Notes. See below.

Disclaimer. Not mine.

Triggers. Violence, excessive language, character death, suicidal thoughts, blood, gore.

Chapter Four.

It's unbearable. The silence. Too quiet, too still - they're moving at a steady pace, enough to cover a fair few miles before the sun rises completely, and they're stuck with a sweltering heat. He's grateful, he is. It's nice to know there are still people out there. Living, breathing, not trying to eat him people. She's the first he'd seen since he was separated from his group, a motley crew of survivors he'd stumbled across within days of the outbreak. But that had been weeks ago, and he'd almost cried when he'd seen her through the trees yesterday.

But, Robin Locksley is a people person. He likes to talk, to get to know the people he's spending his life with and, at this rate, it looks like they're stuck together. And Regina hasn't said a word since she'd yelled at him that morning. It's stifling.

He makes noises. Little sounds that she seems to be ignoring - he sighs, he hums, he whistles at the trees. Occasionally, he'll hear a bird, and he'll stop to try and find it. But each and every time, he'll look back to her, and he'll see Regina's back. She just keeps walking. It's like she's incapable of stopping. Once she starts, there is nothing that will deter her, nothing will get in her way. It makes him wonder what her story is - how did she come to be out here alone? Is she looking for someone too? Who is she?

"Stop it."

It almost startles him. The sound of her voice, low and rough with a distinct sound of aggravation. "Stop what?"

"That." She clarifies, stressing the word without so much as a backwards glance. Robin hums again, a small smile threatening to break across his lips. Not that he's necessarily pleased that he had irritated her, but at least she's spoken. "Define 'that'," his eyes drop to her hands as they curl in to fists by her side. Christ, she's easy to rile. He probably should not be as amused as he is.

She hesitates on her next step, her head moving slightly aside and he thinks, for a brief moment, that she might actually look at him for the first time since she grabbed him by the shirt that morning. But she doesn't. She collects herself, breath slow and even as she dismisses the urge to push him down the fucking hill. It's been less than twenty-four hours and she already regrets leaving the shed. She could have lived the rest of her pathetic life in that tin prison, it would've been far less trying.

"You're an ass, you know that?"

Regina's patience has already worn incredibly thin and he can't seem to stop himself from poking holes, whether it's a conscious decision of his to be as abhorrent as physically possible, or he's just naturally like that - and she's not one hundred percent sure what would be worse.

He grins at her back as she continues her steady pace, pushing hanging branches out of her way with a sharp flick of her wrist. She steps passed so quickly, it's almost as if she's intentionally positioning him so he receives that backlash of each branch. It's fine. Robin can handle a few leaves in his hair. "I did not know that, actually. Thank you for advising me of such a trait, I shall update my resume as soon as I find a working computer."

Finally, she looks at him. Her head turns so she can glance at him from the corner of her eye and it's not nearly a glare so effective as when they are face to face but it is chilling none the less. Then, her eyes roll, and once again, silence.

Well, a minute and a half's worth of interaction was something, at least.

They walked for another hour, her a few steps in front of him and he, watching her. It gives him time to look at her in daylight. He'd watched her sleep last night. As creepy as it sounded, there wasn't a whole lot else for him to do. She looked exhausted. Not just from lack of sleep, not just physically tired. Regina carried herself as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders and she just did not want to carry it anymore. He understood that. Life now was shit and every living person he'd stumbled across all had that look in their eyes. But Regina...

Why does he care?

He doesn't. Not really. Robin can't afford to care about other people anymore. He used too. He would be the first to raise his hand when asked for help, but things like kindness and human decency - they didn't exist anymore. People were selfish, and they'd sooner toss you to a horde in exchange for a can of expired soup. Robin learned at the start that caring about people either risked their lives or your own. His group, the group he'd been with before stumbling across Regina - they'd been good people. The first good people he'd met since leaving the city. But he'd lost them in a crowd of the undead and anyone he'd come across after were... they weren't good people. So he ignored them. Walked right passed when they shouted for help, shook off a man that tried to drag him back. Robin had to find his son and he didn't want to risk dying before he could, just because he'd held out a helping hand.

So why did he stop for her?

