Despite the growing reach of the white-hot light surrounding them the warmth of a father's arms around her continued calming her fears while Alice chose to finish up the last few sips of her cocoa just for something to keep her hands busy not that it lasted long. "She's waiting for you, Alice." He reminds after carefully replacing the tinkered on the table beside them while she holds him tighter as if she could somehow bring him with her when the light became too much.

Her Robin needed him. She couldn't just leave him.

"My place is here Alice Jones. Yours is with my little girl." Her love's father whispers as he pulls away one last time to meet her eyes. She wished he hadn't. She couldn't stand seeing tears in those story gray eyes that were so like his daughter's "Remember what I asked and please. Take care of her…them."

Alice can only node her voice failing her as she holds the legend's gaze until the lights around them grew too bright. Ripping her away from what was for a few moments at least….peace.

The only good thing about the experience was that when she did claw her way back to a more aware state the warm embrace that had so comforted her seconds before was still around her fighting off the rest of her sadness about having to leave her love's father lingering in that tavern. Alice could still feel the cold sting of tears behind her closed eyes still taste the cocoa he'd made for her against her tongue reminding her that everything that had just happened was real. Yet now the calming crackle of the fire was replaced with a frantic beeping pulse that was anything but peaceful.

An uneasy feeling of something was wrong only increased than she felt that the left side of the bed she was laying on was dipped signaling another person was with her while she wakes.

"That cannot be comfortable."

It takes longer than she'd like for her to put a name with the voice as she listens to him moving farther into her 'sick room' enough that he takes a seat beside her bed.

"I'm serious you look like you'll fall off any second." He laughed but it was strained a hollow laugh not one of his normal ones that were full of genuine joy.

Henry

The body snuggled up along her side curls even closer as if proving the soft comment wrong bringing an even stronger wave of the hard biting mix of alcohol and the musky scent that could only be found in the deep forest invade her senses while Alice feels the shoulder closest to her shrug.

"I don't need to be comfortable." her bedmate answers finally managing to settle down in the sliver of the bed she'd been able to clam as her own.

That voice Alice had no trouble identifying.

Robin

Despite already being freed from the haze of the curse memories she'd recently remembered having ripped like water behind her closed eyes.

"I'm kind of new here-names Robin."

"True love can win out over so much more."

"I saved your life the other day…makes you hard to forget."

"You're going to fall in love….Grow old with someone….live a normal life…free of towers."

"….You are going to have lots of adventures."

"Don't. Move. Spy"

"You have a funny way of looking at the world don't you Tower Girl?"

"-It won't ever be too much for me….no matter what kind of day it is."

She was right. She and her Nobin had known one other. They'd know each other all along.

"You know that as soon as someone from the actual hospital staff comes in, you'll have to move right?" Henry chuckled knocking Alice back into the conversation going on in the world around her. All be it a kind of one-sided one seeing as Robin hadn't been up for talking much after those first few words.

Another shrug coupled with the soft feather-like brush of lips against the side of Alice's neck that soothed her racing heartbeat. "But I don't have to move just yet." Her archer shoots back her tone like Henry's tired and missing its normal happy underlayer.

Henry took a deep steadying breath before he speaks again. "Roni said the doctors are hopeful today."

Alice feels Robin node against her shoulder "They also said that yesterday. And the day before that."

Oh, how Alice wishes she could get the rest of her body to move. If she could just move or get her eyes to open at least then she could change the pained note in her love's voice.

"Come on I get that you're upset we all are." Alice wanted to hit him over the head for that. He was supposed to be calming her love not talking her up into even more of an upset state. "A shot that precise wasn't intended to wound but to kill. It's only been a few days. Give her time to bounce back."

As hard as she tried Alice couldn't get her tired body to move meaning she could do nothing accept listen as the pair continued to chat between themselves and maddeningly nothing they said gave her any hint as to whether or not Robin was herself again or if she was still trapped in the haze of Margot.

Not that Alice didn't have a soft spot for Robin's world-traveling cursed self, but she just wanted her archer back.

"Robin?"

Alice must have dozed off at some point during the soft-spoken conversation but she was as wide awake as she could be in a body that wouldn't fully cooperate with her at the whispered sound of her true love's real name coming from the direction of the doorway.

"Robin? Are you still here?"

Lucy

"What's up kid?"

How were the monitors not going mad from her pounding heart rate that was continuing to climb at the so casual question when she'd been expecting her love to have brushed off the name or at the very least to correct it with her cured one as Alice hears more than sees her love step out of the adjoining bathroom guessing she'd stepped away to clean herself up while Alice dozed on the bed.

"Alice still being stubborn I see." The ten-year-old sighs earning a humorless laugh in answer.

"That she is."

