A/N:

Hello! This is a new story that was originally going to be a one-shot but I literally fell in love with the idea (which is an unfortunate move on my part because I have too many stories going on right now...)

So, this will probably end up being like...a ten chapter thing? Maybe? Who knows. We'll see where it goes from here.

She's running later than she should've been.

Her cousin's housewarming party started at 6:30, and Regina had promised Emma that she'd be there a little early to help put the food out. But now, at 6:45, she's just now getting in her car and putting the new address into the GPS.

She taps it in, making mistakes and cursing as her clumsy and careless fingers hit the a six instead of a seven in the address. After it's in, the annoying woman's voice comes on and tells her to back out of her driveway.

Regina does as it says, grumbling that she knows how to get out of her own damn driveway and she knows she has to get off of her road and onto the dark highway.

It's late autumn, the trees are losing their leaves and the chill invades the night. She always has to wear a bigger jacket than she wants, because it's starting to get cold enough in the Arizona night that she can actually see her breath.

It's supposed to be a cold winter, you'll want to stock up on those coats. The weatherman had told her what to do, and she did it quickly so they wouldn't jack the prices up first. Right now, she's sweating in it from being irritated and in the stuffy car.

A right, a left, and another left, and she's on a completely dark road; no lights surrounding the area, no other traffic, and she's beginning to wonder if her GPS took her the wrong way around. She digs for her phone in the cupholder, moving the gloves she'd placed over it, grabbing it, and pressing the button for it to light up. "No service." She mumbles to herself, feeling a chill go down her spine.

She doesn't scare easily, never has. Not with growing up around her idiotic cousin Emma who was always playing pranks on Regina. Mary-Margaret, her other cousin (and Emma's sister), has always hid behind Regina when Emma played the dirty ones, or the really scary ones. Nonetheless, she can't ignore the hair that's standing up on her arm.

To break the eerie silence, she turns the radio up and there's nothing but static, taking her breath away for a moment. Surely Emma's house isn't this far off. "Turn left in 500 feet." The voice says on the GPS, and she starts to slow down, looking for the side road that it's telling her. Squinting and struggling to see, she finally sees the glow of the street sign, too concerned with the radio to notice it said Dead End.

She drives and drives along the open road, desert surrounding her. She's not quite as nervous now, though she has every reason to be. The radio is turned down because she can't get any station in, the phone is back in the cupholder – even though she never got to call Emma – and in the back of her mind she's desperate to find the house.

Somewhere along the way, she's begun to hum to herself, breaking the silence in this way since there was no other way. Halfway distracted, she doesn't realize she's speeding above the limit at about 60 MPH, 20 MPH over. She's tapping the steering wheel, bobbing her head slightly to the song in her head, and then – swerving into the loose sand to miss the coyote, dashing out in front of her. Her airbags open, her head hits the bags, and she's out.

About an hour later, her eyes are beginning to flutter open. Her head is pounding from the impact as she tries to pull herself upright and look around, feeling lethargic and nauseous.

She groans and reaches for her forehead, rubbing the bump that's laying beneath the skin. Her next instinct is to read for her phone, hoping and praying she has service. Nothing. She slams it down into the passenger's seat and leans against her headrest, catching sight of the GPS up in the windshield. It's flashing something at the top; grabbing to get it down, she looks and sees it says Arrived.

"Arrived?!" She yells out, throwing the GPS over with her phone in an angry fit. "I've arrived in the middle of nowhere with a possible concussion, a broken car, and a-" She stops cold, swallowing thickly and trying not to move.

It's a man. He's standing in front of her car all of a sudden – she has no idea where the hell he came from. Her eyes don't move, and neither does his body. His face is chiseled nicely, scruffy and stubbly around his cheeks and chin, and bright blue eyes shining in the headlights. A bit of blood glimmering on his eyebrow.

He's slowly walking around to the driver's side door, and Regina immediately locks it so he can't get in. The window. He can still break the window. He definitely seems muscular enough to break the window, and she can only hope he doesn't attempt.

"I don't mean any harm." She says finally, hoping he doesn't, either, "My GPS told me to come here and...I don't even know where I am."

He doesn't say anything, but seems just as shaken up as she is. "What's your name?" He asks after about a minute of silence.

She thinks for a moment, wondering if she should give out even her name to this man. She's in the middle of the dessert with no cell signal, he could be a murderer, for all that she knows. This is how all of the typical murder movies go, isn't it? "I don't know if I should tell you." She says through the window, still having to make herself look at him. "I don't know why you're here."

His eyes are staring at her and it's making her uncomfortable. It's like his mind is only halfway there at the moment, not quite connected to anything at his mouth, eyes, or ears. "Robin." He mumbles, "My name, it's Robin."

She can breathe a little easier now. Just barely easier. "And why are you here?"

