Note: While not graphic, this story contains descriptions of domestic violence. They are all contained within the italicized portions near the beginning of the story (before Robin is introduced) and may be skipped without losing anything. When in doubt, though, do without. Additional notes at the end of the story.

Regina Mills is not a bad driver.

She's a tired driver.

There's a (slight) difference.

She rolls her window up as she turns into the entrance to her apartment complex, twitching her fingers over the stereo's volume knob until the music trickles from the speakers instead of booming. Last thing she needs to top this day off is a noise complaint from a neighbor.

"Radio to 8410, copy a 10-57 at Sherwood Apartments," Regina murmurs to herself as she waits for the security gate to lift. "Check for an older model dark Mercedes playing Meatloaf at excessive levels in the parking deck. No further at 0634hrs."

At least now that she's off the roadway she can autopilot her way into a parking space. (Not next to the green Highlander; they put a dent in her passenger door last week.) She drives around and around the parking deck until the concrete swims before her eyes like oozing sand, slipping into a vacant slot near the stairs and twisting her keys in the ignition.

Echoes of the emergency line's shrill warble clatter between her ears, rising to the surface in the silence and stillness. Regina's fingers curl tight around the steering wheel.

No, I'm not doing this now. I made it all the goddamn way home without thinking about that call. Keep it together, Mills.

But the memory of her last 911 of the night strikes at a chink in her armor anyway, swallowing her like so much quicksand.

"What's your name?" Regina asks, coding the call as a domestic disturbance and stabbing the F12 key with her fourth finger to submit the call for dispatch. An electronic ping sounds further down the room as the call enters the pending queue.

"Belle. Oh, God, please hurry! He's breaking down the bathroom door!"

"Belle, my name is Regina," she says, not bothering to give her badge number, protocol be damned. She needs to keep Belle calm and focused. "I'm gonna stay on the phone with you until the police get there, okay?"

It would have been a large bathroom, Regina thinks, tapping her right thumb against the steering wheel, given the address on one of the more affluent streets. An expensive shade of gray coating the walls, offsetting the richness of the dark wood furnishings and stark white porcelain. Tiled floors, herringbone-patterned (that's back in vogue these days, right?) and heated against winter's chill or wet bare feet pruned from long bubble baths and steamy showers. A delicate crystal chandelier would hang over the large soaking tub nestled below a tasteful stained glass window.

The image swirls through Regina's mind, a reconstruction fabricated from too many hours watching home renovation shows on Netflix long after Henry's asleep, but the sharpest detail is the young girl, perhaps twenty-three or twenty-four years old from the sound of her voice, cowering against the back wall, shaking, clutching a cell phone to her ear, tears dripping down her cheeks.

"Does anyone have any weapons?" Regina asks. She types as she talks (COMP ADV SUBJ BREAKING DOWN DOOR) and refreshes the screen.

Are the police on their way yet? Yes, they are, good.

"He's got a cane he uses to walk," Belle says. "Can't you hear him?"

Yes, she can hear him. Muffled by the door as he is, the slurred, Scottish lilt echoes through the room, funneling into the phone line with a tinny quality that doesn't make the words any less chilling.

"Who are you talking to, dearie?"

Regina shivers, her left hand clenching around the door latch, the oversized cerulean "B2" painted on the concrete wall in front of her parking space blurring as her eyes shift further out of focus.

"Oh, please," Belle cries. "Please, please, please, where are the police?"

Regina mutes her phone, pressing her thumb over the microphone on her headset to muffle her words for the recording, and shouts across the room, "Where the hell are those officers? This guy's breaking down the fucking door!"

And then:

"Belle, is there any way you can get to a safer place or move anything in front of the door?" Anything, anything at all. Give me something to work with.

"No, the windows don't open. It's a bathroom."

"I know," Regina says, heartbeat screaming in her ears, pounding in her fingertips as she refreshes the unit status screen again. Again. "They're coming as fast as they can. I'm here—"

"NO!"

A crash. Voices screaming, acoustics amplifying and warping them until she can't make out anything being said (it sounds worse than it is, it sounds worse than it is,it sounds exactly like it is), and then a sharp crack.

She dropped the phone, Regina thinks, the thought hovering in a small, unoccupied corner of her mind as she says Belle's name over and over again until the line goes dead.

