Almost

Or, a story of Regina, the missing year, and the words "I love you"

Stables verse, if you like, or standalone if you prefer. My take on if something really did happen between them during the Missing Year.

I will never love again, she says, a rule taking shape out of the fear in each word, imposed as much by herself as by her situation, and no one will ever love me.

Prologue

Meg said that she would get this to you before nightfall. I trust her word that she will not read it. I wanted to tell you again, before tonight, that I love you, always.

Daniel

Regina looks up to the domed ceiling of her chambers, refusing the tears burning at the back of her eyes. She had not expected, as the curse swept her up and dissolved her home around her, that she would be returning not only to the old castle, but also to old possessions. As surely as her fitted suits and silk blouses and stilettos had flickered into nonexistence, their counterparts had reappeared.

Velvet dresses, jewel-encrusted corsets, leather riding boots, ruby earrings, all of them so well-preserved that the Evil Queen might have removed them just a moment ago. Apples stacked in baskets in the larder and frozen in time, still ripe to eat. Tapestries and portraits and chair cushions, all of them unfaded and barely dusty from the scant passage of linear time.

And, somehow, still stored beneath the lining of an old, hidden-away trunk: letters, like this one. A handful from Daniel (four of them; she has counted, over and over; four letters, two hundred and nineteen too-brief words in sum), a few from her father, a couple from her mother. A brief missive from a teenage Snow, which she'd always told herself she kept as proof of the young girl's naivety and obstinacy.

She had never forgotten that she'd kept them, but neither had she expected them to be here still. One more cost, she'd assumed, another thing lost to the curse.

And yet.

She runs a finger over the well-known loops of the letters, the sweeping curl of the D, the neat parallel lines of the l. How can those words, resting there on that page, written by a hand whose touch she has not felt for decades, loom so large? What is it about them that grew, and grew, and grew, for each day he was gone? For when they were first written, on the eve of the first ball she had been forced to give as the grown, beautiful, marriageable daughter of a nobleman, and when they had first been spoken between them, months earlier, they had been easy. A well-worn riding glove sliding over her fingers, a familiar gurgling of water in the well behind the stables, the smell of wet grass after a light spring rain.

(I love you, he'd said, boldly, and she could tell he'd waited until they were far into the grounds, where he could speak the words loudly. They had filled her up, and she'd waited, heart full, for the right moment to speak them herself. Her gentle words, whispered in his ear a few hours later, as they dismounted and led their horses to their stalls, had made him smile so brightly, it was like looking at the sun.)

Now, the words are swollen, a heavy leaden weight. I love you. They feel as though they might break her.

And nothing, nothing left to her in this desolate life, is supposed to have that power any longer.

The Missing Year, The Castle, North Wing

Regina shifts in bed as the clocktower chimes to announce 3am. Robin's hand is curled up, his knuckles resting along her back. Tendrils of her hair have made their way between his fingers and under his cheek. But they're not cuddling, not really.

She's weary from a day spent magically tracking the paths of flying monkeys. She's not permitted their little meetings in her chambers, but that does not mean it should fall on her to dress and slip away when this bed is perfectly adequate.

Robin hums, a gruff heavy breath, and she stiffens, turning her neck to look at him, only to find that he's merely shifted his weight from side to stomach.

She lets out a breath, shifting the merest inch, out of the reach of his hand, and wondering whether her weary limbs might outweigh her whirring mind and release her to a few more minutes of sleep. Her body desperately needs the rest, and not merely because magic takes so much out of her with its constant use here.

Yet when she closes her eyes to sleep, the world hardly every goes black. Vivid images play against her eyelids, disrupting her sleep and lingering through her days.

She dreams of Henry: lost, lonely, without new friends. She worries desperately, and she feels this sickening sliver of a wish that somewhere, deep down, something in him doesn't feel right, that he does miss the woman who rocked him to sleep as a baby and fed him ice cubes when he had the flu; and the guilt cripples her, that any part of her could want anything but the happiest of lives for her son.

She dreams that he is happy there, fulfilled, with the real mother who has always raised him, with her memories replaced, of going to the playground, and making handprints with red paint, and sharing pizza and a movie marathon on a Friday night, and she hates, cannot stand that somewhere, some ugly part of her begrudges him those misplaced memories, the love re-gifted to someone else.

In daylight she is strong, unmoving, but when the nightmares jar her awake—half-asleep and disoriented, exhausted to her core—something cracks. Silent tears escape and drop down her cheeks. She covers them with makeup in the morning as she thinks of all of those photographs disappearing, those school projects and birthday cards and books with his name childishly scrawled into the front cover.

Still other nights, she is twisting on a cold, hard table, the stench of salted fish burning her nose as shocks race up her spine, and she is certain she will die here. Certain she deserves it. Certain that these are her last moments, and no one has even noticed her absence.

And then, there are nights of foretelling her future, premonitions of a time when she will no longer be able even to attempt the daylight facade. They'll defeat this green witch, and then…What will be left to her then? The panic of that emptiness makes her stomach churn, her head spin, her eyes blur.

She dreams about him, too, sometimes. About Robin turning his back on her one day, about Roland crying as she reaches for him, a creeping certainty filling her up with the knowledge that it was only a matter of time.

And yet none of these nightmares is the worst.

The images that taunt her most at night are those many would not call a nightmare at all.

It is was woke her, minutes ago.

And it is this:

Henry, a little older, with the face of a teenager, grinning at her, running to greet her. Henry sprinkling extra cinnamon on hot chocolate at Granny's. Henry, calling her "mom" again. Henry laughing as he runs up the stairs, teasing her because she rarely has the heart to be bothered when he leaves his shoes lying around anymore.

And sometimes, Robin, too, with his sleeves rolled up and her fingers tracing out the shape of a lion. Robin holding her, kissing her cheek, one hand sifting through her hair as though the action soothes him as much as it does her. Robin crawling into bed behind her, much like they are now, but with an arm wrapped around her waist, tugging her close like it's a habit, like they do this every night. Robin handing her a cup of coffee, the mug warm against her fingers as he drops a kiss to her temple, as they watch Henry chasing Roland in a game of tag and they listen to Roland's delighted shrieks.

She does not cry after these nightmares. She does not gasp for breath. But after those dreams, after those foolish murmurings from a heart that has always been far, far too eager for its own good, she knows she will not sleep again for days.

But sometimes, after Robin, she can grasp at a few moments of dreamless rest. A few seconds when her heart doesn't ache so desperately for her son that she can barely breathe. The physical release, she tells herself, must extend also to her mind, must quieten the endless whirring, if only for a few moments.

She stretches out her legs, curls her toes, knowing, instinctively, that that quiet, momentary refuge has already slipped between her fingers, and yet weary enough to try.

She has only just dropped her head back to the pillow, lips pressing together as his hand somehow manages to settle back against her skin, when she hears his voice once more.

A barely-there, clearly still-sleeping mumble and yet, irrefutable.

Did he say?

No, he—he must have—

Love you.

