There's a heaviness to life these days, but also a warmth.

Her bed is cold at night, but her kitchen is cozy in the morning, Henry taking up ever-increasing inches as he shoots up like a weed. And Snow comes over, often, with the baby. Pushes Neal at her as if his pudgy cheeks and baby smell will soothe some of the ache in her (they do, to be honest, but she'd never tell and it's only ever temporary anyway). She has a standing Friday night date with Emma, wherein she makes dinner (lasagna is a favorite, like mother like son) for both her and Henry, and then the two women sit in her study and knock back whiskey until the room wobbles pleasantly.

She has family. She has friends. She has love, but not the kind she craves.

Not the kind that keeps her up at night with memories of falling tears and torn pages, and a numb, agonized heart.

Robin had gone and with him all of her hope, but then Henry had run into Granny's, eager and excited, had dragged her and Emma out to the mansion in the woods, and buoyed her hope back to the surface.

They'd found the home of the Author.

The home of the Author, but no clues as to his identity. A sorcerer, that was all they knew. The sorcerer.

The part of her that had been darkly thrilled at Rumple's downfall and subsequent banishment had grown ever more frustrated as they hit dead end after dead end.

He knew something. They'd gleaned that much from Hook, when they'd managed to cajole the details of his dirty deeds out of him. The hat, it's power, the fate of the fairies. Rumple knew more than he let on in her car that day, that was for certain. But with him gone and no hope of return, they'd struggled to find anything that might be of any help in their quest.

They'd tried and failed to activate the hat themselves. It opened only at the behest of the Dark One's dagger, and there was no longer a Dark One to wield it. Not even the power of Regina and Emma combined could do anything to make it budge. To give them any hope of freeing the fairies within, the Apprentice trapped inside, the others whose kidnappings had given power to the magical headgear.

And then Rumple had reappeared, Ursula and Cruella in tow, and Maleficent revived soon after, and all hell had broken loose.

It has been a tiring time, made even worse by her lead-weighted limbs, by the exhaustion born of sleepless nights and too long without the sight of him. Of Robin. Of his blue eyes and the stubble on his jaw, and the way he smiles at her, his dimples, and his seeking hands.

All of that was meant to be hers, he had chosen her; she had, for once, been chosen.

Some days the unfairness of it all crushes her like a boulder, a weight too heavy to bear. The desperation of her clawing, thrashing fight toward goodness, toward happiness, and it's constant inevitable resultant beatdown has begun to make Regina feel like she's breathing mud, walking through a swamp. Depression, she knows. Logically, she knows, and she knows she should talk to Archie, but what could he say? How could he help her?

She does not need Archie, she needs the Author.

She needs answers.

But it's a race now, Regina and the Heroes against Rumple and the Villains, a mad-dash scramble to discover the fate of the Sorcerer (she kicks herself again and again for revealing the truth of her quest to Rumple, for giving him the idea that there was someone whose hand he could force to ensure him success and power). Through treachery and manipulation, she has once again deceived Maleficent, once again managed to get the upper hand and obtain the thing she needs to ensure her happiness. It wasn't a curse this time, but information. All the information the Villains have on the identity of the Sorcerer, and of how to return to Storybrooke while the Snow Queen's barrier still holds.

It's that combined knowledge that has led her here, out of town, Henry beside her, the trunk of the car packed with clothes enough for several weeks, a magical dagger jammed beneath the driver's seat of her Mercedes, a magical hat crammed under the passenger seat.

They'd managed to keep the items away from Rumple until now, but he's closing in, she will not be able to evade him forever, and so they must go, and so must she. Out here into a word where they are powerless. Where she is powerless. There were things they unearthed that Rumple is heretofore unaware of, and what he doesn't know gives them an advantage: All signs point to the Sorcerer's graceful exit from the town some time during Zelena's reign of terror (a few flying monkeys would have been child's play for someone of his power).

He is out in the world, and now that she can come and go freely, Regina has taken Henry, leaving Emma and her stunningly powerful magic and her rudimentary training to defend Storybrooke against a league of villains while the two of them follow the trail of this Author.

They'd left in a hurry, early in the morning, and it wasn't until they passed the town line and Storybrooke shimmered away into nothingness behind them that Regina realized she hadn't filled the gas tank. They need to log miles today, need to make it far, far from here as quickly as possible before Rumple and the others realize they've gone. They cannot do that on an eighth of a tank of gas.