"My car crashed." He says, looking out to the desert that he must've come through. "I walked here when I saw lights. You've been unconscious for an hour."

She nods, guessing that to be right since it's nine o'clock now. "My name is Regina." She says, purposely only giving her first name. He didn't give his last, neither should she. Anything else he asks, she'll play the concussion card and say she can't remember. "Where did you crash?"

"Next road over."

Next road over? "How did you crash?"

"A coyote." He replies, simple and not phased at all.

She runs her fingers through her hair, taking a shaky breath in and looking out the front windshield again. She tells him that's how she crashed, too. She doesn't know what she wants to happen, now. "Do you have a cell phone?"

Shaking his head, he says, "It has no service." and showing her himself. "I don't know where I am, and my GPS turned off."

She looks over at her GPS in the passenger seat, picks it up and tries turning it on. Nothing happens. Great. "Mine is too." She mumbles, probably not loud enough for him to hear through the window.

Setting it back in the seat, she tries turning her car on. He shakes his head, "That won't do you any good, you're too stuck in this sand..."

She sighs and leans her head against the back of her seat, shutting her eyes for a moment and just wishing this was all a dream. How did she end up in this situation? All because of this ridiculous GPS – the GPS's company will be getting a not-so-nice letter from her in the mail, and probably a dozen phone calls as well. It cost her enough money and it should not be breaking like this.

The car is completely silent, both of them are completely silent, which is why they both jump when there's a sudden howl in the distance. Some animal, probably. "Okay...well..." She starts, looking around on him and trying to see if he has anything harmful, "You don't have a gun or knife, right?" He shakes his head, says no. "Would you tell me if you did?" She asks, and he nods this time.

That's a relief, at least. She nods in response to his and reaches slowly and shakily for the door handle. "Okay...I'm going to open this door. If you pull anything I'm going to get back in." She says nervously, not really sure why she's explaining all of this to him. But he steps back, allowing her the room to open her door.

Once she does, she steps out and stands up, never moving her eyes off of him. He doesn't move, he simply watches her. "Are you as shaken up as me about all of this?" She asks him, brushing herself off. She notices the blood stain on her shirt, and she realizes now that her head must've been bleeding.

When he nods, she feels a sense of relief again. Maybe he isn't a bad guy, maybe it's just some freak coincidence. "The nearest store is miles away, we really should find shelter from-"

"Oh no. No, no, no. I'm not going anywhere except to find a phone, Robin." She states sternly, shaking her head and slamming the door. "I don't care if I'm walking all night, I'm finding the gas station."

He sighs, shakes his head as if he knows she's making a mistake. And he does know it, because that one coyote ran in front of her, and another in front of him...it means there are more than likely others that would gladly feast on two healthy bodies. "That's not a good idea."

"And who are you? The man full of good ideas? What were you doing out here anyway?" She asks, looking at him with piercing, dark eyes. The best she could, at least, since the car's lights were still on and only slightly illuminating the night.

"Same thing as you," He says, shifting his weight to just one leg, "Depending on my GPS to get me to my ex's new house to pick up my boy. And now that I can't call her, she'll think I bailed and I probably will never get sole custody of him now."

His voice was snippy, stressed. She decides he's just as confused as she is, and turns to start walking down the road. "I'm going to the gas station, whether you follow or not." Her heels are clicking against the asphalt with each step, and she's suddenly wishing she would've worn more sensible shoes (even if she did think she was going to a party). "And I'm not waiting for-"

"Me?" He asks, walking up beside her and making her jump. "I know it's dark, but I at least figured you could hear me breathe."

The truth was – she couldn't hear him. Her thoughts were too loud in her head to hear much of anything other than the clicking of her annoying heels. "Don't be sarcastic, I'm not in the mood."

"Right there." He says, pointing to the barely lit station, giving an eerie look to it. "It doesn't look open."

He's right, it doesn't. Will she tell him that? No. Have they walked for two hours for nothing? No. She determines that they have not, and if the store is closed, they'll either find a payphone or wait until the morning.

When they reach the doors, Robin looks in through the glass. "No one is inside, Regina. We're screwed. We walked all this-"

"Shut up." She gripes, huffing and turning around to look for a payphone. "There's gotta be a phone around here." She says, beginning to search around, looking around the whole building.

She finds the backdoor, tries the lock, and to her surprise she opens it with ease. When she goes in, she sees Robin's eyes widen from across the store. She goes to the front and unlocks it for him, turning back to snoop around for the phone. When she finds it, he puts his hand over hers to stop from picking it up. "You know we're breaking and entering, right?" Technically, the door was open. "And we would be arrested if we call the police."