Her heart hammers in her chest, her head pounding, her muscles tensing, an inexplicable rush of anger rising to her throat. And that peace, those few hours without the constant, debilitating drip of memories, the stabs of pain, vanish as surely as her black-and-white mansion, her fireplace. The papers on her desk, the spelling tests and drawings on the fridge. The photographs of her holding Henry as a baby, of Henry grinning as he raced down a slide. His clothes and bed and books and that stupid, wonderful grey scarf with orange stripes, and him, her son. Like her mother, like her father, like Daniel before him. Like everyone.

And the words settle into the gaping wound in her heart, deepening it, widening it, even as they try to stitch her together.

For seconds that seem to stretch into minutes, she is frozen. Holding her body in check. And then, she extracts her hair from Robin's pillow, her arms and then legs from the sheets, half-expecting his thief's hearing to alert him to the rustling fabric.

With fingers whose not-quite-steadiness she ignores, she tugs her thick, black gown around her. The velvet is rough on her bare skin as she tugs laces closed and gathers the other layers of her clothing from the floor, piling them over one arm, closing her eyes against the flashes of memory, almost physical, of her hands tugging eagerly at the clasps and buttons and ties just a few hours ago, of his hands stilling her own and taking over, slowly, easing away layers with an intense concentration that had made her feel at once furiously impatient and achingly tender. She gathers her hair and twists it into a knot, fighting off the echoing touch of his hands, the way he'd twisted her hair around his fingers and lifted it behind her shoulders.

As she eases the wooden door open within its stone archway, she sneaks one look back. He lies in the same position, his face tucked into the down pillow they'd been sharing, arms and legs bent as she watches his back rise with each breath. Her hand hovers over her chest, and for a moment, she considers reaching in and ripping out her pounding heart, the organ that causes her such pain, such vulnerability, such horrible, unbearable nightmares.

She cannot.

Her hand hovers, and her heart beats, and she cannot do it.

For just a moment, something beautiful, something terrifyingly recognizable flares within her, in her belly and in her heart. Something warm and burning, tremblingly certain. She almost manages to think the words.

A few days later

"We'll stop her," Regina repeats, looking steadily around the table, at Granny, Leroy, David, Robin, her eyes lingering on Snow for a moment longer. "The green witch won't succeed."

Snow smiles at her, that hopeful, trusting smile she remembers from when they met. It irks her, that she is expected to fix things, that the girl who destroyed her happiness is now a woman asking Regina to protect her own.

She feels the weight of Robin's gaze as he follows her from the next seat over with as much infuriating gentleness as ever. It's creeping towards a full week since they've been alone together, ever since, well…She shrugs it off, pushing her thoughts back to Zelena's plan, when the dwarf interrupts.

"How would you have done it?"

"Leroy" Snow interjects.

Regina squares her shoulders, lips pressing together, eyes turning to ice as she trains them on him.

"What? I'm just saying, lady, might be a good place to start." He turns to Regina again. "How would you have done it? How would you have stolen the baby?"

"More successfully," Regina snarls.

"Ha, you bet," he scoffs, looking around as if for confirmation from everyone else that he would expect nothing better of her.

Regina frowns. "In case the fact has slipped your insipid mind, I was never really after their child."

"Ah, of course. You never thought of using a spell to fix your life in this world, because you'd never had anyone here who cared about you."

Regina's hands tremble, in anger, she tells herself, and so she moves them from the table before her to her lap, pressing them down against her cloak until they become even paler than usual. "Yes, and you and your brothers were so sentimental about the Charmings and their little princess that you had no idea what I was planning. It was fool's play, tricking all of you. Why don't you go sing songs with them and leave us to a more serious discussion? Or would you prefer it if I—"

"Regina! Leroy!" Snow cries again, and this time she throws quelling glances at them both. Regina bristles.

"I have real work to do," she insists, rising from the table and sweeping her black velvet cloak around her chair.

That is when Robin's hand touches hers. It is brief, light, a squeeze of his fingers.

But when she turns to the table, all eyes are on them. Most seem confused, but Snow looks smug, pleased, unsurprised.

She rips her hand away and stalks off, waving her hand at the heavy wooden doors so that they swing open and slam closed behind her.

Her heart is pounding, and her hands are white with tension, and she is unspeakably frustrated, at the way these conversations always get derailed into useless tangents, at those vapid staring eyes; at his obstinacy or foolishness, she's not sure which (at the constant accusations, the stubborn inability of people to accept anything from her other than the polished armor she presents, the tired narrative they have always known). The worst thing, though, is not that he just confirmed every suspicion of Snow's little hope committee. The worst thing is that, for just a moment there, despite her every effort to the contrary, she had wanted Robin's hand on hers. For a second, as the touch had lingered between her heart and her head, it had felt right.

The next day

Regina does not see him again until supper the next day. She keeps herself busy with heavy tomes of magic and history until dusk that day, and from dawn until dusk the next, in one of the empty apartments of the east wing, once more attempting and failing to search out a spell that might increase the protections surrounding the castle.

She'd tried not to attend these suppers at first. A chance for bonding and relaxation, the Charmings have insisted on calling it, but it's not as though being slyly glared at by the majority of the room and saddled with short glances of pity by the rest helps her mood. She never has much of an appetite, anyway.

But Snow had pushed, and pushed, and eventually attending at least some had become the preferable option to having the same tired argument every evening.

From her small bench in the corner of a second, smaller room, she tears apart a honeyed roll she really has no interest in eating, and watches him.

He's sitting with his men. Roland's on his lap, the boy chattering away as he grabs morsels of food from his father's plate, and giggling at the story Little John is telling with flailing arms and such a booming voice that Regina can almost make it out, even though she is most of the way across the hall from them. Robin, for his part, looks nearly as exhausted as she feels. She'd seen him throw a glance around the room, his gaze lighting on her and then moving on with a bewildering calm.

Time passes so strangely here, without clock towers and schedules and alarms set for 5:30, and yet she knows without considering it that it has now been nearly six weeks since that day in the stables. Nearly five since they were working alone together in the library a few days later, moving closer and closer into each others' space until they couldn't seem to help themselves. Since a rapid descent into an ill-defined, tacit sort of intimacy.

She takes a sip of her wine, turning her gaze quickly away when he begins to stand, but he's only lifting Roland into his arms, clearly on his way to ready his son for bed.

Regina remains for several minutes, sipping at the remains of her wine, and then stands silently, stepping into a blessedly empty corridor.

Perhaps she will find something in the book on sacred ruins. Many of them were protected by spells meant to keep witches and wizards out. Had she brought that book to the east wing? If not, she should walk by way of the library, and then perhaps—

"Regina."

She spins, her skirts flowing behind her as her dark, even eyes meet his.

"Thief."

He looks surprised to meet her on these stairs, but open, eager.

She wishes he were more angry.

Anger, she can manage. Their barbs and teasing and delighted smirks at each others' expense. The criticism and disappointment she has known how to meet since she was a small girl.

But no matter how willing he is to show her when he is frustrated, to tell her, unabashedly, exactly what he thinks about almost everything, herself included, he always stops just at the edge of the abyss. He backs off just when she was almost capable of being truly angry with him, just when she would have been able to excuse to herself the choice to pull away from him, to fall back on the harshest words and iciest coldness she can muster.

His patience, sometimes, is infuriating; precisely, she thinks, because it is not.

She halfheartedly tries, for it is invariably a mere gesture with him, to shutter her eyes.