The dial tone hums in her ear, mocking her as the day shift streams onto the dispatch floor to relieve her colleagues and herself.

Belle's phone is probably lying in pieces on the floor, crunching below her boyfriend's feet.

She disconnects the call. Dials the number again. Taps her thumb and first two fingers against the mouse under her right hand as Mary Margaret sets down her pink quilted bag next to the console, a frown on her round face as she takes in Regina's hunched shoulders.

"Hi, you've reached Belle—"

Hang up. Dial again.

"Hi, you've—"

Hang up. Dial again.

Crack!

The seatbelt locks across her chest as she jumps.

"Regina, are you alright?"

She blinks. Blinks again, and this time she's able to focus on the figure looming beyond the bastion of her door.

Dr. Robin Locksley, five year tenant of apartment 4313, six doors down from hers, steps back from her window, flashing her a contrite smile and a pantomimed apology. She stares at him, and then beyond him, distracted by the sunlight slipping through the sparse trees edging the parking deck. When she'd pulled into her parking space, the sky carried a smattering of stars and the waning moon. She squints, frowning at the pink flush of dawning day, until Robin calls to her again, the question mark dangling from her appellation snapping her back into the present.

She waves and offers a chagrined smile.

"I'm sorry," Robin leads with as she slides out of the car. He shifts his duffel bag further up on his shoulder and closes the door for her once she's clear. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"No, it's fine. I need to be getting upstairs." She checks her watch, and sure enough, she's wasted at least fifteen minutes staring into nothing. God, when was the last time she'd been sucked into a call like that?

It's just that she's tired, always; that's the price she pays for working nights and snagging that extra dollar on her paycheck for throwing her circadian rhythm into a blender. But nights give her sunrises with Henry, allow her to be a classroom mom even on days she works, if she stays up late, and an easy commute against traffic going both ways.

Get it together, Mills. You're a goddamn professional.

A late goddamn professional.

Finding a reliable overnight sitter who doesn't charge more than she makes in an hour is hard enough. She'd like to keep both Emma and Ashley around as long as possible, which means not begrudging Emma the chance to catch a bail jumper, as she had last night, and arriving home early enough for Ashley to make her art history class.

"Long night?" Robin asks, leaning against the side of her car as she pops the trunk and pulls out her messenger bag and purse. "You're usually already up the stairs by the time I get here."

True. She doesn't run into him post-shift unless she hits all the red lights between the dispatch center and home or he leaves the hospital earlier than usual. Neither happens often.

Regina loops her bag over her head and pulls her hair from underneath the black nylon strap, shrugging her purse onto her shoulder, and pauses to consider him. He's not wearing his dark blue scrubs as per the norm. Instead, a forest green tee with deep creases cutting across his torso peeks from the vee of his half-zipped leather jacket, and a light pair of jeans instead of his normal dark wash hangs loose off his hips, bereft of a belt. He's rumpled and smiling at her, but there's a tightness tucked into the corners of his mouth. Maybe he's had as rough a night as she has.

"Last call of the night was a bad domestic," she admits. "Some guy having a reaction to new medication."

"Ah."

"Yeah."

"Want to talk about it?"

Sure. Of course. But the thing is, it's not just that call. It's Henry spilling coffee down her front as she was walking out the door, the belligerent drunk woman who cursed her seven ways to Saturday, her mother's incessant, passive-aggressive texting, the man who cried softly between her questions after finding his teenage son dead from an overdose in his living room, and the thousand other smaller irritations of the job scratching their way under her skin. Her call at shift change was an unexpected uppercut to the chin after the early morning lull.

But even thinking about trying to explain it all sinks exhaustion that much deeper into her bones, burrowing into her marrow, infiltrating her blood, pulling her down even as the residual adrenaline tugs her up.

"I'm too keyed up to even form the words." She lowers the lid of the trunk, but stops before closing it, shaking her head, shoulders bobbing with a rueful chuckle. "And yet I don't even remember much of the drive home."

Robin frowns and pushes himself off the side of the car. "Regina, you know you can call me for a ride if you're ever too tired at the end of your shift."

She sighs, and shuts the lid of her trunk with a bit more force than necessary, wincing as the twin kernels of a headache take root at her temples. "Robin, you work at Children's Memorial. The dispatch center isn't really on your way home."

