A brief table of contents:

• "Must be a day ending in y."—domestic OQ [T]
• "Could you repeat that?"—domestic OQ [M]
• "I'll never unsee that."—domestic OQ with some angsty CS thrown in [T]
• "Please stay."—missing year Enchanted Forest, pre-prequel to Smirk [T]
• "Come on."—domestic OQ with Henry/Roland shenanigans [T]
• "Are you fucking kidding me?"—missing year Enchanted Forest [M]
• "Don't make it into a big deal."—post-diner [T]

"Must be a day ending in y."

The air is chilly, the leaves pleasantly crisp underfoot as Regina tightens the scarf around her neck and tucks the ends into the collar of her thin wool coat. She feels a telltale lump in her throat every time she swallows and the nipping breeze does little to relieve the sheen of sweat coating her forehead.

"Goddamn it," she curses under her breath, and it comes out in a puffy fog, "not again."

On this day last year, her son had picked up some nasty virus from daycare and promptly passed it along to her. The year before that, she had taken an extended leave from her job to be a stay-at-home mom, and even then she'd somehow managed to contract some sort of something from him. (When it comes down to it, babies, as adorable as they are, can be quite the troublesome bunch of germ bags.) The upside to all this, though, is that while she takes care of him, she has someone else to take care of her.

The thought puts a spring in her step, carries her home faster than the cold ever could.

"Must be that time of year again," Robin says sympathetically, rubbing soothing circles into her back as soon as she's curled up on the sofa (coat and scarf in a heap on the floor), nestled into his warmth, and she's already burning up as it is but it somehow just feels better this way.

She lets out an indignant little sneeze in response and he struggles to cover up his laugh, fails, and then laughs again when she glares balefully at him. He leans in to appease her with a kiss and she scoots back on the couch cushion with an adamant shake of her head.

"I'll get you sick," she warns, voice all husky for reasons that she wishes were entirely unrelated to how absolutely shitty her body feels at the moment.

"I thought queens didn't get sick," Robin teases her.

"You're not a queen," she retorts, and he smirks at that. "I'm not either," she amends, "or at least, I'm a mother first."

"And a wife only second?" Robin pouts. "On any other day I would find that to be a perfectly acceptable arrangement."

"We can do something tomorrow," she promises with a sigh before erupting into a dry coughing fit that has her shoulders heaving. "When I'm feeling better."

He chuckles, pulling her back to his side despite her feeble protestations. "No rush. We have all the time in the world to celebrate." But the baby monitor perched on the coffee table disagrees, choosing that moment to light up as it emits a shrill-sounding cry.

"I'll be right back," Robin whispers into her hair, and as he stands he swoops down to cradle her feverish face in his hands, press a lingering smile and a kiss to her sweaty forehead. "Happy anniversary, darling."

"Could you repeat that?"

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

She gives him the nastiest glare she can muster under the present circumstances (circumstances that have the hard planes of his body flush against the soft curves of hers). Digs a heel into his back as she jerks her hips up, and he drops his head into the crook of her neck with a groan.

Like hell is she going to let him think he has the upper hand in this.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she says, her tone all innocence but her eyes all fire, "what were you saying?"

"Evil," he mutters, even as he withdraws from her and thrusts back in, filling her again, and now she's the one crying out, hands scrambling over his arms, sliding palms down his shoulder blades.

"Sorry, I didn't catch that," he says, breathless, though it doesn't keep the smirk from gracing his lips and she can hear it in his voice, feel it on her throat, as he presses his open mouth against her skin and sucks, hard. His hips lift and fall in a steady rhythm, rocking into her body, the natural contours of his cock sliding in and out with a friction so delicious it nearly blinds her. She sits up, palms on the bed and fisting into the comforter to brace herself, as she arches her back, inviting him to pepper hot, wet kisses over her breasts. He grips her hip to steady his movements, to change the angle of his thrusts, and when she releases a jumbled word mixed in with a heady moan, his hips grind to an inexplicable halt.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she growls, head shooting back up.

"Say it again," he gasps.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she repeats with a delicate arch of her eyebrow, and he shakes his head, resuming the roll of his hips but not with the force she craves, or the depth she needs for her release.

"Say it," he says again, warm hand on her back to bring her closer, scooting her to the edge of the bed where he stands. He threads his fingers into her hair, tilts her head to the side so he can press his tongue into the shell of her ear, and she writhes at the unexpected sensation. "Say it," he whispers, voice rough with desire, and the sound of it alone is nearly enough to send her over the edge, but not quite, she knows, and she needs it, needs him. All of him.

The word tumbles from her mouth. "Please."

Hand fisted into her hair now, he pulls out and slams back into her, a strangled groan escaping his lips as he takes her, all of her, and the euphoric trembling spreads from her belly, washes over until she's seeing stars. She feels his body go rigid, stilling inside of her and he gasps into her shoulder, palms leaving scorch marks across her back. As his breathing evens out, he mumbles something into her skin.