"Regina," he repeats. They stare at each other, steadfast and heated, and she pointedly ignores the way the sea-glass blue send a not entirely unpleasant shiver up her spine.

He reaches for her hand. She slips it an inch further away, out of his reach.

"Have you always been this stubborn?" he asks.

She stands taller, searching his eyes, caught off guard as always when he doesn't shrink from her. "Is it common for weak-willed people to earn the title of 'Evil Queen'?"

He tilts his head, his eyes moving slowly over her features. The intention in his gaze unbalances her. "The people who used that name are as stubborn as you are about how they see you."

She scoffs.

He goes to take her hand again, and she shifts, moving closer to him even as she keeps her hand out of reach, her shoulders set.

"What is it, Regina?" He presses.

She articulates her words sharply, her eyes close to his and steely in their determination. "What on earth were you thinking?"

"About what?" He asks, reaching to hold her hand a third time, and this time the touch lands, his thumb sweeping over her knuckles.

"Don't be coy. You know exactly what I mean," she insists, "I thought we agreed we were going to keep this private." As if by pretending to unawareness of the thing, he could erase her concerns about it.

"We are," he insists.

"Robin."

A flicker of longing flares in his eyes, and is gone. As it does each time she says his name, as though it has some kind of power coming from her lips. She shakes her head, but the gentle hand he places along her jaw stills her before she turns away.

Their gazes hold for seconds that seem to stretch and stretch until he speaks, his voice gentled, almost shy. "Would it be so horrible?" he insists, calm despite the intensity of his gaze, "If people knew that I—that we—?"

"You heard what he said," she interrupts, eyes shifting from his. "No one who—" she evades the words, her voice steadier for the anxiety they bring, "who cared for me, even in my past. I believe that answers your question."

"Regina," he hums, stepping the tiniest bit closer, and closer again when her posture relaxes the slightest bit rather than stiffening further.

"What?" She demands, the challenge she'd meant it to be softened into a true question.

"It was a reflex. I didn't even think before I—. You were upset, and I just…"

She looks down, and he lifts her chin so that their eyes meet. Tears shine in his. She blinks heavily.

"What happened a few nights ago? You've hardly looked me in the eye since we…and we've barely spoken. What's changed?"

"Nothing." She tries to look away again, but his gentle fingers are firm as they rest under her jaw, and his gaze holds her.

"Tell me, please."

"I can't," His eyes drag her in, warm and earnest, pulling her away from her swirling thoughts until she almost cannot remember what she had meant to say.

"Why not?"

"Robin I…" Her hesitancy makes him more eager, and he grasps her hand, holding it up so that he can kiss her palm. She shivers even as she tries to work up the will to turn away.

"I've missed you," he tries, and his shoulders slacken a bit as he is met with silence. "Regina, you know what I want," he whispers, voice cracking.

Her eyes become fixed on his wrist as it turns and falls to his side, the lion crest disappearing from view. Her voice collapses, becomes deeper, rougher. "And you know I can't give it to you."

His barbs, his good-humored taunts are easier than this. The resigned sadness, the patience, the utterly unconvincing half-smile that doesn't reach his eyes, the far-too-convincing tenderness. "And you know I won't stop trying."

"I can't, Robin, and…tonight, we can't."

She swallows heavily as he reaches to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. This odd mix of strong words and gentle hands, of a firm gaze and yet tenderness in those blue eyes—it bewilders her. She reaches up to remove his hand from her cheek, and finds her hand covering his instead.

A myriad of arguments flit through his eyes. She waits for him to voice one.

He tilts his head forward instead, his lips barely resting on her forehead for a handful of seconds. "All right," he says, his voice soft, rough, firm all at once. And then, because he never seems capable of resisting it, he adds one more strand to the cord that binds them together, even as he patiently steps back: "I'll see you tomorrow."

His thumb skates across the back of her hand, and then he pulls away and continues down the corridor, leaving her to stare after him.

A week later

Regina scowls at the scrawny dragonseed plant. Of course the rabbits have been through this section of the forest and foraged through nearly everything. She pushes her elbows against her thighs to stand, her legs protesting at the strain of the motion in such high heels. She could've burdened Charming with this task, of course, but that would've meant plans, and weapon preparation, and search party readying, and are-you-sure-you're-in-your-right-mind discussions, and frankly, she hadn't had the patience.

She's only a few feet over the protective line, anyway. Perhaps on the other side of those evergreens, up that steep bank, there will be—

A flash of red light burns across Regina's vision, blinding her for a moment. She's tense, standing taller, hands poised for magic in an instant.

She blinks away the spots on her vision, turning her head toward the sight. A moment later, a burst of orange-gold illuminates the twilight, followed by a crack that sounds decidedly magical. She begins to walk towards the source of the disturbance, her pace quickening with each step. If the witch is trying again to get through the barriers, if she's sent more of those infernal monkeys…

It only takes her a few moments to reach the sound of heavy wings flapping a few paces away. She quickens her steps, searching the dark sky until she sees—there—several pairs of red eyes shining in a fog of black. Monkeys.

A ball of fire springs into her hand, but she holds it back for a moment, wary of startling the beasts before she can catch them.

Oh, she's going to kill that red-haired demon of a sister, and then set her ridiculous castle on fire for good measure..

Regina tilts her head, the fireball dancing, ready to strike. But their gazes do not seem to be on her. They are trained to the left, at a particular spot a few feet from the ground.

It takes Regina only a moment to see why.

As utterly still and camouflaged as he is, Robin stands, clearly visible to them as well, in the shadow of an evergreen. He has his bow in hand and an arrow perched upon it, ready to fire, his blue eyes trained on their red.

The sound of Regina's next step pulls his focus for a mere second, though, and it is long enough for the beasts to edge closer.

"What are you doing out here?" he asks, his voice casual, yet meticulously quiet and even.

"What am I doing here?" she demands, indignant but aware enough to keep her eyes trained on the monkeys also, so as to keep them still. Not that she couldn't take them all, of course, but what a waste to fight the messengers. "What are you doing outside the castle's magical protections?"

"I needed some fresh air," he insists gently, his bow shifting like an extension of his arm as a monkey steps its way a little closer along a thick branch.

"And you couldn't do that within the grounds?"

"I just stepped over for a little while."

She scoffs. "And got yourself into—"

"—a spot of trouble with Zelena's flying monkeys, yes. But I'm handling it."

Her lips press together. "And pray tell, what was your next move going to be?"

"Waiting for the opportune moment to strike."

"Ah, of course. Surely, they will eventually all line up so nicely that you can shoot each of them through the heart with one of your perfect arrows."

He gives her a look of bemused exasperation, his eyes widening as he watches her twist her hand. A slip of parchment appears between her fingers. She turns to the monkeys, her voice like ice. "Take this to my sister, please," she snarls, "and tell her to try harder next time."

The largest monkey, the apparent leader of the group, takes a dive for them. But she waves her hand again, and in a blur of purple the monkeys vanish, thrown miles away by her magic. The paper crackles faintly as it vanishes with them.

"Neat trick," Robin observes, and it is only then, when he steps out of the shadow of the large evergreen, that she can take stock of him. Her eyes graze across his features, taking in a shallow cut across his forehead that's still oozing onto his brow, and a gash in his vest and tunic that looks as though it could be quite a deep cut to his shoulder.