"I would prefer going out of my way to see you home safe rather than find you being carted into the ED as my next patient because you fell asleep at the wheel."

"You're a pediatric attending," Regina says, jabbing him in the side as he walks around the end of the car, smirking as he yelps and hunches his torso. "I'm a few years older than your normal patient."

"I'd have the ambulance reroute you to my hospital and make an exception." He grabs her hand as she darts forward to jab him again, and her smirk fades as he cradles it between both of his hands, rubbing warmth into her chilled fingers. "And that's not the point."

"What is the point, then?" she asks, her voice light as the words escape her lips inside a silver plume of fog. Keeping eye contact with him feels too intimate, too loaded for this late in her day. She drops her gaze to his fingers on hers, frowning slightly.

They've had clear physical boundaries with each other since day one, an invisible line drawn in the sand, bolstered at first by his marriage and her son, and then after the divorce by the surprise arrival of his son, Roland, seven months later. Nothing like little eyes and ears trained your direction to make one conscious of every touch, every word said in front of them.

But recently, recently the line has smudged a bit. Like last Wednesday at the park, when he'd rubbed her shoulders while she was studying for her exam. And now this. This warming of her fingers as they stand at the base of the stairs, a tiny frown on his own face as though he's displeased with how long it's taking to soothe away the cold.

He seems to realize the weight of the moment, and releases her hand, stepping out of her personal space. "Just that I care fo—about you and Henry." He shrugs and hitches his bag further up his shoulder.

Regina tucks her hair behind her ear and licks her lips. "I should get upstairs."

"Of course," he says, stepping back to allow her to continue in front of him. "Allow me to escort you to your apartment."

"I don't think I'm in danger of falling asleep mid-stride."

"Perhaps I have an ulterior motive, Madame Know-It-All."

Exhaustion spurs on her heart, nothing more. That or the fact that they're trudging up the third of four flights of stairs. Still, the Oh? she responds with is a tad on the breathy side.

"I was wondering if you'd let me have a word with Emma before she ducks out."

Disappointment radiates like a heartburn in her chest. "She's not here tonight," she says, wrapping the last scrap of her professional detachment around the words like a clear, protective coating. "She had to call in Ashley at the last minute."

Okay, a little of the petulant heartburn-that-isn't might have leaked through that last part.

The man's not blind. She and Emma have been friends since Henry was pink and scrappy and fit in the crook of her arm, and Robin's run into her several times over the years as she's arrived at her apartment to watch Henry for the night, always with a kind word for her. She's gorgeous, too, with long blonde hair and legs that go for days. The question isn't why wouldn't he want to talk to her; it's why he's waited so long to do so in the first place.

"Emma, Ashley, doesn't matter. I need a referral for a night sitter, and I know you and Emma go way back, but I was hoping she would know someone. I'm not trying to poach her, physician's honor."

"I'd like to see you try," she snorts as the weight in her chest dissolves and evaporates. "I inspire great loyalty."

"Of that I have no doubt," he says, and holds the building door open for her with a sweeping bow that would earn him a tepid eye roll or smirk if she wasn't tired as all get out. She settles for a regal incline of her head, and ignores the flip-flop-splat of her stomach as he grins at her, dimples winking in the security light.

"Having trouble getting your shifts swapped for when Roland comes to visit next week?" she asks over her shoulder, sorting through her key ring.

"Actually he'll be staying with me on a more permanent basis starting month after next."

She draws up short in front of her door. "Is Marian okay?" Her hand falls to his forearm before she can stop herself. They'd never been close, she and his ex-wife, but they'd been friendly enough before the divorce two years ago, and they're cordial now on the rare occasions they pass in the hallway as she drops off Roland for his bi-weekly visitation.

"She's fine. Great, actually," Robin says, a crooked smile hanging on his face as he covers her hand with his own. "She's been awarded that grant to study climate change in Antarctica."

"That's wonderful!" Regina says, eyes widening as she smiles. "She's been working on that project since you first moved in."

Robin's smile assumes a pained edge, and she quickly backpedals.

"I mean, not wonderful that she's going to miss out on a year of Roland's life, but wonderful that her career is doing well?"