She's beautiful. He's not blind, fuck. But she's cold and cruel and apparently, she absolutely hates him. But he doesn't regret saving her life, or following her after. He might later, when the novelty of another human being to coexist with wears off and he realises that she's probably more work than he anticipated - stubborn, as she is. Still, she offered to help find Roland and who is he to say no?

Robin swears under breath when she stops abruptly, and he almost topples them both over running in to her back. "What-?" She cuts his exclamation off with a look, the look, and he frowns in confusion as he immediately obeys her silent 'shut the fuck up' with no idea as to why. Regina turns sideways, staring at him with narrowed eyes, daring him to speak, and he simply cocks his head. "Dumbass," she mutters, before reaching up and pressing two fingers against his jaw. The touch is so startling, as she has only ever handled him with stinging slaps or hard shoves, and this is soft and slow and he wants to shake her because what the actual hell are her moods, but she's turning his head and his eyes are slow to follow, still looking at her with the most confused look.

His heart stops for a beat as he watches movement in the trees. It's not unusual, and he wouldn't normally freeze as he has, but the figure is small, and his eyes close slowly in mourning. He hasn't seen many children that wander with clouded eyes and blood-stained teeth, but each one breaks his heart. When he opens his eyes, they follow the slow path the little girl stumbles and he is filled with unexpected relief that sickens him. But if it had been a boy... Roland...

"We should help her." Regina's voice is quiet beside him and he turns to look at her, jaw taut and lips thin as he tries not to throw up. She is staring, and there is something about the way she watches the child that stirs something in his stomach, and he can only nod. His hand falls to his hip, where his blade is kept, but once it is removed and held in his palm, he simply stands. He can't move, can't go to her and ease the pain he doesn't know if she can feel.

Robin watches as Regina moves instead, feet cracking sticks with each step and the dead girl turns, blonde hair ratted and caked with blood and mud and wet - absentmindly, Robin thinks there might be water nearby which is good, since his bottle is running on empty. Blinking away the stray thought, he sees Regina's back and he hears a screeching groan before they are plunged in to silence again, and the girl slumps to the woodland floor.

It is done with such an ease that Robin almost retches as Regina walks back to him, wiping her knife off on her jean-clad thigh. He feels angry, all of a sudden. She has been a bitch since yesterday and it hadn't bothered him until now but he just does not understand how she could kill a child ( albeit an already dead one ) so easily and feel nothing.

What the fuck?

She can feel his eyes on her as they approach a road. It's nearly mid-day, as far as she can tell, and her stomach would growl if it were capable but she is that kind of hungry where there's nothing left but an ache. He hasn't spoken since the girl. He hasn't hummed or sung or sighed or, he hasn't anything. Regina stops when they reach the open, one hand holding on to the strap of her bag with a tight grip and the other loosely wrapped around her waist as she looks left, then right, and she exhales heavily. There is a barrier that prevents them from walking directly on to gravel and she's thinking about whether to climb over it or choose a direction when Robin bypasses her completely, swinging his own pack off his shoulder and tossing it on to the road before he climbs over with ease. He picks his bag back up, looks one way then the other, before ultimately choosing left.

Regina glares after him, hoisting her own pack up and over before following suit and he's British, for fucks sake. Isn't he supposed to be a fucking gentlemen? Not that she needs him or anything like that. She is perfectly capable of handling things herself but still.

She won't ask him what crawled up his ass, because she is too god damn stubborn for that bullshit. But she does shoot him confused looks, a glare, and a scowl. She's not a god damn mind reader.

"You're doing that thing again." His voice calls out to her from the other end of the aisle, and she glares at him from the cereal section as heads turn. He walks towards her, hands in his pockets and she resists the urge to tug them out because god, that is annoying. "What thing?" She mutters offhandedly, attempting to appear as indifferent as possible. She knows what he's talking about, of course she knows. But he can be just so smug sometimes, she won't give him the satisfaction.

"That thing where I'm in trouble for something but I don't know what that something is and you won't tell me," He reaches up, to the very top shelf, and pulls down the fruit loops she says she hates but ends up eating at two o'clock in the morning when she has cramps. "- so I have to guess and every time I get it wrong, you get more mad at me and I get more confused and we end up having angry, confused sex until you forget what I did or did not do."

