I own no one but my own people

Robin Hood had been angry - truly genuinely frightening to behold seething - exactly three times in his life.

Once when he heard that Prince John had sentenced a starving seven year old boy to hang for stealing a small bag of turnips from the royal garden. Once when he learned that one of his own men had violated a woman who accidentally happened upon their camp. And then there was right now.

He and Will had been looking over the storybook that the thief had taken from Regina once more. Robin was determined to scour it for clues in order to assist Regina in finding the author and, in turn, her happy ending and Will, wanting to make up for what he did to the Merry Men, had offered to help.

It was just a single page in the second to last chapter of the storybook. A nameless woman with strong brown eyes and beautiful brown skin. Will had actually been the one to point it out when Robin missed it.

There she was. Marian. Robin's Marian. The mother of his child, his wife, the woman Robin thought he would spend the rest of his life with until she had fallen to an unfortunate demise.

Her arms were tied behind her back while two black knights grabbed hold of her. Regina, looking as beautiful and terrible as she always did in these stories where she was the Evil Queen, was staring down the defiant plain clothed woman, going toe to toe with the prisoner who held her head up as high as she could and looked dead straight into her captors eyes. Both brown eyed women had that strong defiant look on their faces that Robin had fallen head over heels for.

The caption beneath the illustration was short and simple:

"The brave peasant woman would show no fear in the face of certain death."

Robin quickly flipped the page, praying, hoping with all of his might that this particular story would end with a daring rescue, a heroic escape, anything other than what he knew was likely coming.

Instead the very next sentences read, were heart breaking:

"The great and terrible Evil Queen reached into the woman's chest and yanked out her still beating, glowing red heart. As it always did when Regina would perform this bit of dark magic. Images of her beloved Stable Boy flashed before her, but she ignored the face her lover had made in his final moments as she crushed the rebellious peasants heart into dust."

Robin backed away from the book, his back hitting the shelves behind him. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't move.

Regina had been the one who had killed Marian. Regina had taken Roland's mother away, Regina had been the cause of this overwhelming guilt he had felt that almost led to his downfall.

His soulmate had taken his first loves life.

Will wanted to tell the rest of the Merry Men, let them know what happened to her. Marian had been their friend as well, their 'Princess of Thieves' he argued, but Robin forbade it.

The outlaw knew what his men would do if they found out Regina herself had been the one to take Marian's life, not just some nameless black knight.

He had to talk to Regina first, he had to give him a chance to get the truth from the Queen. Robin left the library with the book in hand after making Will promise to keep this between them and headed towards the mansion at 108 Mifflin Street.

The longer he walked the more fury filled his heart. How could she have done this to them? How could she have done this to Roland, to the little boy she thought of as her own, and to Robin himself?

That ever shrinking logical part of his brain told him that Regina hadn't known who Marian was when they first started dating but the moment, the MOMENT her name left his mouth, she should have told him what she had done. She should have told him that she crushed his wife's heart.

When Robin reached the mansion, any rational thought had flown out the window. He was angry, he felt betrayed, he felt hurt…

He slammed on the pristine white front door.

"Regina!" Robin shouted. When there was no response he pounded on the door again. "Regina, open up!"

A moment later he heard the tumblers turn and a understandably stunned Regina opened the door.

"Robin, what's going on?" Her voice was flooded with fear and worry, afraid that something had happened to him or to Roland. "Is it the Snow Queen?"

The Prince of Thieves said nothing as he stormed into her home, looking at her with a hatred he had never felt for the Queen before.

Regina swallowed as she shut the door behind him. What on earth was going on?

"Are you hurt?" She asked. "Is it Roland?"

Robin shook his head as he paced back and forth in her entryway.

"Don't say my son's name."

Now she was confused. What the hell was wrong with him?

"Robin, what's going on? What happened?"

He continued to pace back and forth, back and forth… He wouldn't look at her, couldn't look at her. If he did there was a chance he would look into those damned beautiful brown eyes and his anger would melt away and right now he needed to be angry.

"Did you think I wouldn't find out? Did you think you could just keep it a secret from me forever?"

"Keep WHAT from you?"

Now Regina was getting upset. This wasn't like Robin. He never lost his temper with her, he never held back what he was feeling from her.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

He couldn't find the words to tell her so instead he just slammed the book down and quickly thumbed through the pages and chapters until he got to where he wanted.

Robin couldn't stand to look at the illustration again, of both his loves looking at the other with the same fire that he had found so attractive, so he twisted around and continued his mindless pacing while Regina looked down at the page.

Her face fell as she looked over the illustration.

She had read through the whole book once, back when Henry first brought Emma to Storybrooke and at the time, this had just been some nameless peasant woman, one of the many background characters in the story that she had sentenced to death. Regina barely read this chapter. She had spent a only day or so in Sherwood Forest on her way to King Midas' castle. Snow has passed through there but none of those who lived there told her any useful information so she had forgotten the trip, and the woman, within a week.