"I'm sorry," she says, still struggling to catch her own breath, "could you repeat that?"

He pulls away from her shoulder to lean his forehead against hers, looking flushed, spent and utterly mesmerized with her.

"I," he replies, planting a kiss to her temple, "love," another to the tip of her nose, "you," and then finally her lips, "Regina."

She cups his face between her hands, not daring to speak for a moment. Finally, her lips curve into a mischievous smile.

"Say it again."

"I'll never unsee that."

"Oh my God!" Emma backs straight into Killian's chest in her hurry to slam the door shut, muffling the startled gasps of surprise from within, the echoing clatter of broom handles and the embarrassed shuffling of ones caught in the act.

"Oh my God," she repeats, bringing a hand up to shield her eyes even though the memory is now burned into her retina. "I don't think I'll ever be able to unsee that."

"I'm not sure that I'd want to, love," Killian remarks, and she jabs an elbow into his stomach with a wrinkled nose and a poorly concealed sound of disgust.

"Could you be more gross?" she demands to know and is rewarded with a shameless shrug.

"Lighten up on them, Swan," he says cheerfully. "I'm sure they get precious few moments alone together now, what with the wee little one and all." His voice lowers an octave then. "Besides, it's not as though we weren't about to appropriate the janitor's closet for the exact same purpose."

She glares at him but concedes his point with her subsequent silence.

"Come on, love, back to the party," and he catches her wrist in his hook, gently, as he always is with her even when she's entirely the opposite to him, leading her through the swinging door. As soon as it opens she extracts her hand from his hold and brings it almost possessively to her chest, under the exaggerated pretense of readjusting her necklaces.

"Mom!" exclaims Henry when they reappear on the other side, "there you are. It's almost time to blow out the candles for Neal!" He cranes his neck around and she waits patiently for the puzzled look to cross his face. "Have you seen Mom?"

"Nope," says Emma a touch too energetically, swinging her arms around to clap her hands casually together, "nope, haven't seen her. Anywhere. With anyone."

"Oookay," Henry replies, giving her a weird look. "Well, I'm going to go look for her, she wouldn't want to miss—"

"I'll go!" Emma says brightly. "Find her. Over there. Where I'll start looking, that is." She gestures vaguely to the back of the diner, pointedly ignores the way Killian is side-eyeing her like she's completely lost her mind.

"You were just there," Henry frowns.

"Wasn't looking for her earlier," Emma answers honestly. And hopefully, when she does this time, Regina will be in a slightly less compromising position, and wearing slightly more layers of clothing, than she had been previously.

Killian is standing there with a ringed finger resting thoughtfully on his lips, probably to prevent them from opening and speaking and making her feel like an even bigger idiot than she does already, when his hand moves to direct her attention back to the door partitioning off the hotel from the diner.

Regina has emerged, head ducked under a curtain of hair to hide the otherwise unmistakable pink glow coloring her cheeks, palm pressed into her belly, and Robin follows closely thereafter, with his hand on her back and his mouth in her ear, whispering something that has a smile blossoming across her face before he's even finished. She turns her head up to respond in a low murmur and he laughs outright, the sound warm and loving to match the look in his eyes as they gaze down at her.

Emma catches Henry watching them, beaming openly. She feels Killian's stiff posture, can sense the listless way his hook dangles at his side, despite the good three feet of distance that she's put between them. ("I just hate making our business everyone else's too," she'd stuttered in explanation to him the last time he'd tried to take her hand in public, and though he'd backed obligingly off to give her space, she wishes he'd defy her, just this once, keeps pushing him away, just so he'll keep coming back to her.)

But Regina—of all people, Regina—weaves her fingers through her soulmate's hand, as the palm she had against her abdomen sneaks around to rub into his instead, and Henry can't contain himself any longer, bounds over to them with an enthusiastic "Where have you guys been?"

She's about as good as Emma at half-assing excuses, saying hastily, "Oh," and, "we were just looking for…extra sugar," with Robin smiling agreeably at her side.

"Right," says Henry, "I'll bet you were."

"Henry!" Regina admonishes at the same time Emma is bursting out, "kid!" but Killian chuckles and Robin hand is suddenly hiding a grin (men).

"What?" asks Henry defensively. "It's not like I don't know what you were up to. You did the same thing last year."

"Did we?" Robin finally speaks up, playfully rueful, and Regina doesn't even bother trying to make her glare look convincing (he rewards her for it with a kiss to her hair).

"Please," says Henry, making a show of crossing his arms. "The only difference now is that back then, it was supposed to be a secret. I'm not a kid anymore, you know." Emma almost swears he's puffing out his chest now. "Not when I have big brother duties to attend to."

"That you most certainly do," remarks Robin, and the two share a smile that has the one on Emma's face tightening just a bit.