"That's the gist of it," Robin says, tacking on a dry chuckle. "I'm thrilled for her, truly, because she's been working toward this for years as you said, but I can't shakes this edge of anxiety. Not that I don't want to see my son, I do. More like nervousness at being a full-time single parent for a whole year."

Regina squeezes his arm. "Robin, you're going to be great, and I'm sure Ashley will be able to recommend someone." She unlocks the door, but stops short just over the threshold.

Robin bumps into her, pushes her forward a pace or two. "What's wrong?" he murmurs, one hand on her shoulder to steady them both.

She frowns as she hangs her keys on the hook by the door, one hand clasping his fingers briefly to reassure him nothing's wrong, just odd. Darkness and silence cloak the apartment; even the small lamp Henry always leaves lit for her on the kitchen counter is a stark silhouette in the light from the hallway. He should be awake and eating breakfast, or at least in the shower. Ashley knows their routine, even if she's not their regular sitter.

Regina steps further into the apartment and flicks on the kitchen light switch. The track lighting spills into the living room, illuminating a lumpy shape curled in the recliner. She sighs and drops her bags on the kitchen island, leaving Robin leaning against the counter, arms folded across his chest, as she trudges into the living room.

With a gentle but firm hand, she nudges the sleeping girl's shoulder. "Ashley. Wake up, dear."

The college student coughs once, twice, and then blinks bleary green eyes at her. "Ms. Mills? What are you doing here?" she croaks, clearing her throat and sniffing hard as she digs in the seam of the chair. She pulls her cell phone loose and taps frantically on the screen. "What time is it?"

"It's almost seven," Regina says. "Are you alright, dear?"

"It's this new allergy medication they have me on. Knocks me out like a grand slam and doesn't work worth a damn." She groans, wipes her face as she swings the footrest down. "Henry's sick."

"What? Why didn't you call me?"

"It's just the flu, I think. He woke up around midnight with a fever and a terrible cough. I've been pumping him full of water and cough syrup for the last few hours."

"I would have come home," Regina snaps, her headache crackling like a spark feeding on kindling. "Next time let me know."

She's being overly sharp with the girl, she knows. Every cough or fever over 99.9 degrees is subject to a critical eye this time of year, now that they know Henry's allergic to the flu vaccine. The pounding inside her skull swells. Her day has just become that much more complicated. There are doctors and schools to call, medicines to measure out, tissue stocks to check, and soup to make. None of which can be done while sleeping.

"I'm sorry," Ashley mumbles, cradling her head between her palms. "He went right back to sleep after I gave him the medicine, so I thought—" She stops to cough wetly into her elbow.

Regina lays the back of her hand against Ashley's forehead. "You're burning up. Go home in case you're coming down with something, too."

"Okay," she says, sliding her textbooks into her bookbag and bidding them a hasty, phlegmy farewell.

Regina sighs, one hand propped on her hip and the other pressing against a tender knot at the base of her skull. "Sorry about that," she says, turning back to Robin, who's still standing in the kitchen, a sympathetic half-smile gracing his face as he leans on the kitchen island. "I'll get you Emma's phone number in just a minute. Make yourself at home, as always."

"Of course," Robin says. "Take your time."

She smiles, a small wince of a thing, and heads down the hallway to check on her son. She pops her head into his room, tsking at the crumpled tissues carpeting the floor near his bed, the trash can overflowing. He's snoring, an ugly, wet sound that wraps around her heart and clenches when he coughs in his sleep.

She was supposed to get her flu shot last week, but she'd overslept, and Henry neglected to tell her about a book report due the next day. The whole evening had been spent cutting apart cereal boxes and gluing them together for his project instead. Guilt lances through her gut as he coughs again. He could have picked the germs up at school as easily as from her, but if she had brought it home from work…

If only she'd gone for her shot.

If only Ashley had called her.

If only, if only.

The world spins on the energy expended wishing if only.

She ducks into the hall bathroom for over-the-counter painkillers to ease her own headache, pleased to discover the red children's cold and flu acetaminophen bottle anchoring a sheet of paper covered in Ashley's writing sitting by the sink. The fierce edge of her ire at not being called bleeds away as she skims the detailed, impromptu log. She sets a reminder on her phone to give him his next installment in three hours. She'll leave him be until then.