"I'm fine," he grunts, wincing as he lifts his bow onto his back with the injured shoulder. "It was only that they came on me suddenly, and I fell against a tree stump."

"You're lucky," she snaps, frowning as her legs disobey her and decline to move away as he approaches her. "Risking this all for a few minutes of the same fresh air."

"I'm glad you're all right," he sighs.

She shakes her head. "Idiot."

"You were worried," he observes softly, tilting his head, his eyes trained on hers, seeing too much, understanding too easily. "You were worried about where I was, before. That's why you're out here."

"Don't be ridiculous."

He smiles, and it is broad, bright, like…like Daniel's used to be, when he looked at her, but different, too, less naive, more heated. "It's all right to admit you were worried."

"I'm worried about your judgement. This isn't your Sherwood Forest, thief. And Zelena isn't some doe-eyed noblewoman with jewels to spare for your little gang."

His fingers briefly reach and touch her hair, smoothing it from a cut she hadn't yet noticed on her cheek. She had not even known, before, that he was close enough to touch.

She ignores the shiver it nearly draws from her.

Talk to me, his eyes say. I miss you.

Regina blinks, cutting off the words flowing between them in the silence. "We should get back to the castle."

She looks around as she begins to walk, Robin falling, as she'd expected, into quiet step beside her. It is the kind of still, dark night that would've been perfect for a ride when she was a small girl. The kind of night when she would've begged Daddy to convince Mother that she should have a few moments to herself. When she would've taken off at a gallop toward the edge of their lands until the giddy feeling of her mare's hooves hitting the ground and the wind rushing through her hair and clothes had given her a momentary illusion of freedom.

The kind of night when her Henry would've wanted to go out for hot cocoa as a special treat, just the two of them. (Hot cocoa is a food group, Mom, he'd say, grinning mischievously, and in those moment she would swear he was hers, witty and sharp, but good in a way she'd never be.)

The kind of night when, even longer ago, she used to bundle Henry up in his little coat and scarf and hat and push him on the swing until she thought her heart would burst from his squeals of delight. (You're the best, Mommy, he'd cry from the top of the arc, laughing. I love you.)

She blinks heavily, staring straight ahead. None of that matters anymore. Just like none of this does. The babbling monkeys and the insane half-sister and those worthless dragonseed plants. The man breathing evenly as he steps behind her, and the hand she knows is itching to reach for hers.

It can't.

It shouldn't.

It does.

The next morning

Regina looks pale, even to herself, as she catches a glimpse in the mirror. Her thick maroon gown and black cloak and hair are a stark contrast to her ivory skin. Has it always been like this? she wonders. She'd always thought the dark clothes made her look cold, inscrutable, powerful, but what comes to mind this morning is a portrait of grief, a woman in mourning, a body not so artfully made up as to disguise the fact of her body's flesh and bone, but rather so burdened with the attempt to conceal that it has made the weariness clearer.

She hurries past the mirror, tugging her cloak around her as she begins to ascend the steps to the east tower, and attempting to push those thoughts aside.

This section of the castle has sat empty for as long as she has known it. The hall in which Queen Eva used to give her many balls and dinner parties is on its first floor, and the king had forbidden entry to all save the few servants who kept the relic to the beloved queen spotless. They were fond of reminding the girl queen that their former mistress's noble blood went back generations, that she used to order lavish feasts and take assiduous care of each guest, that the king would often bestow priceless gifts on her during supper and praise her for each noble visitor to see.

Regina had almost pitied Snow, for the girl was not allowed to set foot in the wing either, and that rule, strictly enforced, kept her from her favorite portrait of her mother. But then Leopold would seat his daughter as the honored hostess at a ball, laughing and talking with her, asking for advice about the kingdom, all the while forcing Regina to sit in a corner weighed down with so many jewels her neck would ache, ignored in all ways except one that would allow her to slip away. The rage would flare even hotter, then. How lucky the queen is, he would say, for the life we have given her, for the jewels and castle, and she would scream in her head that she had never wanted a bit of it anyway, that she would give up every scrap of this life to have freedom again, to have a sense of control over her own fate, to be free of the rage alight in her veins.

With a wave of her hand so many decades ago—and yet in so many ways no time ago at all—blue velvet cushions and shimmering brocade drapes whose embroidery glimmered mockingly in the moonlight had been replaced with stark red and black. She looks around the room now, feeling that rage simmer, the pleasure of the room's transformation not as satisfying as it had once been, at the height of her darkest days.

The upper floors, which had never been much used, she had left as they were, empty save for the occasional day when a spell required her to face east, or to stand at the highest point of the castle. Even then, she had magically transported herself to the tower rather than climb these steps. She finds that idea distasteful now, perhaps because she knows her son would not approve of using magic to elide the simple exertions of life. Or at least, she imagines he would not.

Perhaps because for all the velvet skirts and leather bodices and jet earrings, it is not a soothing thing to try to be that woman again, to be reminded how much has changed irrevocably.

And so she climbs.

She has become well acquainted with the steps these past months. The worn grey stone darkened in the passageways from use and damp, and the old, fading blue tapestry that covers the wall of the first landing. The view out the small window on the first set of spiral stairs, of the river valley and the distant fences and huts along it.

Snow, she has noticed, still observes her father's injunction, and never veers towards this part of the castle. So, she has turned one of the empty guest chambers in the tower into another library of sorts, a place to pore over magical tomes where she knows she will not be disturbed.

The highest chamber, unlike most in the castle, has a terrace above, rather than attached to, the bedroom. There is just room enough, in that small circular balcony, with stone walls that reach to her shoulders, and a stilted, pointed tile roof, for one backless bench. Perhaps the view from its heights will give her some clarity.

She crosses through the chambers, her black slippers silent on the faded rug that was once a woven story of rich browns and greens. She passes the bed strewn with six or seven open books on curses and counter curses, relieved as she always is that she banished the only mirror from the room when she first entered it several months ago, and enters the last few narrow steps that lead to the terrace.

She blinks once, quickly, when she emerges from the circular stairs into the early dawn light.

The sight of him, sitting there on the red velvet bench, his eyes trained to the east, does give her a bit of a start. But it does not surprise her, not really. They seem to have a knack for running into each other like this.

Robin looks exhausted. Dark eyes, weary limbs, a weight to his shoulders that suggests he might've had nearly as sleepless a night as she did. His simple brown trousers and cream tunic, and the leather jacket he has thrown on over them, give her the impression that he dressed, like she did, not for the day, but for an early morning walk through the castle when sleep would not come.

He sits at the end of the bench facing the east window.

She takes the few steps that separate her from it, and sits on the opposite end, facing west, looking into the fading grey and purples of the early morning.

Though she is certain that he knows she is there, she does not see his head turn.

They sit for a moment, together but not, in silence.

"My shoulder is sore," he admits on a quiet breath.

"So don't do that again," she retorts after a beat, eyes staunchly facing forward.

Robin's gaze is a solid weight at the back of her head, his breathing still even, undisturbed by her temper.

His voice is closer when he speaks, like he's turned his head towards her, and he sounds curious. "What's so difficult about admitting you were worried?"