"There you two are," calls Snow as she makes her way toward them, bouncing a raven-haired toddler on the side of her hip. David is a few steps behind her, making absurd faces and incoherent babbling sounds at the baby bundled up in his arms, and Roland brings up the rear, standing on his toes and tugging at David's pants as though it will grant him a better view of his baby brother.

"Thank you, for watching him," Regina says, and David responds with an "of course," looks ridiculously pleased as his godson's tiny little hand lifts up out of the blankets to make a grab at his nose.

Emma forces the chuckle that comes naturally to everyone else, and she resents the shooting pang of jealousy that finds its way to her heart.

"Careful," her mom says with a wink, but she's sending it Regina and Robin's way, "David may not be willing to give him back if you let him hold your son for too long."

"Can I hold him?" Henry asks eagerly, and David looks to the queen and her thief for a permissive nod before transferring their son into Henry's arms. Roland immediately abandons his post by David to crane his neck upward at the baby, a task made much more manageable now that Henry is the one holding him. Robin and Regina huddle around the three boys, and when she lets out a happy sigh, his hand disentangles from hers to draw round her waist, pull her closer.

"Cake," says Neal then, looking expectantly at Snow from his perch at her hip.

"Cake," she agrees, and Emma says hurriedly, "I'll get Ruby, and the lighter," and disappears behind the counter.

She doesn't realize Killian has followed until he's wordlessly pouring out and handing her a drink, and she takes an immediate grateful gulp. Scotch.

"That was our broom closet," Emma grumps finally.

He doesn't reply at first, until she's looking up at him and then he says, slowly, as though choosing his words with great care, "Perhaps we shouldn't be ducking into closets anymore, love." And her mouth is open long enough for him to realize she has nothing to say, so he sets his jaw and walks away to rejoin Robin and Regina, their family, her family, leaving her standing there with an elbow on the bar, empty glass in her hand, alone.

"Please stay."

Robin happens upon her in the forest one day while hunting for game, trains an arrow at a scuffling sound he mistakes for deer, and then instantly drops it to his side when his line of vision falls upon Regina's murderous glare. He holds up a hand, an apology, a lack of intent to harm, but her dark eyes grow darker still as they narrow in suspicion and she turns away in silent dismissal.

In the few weeks they have known each other, she has already grown accustomed to his lightness of foot, the way he steals in and out of her presence before she has the chance to punish him for it (though he stays in her thoughts, uninvited, long after). So she waits several moments before bringing a hand up to wipe at her face, thinking he has gone.

(He hasn't, not yet, mesmerized by the way the regal lift of her shoulders seems to deflate before his eyes, and the way she carries the vulnerability of something broken though she still looks a queen.)

The next time he happens to barge in on a private moment she is far more exposed, and thus far less kind to him for it. Flames burst forth from her palm and flicker, soaring through the air until they extinguish themselves violently against a tree branch near his head, scattering sparks across the forest floor. By the time he's stamped out the last of them with the slightly charred toe of his boot, and lifted his gaze back up to find hers, she's the one who's gone.

But he can't bring himself to head back to camp just yet; there's something about the memory of her doubled over, hands clutched tight to her chest, that roots him to the spot—and, as Snow will tell him later, though the queen's aim is not equipped with the guaranteed precision of his bow and arrow, she hardly ever misses. She'd meant to throw him off, perhaps, but not to hurt him, and that more than anything has him convinced that though she seeks solace, she doesn't want to be left alone.

So he tracks her this time, and even the famed Evil Queen with all her magic can't evade his detection for long; not from a man who grew up in these woods, sees the trail her cloak left behind in nothing but a pile of leaves, knows where she has just rested her hand moments before on the tree trunk scratched bare of its bark. The evidence of her every wayward footstep, every pause to draw a ragged breath, lights his way, leads him down a path straight to her, but when he reaches the end of it, it's not Regina he finds, but her heart.

It's nestled and pulsing within the roots of a great oak tree, allowing her a moment of blissful reprieve that dulls the constant ache in her soul. Later she will call it temporary insanity that has him bending over, picking it up (and then guiding it back into her chest, before the insanity grips him further and he's pulling all of her to him); but for now, as he cradles her heart in his hands, handling it with more care than she's ever bothered with herself, and a gentleness that's absolutely foreign to her, she lets out a startled gasp from her perch on a fallen log, and their eyes meet through an open knot in the tree.

"Milady," he starts cautiously. "I'm sorry. If you wish to be alone…"

She shakes her head. Maybe it's the way he's still holding her heart close, as though it is something precious to him. Maybe it's the way he's entirely unfazed by the veins of blackness marring its surface, lacing through to its core like poison. Whatever it is, there's something about this man, this thief, that has her fists unclenching, free of fire this time, and her mouth finally opening up to say, "Please," with a deep shuddering breath, "stay."

"Come on."

"Come on, brudder," Roland insists in hushed tones. "We're going to be late!"

"Just a second," says Henry, returning the contents of the drawer to their proper place as quickly as he's rummaging through them. It's got to be here somewhere… "Don't forget to stand watch!"