For a moment she considers measuring out an adult dosage of Henry's medicine, but the cherry flavor sets her teeth on edge. She paws through the drawer stuffed with meds serving as their first aid station, frowning as her fingers sift through Iron Man Band-Aids, pink punch-through tablets of bismuth, and squeezed-thin tubes of hydrocortisone and antibiotic ointment. No painkillers, though.

A soft knock on the open door halts her search. She glances up and meets Robin's eyes in the mirror.

"How is the patient?" he asks, one arm propped on the doorframe.

"Sleeping, for now," she says. A curlicue of surprise loops through her chest as she catches his gaze drop not once but twice to her ass. She blinks at him in the mirror, processing, too tired to think or respond, and clears her throat as she pushes the drawer closed with her hip, turning to face him with her arms crossed over her middle.

"Can I be of any assistance?" he asks, and she'll be damned if his voice isn't sexier when he's whispering. "I could check him over, if you'd like."

Oh, I can think of several ways you can be of assistance.

Stop that. Stop that right now.

"No, that's not necessary. I'll let him sleep until his next dose and then take him to the pediatrician. In fact," she says, turning around to dig through the drawer again. "I'm going to take a nap as soon as I find something for my headache that's not artificially flavored to taste like cavities."

"Can I interest you in some Excedrin?"

"Bless you," she says, smiling.

"I carry a bottle in my bag. Come on," he says, pushing off the wall and jerking his head toward the living room.

He plops down on the couch and unzips his duffel bag on the coffee table, brushing aside various medical miscellany and a plastic bag that crinkles, setting off a corresponding throb inside her skull, until she hears the familiar hollow rattle of pills in a bottle. He holds the bottle up, triumphant, and that little curlicue of surprise warms and unwinds as he smiles at her. Robin makes quick work of the cap, but his smile fades as he peers inside. "I'm afraid my stash has run low," he says. "But you're more than welcome to the remnants."

She hesitates, shifts her weight to her other foot. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely. You've had a worse night than me, and you have a sick child to deal with today when you should be sleeping. You need this more than I do."

She accepts the bottle with a grateful Thank you, and walks into the kitchen, palming water into her mouth and tossing the pills back in her throat. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, thank you. I should get going so you can get some sleep." He zips his bag and walks to the other side of the kitchen island. "If you need anything, doctor's opinion, more Excedrin, sounding board, I'm just down the hall."

Regina smiles. "I appreciate that."

Robin returns the smile, and as he walks past her he brushes his hand over her shoulder. "Sleep fast." Then he's gone, but his touch lingers on her shoulder as his footsteps fade down the hallway.

Mills, you have things to do. Stop mooning over your neighbor.

First, she dials Henry's school and leaves a voicemail for the attendance officer. The pediatrician's opens at 0800hrs. No sense in calling before then. She can grab an hour of sleep on the couch while she's waiting, and if they can't see him before 1000hrs, she'll take him up to the urgent care center.

Before her nap, though, she needs to get out of this damn uniform. She checks on Henry one more time on the way to her bedroom (still sleeping, snoring, and her heart clenches again), and then strips a line of clothing from her bedroom doorway to the closet until she's standing in her underwear, rifling through her pajama drawer. She threads her arms through a black tank top and steps into a pair of fleece-lined gray sweats, sighing as the soft fabric slides against her skin. As far as uniforms go, hers isn't uncomfortable, just a polo and khaki or black BDUs, but anything worn for fourteen hours gets old.

Her bed beckons, sheets still rumpled and thrown back from her frantic departure after sleeping through her alarm, but if she falls into bed she might sleep through the alarm again, and that won't do, not today. She picks up her trail of clothes in reverse as she heads out of the room, tossing them into the hamper in the hall bathroom, and then closes every curtain in the apartment before flopping down on the couch and pulling the blue afghan from the easy chair over her shoulders.

The time is now 0649hrs. Alarm set for 0800hrs. Sleep. She rests her arm across her eyes to block out the slivers of sun the blackout curtains never seem to grasp, and evens out her breathing.

Sleep. Relax. Breathe.

"Ma'am, I need you to take a deep breath for me, and then tell me where you are." Regina thumbs down the volume on her headset jack, hoping it will ease the cacophony on the other end of the line into something coherent that won't overload the tiny speaker in her ear. She glances up at the information displayed on her screen, starts punching the GPS coordinates into the mapping system in case the woman on the line can't gather herself enough to answer. Not ideal, but better than nothing.