The Queen knew she should have told him. When Robin told her the name of his wife, she should have said something. She should have told him the truth but she was terrified that he would leave her, she was terrified that he would say he never wanted to see her again. She was terrified that he would react exactly how he was acting now.

"Robin." Regina could barely speak. She could barely even breathe as her heart pounded furiously hard against her ribs. She could not lose him. "I can explain."

"Why did you lie?"

Regina winced. His sharp words cut through her like a hot blade. He had never gotten angry at her before, never spoken to her this harshly. During the year they spent in the Enchanted Forest they threw their barbs back and forth but that was different. There was an edge of friendly banter and even an occasional fun flirtiness attached when they argued back then.

Now his words were all bite.

He gave her a moment to answer before he twisted around to look at her, a fire burning in those blue eyes she had gotten lost in far too often.

His anger made him impatient.

"Why did you lie to me, Regina?"

"Wh- why don't you sit down and we can talk about this?" She offered as calmly as her nerves would let her. Regina would offer him a drink, slip a calming potion in his tea and they would be able to discuss this without that anger bubbling inside of him.

"Tell me why you lied!" He shouted, making her wince again.

Regina had stared down more angry villagers then she could count, angry royalty, angry nobility… Her wildfire would always outburn her opponents single lit match. Many times she even laughed at the display of outrage.

Not with Robin though. She cared about him far too much to put on a show of bravado for her benefit.

"I didn't- I didn't lie. You never asked if I knew who or what killed Marian."

It was a flimsy excuse, she knew, but it was all she could come up with at the moment.

She walked over to him and grabbed hold of his hands, made tough and scarred by the years of living in the forest.

He pulled away from her, shaking his head. "Don't touch me."

"Robin, stop," she begged. She reached for him again but he shot her a look of warning that froze her midstep.

Flashes of an enraged Leopold flashed through her mind. When his teenage bride told him she rather spend the day riding then taking care of his daughter, he would become angry with her, and would have that same look in his hazel eyes flecked with specks of brown.

But Robin would never raise his hand against the Queen. He would never go as far as Leopold had gone when he was angry with her...

Right?

"You should have told me. You should have told me you-..." Another shake of his head. "You killed Marian, Regina."

It was the first time Robin had spoken the truth out loud. It felt bitter and heavy on his tongue, like the words themselves were foreign to him.

Regina decided that now would be a bad time for excuses or technicalities. So she went with doing the hardest thing she had ever done.

She told the truth.

"I'm sorry. Robin, I'm sorry. I didn't…" Her eyes closed. No excuses, she reminded herself. "I'm sorry."

"You… You crushed her heart. You killed her like she was nothing." He rounded on her and she instinctively took a step back. Once again her husband's temper, only known to her and his personal guards, jumped to the forefront of her mind.

"Did you know about Roland? Did you know she had a son?"

Tell the truth, she told herself. You have to tell him the truth…

Her voice trembled with fear as she answered him. She was going to lose her soulmate, her fated true love, she knew she would.

She was going to lose everything.

"Yes. I- I didn't know his name!" she added quickly, as if that made any difference. "She- She just said she had a family." Regina swallowed as her soulmate looked at her like everyone else in this town did, like everyone else had, like he promised he never would.

With hatred in those same eyes she would give anything to spend the rest of her life staring into.

At the same time a touch of annoyance took over her rational thought. Robin knew her past. He knew the attoricities she had committed in the name of revenge.

The honorable Robin Hood had no problem forgiving the Evil Queen for burning down whole villages and cursing entire realms but one lone peasant was his limit? Just because she happened to be connected to him?

"I didn't target her intentionally," she argued, letting that sliver of anger shine through. "I didn't kill her specifically because she was your wife or Roland's mother. I didn't even bother to know her name. Do you really think I would've just killed the wife of the great thief Robin Hood and not use her for a hostage if I had known who she was?"

"You ripped her heart out!" Robin yelled as if that negated any argument she had. "You ripped her heart out and crushed it!"

Regina pursed her lips and nodded curtly.

"You know what I did. I crushed Marian's heart. She wouldn't tell me where Snow White was when I knew she passed through Sherwood Forest. But guess what, Robin? I crushed a LOT of hearts. Women, men, newlyweds, widows who had one foot in the grave…"

"Stop it," he warned.

"Even a boy not much older than Henry," she continued. Regina pointed to the scar on her lip, the one Robin always made sure to pay attention to while he kissed her to make sure she knew how beautiful he found all of her, even her imperfections. "His father gave me this when I visited their village. He escaped my guards and he hit me so hard, it almost knocked me out so I crushed his fourteen year olds heart in front of him and threw the dust right in his face."

"Regina, stop!"

While Regina had told him of the terror she inflicted, she had never gone into much detail about the deaths she had caused. She had been intentionally vague for just this reason and Robin had accepted it all in stride. Had accepted all of Regina's past in stride.

"I then choked the miserable life out of his wife. Pretty little blonde thing. Looked a lot like Emma actually."

"I don't want to hear it anymore!" Robin shouted at her as he got within an inch of her face and his hand that had been previously used to caress her face and run through her silk like hair slammed a finger in her face. That was always Leopold's last step before he struck her. That obnoxious finger in her face to intimidate her.