Roland instantly straightens up and darts back to guard the doorway, pokes his head around the corner.

"Okay!" he shouts it in a whisper, and then the phrase Henry had taught him when they were in the initial planning stages of Operation Red Fox, "all clear!"

"Good," Henry replies, but the situation is anything but as he closes the drawer with more composure than he feels. He could've sworn Mom had put her ring there when it stopped fitting (her "sausage fingers," as she liked to refer to them, and Robin would grab one hand and press indignant little kisses all over her knuckles while she rubbed her protruding belly with the other, and Henry would only pretend to be grossed out while Roland made actual faces). What if he can't find it in time? What if Robin changes his mind?

His forehead falls into his hands with a frustrated sigh, and then he sees it, a glint of green in the carpet at the foot of her vanity, and he almost whoops with joy.

"Roland!" he shouts, in quite the opposite of a whisper, "Roland, I found it!"

"Yes!" says Roland, pumping his fist into the air (another thing Henry had considered essential to teach him).

Henry bends down, grabbing the ring and pocketing it into his Levi's. "Come on," and he's taking Roland's hand, "let's go."

They're hustling down the hallway toward the staircase when he catches the top of Mom's head bobbing into view as she makes her way up, and Henry skids to a halt on the hardwood floor with Roland colliding into his back.

"Hi," says Henry, hoping she doesn't notice how suspicious and out of breath he sounds, "Mom," he gulps down some more air as subtly as possible, "what's up?"

"What's up?" she echoes.

He grins innocently.

Her forehead wrinkles. "Where are you boys going in such a hurry?"

"Nothing," says Henry, "I mean, nowhere," at the same time that Roland pipes up, "to go help Papa!"

If Mom didn't have full view of their feet from where she's paused on the stairs, Henry would nudge Roland's.

"What does Papa need help with, honey?" she asks, smiling gently.

"To pick something out for your birthday," Henry puts in hastily. It's not entirely a lie, but also not truthful enough to spoil the surprise. "Whoops, guess our cover's blown. Ha, ha."

She looks skeptical but stands aside to let them pass by. When he's at eye-level with her he darts forward quickly to kiss her on the cheek, and then he's bounding down the stairs and out the door with Roland in tow, taking a sharp left when they've reached the end of the path underneath the apple tree, and then they're hurrying off in the direction of Gold's pawn shop.

.

.

.

Robin is waiting anxiously for them just inside the door as it tinkles closed behind them.

"Did you find it?" he asks, hands rubbing nervously together.

"Yep!" says Henry proudly, digging the ring out of his pocket and depositing it into Robin's sweaty palm.

"Don't be nervous," he tells him. "Mom will love it."

"If she doesn't," says Roland at his elbow, "it's okay. She still loves us."

Robin chuckles at that, ruffling his son's hair with great affection. "You're right about that, my boy. Okay. Let's…"

"Do this thing," supplies Henry with a nod. "Where's Mr. Gold?"

The man in question emerges from the back of his shop, clearing his throat as he comes to stand with hands folded over the counter. "You've brought it, I see."

"Are you sure this will work?" Henry asks him a tad aggressively as they approach and Robin hands his mom's ring over to Mr. Gold with maybe a little more trust and conviction than Henry would've done. Grandpa or no grandpa.

"My dear boy," the man says, examining the ring as Henry scowls at the endearment, "pixie dust…never lies."

"I don't see any pixie dust," Henry replies dubiously.

"No?" Mr. Gold holds the ring up to the light, rolling it slowly between his fingers. The emerald stone glimmers. "I wouldn't be so quick as to assume that." He turns to Robin then. "Now. The other ingredient, please."

Robin rolls his sleeve up and places the back of forearm against the glass, tattoo on full display. Henry watches apprehensively (poor Roland is stretching his body out to the max from his tip-toes to the hands gripping the edge of the counter) as Mr. Gold presses the ring against Robin's skin. It aligns within the grasp of the lion's outstretched claws, and as Henry stares, his grandfather muttering some Latin incantation under his breath, he could almost swear he sees the emerald give off an unnaturally bright glow, the claws twitch and move, but that can't be right, it has to be either a trick of the dim store lighting or Robin is flexing his arm, muscles causing the skin above them to undulate—

Roland gasps.

"Gods," Robin breathes as the lion leaps off his skin, clutching the ring between its paws.

Henry realizes then that Mr. Gold has stopped speaking. The magic has taken on a life of its own, the ring emitting its own dazzling green light as the gold melds with the lion, cantering across the glass in smaller and smaller circles even as it picks up speed. Suddenly there's a loud crack, a blazing explosion of viridescence that illuminates their stunned, gaping faces, and then just as abruptly as it started, it's over, and not one ring, but three, drop to the counter with a chiming jingle. Simple, thin rose gold, a wider set one that's a millimeter thicker, and another ring with an emerald cut diamond centered between two of a smaller size on either side.