"Seriously? They would arrest us because we didn't want to stay out in the desert all night? Get real, Robin." She says, swiping his hand away and picking the phone up against his will. She puts the phone up to her ear, gasps when nothing rings after she dials 911. "It's not working." She says, suddenly searching down the cord to see if it was broken somewhere.

Of course, nothing was broken, all in tact.

"I swear the store was in use when I came down this road." She says, setting the phone down, feeling a bit defeated. "I don't understand why the phone isn't working."

"Maybe it wasn't in use?"

"Maybe you should shut up?" She snaps, looking back at him, standing over her shoulder. "I just want to get-"

She's stopped mid-sentence when her eyes catch onto a peculiar note. She picks it up carefully between her index finger and thumb, studying it. The words We've disappeared are written in what looks to be blood, and as soon as she realizes that, she drops the note and lets out a ridiculous squeal. "Th-that...Robin!"

He picks it up to see what her problem is, and when he reads it, he seems startled. But like she's realized, he doesn't act hastily like she did. "Someone is messing with us, Regina. How else? I mean we both crash in the same spot, both from a coyote, our GPS's both screw up, our phones stop working, and now this? This is bull."

The light flickers, startling her since that's the only one in the store. Her heart is pounding, her stomach is churning, "I want to go home." She whispers, shaking her head the best she could, "We shouldn't be here."

Robin is ignoring her, she finally notices; he's snooping around the desk like she originally was. She hisses, "What are you doing? Trying to get us killed?!" before grabbing his arm and making him turn to her. "We need to get home."

"Oh yeah? How do you expect to get home, Regina, when neither of us have cars or phones and we're at least twenty miles away from any civilization?" He asks, becoming stern and somewhat frightening to her, "I'm trying to find something to get us out, if you would excuse me." He says.

She sighs and shakes her head nervously, crossing her arms in front of her and looking over her shoulder at that bloodied note. Her eye catches something outside, "Robin...Robin."

He turns around, seeing the same thing almost immediately. "Lights." He whispers, awed that someone was coming down the road, "Lights! We have to catch them!"

Almost instantaneously, they were both pushing each other out of the door and running toward the road in a rushed frenzy, screaming, yelling, hollering, waving their arms in the air. The car wasn't stopping.

"Surely they'll see us on that curve, there. They'll have to look over enough to see us." Robin determines, nodding and trying to get himself to believe what he was telling her. Even though she could tell he was being overly-optimistic, she nods too, trying to get herself to believe as well.

They watch as the car is cruising at a somewhat normal speed – not fast, not slow. When it comes to the curve, it doesn't turn. "Robin." She hisses, "Robin we need to move."

"No, not yet, they'll be able to see us if we stand here. They'll stop." He states, still nodding, still swaying side-to-side nervously.

She watches as the car comes closer, closer..."Robin! We need to-" She's cut off as her eyes widen, more than when she realized it was blood on the note, "No one is driving the car, Robin. There's no one in there." She whispers, not sure why she's hushing her voice.

He shakes his head, "There's gotta be someone in there, Regina. Cars can't just-"

"Robin!" She yells again, grabbing at his arm as it's getting closer, "You're going to get us killed!"

She should jump, she should move out of the way and let him fend for herself, but at this point – he's protection. He's protection from everything out here. He's big, strong, and not too afraid of much, it seems. At least it doesn't seem that way until she tackles him to the side, letting the car pass by the two stranded pedestrians who are now on the ground.

Regina whips her head to the left, watching the car as it runs straight for the gas pumps. Scrambling to her feet, she yanks Robin up with her again and runs, jumping into the ditch just as flames blew up behind them. Oranges, yellows, and reds illuminating the sky in a beautiful display, along with gas fumes and deathly heat.

If there was anyone in that car, there certainly isn't now. Not alive.

She's dead. She has to be dead. There's no way she could've survived that and still be able to tell her survivor tale.

But she's pretty sure she's alive, and she's beginning to wish she were dead. He's on top of her, full body weight on hers, and in an awkward angle, too. Because she pulled him into the ditch, he landed on top of her lower back and rear, her left knee bent up underneath the both of them in a painful, uncomfortable way.

The weight of his body is almost suffocating her, along with the lack of fresh air – from the flames taking up all of the oxygen and sucking it from their lungs. They aren't close enough to the fire to get hurt, but they're close enough to feel sweat dripping from their foreheads.

She takes a look at his watch, it's about twenty minutes since they were in the convenience store, which means she blacked out longer than she had originally thought. Now, now she has to find a way to roll Robin off of her and get him to a safer place.

Where is a safer place, now?

Freshly manicured nails dig into the sand in deep, tough strokes as she tries to pull her body out from beneath him. He's large, she thinks, but it isn't the first time she's had to pull herself from underneath a large man's body (but in a completely different scenario). She can finally steady herself on her bent knee, pushing herself up shakily and rolling him off of her back safely.

