skirt and jacket over the unflattering pants and uniform top. She always tried her best to look a bit more refined than the other women she served with.

She was a 'queen' after all...

Emma, while technically an 'administrator', was the unofficial mechanic on the base to the point that many of the medics refused to have their ambulances worked on by anyone but her. She was loud and brass and had that tough girl Bostonian attitude that clashed with the small town vibe that Regina had grown up with.

Nevertheless the Captain and the Sergeant were still friends.

More like friendly to one another.

Regina didn't want to kill her at any rate.

Not any more at least.

"Still relatively early, Sergeant Swan," Regina told her, referring to the order in which the names were being called. "You probably have time to go take a shower in fact."

Emma rolled her eyes at the brunette officer.

"You know, you still haven't thanked me for fixing the generator that runs your tent. I could have left it on a maintenance waitlist and you know how much they love taking time away from playing poker to help us with anything."

"I said thank you, didn't I?"

"No you didn't. I don't think those words have ever once left your mouth not just to me but, well, ever."

"Well now that you've insulted me you're much less likely to get one so really you have only yourself to blame, Ms. Swan."

Another roll of her eyes and Regina had the nagging feeling that she was about to speak again when a loud siren blasted twice, the sound reverberating throughout the entire camp.

One blast for all friendly wounded coming in so the medical personnel could prepare, two blasts for wounded friendly and wounded enemy, three was for wounded civilians, four for a ground attack, and one long sustained blast for an airstrike.

So far Regina had been lucky and only the first two alarms had sounded since she had been over here.

"Two friendlies, one enemy inroute, ETA 4 minutes," a voice announced over the loudspeaker

Zelena headed back over to the brunette and wrinkled her nose at the blonde.

"Emma, dear, showers are on the other side of the base. Regina, you ready?"

"Yeah. Duty calls I'm afraid," Regina told the annoyed mechanic as a majority of the group waiting for mail broke off and headed to their designated stations. "You'll pick up my mail?"

"Of course."

"And if it's from my mother, you'll-."

"Throw it in the fire pit, yes."

Regina smiled at her.

"Good girl."

With that she turned and left the group, smirking at Emma's response.

"A thank you wouldn't kill you, ya know!"

The two nurses went into their respected medical tent where they worked in tandem, putting on the sterile surgical gowns and gloves over their uniforms.

"You know which surgeon you're working with today?" Zelena asked as she pulled her thick curly hair into a tight bun.

"Gold again," Regina answered as she triple checked the tools the doctor would need. She couldn't help the smirk that accompanied her next words. "He asked for me personally."

The difference between Gold and the rest of the surgeons, both American and British, was his nurse didn't just stand to the side holding his instruments, they were elbows deep in blood and gore, acting more like an assistant surgeon than a nurse. He didn't suffer fools and he most certainly didn't give second chances. He

The red head pouted. "You're so lucky. He never picks me anymore. You're not even British."

"Neither is he, he's Scottish."

"Yes but at least he's in my unit

"Well to be fair you did get drunk off of homemade wine and grabbed his crotch."

"To be fair, who hasn't?"

Regina just chuckled before the flap to the surgical tent opened and the rather serious doctor walked in, his hands freshly washed for surgery.

"Speak of the Devil," Regina said. "Colonial Gold, how are you today?"

"Still stuck in this God forsaken country," he answered as Regina put the gown on him. "Is everything ready to go?"

"Yes, Sir." She helped him with his gloves. "Any news back home from Belle?"

"If it's all the same to you, Captain Mills, I'd really rather not discuss my wife when we're about to give surgery to dying young men?"

Regina pursed her lips. He was ornery on the best of days but he was particularly crabby today it appeared.

But he was the surgeon while she was just a nurse, if he said he didn't want to talk about his home life, she wouldn't talk about his home life.

"Of course, Sir. Sorry, Sir."

The two of them worked together in silence, the sounds of the wailing ambulances pulling up to their tent filing the entire room with adrenaline.

Within moments a group of paramedics rushed in a man wearing a, surprisingly, filthy British Navy uniform with jet black hair who, even while he was grimacing in pain, still had a smug look on his handsome face.

"Names Captain Killian Jones, grenade blew up close enough to nail him," the paramedic informed Zelena and her Doctor, Dr. Archibald Hopper, a kindly friendly man. "Amputated arm was a previous injury."