"Congratulations," says Mr. Gold finally, while the other three are still at a loss of words. "Looks like some villains get a happy ending after all."

Henry finally finds his voice. "Not really," he says with a shrug, then a pointed look, a silent challenge. "My mom's not a villain."

.

.

.

He shouldn't be eavesdropping, he really shouldn't, but that doesn't stop him from hunkering down on the floor just shy of the open archway leading into the kitchen, one hand pressing a palm against the wall and the other lifting a finger up to his mouth in a silent reminder to Roland, who's crouched beside him with wide, anxious eyes that likely mirror his own.

He hears his mom gasp.

"Your—your tattoo," she stammers. "Where—" (And Henry winces to imagine all the conclusions she must be jumping to right now, that it was all a delusion, that Robin must've gotten rid of it as some way of denying their love, or something equally ridiculous, and his mother is just ridiculous that way but he knows she's still learning to be loved properly, and that Robin is the one teaching her how.)

There's a pause and Henry imagines Robin taking her hand, taking the time to kiss those knuckles before responding.

"What are you doing," his mom says suddenly, sounding alarmed, and Henry bounces on the balls of his feet in his effort to not peek, but he would bet his storybook that if he did, Robin would be on one knee now, reaching for the ring in his pocket.

"Robin," Mom exclaims, her voice sounding breathless and muffled now, "Robin, what—"

"I love you," he hears Robin say. "Regina. I love you. Please. Take this. Accept my hand. I—" But he doesn't get a chance to finish, as there's a loud scuffling and an oomph, the clatter of what Henry guesses to be various pieces of dishware and cutlery being displaced from the countertop, then the beautiful sound of his mother crying, and before he can help it he's launching himself up and through the archway to join them, Roland in close pursuit. His mom is sobbing into Robin's arms, and even without lifting his right to cradle the back of her head Henry knows what he won't see there, but in place of the lion is a ring on his mom's left hand now—and this one, he knows, she's never taking off.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

She storms out of the castle and heads for the stables, needing to clear her head. This is absurd, she thinks, it simply will not do. She'll think of a way to detain him somehow, to keep him from coming with them—snap his bow in two when he's not looking, or—

"Regina." She hopes for a second that the voice is only in her head but then it calls to her louder, more insistently and suddenly a hand is grabbing her at the shoulder and spinning her around.

"What?" she snarls. "What do you want, thief?"

Robin looks completely unfazed as he asks her, "can you please explain to me how I seem to be the one solely responsible for the enormous stick lodged up your ass?"

Her jaw drops. "Excuse me?"

"And why is it," he continues as though she hasn't spoken, "that you insist so adamantly on my absence from this mission?"

"You've got to be kidding," she scoffs. "I already made myself perfectly clear. Or are you as deaf as you are ignorant?"

He steps into her personal space and she denies herself the impulse to falter back, lifts her chin defiantly, determined not to show him how greatly affected she is by his sudden closeness.

"I believe you claimed I was not to be trusted," he tells her.

"Well I don't trust you," she says mutinously.

"Is that it?" He frowns. "Or is it simply that you don't trust yourself when you're around me?"

"Oh, please," she hisses, jabbing a finger into his chest now, "get over yourself. I am perfectly capable of controlling myself. You think you're so irresistible?"

"To you?" He leans in a little too close for her comfort, the smell of forest filling her nostrils, a smell she'd let herself become addicted to in a moment—or several—of weakness (but no more), as his breath warms the skin exposed by the generous dip of her dress. "Yes. I rather do."

The finger she's using to keep him at arm's length retracts into a fist. "Need I remind you," she says coldly, "what happened the last time you let your large ego get in the way?" And her hand recoils for an instant before shooting out and catching him right in the stomach.

He lets out a startled grunt and falls to his knees, doubling over in pain. She crouches next to him, grabs fistfuls of his collar and yanks him close. He's biting his lip in a grimace. "That's what I thought," she says smugly. "You. Are. Not. Coming. With us."

"Like hell I'm not," he wheezes, clutching his ribcage as he struggles for an even breath, and she scowls, it's not like she hit him that hard, and the wound that a friend-turned-monkey had left behind should've healed weeks ago. Although, come to think of it, it's been weeks since she's been in a…position…to examine it herself. Cold turkey, and all that.

She unceremoniously shoves him to the ground and yanks the hemline of his tunic out of his pants, stretching it up over his abdomen to reveal a very angry-looking bruise, mottled with an impressive palette of blue, green and purple.

"Idiot!" she snaps at him, hands stilling as they apply gentle pressure to his skin.

"I was hoping you wouldn't notice that," he winces, and she resists the urge to hit him again, electing instead to make him suffer in other ways as she tosses her skirts aside to straddle him at the waist, raising her palm centimeters above the injury. Light bursts forth, mending broken capillaries and returning the blood where it rightfully belongs.

"Mm," he sighs as the throbbing gives way to mild discomfort.

"This is why I don't trust you," she mutters, closing her hand into a fist once more. "I don't trust you not to get yourself hurt again."

