It had taken nearly an hour of explaining and apologizing, but Henry had believed her story about missing their morning meetup because she had been with Robin. His asking her to meet him for an early breakfast so they could talk was the perfect cover story, not just because it was what Henry wanted to happen, but because they both knew that Robin was the only person who could make Regina forget, even for a second, about a prior commitment with her son.

Shortly after tucking Henry into bed she heard a knock on the front door. She opened it to find Robin holding a haphazard bouquet of wildflowers. They had reminded him of Regina – beautiful and untamable.

"May I?" he asked, and got his answer when she grabbed the lapel of his jacket and pulled him inside. She closed the door quietly, then led Robin into her office, where she took the flowers from him and laid them carefully on the coffee table. She would find a vase later. She turned around as his arms encircled her, barely giving her time to catch her breath before he kissed her. She hummed happily and draped her arms over his shoulders.

"How is she?" she asked with concern that she hoped sounded genuine. She had worried not for Marian, but for him and the emotional rollercoaster he had no choice but to ride. They had not been outside when she'd left the crypt, and that had been nearly eight hours ago. How long could it take to agree to end a marriage?

He released his hold on her to take her hand and walk them over to the couch to sit. The conversation with Marian had been long and emotionally exhausting. Half the time they hadn't said a word, he'd simply held her as she cried. When she'd told him that Emma had rescued her from Regina's dungeon he had been shocked. He thought she'd died at the hands of the Sheriff of Nottingham, but in truth she had escaped his clutches only to fall into those of the Evil Queen.

"When Regina lost her first love she had no light to cling to, as I did," he'd explained to Marian. "Who's to say that I wouldn't have ended up just like her, if I hadn't had Roland to bring me back from the brink, and the Dark One had shown up promising me the means to take revenge on those who'd taken you from me? It has taken Regina longer to find her way back from the dark abyss of grief but she has left it behind her. Her love for her son saved her, just as mine for Roland saved me. She and I have walked the same road, you see. She understands what I've been through and who I am, not who I was."

He'd held his resolve not to revisit the past, because he knew that it could not be changed. The Evil Queen was dead. Regina had buried her and let go of the pain that had given rise to her. Every day that she fought the darkness in her heart and chose to be a better person, a new queen was being born – one from love and happiness instead of vengeance. A queen capable of true love strong enough to break a sleeping curse. The Queen Mother.

"Naturally she's upset, but she understands," he said, laying one arm across the back of the couch. "It will take time for her, just as it did for us when we lost the ones we loved. But she will move on." She was a good woman, and he had confidence that when the time was right, she would find love again. She deserved to be as happy in her second chance as he was in his.

"Little John and I got her settled in a room at Granny's. Roland was very excited about staying there with her tonight. I think, eventually, things will work out for the best." It had broken his heart to see her crying, but his conscience had told him he was doing the right thing. True love was not something that you turn your back on. He was no longer the man that Marian had fallen in love with. His heart had changed and grown, and now it had found its match in Regina, whose heart bore similar scars to his own.

"I can't help but think about what you said about timing," Regina said, small lines forming between her eyebrows that, in his mind, he had started to call her 'thinking lines'. "It's unfortunate that the right time for us meant the wrong time for her."

He smiled crookedly. She'd taken the words right out of his mind. Marian had been taken out of time, and the consequences of that were being felt by them all. He exhaled a heavy sigh, releasing the last of the negative feelings with his breath. He was ready to start his new life with the woman he loved.

"She set me free to follow my heart, so I did... and it led me to your doorstep." He stood up and pulled her with him. Her thinking lines disappeared, replaced with the lines just above her eyebrows he associated with confusion. With a broad grin he swept her up into his arms.

"And now, milady, I am going carry you to your bedchamber and show you exactly what it means to be loved by a thief," he said in a very authoritative tone.

Regina giggled before she could stop herself. She had been so short-sighted to think of him as just a thief. "It's 'Your Majesty'," she replied, no hint of disdain in her voice, like the first time she'd said the words to him. "Be careful," she said. "We wouldn't want to wake Henry."

"Oh I wouldn't dream of it," he said, and she laughed even harder. As he carried her out of the office she buried her face in his shoulder to muffle her laughter. He delicately placed his feet on each step as he carried her up the stairs, overly conscious of every creak of the wood. She pressed her lips to his neck and playfully nipped at the tender flesh just below his ear. He growled in response and she pressed a finger to his lips to keep him silent.