"Number three Temptation Avenue," the caller gasps. "My boyfriend's having a bad reaction to his new medication. I'm locked in the upstairs bathroom. Oh, please hurry!"

Regina flops her arm down to her side.

Out, damned call, out! Get out of my head.

She's been known to drink the occasional beer or glass of wine after work, after Henry's safely off to school, to unwind, but she's careful not to rely on it too much. Careful to not make it a habit, to slip into the eager arms of addiction like her mother. Cora is a mean drunk, a functioning alcoholic in every sense of the term, and Regina would rather not expose Henry to that kind of vitriol. Her temper is short enough as it is.

But today. Today, if Henry weren't sick, she'd crack open the hard cider nestled in the back of her fridge and down a few before trying to sleep, to relax, forget. But she needs to be able to drive, and that means sober and with some degree of rest.

"Why aren't they here yet?"

"They're coming, Belle," Regina says, fingers flying over the keyboard as she types updates into the call window. "They're coming as fast as they can. Stay with me."

It's one of the worst parts of her job. The not knowing how things turn out. Most of the time she's able to distance herself, battle through her shift with the delicate mixture of empathy and hardheadedness necessary to be compassionate but firm with the callers, to take no shit from the officers. Today she was just… off. And she's paying for that lapse in her defenses now.

Her phone buzzes on the coffee table. She slides it off the edge and squints at the illuminated screen. It's a message from Robin.

"Sorry if this wakes you," she reads. "But I've found more Excedrin should you need it later."

Must he be so considerate? She drops the phone to her chest and assumes her last pose, arm across her face. She sucks a deep lungful of air through her nose, holds it for a few seconds, and then puffs out her cheeks as she exhales. Fuck it.

"Do you mind coming back over for a few minutes?" she types, and then tosses the phone back to the coffee table as she stands, wrapping the afghan around her shoulders. She unlocks the door, stops by the kitchen to grab a bottle of water, and returns to the couch, twisting the cap off the bottle and taking a healthy slug of water. That's how he finds her when he lets himself into her apartment with a soft knock, sitting cross-legged on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, chugging water as though she's fresh out of the desert.

"Tell me about your night?" she asks, wiping her arm across her mouth, empty bottle dangling by its lip from her second and third fingers. "You're in your spare clothes. Something happened."

He smiles at her, an almost-smirk, and closes the door behind him. "I tell you mine, you tell me yours, then?"

"Something like that."

"As milady wishes," he says. "Scoot over."

She complies, sliding to the opposite end of the couch as he plants himself in the corner. He plops one of the soft beige throw pillows in his lap and beckons for her to lie down.

When she stares at him, unmoving, he pats the pillow. "Come on," he urges. "I know you're tired, but I suspect that brilliant brain of yours won't stop cartwheeling long enough for you to get any sleep."

"What makes you think you know me so well?"

"Five years of watching the gears turn behind those lovely brown eyes of yours. And if you'd been able to sleep there's not a force on heaven or earth short of Henry's imminent distress that would have made you respond to a mere text message after the kind of night you look to have had."

He's right. Arrogant bastard with his cheeky grin and his blue eyes sparking despite the weariness shading them. She hikes an eyebrow and purses her lips, but stretches out on the cushions. She won't lay her head in his lap though. That's a hair too intimate, a pinch too far across that murky line she keeps telling herself is there.

(It's there, dammit.)

So she yanks the pillow from his lap before she lands, and curls up next to him, arms and legs folded in on herself below the afghan, allowing the crown of her head to press against the outside of his thigh, and even that sends a shivery jolt through her abdomen. God, she's pathetic.

Robin seems nonplussed by her change of plans, draping his arm across the back of the couch and propping his foot against the leg of her coffee table (a compromise of sorts set in place long ago to keep his feet from the impeccable surface she sets her coffee on every morning). He hums deep in his throat as he settles. If she pressed her ear to his chest, the warm sound would rumble from his body into hers, like thunder unfurling during a lazy summer storm, and she sucks in a heavy breath through her nose, tempering it a bit to turn it into a yawn. His fingertips brush her shoulder for a second (lightning answering his hum in her gut) as he adjusts one last time, retreating almost before she's realized they've touched.