"What the hell's a sailor doing this far inland?" Zelena wondered aloud as they wheeled him to her area.

"I heard I'd get a chance to see some beautiful nurses if I got off the boat." he said with a slight groan.

"Oh did you now?" Zelena grabbed the shears at her station and began to cut through the bandages the field medics had hastily wrapped him in.

His torso was littered with cuts and wounds that were bleeding and old scars, and the entire right side of his body looked badly bruised but he would live.

"Aye, Love. But I suppose you'll do."

Regina couldn't help but snicker at the injured man's retort.

"Yes, I suppose I will," she said as she 'accidently' pressed her thumb against one of the bloody wounds making the Sea Captain yell out in pain. "Oops."

"Mills, focus," Gold told her and any hint of a smile at the exchange was replaced by a serious look.

"Sorry, Sir."

Another friendly, this time in an American uniform, was wheeled in, only he wasn't being smug or smirking. As a matter of fact due to his caved in face you could barely tell he was even human much less make jokes. His hand was being held by someone, she assumed, who had ridden with him from his unit and he was telling the injured man over and over that he would be okay.

Regina took a step forward to tell the paramedics they had an open bed but Gold stopped her.

"He's dead already," he muttered rather briskly as they wheeled him to the last bed. "Put your skills towards someone you can actually save."

She gave a curt nod, and waited for the other injured party to come in. That was another thing about working with Gold. He never wasted his time or skills towards someone he deemed unsaveable. That was why only Zelena and Regina would work with him. Both of them knew that, as hard as it was, sometimes you had to make the tough choice.

More than once the three of them had been called villains because of their belief but the men they did save, the ones they choose to work on over the unsaveable, looked at them as heroes.

When the tent flaps opened again Regina expected to see a man in a German or Russian or Italian field uniform. She had saved the enemy before, all of those in this tent had at one time another. You wore that Red Cross on your arm, that was part of your job.

But this… this was different.

An uncomfortable silence filled the tent as the next man was wheeled in. Even the banter between Killian and Zelena has ceased.

He had dark blonde hair and a fair amount of scruff on his face and blue eyes that were halfway closed in pain and anguish. He looked no different than any other man they saved day in and day out.

But his uniform, his uniform of pitch black with numerous campaign medals on it and the rank of Obersturmführer, the Americanized version of a Major on the left side of his collar, told everyone who he was, what he believed in.

But what had made everyone stop dead was the golden 'SS' pin on his right.

"Please," the man begged in German, gasping for breath, the giant red stain on his side growing bigger, proving that the field medics had barely tried to save him as the laws required him to do,before they brought him here. "Please..

Regina swallowed hard, the pin on his collar terrifying her more than anything else she had seen in this war.

He wasn't just a German soldier, he had chosen to be part of the most ruthless and cruel units the world had ever seen.

"He's SS," Zelena muttered from her spot near the sailors bedside.

"Thank you for the observation, Greene," Gold said without turning away from the blue eyed man but making no move to even lift a finger to help him either. Usually the second he had a patient he was working Gold was moving with expert fingers and expert skills.

But now? He didn't move a single muscle.

Archie looked between and unmoving Gold and the bleeding Nazi. "Dr. Gold?"

"Yes, Dr. Hopper?" he asked as if he was inquiring about the weather.

"Are… are you-..."

"Haven't decided yet," he said.

The man on the table groaned, his head flopping back and forth as he mumbled something too low for anyone to hear.

"We are running low on supplies," Regina said to Gold. "Blood, plasma, even bandages… do we really want to waste them on him?"

"We can't let a man die," Archie told the group, stunned the two of them would even consider discussing this. "I'll save him if you won't."

"He's my patient," Gold said, again without turning from him. "I'll decide what happens."

The man muttered something again and Regina's curiosity got the best of her. She learned forward so she could hear his words.

"My son," he gasped in the harsh language. "My son…"

"What's he saying?" Gold asked, only half interested.

"'My son, my son'," she repeated the simple sentence that hit her harder than she would have ever admitted.

Realizing that the nurse standing over him could understand her he looked towards her, desperation in his dark blue eyes.

"I prom- I promised him I would come home to him," he gasped, forcing himself to ignore the pain and speak aloud. "Please. My son."