Robin rewards her with a crooked grin, though it's weak and his eyes are fluttering, not from the pain this time but from the way she's inadvertently digging her hips into his. He wiggles experimentally and she glares at him, makes to stand, but her movements are halted by the sudden presence of his hands around her waist; she watches in morbid fascination as his abdomen tightens, pulling his upper body up to sit in a single fluid motion, and her palms automatically press into him to push him away, but her fingers are curling into his tunic as though to bring him closer, and Are you fucking kidding me, she groans inwardly, not this again.

"Do you honestly think," he's asking her conversationally now, a casual eye trained down on the involuntary flexing of her hands at his chest, "that I would trust you not to do the same?" He brings an arm up to grip her shoulder right where he knows it's going to hurt and she cries out, wrenching away. "How exactly do you think I got injured in the first place?"

"Because you got in my way," she grouses, rubbing her shoulder (healing herself is the one thing he's harassed her about, and the one thing she's refused to do). "Even though I explicitly warned you not to."

"I must be as deaf as I am ignorant, then," he says gently, his hand coming up to dwarf her cheek, "for wanting to protect my queen."

Her retort dies into a stuttering breath, and her chest tightens as his gaze lifts back up to meet hers, his eyes a molten blue, and she's terrified of what she sees in them, so she does the first thing she can think of to shut them out.

She closes her eyes, and then closes what little space remains between them with a kiss to his throat, tongue slipping out to sample the sweat from his skin. His head tilts sideways with a groan, one hand pulsing on her hip as the other gently encircles her neck, then moves up to coast over her hair, pulled tight into a high ponytail, and fumbles at the clasp and pins holding it up. Silky waves tumble down over her shoulders, catching in the feathered collar of her dress and in his fingers as he threads them through, gripping, tugging the back of her head to separate her lips from his pulse point so he can finally kiss them.

She sighs into his mouth as she braces herself up with knees on the ground and hands splayed on either side of his neck, belly pressed to his ribcage, breasts to his collarbone. Whimpers when his tongue disentangles from hers to lavish attention to her heaving chest instead, and then his palm is coasting up her jeweled corset to settle into the dip of its plunging neckline. Gasps out when he gives a rough pull and the fabric tears straight down the middle, scattering beads and stones and gems over the grassy terrain.

"You'll pay for that later," she breathes, but instead of responding he tugs her closer, grinds his hips up into hers and she feels his erection pressing against her center through the soft cotton material of his pants.

"For that infernal thing?" Robin grunts finally. "Good riddance. The same goes for these, too." And he rips violently at her skirts, until she's naked and exposed to him in the front, and down below. His fingers find her slick folds and slip inside, thumb brushing roughly against her clit. She shudders, hand coming down to grasp him, feels him jerk into her touch, and his head falls back, eyes rolling, jaw slackening, a guttural sound escaping from deep within his throat. Her other hand finds the waistband of his pants and destroys them as quickly as he had her corset ("Fair's fair," she hums into his ear before catching it between her teeth).

She rides his fingers for a second longer and then brushes them impatiently away, aligning their hips and then sliding down onto him ("Gods," he groans, and it's the sexiest thing she's ever heard), to the hilt, and she has to bite her lip to keep from whimpering when he grasps her tight at her waist, lifts her up, and then surges back into her once more.

Grabbing his face in her hands, she meets his mouth with tongue and teeth, kissing him with all the desperation that she can't bear to express to him any other way, and he sighs, tries to take her slower but she bites down and the strangled moan that falls from his lips is positively electrifying. Her hips pivot and move over his cock, taking him in and out as he rises off the ground to meet her every time, fill her again, fill her till she's gasping, she feels the tension building in her stomach and it clenches, arching her back and the gasp of ecstasy tumbles out of her mouth as it parts from his, and she comes apart in his arms. He shudders as he reaches his own release, and even after, he's still moving inside her, slower and slower as the last quivers of pleasure ripple through their bodies, and then they're still.

He's panting heavily into her chest as she licks the sweat off his brow, tucks a wayward lock of his hair back into place. Presses a languid kiss to his forehead, as he finally shifts and moves a hand up from her hipbone to caress her spine. Shivers, stutters as his mouth finds its way to her breast, tongue dragging across her nipple, and she feels something inside her stir, how is this even possible, but she can feel desire coursing through his body again too, and he stiffens underneath her once more as she reaches down to take him into her hand.

"You're still not coming with us," she whispers to him later, much later, leg thrown over his, hand curled around his waist as she fingers where his bruise had been.

He does anyway.

"Don't make it into a big deal."

Snow calls her the next morning, claims it's urgent.

Regina is curled up in a ball of blankets by the fire when she makes the mistake of answering the phone—had hoped against all hope she knew she didn't deserve that it would be him, saying he'd made a mistake, that he'd been a fool to let her walk away from him.

She was the fool to think he'd be the one reaching for her now.