So they're delayed almost before they begin, pulling off into the Stop-N-Go in Archer Hills, just one town over. She'd sent Robin to this town, she thinks, and then she pushes the thought away. He and Marian are probably long gone by now. Or worse, he's grown accustomed to life without her and remembered how deeply he loved the woman he'd sworn he'd walk through hell and back to retrieve, and they are just around the corner, blissfully reunited as if Marian's assumed death, her years of absence, had been just a blip on the radar screen, and Regina not even that.

Either way, it's better she not hope. Hope has never gotten her anything anyway, and won't, she's certain of it, until she can find the Author and change her story. Robin will have to wait. (Robin has surely moved on.)

She fills the tank, breathes in the cold, damp air and the strong scent of gasoline, sending Henry inside with a handful of bills and instructions not to buy too much junk. A water for her, and maybe a few granola bars. Something for himself.

She watches the numbers on the ancient pump tick up, up, up as her gas tank fills. Replaces the nozzle when she finishes. This place is old, in sore need of an update. No pay-at-the-pump here, but it's alright. She sent Henry in with plenty of cash.

She leans against the driver's side door of her Mercedes, in no hurry to get back inside. She'll be sitting all day, might as well stretch her legs for a while now. She checks her phone (no messages, no surprise there), scans the road back toward home for any signs of the Villains she knows will follow soon enough. Nothing. Good.

And then Henry is calling her, "Hey, mom, I need more cash. You should come inside."

There's something off about his voice, though, something giddy she doesn't quite understand.

Regina sighs, and pushes away from the car, looping her keyring around her finger and clutching the keys themselves in her palm. She'd sent him in with more than enough money for gas and snacks. Whatever mountain of provisions he thinks he needs will have to be whittled down.

She pushes through the doors, and sighs, "Henry, we can get more snacks later, all we need now is–"

Keys hit worn grey tile with a metallic clink that sounds like gunfire in the silence of the store.

Regina's fingers are slack at her side, her mouth open, breath caught.

Henry is standing in front of the checkout counter, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, incredibly pleased.

Regina does not see him.

On the counter is a giant bottle of the most expensive water this place has to offer, a six-pack of Nature Valley granola bars (the kind that crumble and crunch and make an absolute mess of the car), three packs of Cheetos, some jerky, and a Mountain Dew.

She does not see them either.

All she sees is the man behind the counter.

Robin.

Standing there like something out of an L.L. Bean catalog and something out of a dream. Red plaid flannel rolled up to his elbows, his beard a little fuller than it had been the last time she saw him, his eyes the same beautiful blue that she remembers.

"Hello, milady," he greets her, and his voice washes over her like a refreshing wind, her breath whooshing out at the sound. That heavy, suffocating weight she's been under since the moment he crossed the town line goes with it, and she nearly sags in her spot.

"R-Robin?" she manages, barely more than a whisper, and then he's around the counter, and gathering her in his arms and kissing her senseless. His fingers are in her hair (they were always in her hair, always, he loved her hair), and he still smells like pine and open air. Still tastes like hope and second chances.

Their mouths part, and their foreheads meet, and he murmurs into the space between them, "I hear Operation Mongoose is sending you on quite the quest."

She nods, dumbly, she still has no words, still cannot believe he was just here, waiting for her, at her first stop outside the town line.

"Let me help," he pleads gently, just as he had that morning in her crypt. A lifetime ago, and yet not so very far into the past. "Let me go with you."

He can't, she thinks. Not with Roland here, not with Marian here, not with a life and apparently a job here. Not with the Author not yet found and the story not yet rewritten.

The voice that says, "Okay," does not sound like hers, but it was her mouth that moved, and it is his mouth that smiles.

Robin will not be parted with his family, and will not leave them to the danger that is a ruthless team of villains on the hunt for a Queen carrying magical treasures, so it is decided they will all go. Together. Marian has an adventurous heart and a quick mind (and she still feels she owes Regina her life several times over). She also has a vested interest in happy endings that aren't always what one had planned. Roland is young, and will go where he's taken.

Within an hour, Robin and Marian have both called in a family emergency to their respective bosses. A gravely ill relative that they must travel to at once, and they are all of them - Regina and Robin in the Mercedes, and Marian with both boys in Robin's truck (she's the better driver, he admits, and besides they could use some time alone) - on the road.

Regina steals glances at him every few minutes, even though they are speaking constantly, even though his fingers are wrapped around hers, his thumb tracing her fingertips over and over as she drives one-handed.

She keeps expecting to blink and find him gone. To wake and find herself alone.

But he's there again in the morning, Storybrooke several states behind them, and out here in the world without magic, she dares to hope again.

They've found each other, once again, and maybe this time they won't be parted.

Maybe this time they'll fight for their happy ending, and win.