"I say let him die," Zelena said with a careless shrug. "He choose to be SS, he knew what he was signing up for."

"He would kill us all if we let him," Killian grunted harshly from the bed. "We should do the same to him."

The dark haired man reached out and grabbed hold of Regina's arm, his fingers gripping her like she was his salvation.

"My son," he gasped out loud again, barely audible over Regina's cry of shock and alarm. "My son… He lost his mother already, don't-... don't make him… My son…"

Gold grabbed his the man's arm and yanked it away, grabbing the pistol he carried and slamming it against his head.

"Don't you lay a hand on her again," he snarled dangerously, pressing the barrel of the gun further into his head as he cocked his weapon, his actions translating exactly what he wanted to say.

"My son," he groaned, his eyes fluttering open and closed. "My son…"

"We cannot let him die," Archie said, desperate for someone to heed him. "Giving into ones dark side never accomplishes anything."

Gold pursed his lips before he pulled the gun away, nodding to Regina.

"You choose, Captain Mills."

She blinked.

"...Me? Why me?"

The doctor shrugged carelessly.

"It's not people who look like me he hates. Speaking of, Major Hopper," he turned towards the red headed man. "You're so concerned about saving him but where's that Star of David you used to wear on your dog tags back in the states?" Gold clicked his tongue. "Oh that's right, the Army encourages that particular religious symbol not to be worn overseas because of bastards like him."

The brunette looked down at the man once more as he fought to keep his eyes open, the blood pooling underneath him.

"Please," he whispered. "My son… my… my son…"

Regina swallowed hard, her mind whirling a hundred miles an hour. She held this evil man's life in her hands. A single word would end his miserable wretched life and probably save thousands of innocent people.

But, as she watched him struggle for breath as the blood filled his lungs, a trickle of blood coming up when he coughed, and even then, through all the pain, he still spoke the two words that twisted a dagger in her heart.

"My son… my son."

Regina swallowed hard before she got within an inch of his bloodied dirty face.

"For him," she snarled in German. "I'm saving you for him. Not for you, for your son."

She lifted her head up and looked at Gold. "Save him," she told the surgeon as she effortlessly switched back to English.

Gold glared at her. "Any more lives he takes will be on your head," he growled before he went to work with Regina working steadfast beside him, trying to ignore the painful guilt gnawing at her.

…

"Robin… Robin… Aye, mate, wake up..."

"I am awake," Robin hissed painfully in clear cut English, his own British accent almost sounding foreign to him.

He spoke English every few weeks but for the past two years he had mainly spoke straight German, not daring to break his cover for fear of being found out.

They moved Killian and Robin to the recovery tent and while Gold and Regina had saved Robin's life, they hadn't bothered wasting any morphine on him so sleep was not coming easily. Not that he could blame him, he wouldn't waste morphine on a Nazi either.

He wouldn't have saved one either if truth be told.

"Good. It'd be a shame if I had to call you a bloody idiot and you couldn't hear me because you were asleep," the sailor whispered harshly. "You almost got yourself killed!"

"Yeah, no thanks to you. 'He'll kill us all if we let him'. What the hell was that?"

"I couldn't see your face, all I saw was that uniform. I didn't even know it was you until they moved us in here. But you almost died to keep your damn cover, if that girl hadn't of chosen to save you-!"

"Keep your voice down," Robin ordered him. "We don't know what unit this is, we don't know who's working here… What the hell are you even doing here anyway, what happened to your ship?"

"That doesn't matter, what matters is you're a bloody moron."

"Well at least I've downgraded from 'bloody idiot.'

Killian glared at one of his oldest friends from across the darkened room. "If she hadn't choose to save you-."

"I know. I owe her a debt."

"You owe her more than that, you owe her the truth, Robin."

He shook his head.

"No."

"Do you know how much guilt she's probably feeling?"

"Yes actually I do. But when I'm done with this operation I will track her down and tell her, for now though... I have to keep my secret, Killian."

Killian just sighed, leaning back against the pillow which they had also failed to provide Robin, covering himself up with the green woolen blanket to protect him against the cold.

"I don't know what the bloody hell MI6 has got you doing, but whatever it is better be worth your life."

As Robin laid there in his own bed, thinking of the brown eyed woman who had saved his life and of the boy he hadn't seen in two years, he told himself that it had better be.

Otherwise… what the hell was the point of all this?

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