She pointed the way to her bedrooms, and once inside he spun her around so she could nudge the door closed with her foot. She waved her hand and several candles burst to life around the room. There are advantages to being in love with a witch, he thought.

"You're certain Henry won't hear us?" he asked and she shook her head.

"He'd sleep through an earthquake," she replied as he gently set her down. She wasn't about to tell him that she'd done this many times with Graham. As an infant, Regina had kept the nursery immediately adjacent to her room. Once Henry had seemed old enough, she'd moved him to what she called his 'big boy' room at the other end of the hall to provide herself with the privacy necessary to continue Graham's late night visits. Since his death her bed had been empty, but not as empty as her heart before Henry had come into her life.

She watched the candlelight dance in Robin's eyes and felt as if it were her first time all over again. Robin was different, though, from any other man she'd allowed in her bed. She had been innocent when she'd married the king, and their relations, while pleasant enough, had never held any emotion. Graham had been passionate enough and more than eager to please, but she'd never forgotten that he only behaved that way because he was cursed. Robin loved her, and she loved him. He looked at her not just with desire but affection and admiration. In her eyes he saw her heart, and desired that even more than her body. It made giving it to him much more enjoyable.

Still, she was struck with sudden nervousness, standing next to the bed with him. Robin took her trembling hands in his and brought them to his lips. Pulling her to him he kissed her deeply and set her arms around his waist. She tasted like wine and beauty and he wanted more. He wanted – nay, he needed – to show her just how much he loved her. He couldn't touch her heart or her soul, but he would get as close as he could by treating her body like the precious vessel it was.

His hands ran up her bare arms and over her shoulders to clasp her perfect face. When his tongue slowly grazed along her bottom lip she shivered and responded in kind. Her hands rose to untuck his shirt and slide up his back. He shifted from one foot to the other as he worked off his boots. Robin's fingers carded through her soft, silky hair and around her back, slowly unzipping her dress – the same dress she'd been wearing since he'd woken her from the curse.

"I see you've learned how zippers work," she said with a smirk as he pulled the dress forward and off of her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. His eyes drank in the sight of her in undergarments unlike anything he'd never seen before. There was no corset – her middle was bare. Black lace covered her top and bottom, artfully hiding the most enticing places. He reached his hands behind her back, only to find no laces there to untie. What was the blasted thing, magic? He wouldn't have been surprised - it did make her breasts look incredible.

"Yes, but not this bloody contraption. How do I untie it?" he asked. She chuckled softly and turned around so he could see.

"No laces, just hooks." She reached her arms up behind her back and demonstrated how to unhook back. She let him take care of pulling the straps off of her shoulders. His head dipped down to press a kiss to her shoulder.

"Now these I trust you can remove without my assistance," she said as she turned back around and hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her panties.

"Yes, I think I can manage," he said with a wry smirk. He lifted her hands from her waist, though, and placed them on his own. "But not yet."

He walked her through removing the rest of his clothes, then laid her down on the bed to finish with hers. His lips set her skin aflame wherever they touched, starting with her neck and travelling downward, pausing only to lightly tease at her nipples. It was odd for her, releasing control, letting him take the lead. She was used to being on top, pushing forward at a rapid pace, seeking her pleasure and nothing more.

She closed her eyes and let him kiss and touch where he pleased – and found that it more than pleased her. Just as she thought she might come undone he stopped, and when she opened her eyes he was lying next to her, gazing at her face. With two fingers he traced across her shoulder and down her collarbone.

"Stunning in every way," he murmured before leaning over her and kissing her deeply.

She ran her fingers through the hair at his temples and rolled onto her side to press herself against him. Heat radiated off of him in waves. One leg rose to hook over his hip, and she could that he was ready, pressed against her thigh.

"Those words weren't about me," she reminded him. He moved his mouth to her neck, kissing a path until he was suckling softly on her earlobe.

"Not when he used them. But now I am, because you are the most stunning woman I've ever known." To hear them from him meant more than any compliment Rumplestiltskin could ever give her. She no longer needed to be the most powerful witch. She only wanted what she had right in her hands.

Robin knew her well enough to deduce she would be more comfortable in the powerful position, and thus he pulled her on top of him as he rolled onto his back. The view from beneath her was even more incredible. As she slid down onto him they both groaned, and she closed her eyes once more.