"Also," he continues. "I'm betting my excruciatingly detailed account of stitching up little Bobby Foster's pinky finger not once but twice last night and the gobs of paperwork that accompanied it will have you out like a downed traffic light in no time."

"Are you?" She shifts, trying to shake off the unsettling feelings he's stirred in her exhausted, vulnerable state, but she only ends up wedging herself closer to the back of the couch, her head now pressed to his hip rather than the meat of his thigh. He grunts in surprise, arm dropping off the back of the couch and landing along her side.

"Sorry," he murmurs, and he leans forward to move again, but her hand darts out, fingers pressing to his knee.

"You're fine," she says. "This is fine." Because it is fine, she realizes, having the weight of his arm along the length of her torso, and there's a moment she's sure they're both holding their breath, afraid to breathe out lest the fragile bubble of intimacy they've stumbled into collapse under the weight of acknowledgement. But breathe they must, and Regina releases hers with a deep whoosh that carries some of the tensions she's stored up from her shift. "Bobby Foster," she prompts, squeezing his knee before pulling her hand below the blanket once more.

"Right. Bobby Foster and his insufferable pinky finger." He clears his throat, allows his arm to fall heavy at her waist as he relaxes into his story. "The first thing you must know about young Master Foster is that he's a tragically accident-prone seven-year-old who, for the good of the public and the sake of his parents' bank accounts, should probably use safety scissors for the rest of his life."

Regina snorts and closes her eyes as he begins weaving the tale of his night, darting from patient to patient with varying levels of detail and gore. They play this game with each other from time to time, the retelling of their midnight escapades, the macabre, the insane, the hilarious, and the soul-shattering. It offers them both a kind of catharsis, talking out their nights with someone who has an intrinsic understanding of what it's like to go from peace and quiet to the sky falling and hellfire breaking loose in an instant, every day.

Her headache begins to fade at last, soothed away by the tide of quick-release capsules. The lull of Robin's voice combined with the absent sweep of his thumb against her side unties the moorings of her mind, and she drifts into the arms of slumber.

Some time later, the couch dips, and he's careful, so careful to try not to disturb her as he stands that she keeps her eyes closed. She stretches her legs, sighs at the slight ache from being folded and closed in on herself, and bites back a moan as the sickly sweet nausea of interrupted sleep clings to her insides. Socked feet swish across the carpet, shuffling back and forth, and she cracks her eyelids for a moment. Robin's made himself at home, then, sneakers tucked beneath the coffee table, the left one tipped on its side with the laces pooling in limp curls on the floor.

"Good morning, this is Dr. Locksley. How are you, Beatrice?" Robin says. He paces on the other side of the coffee table, one hand clutching her emergency contact list from the refrigerator, the other holding his phone to his ear. "Wonderful. I need to set up an appointment for a patient with the flu or possibly a nasty sinus infection. Can you help me with that, Beatrice?"

He doesn't have to do this. This is above and beyond, and she should be the one calling in, after all. But then he gives Henry's name and birthdate to the receptionist, and warmth fizzes in her stomach. She hadn't realized he'd been paying attention all this time.

Robin pauses his pacing, and glances down, still talking to the receptionist. Regina catches his eye and mouths Thank you as she grabs for her phone. Half past eight. He must have silenced her alarm before she woke.

She snuggles back into the pillow and pulls the blanket around her shoulders again, unable to decide if she's annoyed or charmed that he's let her sleep longer. Maybe both, she thinks as Robin crouches beside the couch, thumbing his phone off and placing his hand over hers.

"I hope you don't mind me calling your pediatrician and throwing about a bit of professional clout," he says.

"Not at all."

"Good. They'll be ready for you whenever you want to go in, then."

"Thank you," she says, clearing the sleep from her throat. She pulls her fingers from under his and lays her palm across the back of his hand. "You didn't need to do that."

"Nonsense." He rests his elbow on the arm of the couch, his hand dipping down to brush a lock of hair back from her face. "Are feeling all right? You're not getting sick, too, are you?"

"No, just a little rough around the edges," she says, closing her eyes as his thumb continues to sweep against her temple. Her headache has all but disappeared, thank goodness, though she wouldn't say no to several more hours of sleep.