Immediately, she's tending to him.

He's face up, thankfully, so she checks his pulse. Good. She looks at his lips and swallows thickly, looking back to the flames and shielding her dark eyes from the intense brightness. She shouldn't even have to have second thoughts about giving him CPR – but she is. One, she's doubting she can do it correctly. Two, if they've been unconscious for more than ten minutes, it may not work. Three, it's his lips.

This isn't the time to be thinking about someone's lips at all, and that's what makes her heart almost ache. She wonders when she became this desperate for someone that she's having second thoughts about CPR, because she's afraid she may like the taste of his lips.

Stop, Regina.

Thinking back to the class she had once taken, she follows the steps inside of her head to give him CPR, and she's grateful when his eyes slowly open and his breathing evens out.

Those blue eyes...they look so confused and dazed. Hurt, scared, and completely awed. She never noticed just how blue they are until the contrast of the flames were flickering around them, lighting them up.

Things are silent for a few moments after he slowly sits up, leans against the side of the ditch and brings his knees to his chest. Once he re-opens his eyes, they drift to her and his mouth opens to ask, "What just happened?"

A question she doesn't exactly want to hear, because she definitely doesn't know the answer. What did jut happen? Is this some kind of sick prank and people are going to pop out of nowhere saying Gotcha! or is this really what they're trying to push to the back of their mind? The end? "I don't know." Is all she can come up with to say before leaning against the other side of the ditch in the same position he is.

She flips her hair to the side, part of it knotted and she's not exactly sure why. Her head is tilted back slightly, looking up at the stars that are absolutely flooding the insanely dark sky (aside from the flames). Her mind is buzzing with thoughts of what's going on, why this is happening, and why it's happening to them.

"I think we need to talk about our lives in order to figure this out." She finally concludes, looking back into his eyes.

When her eyes go back, she realizes he was already watching her, and it makes her shiver a little. That's when he takes his jacket from around his waist, hands it to her neatly, and says, "It's getting a little bit chilly out."

And it is. The flames aren't as hot now, it's been at least fifteen minutes since they both have been awake (most of the time they've spent just thinking to themselves). She takes it graciously, nodding in thank you, and wrapping it around her shoulders.

Once they're both situated again, he clears his throat and tightens his knees closer to his chest, "I have a son...Roland." He starts, sighing and looking down, "He's only four, and I'm the only parent in his life."

Nodding, she starts off on her story as well, "My cousins are the closest people to sisters that I have, and that I've ever had."

A few more lines are lazily thrown back and forth, and then they start asking each other things. Are you married? No. Are you dating? No.

This is beginning to feel more like a dating resume than a questionnaire of their lives. "Roland's mother...what happened to her?" She finally asks, getting that somewhat awkward question out of the way. She isn't sure why it feels awkward to ask him that, but it does.

She can tell this is an uncomfortable subject for him, maybe even an awkward one as well. His shifts, his silent pause – all signs of discomfort on a subject. "I put her in harm's way." Is his final answer, not looking at her face for the first time in this conversation. "And because of that, she died."

More silence, more discomfort for the both of them. What happened to her? What harm's way is he talking about? How did she actually die? Should she now be worried? No, she has nothing to worry about. If he wanted to kill her he would've already done it by now. Besides, he gave her his jacket to use for now. That should mean something. Right? Yeah...

Then again, maybe he just hasn't killed her yet. He's baiting her, making her trust him, letting her think – no. No. That's not true. He's a good guy, he wouldn't have walked with her if he wasn't. He wouldn't have come in the store after her if he wasn't. He wouldn't have stood in front of her when he put them both in danger with that car. She hopes.

She still can't help but wonder if he knows more than he's letting on, and if he's holding something about his life from her so she doesn't catch up to speed. That's why her next question sounds blunt and rude, "Would you put me in harm's way?"

There's that uncomfortable shift again, the looking away, the silence...all of it. Back in full action and making her feel the need to shift, look away, and shut up. Finally, he shakes his head and looks into her eyes again, "I hardly know you." He says, sighing, "But we seem to be the only people in this town and – and we need to find what happened to them. And we can't do that by not trusting each other."

She shakes her head, tells him no, they can't, and extends her hand out to him. "Truces." She says, looking to the end of her fingertips, "We're both unarmed, and if you wanted to, you could easily kill me by choking me or something. So we need to just trust each other, because you're my protection and I just saved your life. I think we deserve more respect for each other than we're currently giving."

Her eyes drift from her fingertips to his when they twitch around his legs, slowly extending and moving his arm to reach hers, grasping her hand in a firm hold. "Truces."

A/N:

Please leave a review with some thoughts on how you're liking it so far, and maybe some theories? All constructive criticism is welcome!

Thanks for reading and reviewing,

G.