"Please, Regina," Snow repeats plaintively.

She grits her teeth, replies, "I'm busy," as calmly as she can manage. Busy refraining from ripping her heart out of her chest and leaving it in her father's tomb along with the rest of them, pulsing reminders of all the lives, all the happiness, she's singlehandedly destroyed.

"I thought you might say something along those lines," Snow replies, and the end of her sentence is punctuated by the chime of the doorbell, followed by a loud knock.

Regina stiffens under her blankets, feeling mutinous.

"So that's why we've decided to come to you instead," Snow continues, "and I know you're home so you have no excuse not to—"

Regina hangs up the phone and tosses it to the couch as she stands. She kicks the silver platter on the floor in her haste to get to the door and yell at Snow in person, sending wheels of day-old cheese careening across the carpet. (The bottle, empty save for the last dregs of wine at the bottom, still rests on its side near the foot of her bed upstairs where Robin had discarded it the day before, to free up his hands for running them all over her body instead.)

"Listen," she says abruptly as she throws open the door, "I'm not in the mood for your charming little pep talks or—oh."

It's not Snow standing there with a fist raised mid-knock, but Robin, and the sight of him alone feels like a punch in the gut, stumbles her backward. She sees his gaze move frantically over the wrinkled satin pajamas, the arm she has thrown over her chest to brace herself, the lines in her forehead, and her eyes, dark and hollow as they stare into his own.

"Regina," he says, and it rolls off his tongue with a comforting familiarity that she does not want from him, "may I come in?"

The hand she has at her shoulder grips till her knuckles whiten. "No," she says, more firmly than she feels, "no, you may not."

His mouth opens, but she doesn't think she can say no to him again if she hears him utter her name one more time, so she swings the door shut in his face. Clicks the lock back in place before she can change her mind (like that'll stop her if she does, or stop him from breaking it down if all that stood between them was a metal bolt, and not her heart, or his wife's).

She presses her palms to the door and feels it shudder as something thumps against it, imagines Robin resting his forehead there on the other side.

"Regina," he tries again, voice sounding muffled and broken, "please."

She leans her own forehead into the door, fingers trailing over the wood as though they can pass right through and reach out to him, grasp his arm through the thick sleeve of his coat, pull him to her, never let him go. Even though she can't see him, she can feel him, the door caught between their bodies thrums and she flattens her hand against it, dragging, as her eyes flutter closed. The ghost of his breath washes across the skin at the nape of her neck, sending delicious little tingles down her spine to meet the small of her back where the phantom touch of his hand is resting, and she arches against it, misses the real thing, misses him.

She's unaware of how much time has passed when she finally feels her resolve begin to weaken, crumble, and she's sorely tempted to open the door again and see if he's still standing there when there's another knock, softer this time.

"Regina?" calls a voice from the other side, and disappointment drags her heart down into the pit of her stomach.

"Are—are you alone?" Regina asks, hating how weak she sounds.

"No?" replies Snow with some confusion, and the treacherous hope that surges up into her chest is squelched back down as she continues, "I've brought someone who's eager to finally meet you."

What?

She opens the door to the sight of Snow's tentative smile, the cooing of the baby cradled in her arms. A furtive scan across the yard, to the apple tree and out onto the street beyond, tells her what she already knows—Robin has gone.

Her lungs feel tight, but then, "Oh," she breathes as Neal turns large eyes on her and stares, unblinking.

"I don't think you two were ever properly introduced," Snow beams, and Regina isn't sure which happens first, her reaching for him, or Snow handing him over, but suddenly her arms are full of baby blankets and Neal's hands fly up into the air, as though in celebration.

"My favorite baby reflex," Snow says, and they share a smile as only mothers can. The same instincts that helped Regina raise Henry take over once more as she rocks Neal gently in her arms, trailing a knuckle over his soft, plump cheeks.

"I want you to be his godmother," Snow says, pointblank.

Neal stills in her arms and looks almost questioningly up at Regina as she pauses in her rocking, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and then ire.

"Me?" she asks sharply. "I'm hardly godmother material. Why don't you ask Blue, or—"

"I'm not looking for a fairy godmother, Regina," Snow states calmly.

"So you're looking for an evil one?" she baits her.

Snow doesn't bite (she never does). "I think you and I both know what kind of a godmother you'd be." A pause, punctuated by an innocent look. "But if you have a reputation to maintain, it can be our little secret. Ours and his." She reaches over to tickle Neal in the tummy, then the palm, and he closes his tiny fist around her finger.

Regina finds it hard to swallow, can't fathom why it should be her of all people (I couldn't imagine it any other way, Snow will tell her later, though it will still take her twice as many laters to truly believe it)—"If this is some pity offer, because of what happened last—"

"It isn't," Snow cuts her off, with the same tinge of exasperation she'd used not a month ago to tell her that Robin was coming with them to Rumple's castle, whether she liked it or not. "And I'd like to think we've come far enough for you to know that."