Alice gave a mantel huff at the back and forth. She wasn't stubborn she was just stuck in this new version of limbo. Able to hear and understand everything anyone in her room was saying but unable to talk back or even give some acknowledgment that was she even aware of what was going on around her.

Another prison. One she wasn't the least bit happy about being trapped in even if she was trapped with the love of her life by her bedside.

"Come on Luc….even if that could work on something as simple as waking my girlfriend up from a near point-blank GSW I can't risk it until we find some way to save your Dad."

At least Robin was back snuggling against Alice's side while Lucy let out a sad sigh before she answers, "Yeah I keep forgetting about that."

"Lucky you."

"But it might not. Remember what Grandma Regina said about great-grandma Snow and her Prince? They would kiss all the time during the curse, and it didn't break that one. Only Grandma Emma's kiss did."

"As much as I want to believe that I can't. I can't be that selfish Lucy. Henry's my cousin I can't take the chance of him dying just because I want Alice back." the blonde laying between them felt her heartbreak at the possible outcome for what would happen if this latest curse was broken.

If it really is the only thing keeping Henry alive….

"But you said yourself that Alice was already back right?" Lucy argued, "You said she called you that nickname she gave you when you first met back home before they brought her here."

"Tilly was in shock Luc—I-I can't be sure what I heard." Robin stammers second-guessing herself already.

Oh no. Her Robin was crying. She didn't want her crying.

Alice could tell that her archer was trying to hide her tears of course trying to maintain her 'cool' dynamic, but she also knows that nothing got passed the keen-eyed ten-year-old and if to prove her right a beat later she heard Lucy's soft "Oh Robin." As the younger girl hurried around the bed to offer the crying archer a hug.

Alice was sure she'd never find anything worse than her time trapped in that tower or the pain she felt after Gothel's curse separated her from her Papa.

Boy was she wrong. This was so much worse. Her Robin was crying, and she could do nothing but lay there and listen while someone else offered her comfort.

A tentative knock on the door to her room pauses the moment before Alice can spiral anymore on those thoughts.

"What's wrong lassy?"

Again, Alice wanted to punch the stupid monitor that supposedly was keeping track of her heart rate. Clearly this realm's medical equipment needed some upgrades considering her heart was jackhammering against her ribs at the newcomer's arrival.

Papa. Her Papa was back.

"N—nothing." Robin lied and Alice can easily picture her trying to dry her eyes on her sleeve to save her 'cool' only for more to follow given how upset she was.

"Margot." Rogers sighed only to come up short and change whatever he was going to say next to a puzzled "Where are your glasses love?"

Alice didn't know is she wanted so swoon or laugh more at the question while all her love could answer with was a dazed "Well…there um…"

Lucky for Robin, Lucy was there to help her. "She was sleeping in them again, so I took them."

"Right yeah." Robin agrees while Alice gives a loud whine that sadly was all in her head when her archer gets up from the bed to greet the newcomer with a quick hug.

"Whatcha got their detective?" Lucy asks just as Alice picks up on the rustling of a paper bag being set down on a table close by.

Rogers lets out a guilty sigh before he answers. "Double banana split hold the banana." Or as anyone in their little circle of friends knew it 'the Tilly & or Margot extra bad day ice cream special' Her Papa always the kindhearted soul no matter what realm they were in. "Sorry I didn't get you anything, Lucy. I didn't know you…."

"Don't sweat detective." Lucy waves off. "I can just talk Henry into taking me for ice cream later before we meet Mom after work."

Robin's low laughter warms Alice's heart to hear as her love settles in having drug one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs as close as she could to Alice's bedside before she takes a seat. "Sneaky kid real sneaky."

Going by the change in his breathing Alice was sure her Papa was rolling his eyes at the banter. "Or I could accompany you to the cafeteria and remedy my own miscalculation right now." He offers

It's only after the pair had gone that Alice tried again to get her girlfriend's attention to the fact she was, in fact, awake both from the curse and from her time resting up from her surgery to repair the damage her mother's would-be hitman inflicted.

"Still have a little while before the next shift change," Robin says conversationally making Alice's mission a little harder when she gets up. Possibly to tuck the offered ice cream away for later. The good thing about that was that Robin's back was still turned when Alice managed to drag her eyes open giving her time to appreciate her love's toned back all she wished.

"Oh, I am so going to have to talk with Aunt Regina about fixing this." Robin sighs as she once again tugs off Margot's glasses only to grudgingly put them back on again with a defeated huff a few seconds later. Also, a good thing Robin's hands had been empty when she finally did turn back to face the rest of the room considering anything she'd have been holding would have been on the floor the second her eyes found her long waited for blue.

Even with the needed crutch of Margot's glasses, Robin had to admit that her true love's smile never looked as beautiful as it did at this moment.