He's had the tattoo for years, so long that he's stopped seeing it. It's a part of him, like the stubble that covers his jaw, the crooked little toe he broke as a child, that scar on his thigh from a lucky foe's blade. Evidence of a life lived and lived well and then absorbed and forgotten. It's been years since he's paid the dark ink much mind.

But now, now that Marian is back in his life, in his arms, in his bed, he sees it constantly. He reaches for a cup, his son, Marian's dark hair and it catches his eye. A conspicuous brand, mocking him. Filling him with guilt.

With every glimpse of black ink, he sees Regina's face, open and loving and sweet. Words one would never associate with a woman who has so much blood on her hands, so much darkness in her past, but as she'd sat there with him, in front of her fire, drinking wine and opening herself, she'd been all light. Her words had tumbled freely, quietly, in a soft voice she kept only for him. She'd told him her secret, that he was hers, that they were destined, that she'd let him go once and thought her chance at happiness had been left behind in that tavern. The confession had made his heart pound, tugged a smile onto his face - he'd known there was something strong and undeniable between them, but he hadn't gone so far as to assume it was fate. Destiny.

But there they'd been, her fingers gripping his forearm, and he'd seen in her eyes that every word she said was true and truly felt. She was his, and he was hers, and she was finally happy, and he'd been the one to give that to her. He'd talked of timing, and kissed her, and kissed her again, kissed her into the cushions of the sofa they'd sat against, kissed her down to the rug beneath them. He'd kissed every blessed inch of her, of this woman meant for him. Peeled her out of her dress and out of her shell, and she'd been bold and breathless and all his. After, when they were naked and languid and still wrapped up in each other, she'd pressed her lips to the dark ink, kissed it and kissed it and kissed it again, her smile unshakeable, tears clinging to her lashes but unwilling to fall.

Robin had never been more certain of anything in his life than he had been in that moment with her. They were destined; they were right. They'd spent the day together, all of it, unable to part now that they'd finally found each other, and he had loved her like the sun, this radiant woman who it seemed had shed every layer of Evil Queen to be with him. She was just Regina, with her light magic, and her brilliant smile, and those eyes so bright and happy and his.

And then Marian had arrived, and he had gone to her without question, because she was his wife, and Roland's mother, and because she had been dead and it had been his fault, and yet there she was in front of him, alive again and his.

And Regina had shuttered, her light gone out. When he sees her now, her eyes are dark and turbulent, her mouth a permanent frown. Her voice is sharp, biting. Regal. Her happiness has been snatched away - again - and her misery is so profound that it seems she sucks the very air out of every room she enters, a wandering dark cloud in a world that grows increasingly cold.

And it's all his fault.

He's had the tattoo for years, so long that he's stopped seeing it. But now he sees it constantly, sees her constantly, sees her extinguished light, her fractured happiness, and it rips at something in his chest. He cannot breathe under the weight of the guilt, of knowing that he is standing in the way of destiny, of her happiness. But he's powerless to change it. He will not leave his wife; he is honorable. He will not hurt his child; he is a good man.

He had spoken of timing, and time had betrayed them. Had given him a wonderful gift and ripped everything from his precious Regina, and he feels stuck. Trapped. Unfaithful no matter to whom he turns.

He stares at the ink on his arm and wishes he could scrape it off, could dig under the skin and pull out every last drop. Anything to quell the guilt he feels.

But he cannot, and he will not.

He will suffer, just as she suffers.

He has destroyed her happiness, and with it his own, and he deserves every bit of this sorrow he now carries on his skin.

She has marked him, he is hers. And he will bear her until she becomes a part of him unseen, well loved and absorbed.

But never forgotten.