"Did you love him, too?"
They are sitting across from one another, at that damned tavern, when he has the audacity to ask that question out of the blue.
Just when she was thinking she had made the right decision, that maybe she really could fall in love with this man, he has to bring up him.
"No," she stresses, "when I was tied to her, when I couldn't feel anything just for me, sure. But not anymore." She chuckles darkly, "He... bored me. Honestly, that part of me that was attracted to a single father traipsing around the woods stealing from royalty only to give it peasants." She wrinkles her nose. "He wasn't for me. Just another part that she forced on me, made me have, even thought I never wanted it… I'mglad I'm free of those feelings." She smiles seductively at him, hopes to distract him from the subtle shaking of her hands.
He just stares back at her, eyes lingering over every feature, head tilting to get a different perspective of her. She suddenly feels very on display, almost naked, and she doesn't like this at all, doesn't like that he can do this to her one bit.
"What?" she finally says, exasperated and defensive, tugging at the collar of her dress, as if an extra inch of coverage will somehow prevent him from seeing through her mask.
"Nothing," he says softly, "you're just lying."
She snarls and rolls her eyes. "I am not."
"Mm, you are," he says more confidently. "I'm a thief, Regina. My whole life has been about analyzing people, seeing what they have to hide and where they've hidden it. I can tell you're lying now, you can't hide that from me."
Her jaw nearly drops before she reminds herself she's the god damned evil queen, and she will not let herself be spoken to like that by a petty thief, even if that thief is the god damned mirror image of a man she once cared about for far too long.
"I never loved him." she says through clenched teeth. And then, "Why do you want me to love him? To waste time loving a man who no longer exists, someone I can never see again, even in death, who died because she tricked him into thinking our lives were worth his…" Robin looks at her sadly, almost with pity, but it's not pity, she realizes, but concern. But he needn't feel concern, she reminds him, "I don't love him."
"Ok." He surrenders easily, arms up in the air as his expression says all she needs to know— he doesn't believe her.
"Have you ever lost someone you loved?" she asks quietly. She's surprised to find him nodding.
"We were so young, but Marian… before we could run off together she died. We were never together, never shared more than a few kisses, but…"
"That's how it was with Daniel, the man I first loved…" Regina sighs. "It hurts, doesn't it? Not even knowing what could have been because you never truly had that chance…"
Robin looks pained, positively miserable as he nods. There's silence for a while and it seems he's working something out in his head, as if he's had a revelation. "I try not to think about it, but... losing her he way I did made me... quite angry at the world, now that you mention it. I didn't want to be around anyone, burned every bridge, destroyed every friendship I had. It made me feel… less, in the short run but… that sort of grieving has its price, you know. Choosing anger, isolation, revenge... my life was... I wasn't happy."
She feels hot needles prick behind her eyes, threats of tears terrifying her, makes her want to poof out of his sight and never return.
The Evil Queen does not cry.
(Yes, she does, so often, so much…)
The Evil Queen does not let people see her tears. So she clears her throat and blinks them back.
"I wasn't happy as the queen," she admits, her voice pitchy and pathetic. "Not even for one day."
He reaches out to grab her hand. "Maybe we can still be happy. Isn't this what Henry said we'd get? A fresh start?"
She nods and looks into his eyes. A fresh start. A clean slate. This is what Henry gave her. She owes it to him to make it work.
And that means she can't continue to deny what she feels. And it means she shouldn't hide herself either. She's going to have to be open. Regina had just started to do that, before they split. It's still a little foreign to her, still has her pulse knocking hard in a panicked rhythm at the thought of being so vulnerable. But she's known strong people to do it, seen them live their lives like this and not to lose their strength. Mal was open, so honest about every feeling she had, and she was powerful and brave and strong.
She can do this.
"I didn't mean to offend by asking. I just want to know you," he pleads, "the real you."
She looks up into this man's eyes. This beautiful, attractive man who shares so much with the man that was taken from her, and softly admits, "Fine. I loved him, still love him... of course I do."
She shuts her eyes and lets two tears fall, lets them slide down her cheek before she wipes them away. When she opens her eyes he's there, comforting and warm and hers, and she thinks that this will hurt, it will hurt quite a bit, but it will be worth it, after all.