She cranes her head around to glance at him, lips pursing, eyes narrowing. "About what? A thief whose image used to grace the wanted posters of every kingdom in the region?"

He grins outright this time. "It seems to me you worry quite a lot about the only other person whose sketch graced tree trunks and tavern gates with similar frequency."

Regina scoffs, turning away from him again, her hands curling around the scarlet velvet of the bench. "You've seen how naive Snow is. Someone has to inform her of reality."

He smirks, that annoying handsome smirk that worms its way under her skin, scooting a few inches closer on the bench. "And is that why you worry about me? My boyish naivety?"

Regina tries to focus her eyes on her view of the valley and the river beyond it, shaking her head. "It was foolish. Just like an outlaw to try something so reckless, to think the rules don't apply to him."

"Have I ever claimed to be anything different?" She can hear his rueful smile on his breath, can taste the slightly bitter amusement playing on his lips as his voice darkens. "Regina, I haven't lived indoors for this long in…what feels like a lifetime."

Regina presses her lips together, watching the sky grow infinitesimally more orange and less blue with the dawn, feeling a slight breeze flicker at the loose wisps of hair around her neck. A shiver runs up her spine.

There is an intimacy to speaking like this, without seeing each other, as though the words themselves have become touch.

He takes a loud breath, and his voice is suddenly hoarse, "I don't fit into this world, Regina. I can't understand it. Roland looks at me like he expects me to make sense of it all, and I'm helpless to do that for my son. I can't explain to him why the men seem sad sometimes, why we're counting weapons and have meetings that seem to make the grown ups upset. Let alone these people and places that everyone from Storybrooke talks about and—even the forest is no longer safe for us—and I— needed fresh air."

She turns her head as his voice fully cracks, finding that she was right, and their eyes now meet across the feet that separate them. His sea-glass eyes are wide, open, and she feels hers echo him, feels that gaze settle that she knows he's caught glimpses of between steely glares and calculated dispassion.

His eyes snag on hers, his body bending toward hers, as though by an unconscious impulse. But she knows it is deliberate, the way he inches closer, watching her, his eyes tracing over her face, noting each flicker of her eyes that she cannot suppress, each breath as it shudders unevenly from her lungs.

He glances down at her lips, as though he desperately wants to kiss her.

He does.

It's slow, at first, deliberate in its tenderness. His hands sink into her hair, tugging it loose of its pins, and hers slide from his shoulders to his chest, smoothing over cotton and leather and the muscles beneath. Her body turns, from the sheer discomfort of her position, so that they nearly face each other, her right arm close to him, but her left arm straining to reach.

He hums, this time in pain, and she stiffens slightly. "My shoulder," he huffs, breath rushing out of him as she realizes her overeager hand grips his injured limb.

"Sorry." She releases him.

"No matter," he promises, his lips lighting on her jaw, tracing feather-light kisses to her ear and down her neck, his hand warm and solid on her lower back.

She lifts her legs over the bench to join him on his side, not so easily thrown from her task, though her fingers do flex against his uninjured arm when his tongue darts out to touch the sensitive skin behind her ear. She reaches behind her and tugs her skirts after her, so that they pool over the bench and at her feet. The contrast strikes her once more, between the bright, rich crimson of the bench, and the weighty darkness of her gown. How had she never seen this, then? she thinks, the fingers of one hand caught within her skirts, and of the other fitting into the creases of his tunic. The way the dark clothes betray her, reveal her, give her away?

"Really," he insists, drawing her back to the moment with his breath warm against her ear, "it's only that part of the tree stump was jagged, and my tunic caught." The almost-touch, the closeness of their breaths, makes her shiver in a way the chilly dawn had not.

Regina shakes her head, tugging his vest and tunic aside until she can see the entire area of purpling skin, and the fresh scabs covering scratches that run in thick lines from his collarbone to his sternum. "You're an idiot," she says by way of answer, but there is little bite to her words.

She places a hand over the darkened skin, keenly aware of his heavy breaths, his hand shifting on her hip, his forehead dropping to rest on hers, her own thumping heart. She wonders if he would allow her to heal his wound, as stubborn as he always is about allowing things to run their natural course and using magic only when necessary, after which she often wonders aloud if it is a thief's prerogative to muse about the way things should naturally be, where things should rightfully belong. She ventures only far enough to leave one hand hovering over the injury and gather magic to her palm, creating a cool pocket of air between them. He lets out a breath that sounds like a sigh, his hand flexing at her hip.

"That feels better," he murmurs, fingers skimming through her hair. "Thank you."

It is an odd sensation, the protectiveness she feels towards him. The desire to ease someone else's pain. She hasn't felt it since…since Henry. She didn't think her heart was capable of it anymore, not since she gathered herself up for the ground of the enchanted forest, pulling the heavy feathered cloak with her like the tragic symbol of regained burdens that it was. The world had been too dulled for protectiveness, tenderness. And her own pain had been so sharp.

She waits for him to speak. Surely he will ask her again about this week; he will insist on airing any problems before he will allow this to become any more heated than it already is.

But Robin, as he does more often than she'd care to admit, surprises her. His eyes certainly search out hers, and his hand moves from her hip to flatten on the small of her back, but no words come.

The nerves of her hand twitch with hypersensitivity to his body, and to hers.

Slowly, with her eyes still caught in his, she begins to trace the edges of the wound. The pads of her fingers play delicately against the still-healthy skin that surrounds it. Her forefinger runs along the lines of muscles. Her ring finger skims across the line of his collarbone. She finds tender spots that will likely bruise, looks down to see places where the skin has already become discolored.

Eventually, her hand stills, and their eyes meet. They are both still as she searches his eyes, and then he tilts his head to press their foreheads together.

This time, she kisses him.

The first is a test, a soft meeting of their lips ventured into the unspoken moment between them. She reaches for another as he hums, his fingers sinking into the hair at the base of her skull and pressing pleasantly into muscles sore from a restless night.

She arches closer, her eyes blinking open to catch a blurry glimpse of his furrowed brow, his utter concentration, before she allows them to close again.

He draws comfort from her. This she could not fool herself into ignoring. The breath he draws in is deep and even, and his hands hold her, not with desperation, but with ease. An odd tenderness bubbles in her chest at the thought, part pleasure, part excitement, part anxiety, part fear.

"Don't overthink it all," he pleads in a murmur as his fingers smooth her hair and his lips make their way down her neck.

Her hands grip his hair, her eyes half shuttered despite herself. "You're one to talk," she retorts.

He chuckles but does not respond, and she feels drugged as the rising sun begins to heat their skin, forgetting in the hushed space between them what she had meant to say.

Robin kisses her hand in the same way, his thumbs and lips tracing out every divot in the back of her hand, smoothing along each finger. He turns her hand over in his and makes his way across every ridge of her palm until his lips reach the pulse point at her wrist.

"I'm not sure I can do this," She whispers, her voice quiet but rough. She could not say if she means Zelena, this year—this world and its darkness drawing her back in—or this and them, any more than he could.

He eyes search out hers for a moment, suspended, her hand still caught between his, and then he draws her into an embrace. "You'll figure it out," he hums, his voice confident despite its gentleness.