So Regina just threw that smirk that she never, in all her days, thought would be directed at Robin, to mask her fear and apprehension at what she knew was coming

But, then again, she never expected him to put his hands on her either.

"What? Can't stand the thought of what your soulmate did to those poor peasants? Or can you not stomach the fact that you were fine with what I did until it affected you? You were willing to forgive me, you called them 'mistakes'."

Robin threw the sharpest glare he could muster at her next words.

"If you despise me for Marian but you were willing to forgive me for what I did to that little boy, you're nothing but a hypocrite."

"I have every right to be angry!"

"That's right you do!" she yelled back. "You do, you have the right to be angry at me, you have every right to hate me, you have every right to hit me!" Confusion flashed on his features at her words but she ignored it. "But just know, if you hate me for what I did to her, but no one else… What you're saying, what you're REALLY saying is that her life is worth more than all the other lives I ruined, than all the other families I destroyed. Her life is worth more than all the other people I killed who you've forgiven me for."

Her voice began to shake, her mask of bravado cracking as her eyes finally found his again.

"You said 'the past is in the past where it belongs', 'we all make mistakes'. So what? My mistakes are unforgivable if they affect you? I should be judged by my past if you're hurt by it?" Regina let out a humorless laugh as she blinked away her tears. "If that's the case then fine; yell at me, strike me, go ahead and leave, but don't… Don't act like you've ever been willing to look past my mistakes if the moment they're more than just painful memories I tell you after a few glasses of wine, you wanna leave."

It was as if he barely heard her testimony.

"... Regina, I would never raise a hand to you." He almost sounded perplexed. Upset, even, that she would think he would take that final step. "Do you really think so little of me that you believe I would ever lay hands on a woman?"

Regina sniffed as she wiped the offending drops of moisture from the corner of her eyes. "Guess I just figured history was apt to repeat itself."

She hadn't told him that for sympathy. Truly she hadn't. But nevertheless, the anger he held for the Queen seemed to melt away from his handsome features, replaced by that look of warmth and caring he so often gazed at her with. Regina took a deep breath of her own before she spoke as calmly as she could manage.

"I never intentionally targeted your wife."

"I don't…" He signed as he took a step away from her. "I don't think you targeted her intentionally. I just… I wish you had told me, Regina. I wish I didn't have to find out about her demise from reading it in your son's storybook."

"I didn't know. This is a horrible excuse but I ruined so many lives, Robin, I didn't even remember killing her. I don't know if this makes it better or worse for you but she was… Just another nameless peasant to me. Someone who refused to tell me of Snow White's whereabouts."

Robin swallowed the lump in his throat at the Queens words. "I didn't… I didn't read the whole chapter," he admitted. "Did… Did she- did Marian stay strong? Until the end?"

"You don't need to hear about her last moments from me. You don't need my voice in your head describing what she was like seconds from death," she said. Regina bit her lip for a moment. "But yes, she did."

Robin nodded. Regina was right, he wasn't sure if this made it better or worse. He wasn't even sure if he was still angry at her.

The Queen took his face in her hands and turned it up so he was looking her in the eye.

"You're… You're the second person I ever said I was sorry to," she admitted. "For hurting them. I haven't even said it to Snow and David yet. Henry was the first, but I- I am sorry, Robin. For hurting you for… For taking away your true love."

Robin stared at her for a long while, his hands at his side while hers lightly caressed his scruff on either side of his face.

"I am sorry," she whispered. "Truly."

What felt like a lifetime to both of them Robin raised his hand and buried it in her dark hair. Regina closed her eyes at the familiar intimate touch.

"I know you are. And… I forgive you, Regina. For Marian and for all your past… discretions."

Tears left her eyes as she looked at him, hardly daring to believe this was real. "Don't say that just to humor me."

"I'm not. I'm many things but I'm not a man who would speak forgiveness and not mean it. You are forgiven, Regina… I swear it."

The Queen smiled at her thief as she leaned in to kiss him but the closer her lips went to his, the further away he pulled back.

"I forgive you," said Robin. "But I can't forget what you did."

"Robin, please. I'm sorry for what happened."

"I know you are. That doesn't take away any of my pain I feel."

"Don't…"

"Which is why I can't be with you. I don't want to feel that way, not towards you."

"Please… Robin, don't do this."

Her voice was thick with unfallen tears. This couldn't be happening...

"Maybe after I've had some time to think, some time to calm down, you and I can be together again. But right now… I'm terrified that every time I look at you I'll think of you crushing her heart, I'll think of that illustration in your son's book, I'll think of how they- they didn't even give her a name, and I just… I don't want to hate you. I know that if I stay, if I don't give us space right now, I will; and I cannot bare the thought of losing you because I … Because I've come to loathe you, Regina."

Tears fell down her face as she closed her eyes. She barely felt his lips press against her forehead, barely heard him whisper his own apology to her. Barely heard his promise that he would keep this from his Merry Men for her safety. And she barely heard him as he walked away from his soulmate...

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