OQ Happy Ending Week Day 4 - Wild Card

There's something wonderful about being touched. Not that way, not like you're thinking. Not that that isn't also wonderful, but, no. Simple contact, the touching of hands, brushing of shoulders, the safety of a hug.

He's always been touching her, since the moment they met and he offered his arm to pull her off the forest floor (a gesture she adamantly refused). It's natural to him to reach out. He thinks nothing of offering his arm to her to walk her down a corridor, his hand to help her mount her horse. She doesn't need them, of course. Assures him over and over that she's been walking and riding unassisted for quite some time and that she's not some hapless maiden who needs to lean on a man. He'll only smile at her stubbornness, which irritates her even more, and pull her chair out for her at dinner.

She hates it. Him.

Regina doesn't know what to do with affection other than push it away. Surely it's a side effect of a heartless mother, an apathetic husband. It's not that she doesn't like to be touched, quite the opposite. There were torturous years during the first curse when she longed for someone to hold her, to slap her, to do anything at all but stay out of her way.

Henry had been different. Once her baby boy had decided to give her a chance she rarely put him down. She'd been determined to give him every ounce of love her parents never provided her. If she's honest, she probably smothered him a bit, spoiled him for certain, but those precious years before he grew to question the strange land around him, before he grew to question her, were spent in a bliss of cuddles and kisses and tickle fights that she wouldn't trade for all the wealth and power in the world.

Children are easy to love. She's always had a soft spot for them. As much as the thief drives her to the brink of insanity with his incessant need to poke and prod at her, his son is more than welcome to crawl into her lap, to wrap his little arms around her neck and kiss her cheeks. Her little knight makes the unwanted attentions of his father almost bearable. That's what she tells herself at least, how she justifies tolerating him a little more each day: it's all for Roland's benefit.

Until one day when the witches attack had caught them off guard and almost cost them both their lives. It was careless, they'd let their guard down wandering aimlessly through the grounds when they should have been on watch. She was laughing at some stupid thing or another that he'd said when the sky turned green and her sister's winged beasts were coming from all directions. She grabbed his hand and held it tightly as they ran and ran until by some miracle they made it back to the safety of the palace walls. Breathless from the run, Regina demanded 'What!' as Robin stared at her with a dimpled smile fat to jovial for the fate they just escaped. In answer he simply lifted the hand she was still holding.

Regina has never really let go after that. Given up all pretense of pushing him away. She no longer shrugs him off when his fingers skim across her shoulders, doesn't swat him away when he leads her out of the room with a hand on her back, won't resist when he pulls her to his chest in the quiet of the night, simply wrapping his arms around her until her thoughts quiet and her body relaxes.

So, yes, there's something wonderful about being touched, she thinks as she shifts in the bed, pushing her back more securely against his chest, smiling as his arms tighten around her even in sleep. She soaks up the feeling, pushing every lonely night from her mind and focuses on here and now and his breath warm on her neck and his hand resting about her heart.

Thank you, Jenny, for fixing my glaring typos.