She has so rarely let him do this, she thinks, as he draws her head to rest in the crook of his neck, as his fingers twine into her hair, as her hands reach around his back and onto his shoulders. The touch slots something into place that no words spoken or written between them—no kiss, even—could.

Her lips hover above his skin. She tilts her head to kiss his neck, an unbidden impulse.

It may be simple, but something about the tenderness clearly leaves him breathless. His fingers halt in their repetitive path against the base of her skull, and his breath catches.

She kisses him again, fascinated by the way his body grows quiet even as his rushing breath becomes deafening, by the audible bobbing of his Adam's apple as he swallows. A muffled groan escapes his lips as his hands flex on her waist.

He guides her mouth to his and kisses her. It's somehow more than it was before. Like that day in the stables, when the tacit distance between them had seemed, magically, to close. She cannot help responding in kind, parting her lips beneath his and shivering as their tongues meet and his hand presses at her waist to bring her closer.

The chiming bell tower startles them both. He chases after her lips hopefully, his nose skimming her cheek, but she looks up as if to see the bell in the north tower that has interrupted them.

He sighs, relinquishing his hold on her waist and in her hair. "Others will be awake soon."

She stands suddenly, and a sound of disgruntled protest escapes his throat.

When she glances back, he looks bewildered, bereft.

"Are you going to come?" she asks. Her voice betrays the trembling of her nerves, all live-wires, and so do her briefly unsteady legs.

The black satin slippers she wears to facilitate silent excursions through the slumbering castle fall onto the circular stairs behind her, and she hears soft steps as he trails after her.

"Regina," he gasps, stumbling when she stops to press him up against the stone stairwell and joins their lips again. His hands catch her hips to steady them, thudding his way inelegantly down another two steps before he catches his balance. She only kisses him more firmly, swallowing his grunt and backing down the last few stairs, tugging him with her.

"Hush," she orders, as his lips and hands cling to her and his fumbling body follows, though she is under no illusion that this request will have a significant effect on him. When they are like this, close and panting, the lithe body of a thief and archer seems to become temporarily quite clumsy, with no filter between his thoughts and the words that spring to his lips.

She kisses his neck again, the touch gentle after the heat of the last few minutes, then moves to his jaw, shoving at his jacket all the while and tugging open the upper laces of his tunic.

His fingers toy with the black ties of her dress. "Can I—" he begins, and strands of her hair drift with his breath as he speaks into her ear.

"—I will strangle you if you have to ask," she interrupts, scowling at the grin she feels against her ear.

"You wouldn't," he assures her with an air of teasing certainty, unperturbed, but at least he listens to her and pulls open the knot at the top of the laces.

Regina twists her fingers with an air of proving her point, and a second later, he's scowling at her as he stumbles, his boots and socks having vanished right off his feet.

"Efficient," he grumbles, his lips sucking hot kisses along her jaw, "but not necessary, and certainly a far cry from strangulation." He swallows her retort with another kiss, deep and heated, his lips dragging on hers in a way that makes her legs unsteady. Whatever sharp words she'd meant to say disappear into the fog.

He tears his lips away a second later, helping her to lift his own tunic over his head. It flutters to the ground, unnoticed in the haphazard pile as he searches out her lips again.

His fingers finally work their way through the laces of her dress, and he begins to shove at her sleeves until the first, heavily woven layer falls to the ground.

"Impatient, are we?" she teases, arching up into his touch.

"Did I drag you in here?" He reaches to undo the ties of her underskirts, his hand skating down the back of her thigh to her knee and tugging her closer.

She grins at the way it knocks the breath out of him, that only two layers of cotton and a scant half inch separate him from her heat now. "Don't you have better things to do with your mouth, thief?"

"Mm." He makes a show of thinking about it, eyes alight, his head cocked to the side, though his breaths come out in a heavy rush and his hand flexes on her hip. "Don't think I do."

She growls impatiently, spinning them around and pushing him up against a wall as she tugs at the laces of his trousers. He grunts at the impact, but for once he isn't trying to slow her down, or be so damn gentle. Instead, his fingers work with equal fervor at the ties of her bodice. He grunts in frustration as his fingers slip on the tight strands, and when she distracts him with another kiss, he grumbles again, "How in Merlin's name did you get this so tight? It's not healthy."

She chuckles darkly, batting his hand away and undoing the ties herself. His hands move to her hips, his thumbs sweeping back and forth just below her corset in a gesture that jolts from her nerves into her chest with disconcerting intensity. She feels his impatiently heated gaze on her as they both watch her fingers work, and the moment she reaches the bottom he is pulling and pulling until the corset is loose and open and falls to the ground. She takes a deep breath in relief, her lungs expanding fully at last.

His chest rumbles with a pleasured groan when she returns to her task of undoing his trousers and her fingers brush over him. His touch is a plea as he backs them toward the bed, his fingers tangled in her hair and his lips slanting over hers for kiss after dizzying kiss. She doesn't think about that right now, though, the longing in his touch, and his utterly unguarded blue eyes.

"What's all this?" he begins, for his hand has met the flat cover of a book rather than the quilt he'd been expecting, and he cranes his neck to look at the mess of half-read books scattered across the bed. She waves her hand, and they reappear on the vanity table in a haphazard pile.

"But—" he continues, turning to look at them, and she is struck with a vivid memory of him pointing an arrow at her chest as she gathered potion ingredients in the basement of this castle, of his fury as she froze him so that he could not stop her.

Some of his feverishness has broken into uncertainty, and she nearly cries out with the frustration of it. If all he could handle would be certainty, safety, the knowledge that she would never be tempted to mix that same potion again and place herself in a sleep from which she would never wake, then he'll never—they'll never…

"Later," she insists, sliding hands around his jaw and tugging him back to face her.

"But—" he splutters, "have you been—are you—"

"Sh," she hums, not unkindly, her fingertips skimming gently over his lips. She tries to allow them to linger in her eyes, the words she cannot seem to say, the assurance he seeks that none of this is what he fears, at least not right now. But what of the future? For she cannot promise him the same will be true forever. She cannot promise him it will be true tomorrow. She cannot promise that she will not pull away tomorrow, grow sharp and cold, rip her heart from her chest and leave the battered organ behind. I'm sorry, she thinks, her muscles tense, please don't pull away.

…

"Stay here," he finally pleads. "Don't leave."

"Robin," she laughs, "I'm not going anywhere."

He shakes his head firmly, pressing his forehead into hers so that their skin drags. His hand slides around her jaw and draws her to look into his eyes. Clarity washes over her, at once a relief and a burden, flooding through her, choking her throat, taking hold of her eyes, her hands. He doesn't mean here, not physically anyway. A rush of tenderness floods through her, filling out, at least for now, whatever doubts had made even these words too weighty to say. She smiles tremulously at him, the lightest touch of the back of her fingers sweeping across his cheek. "I was worried," she admits on a breath, her fingers sliding into his hair, tender, gentle.

"Gods," he groans. His fingers weave their way into her hair, his thumb sweeping across her jaw, his eyes kind.

"I was worried about you, Robin."

…

He knows better than to tease in this moment, and he allows her gaze to slip from his, but he holds her close as their breathing returns to normal.

He steals one more brief kiss, another, and hums his disappointment when she begins to pull away.

They always have this tacit argument. She wants space, after. And he wants to hold her.