"Are you ready to hear the story of why I'm wearing my spare clothes instead of my scrubs?" he asks in a near whisper, as though he's afraid she's fallen asleep on him again.

"Yes," she says, opening her eyes, smiling sheepishly up at him through her lashes. She does want to hear why.

Robin sucks in a sobering breath, his mouth settling into a grim line, and Regina schools her face appropriately, listening. "I wasn't paying attention where I was walking and I ran into one of the nurses at shift change. Coffee, piping hot, all down my front and his."

Of all the insufferable, stupid, idiotic… "You bastard!" She squeezes his hand, rapping his fingers lightly with her own as she laughs despite herself. "You had me thinking some awful thing had happened."

"It was awful. Those were my favorite set of scrubs!" Robins says, the most unapologetic grin she's ever seen lighting his face and melting her ire. "I'm sorry, but you seemed to latch on to the idea we'd both had shit shifts, and I didn't want to burst your rather fragile-seeming bubble."

She levels a glare at him, pursing her lips, but there's little heat remaining. He chuckles and presses a kiss to her forehead. Her mouth drops open at the gentle brush of his lips against her skin, the warmth of his breath ruffling her hair.

And then he freezes.

Robin sits back, hard, his own mouth slightly agape, brow stricken, darkening his face. "Regina, I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me."

"No," she says. "It was nice."

"Nice."

"Yes." Regina wets her lips with the tip of her tongue, a delicate frisson of heat shuddering through her as his eyes drift down to her mouth, mimicking her movements with his own tongue, his own lips.

This was never her plan, to fall for her friend, her neighbor, even after his divorce, but if she's honest with herself, this moment has been a long time coming. From the nervous edge of hope on his face, he's realized it as well.

"Regina?" he murmurs. "May I kiss you?"

She nods.

He shifts forward onto his knees, trails a hand over the curve of her cheek before tilting her face up ever so slightly to touch his lips to hers. He's soft and warm, and he tastes like coming home after an age away, smells like a warm summer breeze. She curls a shy hand around the corner of his jaw, thumb brushing a wide crescent across the light five o'clock shadow stippling his skin. Her mouth moves against his, and together their breathing staccatos into short, gasping pants. She rolls onto her back and pulls him over her, cocking one knee in the air so he can settle with one leg on either side of hers.

They kiss lazily, mouths slanting over each other's in slow sweeps, noses bumping, half-smothered giggles slipping through parted lips as teeth clack and hands wander. By the time they break for air, foreheads touching, a slow-burning flame of contentment and desire warms her belly.

"You are quite a good kisser," he says, nuzzling her nose with his.

Regina smiles, snatching another lingering kiss from his lips. "I have many talents. This is merely one of them."

"I look forward to discovering them all, if you'll allow me."

"Perhaps," she cheeks.

"I should go. Let you sleep awhile longer."

He moves to shift away from her, but she pulls him back with hands curled around his triceps.

"Or you could stay," she says, trying not to let hope bleed too freely around the edges of her words.

"I could stay."

He scoots to the side, wedging himself between her hip and the couch cushions, and she shifts back to her side to give him more room. He winds his arm around her waist, tucks her body close to his, and sighs into the bend of her neck.

She wonders if lying here with her feels like it does to lie with him, like fitting a puzzle piece in place, the subtle snap of interlinking parts, of dips and curves and chaos controlled.

All of the stress she's bottled up from her shift, her concern for Henry, the powerful rush and ache of hormones he's unlocked, everything screams along the neurons in her brain like a series of tiny freight trains, fighting for her attention. Until gradually there is quiet. There is peace. There is her hand curling around the soft edges of his and a strong heartbeat thump-thumping against her spine. A tickling rush of breath whispering over her bare shoulder where the strap of her tank top has slipped off.

"You don't have to tell me what happened," Robin says, lips brushing her neck as he speaks. "But I promise you, Regina, you are doing good in the world, even if you don't feel that way."

She sniffles and wipes her cheek on the couch cushion. Sends something like a prayer out into the universe for the young woman on her call. Pulls Robin's arm tighter around her, and then closes her eyes and sleeps.

The (U.S.) National Domestic Violence Hotline

Chat/Information:

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