"Regina," he gasped, reaching up to cup her cheek. "Open your eyes. Look at me."

That was when she learned the difference between the love of the young and the love of the experienced. What she'd felt for Daniel had been innocent, filled with hope and promise. This love for Robin, it was rooted in her very soul. It sang with shared trials and tribulations, of love lost and new love found. With one hand on her hip he began to guide her, slow and steady movements, their eyes locked together. She could feel what he felt, through the way he looked at her. She knew he could feel the same, and the love in her heart swelled and strengthened in proportion with the heat and passion in her body.

Without thinking she collapsed forward, snaked an arm around his neck and rolled them over, relinquishing herself to him completely. In her actions and in her eyes, she told him, 'I'm yours'. He lifted her legs up and laid her ankles up his shoulders, and with each of his thrusts he found that innermost bundle of ecstasy that had her crying out his name in the most restrained voice she could muster.

Her fingers clawed at the bedsheets, and still lost in his beautiful blue eyes she came undone with a groan from deep in her throat. The feel of her innermost muscles flexing around him dissolved what little control he had left and he let go, her name on his lips as he emptied into her.

That was the first time they made love. Soon after came a second time, that one slower and sweeter, intertwined with sweet nothings and repeated declarations of love.

Finally when they were both spent, they laid together under the comforter in each other's arms. Her head lay on his chest, listening to the steadily slowing beat of his heart. His hand played with her hair until it came to rest on her shoulder when he drifted off to sleep. As she listened to the heart that loved her, she thought about the events of the prior days, and she smiled. There were few feelings better than when an intricately designed plot goes even better than originally planned.

Emma bringing Marian back from the past had thrown her for a loop, but she'd soon recovered. She wasn't the type to give up someone that she loved, especially when she knew in her heart that he belonged with her. Anyone who knew what she had gone through to keep Henry would have seen that, but they had been too preoccupied with fear that she would return to being evil to stop and think.

The task was to get Marian out of the way without hurting her. Whatever she did, she couldn't risk the relationship and trust she'd built with Henry. As she'd searched for an answer, an old standby forced its way to the front of her mind. After what had happened with Henry she was reluctant to go the way of the sleeping curse, but she had no other viable ideas. Condemning Marian to an eternity of sleep would have removed her from all of their lives, but Regina had learned the first time around that any curse could be broken. The last thing she wanted was for Robin to wake her, and show both of them that he still loved her. And so she realized there was only one option – to use it on herself. Once she'd located the pin amongst Zelena's things, the first hurdle was cleared. Next came the letter.

If Robin had looked when they were downstairs, he would have found the ashes of her discarded drafts of her 'suicide note' in the fireplace. They'd started out filled with anger, then heartbreak, but neither accomplished what she needed. Snow White, of all people, turned out to hold the answer. She had taken the first sleeping curse as a sacrifice, to save everyone else in the kingdom from Regina's wrath. Why couldn't she claim to be doing the same?

It was beyond perfect. Emma would find the note, and hide it from Henry, that was predictable enough. And every moment after that would be torture for her, which was no less than she deserved for forcing Regina to take such drastic measures in the first place. She likely tell Robin first, because she wouldn't want to upset Henry unless she absolutely had to. As soon as Robin saw the pin he'd realize what it meant, he'd come wake her, and Henry would never even know what had happened. Two of the three opinions that had the most impact on her life would never know that she had not, in fact, intended to sacrifice herself. She would appear to be a saint in their eyes, and to the third, he'd never know that she'd been willing to give him up. Because the truth was, Emma would get Henry only when Regina truly was cold and dead.

She never would have guessed that Marian would be there to witness true love's kiss. That had been the icing on the cake. She couldn't deny what she'd seen with her own two eyes. Regina had thought she'd have to wait much longer than a few hours for Robin to convince Marian of his love for someone else. She couldn't believe her luck in that aspect.

She drifted off to sleep wrapped in warmth and love. Regina would never forget the time she'd spent under the sleeping curse, but she would do it again without hesitation. After all, Robin was hers, and she had only done what was necessary to make that obvious to everyone. She had taken a page from Henry's book, and believed – in Robin and in true love.

Marian had come into their lives and threatened to take away not only Regina's second chance, but Robin's as well. She was the villain of this story, and she deserved a fate worse than death - to continue to live, and without the man she loved.

Because not having someone? That's the worst curse imaginable.