Ashley, who stands just a little ways down the aisle, snorts as she pretends to not eavesdrop, stacking tinned peaches on the shelf in front of her. Regina glares at her half-heartedly, turning her head and leaning back slightly when she finds Daniel leaning down towards her, smiling. "Now, I'm happy for that part. I like that part. But the prequel, the part we're in now - can we skip it? I can't read minds, Regina."

She should tell him. Because it's not that he did anything, except he very much did do something - or, she thinks he did something and she doesn't know how to tell him he may have done something - but she's been off work sick, and she has had the strangest appetite and everything he does either makes her angry or makes her cry and she really, really should tell him.

"I don't forget," she grouses instead, grasping the fruit loops tight enough to slightly bend the box. Tossing it in to the trolley, she walks off leaving Daniel to stand exasperated. He looks at Ashley, and she hears him ask her if it's a full moon tonight, and Regina worries her lower lip between her teeth as she reaches down and pushes aside the bread and the pasta and the toothpaste. A pregnancy test box sits at the very bottom, hidden by the household essentials, and she thinks - 'he'll see at checkout' - because that will absolutely explain everything to him without her having to actually explain herself.

There's a gas station a few miles down the road, and it doesn't take long to off the one cashier who made an excellent attempt at gnawing off his face when they walked through the door. The stock is limited. It's been a fair few months now since the world went to shit and they most definitely are not the first to scavenge what they can from this place. She walks the aisles anyway, hand trailing along rows of camera film and keychains and steering wheel covers. Robin stands at the door watching her, having already looked through the back room and found only a half pack of Advil. His arms are crossed over his chest and he is still reeling from the girl that he can't even really think clearly, so when she picks up a ripped magazine from the ground and casually peruses the pages still legible, he snaps.

"How do you do that?" His question is deadpan, a hint of disbelief and disgust in his tone of voice and she looks up at him under her lashes, blinking as if the sound of his voice is unrecogniseable, and she shrugs. "I haven't read anything but road signs since November," he's surprised she answered him without irritation in her voice but now he's the one that can't to look at her so maybe it's there, he just doesn't hear it.

"How do you kill a child, and not feel anything about it?"

Robin watches as she stiffens, her perusal paused as she looks up at him sharply, the magazine resting precariously on the palm of her hand. "What?"

He almost flinches at the way her voice deepens, a coldness unlike the kind he'd felt from her before drifting between them, but he has finally mustered the courage and strength to ask her how she could be so blasé about what she did, when he still feels sick and he had only watched...

"You killed her. You walked up to her, a kid, and you just stuck your knife in and walked away."

They stare at each other, and there is something in her eyes that makes his stance soften, if only a little. Robin watches as Regina swallows, and he thinks maybe he was wrong, maybe she did feel something and she was just really good at pretending she didn't. But then there's steel in her eyes, replacing the whirlwind of emotions he thought he saw. She flips the magazine shut, carefully places it on the stand it probably came from, before she pushes past him with a callous "she was already dead" thrown in his face.

Robin watches as she tosses her bag in to the corner of the room, turning her back on the wall and sliding down with one leg outstretched in front of her, and she starts to rifle through her things, looking for something to eat.

And he thinks, now, he might regret saving her.

A/N: Six months. Well, at least I'm consistent. On the updating timeframe side. On the chapter length, not so much. Oh well, I'm sure you'll forgive me. A bit more insight in to Robin's brain this chapter, hope you liked that. If not, too bad 'cause that's what I wrote and I don't feel like changing it. Sorry for any mistakes. I do not have a Beta to pre-read these before I post them ( I think anyone who tried would get frustrated with how long it takes me to update so me not having one is probably a good thing ) and I also wrote most of this on my iPad while sick, so, yeah.

I'm to write more frequently but as I gave up on the show like, three seasons ago, motivation is scarce. But you could help get my muse back by prompting things you might want to see happen or even one-shots you'd like me to write. Either or would be much appreciated.

Thank you guys for reading this random idea I had one day and continuing to do so despite the wait for new chapters. Xo.