"I—" he begins.

Regina tenses the slightest bit. "Sh," she hums, covering his lips. Her eyes close languidly and drift open again, her body aware once more of the fact that she hasn't yet slept today.

He pulls away from her carefully, one hand lingering along her jaw, until he shifts onto his side and can no longer reach her.

"You look exhausted," he observes, tilting his head as though her tired eyes and pale face might reveal more of her thoughts from a different angle.

Regina turns her head on the pillows so that she can see him. "You look cold," she replies coolly. She gestures to the sheets she's drawn up over her, and to his still-bare body.

He half-grins, shaking his head, and she knows he will not be thrown off.

"I need sleep," she states, relenting, though this is news to neither of them. She catalogs each of his features as they watch each other: the gaps between his deep, even breaths, the sheen of sweat that covers most of his body, the slope of his nose and forehead, his just-visible dimples.

Her features shift, darken, and she watches his mirror hers, bewildered as always at the way he absorbs and returns her expressions, like a mirror with a slightly altered reflection. What is it that morphs inside him? she wonders. Where does he see these things in her?

Her eyes slide from his to her own hands, twined together on her lap. The words flow to her lips as though from her tired limbs rather than her mind. "I sleep better, after…"

She looks up into the silence, stunned by their closeness, by the blue eyes fixed in hers with calm attention.

He reaches to smooth loose strands of hair from her temple, his touch lingering even after they have been put to rights.

It is a lovely thing about Robin, when he allows gestures to replace the words she knows he longs to speak.

"I know what it feels like," she admits, helpless to break their eye contact. It is as though his gaze reaches into her and draws out thoughts she had hesitated to share, "to feel out of place here."

He shifts closer. "How did you manage it?"

Answers hover on her lips, but all she can envision at the moment are those jewel-encrusted corsets and ruby chokers. Velvet, leather. The pale, lifeless body of the king, and the memories that chased her still of his rough hands and drunken groping. The heady rush of power as flames sprang to life in her palm, as her squeezing hand was met with the sound of choking.

The calm, the still, the peaceful intimacy fade.

Her lips twitch sardonically. "Has the infamous Robin Hood not heard the stories?"

She purses her lips and stands, and Robin frowns, a chasm opening up between them.

With a twist of her hand, a pair of towels materialize at the mattress's edge. She tosses one to him. He snatches it easily from the air, frowning even as he sits up and they begin to gather their clothes.

When she next looks at him, his expression is almost…angry. She can see the weight of words on his tongue, and what it costs him to remain silent.

She turns away, shivering as she tugs her blouse over her head. In her heart she knows that similar words linger on her lips, but she can't—can't voice them. The truth shines in her eyes, but every fearful, uncertain, logical thought glasses over them.

She hopes the burning at the back of her eyes is noticeable only to her as her fingers fumble with the ties of her corset and she listens to the rustle of him dressing behind her.

"Regina." He holds out his hand, waiting to touch until she turns to look at him. He is wearing his trousers again, and his tunic drapes loosely from his shoulders, still untied. His hands replace hers on the laces of her corset, coaxing her closer with patient hands that skim over the thick fabric without touching her skin. She can feel the warmth of his hands, though, as he adjusts the laces and eases them closed, his gaze focused on his task. Her breath catches when he reaches the top and his fingers graze her still-sensitive body. Her arms ache with the restraint of her stillness.

"That all right?" he hums.

She nods, although the ties are looser, much looser, than they were before. He bends without further comment to lift the underskirt and fasten it around her waist.

Regina catches his smirk at the haphazard mess of clothes, and she feels her cheek heat—such a foreign feeling. At last he has come to her dress, which he gathers and smooths before easing its satin laces open and holding the sleeves out for her arms. This time, she nearly gasps as his fingers brush over her breasts. Without consciously realizing it, she has reached out to grip his shoulder and steady herself.

He gathers up her hair, sweeping it over one shoulder so that he can adjust the neckline of her blouse beneath the bodice of the dress. His patient breaths mesmerize her as he works out twists and knots in the black satin string and twists the ends into a knot.

Then-sheriff Graham wouldn't have known what to do with these clothes, she thinks. And the king wouldn't have bothered learning. Not that Regina would've wanted them to do this, nor expected it to occur to either of them to offer. But Robin is of this place, the land of her early loves, and of her early loss. And he has turned an act of separation into one of kindness, intimacy.

"One moment," he murmurs as his hand releases her hair to fall once more down her back. He drifts away, returning a moment later with unhurried steps and kneeling before her, holding out each of her satin shoes. She steadies herself on his uninjured shoulder as she slips them on. "Robin," she sighs, shuddering as his fingers trace lightly around her ankle.

She draws him to stand again, reaching for the loose ties of his tunic and fastening them more properly.

Her clothes do not seem to form a wall between them, as they so often do. Is it because she herself has seen through the illusion of this armor? Is it, she wonders, because he has touched them?

His hand card through her hair, twisting some strands of it around his fingers and smoothing others with his thumb.

"Will you come read to Roland tonight?" he asks. "He misses you."

She hesitates for just a moment. "All right."

He smiles as he bends to kiss her brow, and then gathers his jacket and boots and turns to the door.

Robin might say it was a frequent trait of hers, but Regina is certain that it is an effect he has on her. The contradictory impulses of her mind and body, part firm and unruffled, part tremblingly uncertain. She shakes her head, though the motion does little to clear it, and hesitates for a moment before setting out for the stairs on foot.

A few weeks later

"I have to go, Robin," Regina insists.

He cups a hand around her elbow and guides them into a more private corner outside the usual meeting room.

"And you should go find Roland. We'll all be gone from this place in a few hours."

"I will in a moment," he agrees.

She feels temper flare inside her and spread from her stomach into her voice and limbs. The meeting had been bad enough, with Grumpy's usual disdain for her contributions; the expected stares and assumptions; the casual requests of her that they would balk at themselves.

Just crush his heart, Regina. Just use the magic; you've done it before. And no matter the way it feels when she does it, the mingled exultation and disgust . No matter that many will certainly find a way to blame her for possessing the hand that actually crushed un-Charming's heart. Because why wouldn't she wish to return to Henry's land? —That's how she thinks of it, now: Henry's. The place with his books and shoes and school and room, and him.—

How will she survive it, she wonders. Seeing those places again, knowing that he has forgotten them? What will it be like in their home…will his things even be there? Will there still be photographs, clothes? How will she face seeing him again, if by some miracle that happens? How will she watch Emma mother him, and know that he thinks she has always done so? How will she look into his face and see no recognition, hear him call her Regina, her name? The wrong name; she should always be Mom.

Oh, she is going to kill her sister.

And then there's Robin, standing here, with that patient but unrelenting gaze. He doesn't think her task easy; he doesn't expect it of her. She hates him for that. (She doesn't—couldn't. It makes her chest ache in its blackest, reddest depths.) But she cannot have that right now, not when she's going to have to reach into dark magic soon and leave this all behind.

Regina blinks heavily, realizing that she has stood on this spot, still, while these thoughts flickered through her mind, and that he has watched silently as they did.

"I have to do this now," she says, more roughly than she'd like.

"Kill David," he says flatly.

"It's not as though I haven't tried before," she retorts, searching for an anger in her to match her bitter words.

