She's asking him if he has everything she's given to him, all the provisions she's procured for their one-way trip across the town line, into a strange world that even he is not terribly familiar with. She asking him this and he sees her mouth moving, and hears the words coming out, even understands them, but they're drowned out by his own mind's desperate shouting pleas that this not be happening. That there must be some other way. That they need more time to solve this riddle, to remove this magic. That there must be some way he can stay with her.

But there is no way, none that they know now at least, and there is no time. Marian is shuddering and shivering behind him, icy cold, using Roland as a crutch. She has no more time, and when Regina tells him as such, he sends wife and child across into the great unknown with a sort of numb acceptance that there's no turning back now.

And then she is healed, miraculously, this world without magic serving her quite well, from its very first moments. (He has always been wary of magic, had always thought a world without it would be better, kinder - and then he'd met Regina, and fallen in love with magic, with the sparking, glowing wonder of it, with the power and strength she used to wield it). She hefts his boy, and they grin and giggle, and then she turns to him and her face falls, frightened. She calls his name.

She cannot see him. She is yards away at most and cannot see him, and Robin's heart clenches like a fist at the knowledge that moments from now he will look back and Regina will be gone as well. Gone forever. Those lovely dark eyes, and those soft painted lips. That smile he loves so much will exist only when he closes his eyes, and he cannot bear the thought, cannot bear it.

His head is all buzzing, all panic, his eyes prickling with wet.

This cannot be their fate. This cannot be it. He had promised her hope and a second chance, and she had so little of the former to begin with and had given up on the latter years ago. She will give up again, he knows. She is resilient, she is full of strength, but she daren't hope, it had never served her well, and he knows that once he leaves her, she will tuck her heart away, lock it up and throw away the keys. No thief will have the skill or fortitude to steal it back. She will remain alone. He knows it down to his bones.

He is about to leave her alone and loveless, and he cannot bear it. Simply cannot bear it.

He's turned to join his family, to walk away from her, but he cannot bear it.

He must turn back, must kiss her one more time, must make sure she knows, that she is certain, that there is no question in her mind or heart that she will be loved for all eternity, even if she will not be able to hear it or see it or feel it on her skin.

His mouth crashes against hers, desperate and hard, (there must be another way than this, there must be), his fingertips against her soft, silken hair for the last time. Even that pains him, sends fresh agony through his body, the idea that he will never again thread his hands through the dark, fragrant mass of it. Their kisses gentle, her mouth soft against his for the last time, and his cheeks are wet and he is utterly uncaring.

His heart has broken open for her, all of his love is there for her, and he must take it away. He has chosen her - he chose her and she laughed at him, she could not believe it even then, even when he has known her fully, even when he has kissed every bare inch of her and held her as she trembled with release, even when he has slept with her tucked into his arms and whispered his affections into her hair, she could not believe he would have chosen her over duty and child. But he had, he had chosen her, and no sooner than, she was ripped from him by cruel magic (he wishes she could follow, could take Henry and venture out into this great world with them, but then what of Emma, and then what of Snow and David, and then it would be the whole town in the end, an exodus into the world with no way to return to their own, and maybe that wouldn't be so bad, maybe–)

Her breath washes against his lips, shuddering, she is trembling, they are pressed together brow-to-brow, and he knows he is being foolish. These thoughts are foolish. She cannot go, and he cannot stay, but he cannot bear the thought of her without him and him without her. He'd only just found her, it seems.

"I…"

He begins to speak, but he's not sure how he means to finish. I love you? I'm sorry? I will find you again? I will miss you with every beat of my heart and every breath in my lungs? I beg you to follow?

Before he can forge ahead, though, she is whispering, "I know," and he thinks with a clawing panic that it is the last time he will hear her voice, that lovely voice, those words spoken just for him. But there's weight there in her words; she knows, she knows all of it, he needn't speak another word, for they are of one soul and twin hearts and she knows his love is true.

This time, he does not turn and walk away, he cannot bear it. He will drink in the sight of her until he crosses that line, he will take in her face, pained and sorrowful as it is, until the very last moment.

He steps backward, backward, his hand joined with hers, their fingers touching (he will never touch those hands again, soft and strong, powerful and cruel and loving, those hands). He feels the barrier at his back, it presses like the surface of a still pond, washes over his body like water, past his ears, his cheeks, the tip of his nose and she is gone. He can still feel her against his fingertips, is still holding onto her hand, but cannot see her anymore, he has seen her for the very last time, she is gone.

His heart is breaking, aching, tearing into pieces, and he holds onto her for every second that he can, stepping back, back, his arm outstretched, his hand still in hers.

Her fingertips breach the barrier, held in his, and for a moment he thinks she means to follow (it would be foolish, awful, selfish, but he sees those fingertips in his and his heart springs with a dreadful hope). And then they part, slipping away. It's the last he sees of her, those tips of her fingers, disappearing into a shimmering pool of magic, beyond the veil, lost.

Roland calls out for him and he scoops him up into his arms, holds him close, but he is still searching, searching, looking for her even though he knows he will not see her. There is nothing before him but open road. She is there, not more than feet in front of him, but he sees nothing but fog and wet asphalt. As if she were some wonderful, painful dream he must now wake from and never fall into again.

He wonders at the depth of his love for her, his Regina, wonders how it could have grown so strong and so true in such a short while. But it did, it has, and he feels the loss of her like he had the loss of Marian all those years ago. It rips a hole in his heart that he fears will never be mended, and as he turns and walks away, as he presses his now-broken body against Marian's healed one, he wonders how they will make their way in this world. How he will mend his heart and move on.

But just as it had after Marian had been plucked from him, life does go on, and they do make their way.

Regina had sent them with plenty of money, more than enough to find lodging in the next town over (he cannot bring himself to venture further - they say it's because this sleepy hamlet is modern enough for them, about as much of this foreign land as they're willing to forge so soon, but in truth it is because he still holds a small kernel of hope that one day the barrier will fall and she will come for him, and how will she find him if he leaves the only place she knows he was headed for?).

Marian gets a job waiting tables at the very diner where they stopped at Regina's suggestion (a "Help Wanted" sign had hung in the window, and Marian is friendly, good with people, and thankfully literate - not the case for every person who's come from their world), and Robin procures employment at a convenience store, ringing up roadside travelers for gas and junk food (he's always been good with numbers, with money - and he's particularly good at sniffing out thieves; their loss reports show better numbers after six weeks of Robin's employ than they have in years).

They share an apartment, but not a bed, and Roland has never known his parents together so he doesn't find it strange that they're truly apart. Friends, but nothing more. He knows Marian still loves him, but his heart is too raw, his pain too fresh, for him to sink back into her.

Days pass into weeks into months, life grown comfortable, routine.

And then one day, he glances out the window of the Stop-N-Go just as a car pulls into pump number two.

It is a black Mercedes, old but well-kept, its driver stepping out into the damp, misty morning.

Dark hair, painted lips, those fingertips he still dreams of encased in soft black leather as they reach for the gas pump.

She's found him.