Regina feels an unbidden sliver of gratitude bleeding through into her dark, dark heart, lightening it again the way baby Henry had when she had first held him as her own. She can't bring herself to voice her answer out loud, but Snow doesn't need to hear it; she knows, and she can't stop smiling.

"Don't make it into a big deal," Regina mutters uncomfortably, but Snow beams, is opening her mouth to speak when there's a soft scuffling sound from behind them.

"Oh, is Henry home?" Snow asks, as Regina deposits Neal back into her embrace.

"No…" Regina turns, frowning. "He slept over and tried to get out of going to school this morning so he could stay with me. I threatened to not let him come back if he didn't…" she trails off as she makes her toward the kitchen, Snow and Neal following closely behind. She must have left a window open again, she thinks, there's always some manner of woodland critter trying to sneak into her cupboards for a pastry or two whenever she does, much to her aggravation (honestly, you'd think they took her for Snow White, not her evil stepmother).

She rounds the corner of the open archway and almost falls backwards from the force with which she slams into some large object unexpectedly blocking her way, but then arms shoot out to steady her, and his scent gives him away before she even recognizes the rise and fall of the chest pressed beneath her palms, the texture of the coat at her fingertips.

"Robin," she gasps, and she hears Snow mirror her sharp intake of breath from behind. "You broke into my home?"

"You wouldn't let me in the proper way," he argues as though this were the only other alternative, hands still gripping her shoulders.

She finally finds the wherewithal to twist away, ignores the pang she feels at the sudden loss of his warm touch. "Because I don't want you here."

"Only because you think I don't want to be," he thunders, looking incensed. "If you had simply listened to me last night when I tried to—"

"Listened to you?" she repeats. "I'm sorry if I couldn't hear you over the joy of your little family reunion." But that's not fair, she's not being fair to him, so she backtracks at the crestfallen look upon his face, says with far less venom now, "you have your family back. That's all you should want."

"So it's selfish of me to want you too?" His gaze burns into her with the intensity of a thousand midday suns. "Because believe me, Regina, I am not a selfish man," he takes a tentative step closer, "but that in no way lessens how badly I want—need—you to stay in my life."

"You can't have it both ways," she tells him, but that stupid hope comes bubbling to the surface again when he shakes his head, disagreeing.

"I made a mistake last night, Regina. I can't let you walk away from me like that again. I just—" He looks desperate now, as though the image of it still haunts him even as she stands there within arm's reach. "I can't."

"You have a wife, Robin."

"I had a wife," he corrects, "who died four years ago. The fact that she is back now does not return what my heart had lost, and it could never erase how I feel about—"

"Stop," she interrupts, despising the way the word trembles. "You don't know what you're saying."

"Why are you so determined to write off everyone's opinions but your own?" he demands. "Simply because you own my heart now does not entitle you to decide what it cares for or doesn't!"

She backs up at the heat of his words, registering briefly that Snow has at some point in the conversation made herself scarce. "I—" she begins, but doesn't quite know how to respond to—wait—what did he just say?

"Let me guess," Robin sighs. "You don't believe me." He starts forward again and, miraculously, her feet stay firmly in place. He opens his arms, turns his hands palm-side up. "Well this is me, Regina. All of me. I'm a thief, but an honorable one. I've been breaking into homes to steal for others long before I fell in love with you, and I promise you that's the only thing that hasn't changed since."

"What are you stealing this time, then?" she asks tremulously, arms crossed over her chest to hide the frantic pace of her breathing.

"You, you ridiculous woman," he gasps, hands unshackling from the hesitation that had been holding him back as he lifts them up to her face, thumbs padding over her cheekbones when she doesn't pull away. "You. I'm stealing you. For myself." His admission comes out in a shudder. "I must be a selfish man after all."

Her laugh comes out in a sob, and she knows this is too good to be true but she lets it happen anyway, allows herself this moment before it's taken away from her, as everything always is, in the end. Lets him rest his forehead against hers, without a door between them this time, lets him tilt her chin toward his as his warm breath washes across her lips, and they open with a sigh as he leans down to a press a kiss to them.

.

.

.

Regina comes to with a start. She must've fallen back asleep after she strong-armed Henry into going to school. There's a dull ache in her neck from the awkward angle at which her head had buried into the crook of her elbow while she slept. The carpeted floor against her back has long since lost its comforting appeal, and the blankets are like a vice of sweat suffocating her body. She's struggling out of them, massaging her neck once her hand is free, when she remembers her dream, and the memory clenches around her heart until she's curled up and gasping from the pain, angry tears burning her eyes.

Of course, it had all been too good to be true.

She's fighting the tears back down when the phone beside her rings.

"Regina!" Snow's voice greets her when she picks up, bright and grating. "Regina, there's something important I have to talk to you about. I'd rather do it in person, I just wanted to make sure you were home before I left—"

But the words descend into a dull roar at Regina's ear with the sound of someone knocking at the door.

She dares to let herself hope again.