"I know you don't want to."

Her temper heats. "What does that matter?" she snaps.

"Regina," he sighs, and she finally withdraws her arm from his. "Is there no other way?"

"Oh, we didn't really exhaust our options. It's not as though this is a drastic step to take."

Hurt flares in his eyes at her tone—a flicker of pain—but it is gone a moment later.

"Talk to me," he urges.

She shakes her head. "I am."

"Really talk to me," he amends.

Fatigue drags at her. She is weary of this, weary of trying so hard. "What does that mean?"

One of his hands reaches out to touch her arm, slowly, but not tentatively; there is intent behind his movement.

"Robin," she sighs. "I'm not sure how this conversation furthers anyone's goals. It must happen. This whole experience, this year, whatever it was, is coming to a close. We will all have to accept that, no matter what we feel."

"You are led more than anyone by what you feel, Regina."

"Yes, and such wonderful places it's gotten me." She looks over his shoulder, out the window, where it is already beginning to grow dark.

When she looks back, tears have sprung into his eyes, quick and unexpected.

"Go find your men, thief. Leave me to this."

He shakes his head stubbornly.

"What do I have to say to—Why do you care? Why have you spent so much time—?"

"Because I'm in love with you, you bloody infuriating woman."

They stare at each other, the words deafening between them.

"You know I am."

"I—I…" she searches for something, anything to say, her heart pounding. Everything around her seems acute, and yet unfocused, and Robin could almost be holding his breath.

"Why are those words like a dagger through your heart?"

Her thoughts stumble, and it is an impulse, an inescapable habit, that forces her eyes to close off and her hands to clench and her shoulders to square. He pulls away as she does, and suddenly he feels miles away.

"Fine." He bite out the words, turns, and walks away.

His name takes shape on her lips, but she does not speak it.

.

.

.

"Robin?" she calls, stepping around a suit of armor and turning into the wing the Merry Men have inhabited for the past year. "Robin!"

Her eyes, she knows, are red; her face, stern.

As she steps through the doorway of Robin's room, Roland runs into her arms, frightened in his child's understanding that something is wrong. She lifts him into her arms easily, and meets Robin's eyes over Roland's head. He steps forward, and looks happy, even relieved, to see her, though there is an echo of sadness, of pain in his eyes.

"It's been cast," she informs him, "Charming survived." She hurries past his surprised expression, the beginnings of many questions. "But Zelena visited, and she modified the spell. We have half an hour left, perhaps less." The room's atmosphere remains oddly calm despite the impending curse; there is little left to do. He listens, clearly anxious, but waiting for her to explain. "When we wake in Storybrooke, we won't remember this year."

"None of it?"

She shifts Roland as he snuggles closer, and shakes her head.

His cautious smile surprises her. "You'll still see Henry, though."

She nods. "But I won't remember what we learned here—that Zelena is my sister, that she wants the baby…I don't know how we'll manage to defeat her."

"David's all right though. That's good, isn't it?"

It is a strange thing that she wants his optimism at the moment, wants him to assure her that it will all work out. She blinks heavily as she remembers the rush of hatred, of anger, that she'd had to call up to rip out Charming's heart. The electrifying surge of power; the addicts high. It had felt good, and yet, she hadn't liked it.

"What is it, Regina?" he prods, not unkindly.

She swallows, and then looks boldly into his eyes. They remind her of a stream that ran behind the Mills Estate, where she used to bring her mare to drink on those solitary evening rides. "I have not said those words to anybody but Henry in…" she trails off, finding the warmth of comprehension in the shifting blue-grey of his gaze. "And for the last few years, he's said them to me only a handful of…" her voice cracks.

He darts forward, knowing, this time, that the touch is not unwelcome, and presses a lingering kiss to her temple, weaving his hand in Roland's hair and cradling him as well. She squeezes her eyes shut.

"I know"

He folds them both into his arms. She thinks, inexplicably, of her last days at home before her marriage to Leopold, and the anxious, panicked please to both mother and father. I will never love again, and no one will ever love me she'd said. Somehow, despite her words, she had still believed love possible on that day. They had been a rule to safeguard a battered heart, and little did she know then how much more she had to lose, how far her purported isolation would fail her, how eagerly her heart would reach for more. How much farther it had to fall.

When was the last time, she wonders, that she was held like this?

His thumb patiently wipes the tears away. She shifts Roland's weight in her straining arms, and Robin reaches to take him instead. She feels dizzyingly ungrounded without the sleepy, trusting weight. Robin kisses Roland's forehead and allows him to nuzzle his tired face into his father's neck. It is late, far past his bedtime, and Roland looks as though he might drift to sleep, easily comforted by the invincible presence of them. Their voices seem no disturbance to him, as though he barely notices them.

Regina pulls back a few inches to speak. "You said the words in your sleep," she explains, turning her gaze briefly to Roland instead of him. "You said—" she croaks "—you said that you loved me, and that's why, in the weeks after—"

Understanding sweeps across his face, and with it the most intimate of smiles.

He is rocking unconsciously side to side to settle Roland, and it reminds her forcefully of the easy habits of parenthood, the safety of family.

"But I won't remember," she continues, "and neither will you or Roland. And when you meet the Evil Queen there, the one you'll assume has cursed you all, again, you'll be—"

"As delightfully caught off guard as I was here."

"Robin," she scoffs.

"We'll know that we've met before. Somehow."

Regina shakes her head. "What a foolishly romantic notion."

"I'm quite full of them," he teases, grinning at last.

He shifts Roland onto one hip and takes her hand with his free one, kissing the back of it with affection that has not an ounce of showmanship in it. His eyes are too serious, too intense, too breathtakingly tender for gallantry.

And suddenly she wants to try it all over again. This year. To know what they could have had, if only they had—if only she had… "I'm sorry."

He shakes his head, his fingers now weaving through hers. "I'm not."

She looks into his eyes, puzzled, her brow furrowing.

These things are not meant for her; they don't happen to her. And yet of course they do, because they have, perhaps, only minutes left together with the understanding they have built. And isn't that a perfect example of the utter idiocy of her heart, that it has chosen this moment for a declaration that she should've made months ago, that she cannot make, that she should not make, that she knows she is going to make.

A smile blooms on her face as she thinks of him, mumbling the words in his sleep like the lovesick fool she knows him to be; talking in persistent circles around them in the hall; holding them back in the east tower.

In spite of—perhaps because of—all of it, she feels unexpectedly free. Like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders and her tongue.

Regina holds his face between her hands, her fingers splayed over his cheeks. The hand not supporting Roland covers hers. She takes a deep breath, chokingly whispers, "I love—"

Purple smoke billows into the room, sweeping across the floor and rising up as it engulfs them.

There is barely a second of realization, when their eyes meet, and he smiles a tearful smile, and she swiftly moves one hand to Roland's back.

The curse is here.

.

.

.

Regina Mills opens her eyes, blinking at her surroundings until she realizes that she is in Storybrooke, still, in her grey bedroom and grey silk pajamas.

For a moment, her brow furrows, as though her mind is seeking to grasp a half-forgotten dream. And then it fades, her peaceful expression replaced with a mild frown.

She could swear that, a moment ago, she was almost happy.